One of the highlights to our trip to De Kalb was that Mary and I were able to see one of our professors, Yih-Wen Kuo.  I studied under Yih-Wen in the ceramics department for two years and Mary had him for a class or two while pursuing her Art Ed degree.  As an instructor he was tough, but in a good way — pushing his students to create intelligent and well constructed pieces.  Yih-Wen was exactly the type of professor I needed at that point in my life.  Since our graduation, he has continued to be in invaluable resource and and inspiration as an artist and friend.

Normally his pieces are pretty large in scale.  The amazing thing about the sculpture below is that it is no bigger that 3 inches tall.  While it is a common shape for him, the scale completely changes the feeling — it’s much more intimate.  I was completely blown away by it because it reminded me of blind box toys, where you never know what you are going to get in the package.  This excites me because it opens up the door for more people to bring affordable ceramic sculpture into their lives.

Untitled

Here are 3 examples of his sculpture on a larger scale.  One of the amazing things about this work is how the glaze is manipulated.  It is layered and multi-fired in such a way that encourages it to run in a controlled manner.

Eternal Home front

Eternal Home back

Eternal Home back detail

These last two pieces are a recent departure from his normal body of work.  While the shapes are nothing new, and have appeared in various incarnations, it is the surface treatment that makes these unique.  Gone are the Barium matte glazes; in their place is a glassy surface in contrasting celadon and brown/green.  This is a direct result of NIUs move to firing mid-range oxidation instead of high fire reduction.  I feel like the change in atmosphere opens the door for his work to go in many new and exciting directions.

Three

Three