Heidi McKenzie

Group Crit – hitting hard

Heidi McKenzie — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:17:20 +0000

Today I had my group crit – only half the class was in attendance. I received a lot of constructive criticism – some of the comments that really hit hard included one person’s belief that I wasn’t fulfilling my role as an artist to render the experience due to too much randomness and not enough calculated work. The fact that the evidence of gravity is missing in my metal glazed work was pointed out as a negative aspect of the work – people felt that I didn’t put a lot into the conception between what I was doing and creating and what I conceived or was feeling (of course that is totally false – but the nature of the crit format is to be silent and listen). Some people liked the feel of the glassy test piece – the variety of tightness and looseness and line, and weight. People generally liked the finish of the agate wear, they liked the line and were held by it. This make me think of doing an agate ware piece on a rack… possibly with a glossy glaze.People liked height over horizontal work. All in all – I felt a little defeated, but I hold true to what I’m trying to create – and each person is entitled to their opinion. I just didn’t feel I got a lot of value out of the process, certainly not in the way that I feel most others benefited.

Pushing the Envelope – a wooly affair

Heidi McKenzie — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:03:47 +0000

Tony Clennell sent me a link to Heidi Kreitchet, one of his former grad buddies from Utah State. I had been thinking of taking the work to a more guttural place. This is my first attempt for the salt kiln. I plan on pushing it further for the wood firings. Soul can be a wooly business.

This is Heidi Kreitchet

Lesson in non-attachment

Heidi McKenzie — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:45:57 +0000

I had made three cone 6 sculptures on the racks – and had spent over a week ruminating on how I wanted to finish them. I had tested a number of glazes and decided upon a metallic series – a decision that was cemented when I saw Greg Payce’s series of three vases in a similar vein at the Gardiner. I spent all afternoon Friday prepping my glaze – and glazing this piece, only to have it drop to its death in a thousand pieces (well, realistically, about 60) after the mullet rod snapped in the kiln. It’s gone in a flash – and I was so attached to that piece – THE piece I wanted to present for the Gardiner show to consider. I’ve come a long way from when I was so detached to my pots at Andretta. What has been made once can always be made again….

After:

Payce Crit – focussing vision

Heidi McKenzie — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:46:04 +0000

Greg Payce from ACADU came to Sheridan today and gave a few of us 20 minutes of his critique. What struck me was how quickly Greg tuned into my wavelength – probing me with questions that I needed to know the answers to, like “why that type of shape”? and encouraging me to challenge the context within which I work and exhibit – “what would happen if half the piece were submerged in a tank of water”? “what if one of the pieces were smashed next to the plinth on which another piece was exhibited?”

He also zeroed in on the fact that what I’m dealing with now is not a Sheridan 3rd year project – it’s a life project. This is something that I will be working out and through for years if not decades to come, and that there are a zillion different ways to approach the general concept I have developed of capturing energy in motion. A few off the top suggestions – combining with glass; painting/staining or glazing each side of the bands in opposing colours (like blue and orange – both colours that I am attuned to using in combination as they speak to voice and creative spirit at the same time, energetically); decals, flocking, etc. etc. etc.

Greg also encouraged me to see the sublime in the simplicity – and not to get too carried away with complicated.

Go Big or Go Home

Heidi McKenzie — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:03:52 +0000

When Linda Sormin did a brief crit with me two weeks ago she said that she had a feeling that I wasn’t finished with the agate-ware like that of the piece I completed at Metchosin that is up in the gallery at Sheridan at the moment. She was right. I started playing – first with black and white stoneware, then switching to porcelain to get the white I wanted to pop… and then in combination and permutations with red and black and white. These pieces will be “floating” in jumbles – masses, placed not created into storms of energy. Still working out the kinks but looking at mirror, glass, plexiglass, as options.

Interior Design Show – Maru Makes the Cut

Heidi McKenzie — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:02:01 +0000

Proud to trumpet the fact that a couple of my maru (circle) sculptures were selected by the heads of the Crafts & Design departments to accompany the OUTSTANDING work of the Furniture studio students’ Sheridan display booth at this year’s Interior Design Show at the Metro Convention Centre. For info and tickets check out IDS2012. Kudos to Peter Fleming for his olympic style hoop jumping, back flipping and mountain moving – and congrats to fellow exhibitors: Kurt Fisher, Nurielle Stern, Chris Charuk, Laura Langford, Kate Hunter, Vanesa Trillia, Chris Vanderwal, and Joe Bauman.

Ayumi Horie – Crit

Heidi McKenzie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:13:46 +0000

Ayumi Horie spent two days at Sheridan this week. I got to hang with her at the Gardiner and the ROM – we spent some time trying to find a pre-Columbian pot that she’d seen 15 years ago that she wanted to revisit, and headed for the bat cave. I learned a lot about “being” and being a potter – her life philosophy of trying to infuse a little joy into your life – just kind of soaks its way into your general being by osmosis. On Tuesday I had 20 minutes with Ayumi’s undivided and asked for her response on my Anima series. Ayumi’s gut feeling was that the ash glaze doesn’t work since it’s competing with the energy of what I’m trying to do. I don’t necessarily agree – my feeling around the ash glaze pieces is that they scream “FIBROMYALGIA” ouch, achy, old, trying to move ecstactically – but then I didn’t get into that with Ayumi.
She also felt that if I’m going big – GO BIG! i.e. – really fat bands around the base and building up. [Aside: Tony just talked me into trying the extruder for these - which I will, maybe build some pieces for the wood kiln.] One of the ways of being that found its way into my crit was that Ayumi encouraged me to quit banging my head against a wall by trying to make the clay seem flawless – “don’t fight against the clay’s tendency to pick up information.” I love that part of her work, the thumb and hand prints in the slip – it reads hand made.
The other piece of advice Ayumi gave me was about smoke and raku – both techniques for which I’ve been intending to spearhead revivals. Her take: it’s passe, done, frowned upon in the current cutting edge gallery world. Again, I’m not convinced – I believe her – everyone’s saying this – but I think it’s going to work for my work. TRY IT AND SEE – is the only way to go.
She also really encouraged me to check out the work of Annabeth Rosen.

Miss October 2012

Heidi McKenzie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:20:43 +0000

I submitted my images to the National Potters’ Council at the last minute and was selected as October on the Member’s Sculpture Calendar! Check it out here

Crit feedback and first reflections…

Heidi McKenzie — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:22:38 +0000

Well – almost unanimous – hate the room temperature paint. OK – but not giving up – might try feathering, might try less obvious colours. People don’t like pink – lots of associations and baggage. The dry ash piece was the most successful for people - largely as it achieved a “lift off” and ascension that the other pieces lack. It has a sense of harmony and completion. The glaze works well insofar as it hides the imperfections that are difficult if not impossible to eliminate. I have ALL kinds of ideas of where and how to go next with the work – incorporating ladders, latices, structures – installations of multiples, testing smoke fired with edges of colour, splashes of precious metals (silver, bronze, gold flashing on the edge of a strip working through a piece)…. making and gluing individual pieces onto pieces… getting serious height! 6-10 feet! Really excited to sketch and grow my ideas over the next few weeks – and hit the ground running. Going to build a few more structures with soft bricks – and try some pieces in the raku again, and smoke…. and different types of “dry crusty” finishes. Ying Yueh talked to me about the “speed of colour” – not sure what that really means to me yet… reflecting

Dichotomy of Tension

Heidi McKenzie — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:39:00 +0000

Ever since I saw Karen Haris’ dry ash frame come out of the kiln, I’ve known I wanted to try it for my sculpture. On Thursday I painstakingly brush painted my piece on the structure on which it was bisqued – Gord suggested kiln wash in layers under where it was touching (better to put this on BEFORE you make the sculpture). We loaded it into Snowball with the first year’s work and Cris’ dinnerware, and I candled the kiln for a few hours, and turned it up – Cris did a beautiful cone 10 reduction firing. I am in love with the way the crusty dry ash twists and turns in the sculpture. It feels old and tired and ancient – and yet there’s movement and life and vitality all at the same time. The tensions and dichotomy that is set up in this patina is quite compelling – and I want to explore it further. Again, as I am discovering, there is a bit too much “sameness” and it might need a “punch” of something else… but let’s see. Tomorrow I decide if it needs to hang or sit.