There are three assignments in Intermediate Ceramics.
1) Body of Work: In Intermediate Ceramics, students are expected to make a choice as to the direction they will pursue. In broad terms, ceramics might be broken down into functional work, decorative work or sculptural work. Any of those might use the wheel, various handbuilding techniques, molds or some combination of techniques. Students will meet with the instructor at the beginning of the semester to develope a focus for their work during the semester. That focus should represent the majority of the student's work for the semester. There are many more possible foci than those listed above and there can be considerable overlap of contruction techniques and conceptual directions.
2) Glaze Development: Students will develop a basic working knowledge of glaze materials, experiment with glaze variations and glaze colorants (see separate pages for details; Readings, Base Glaze and Color Testing).
3) Moldmaking: Students will make plaster molds and complete a project using their molds as outlined below.
Make a plaster mold from either a found object(s) or from an original piece of your manufacture. The mold may be intended for press molding or slip-casting.
Using the mold, complete one of the following projects
a) Multiples: Design and execute a single piece using a minimum of 15 casts from your mold. The piece might be an installation or composition. The piece might be modular.
b) Edition a series of pieces (minimum of 6) from your original work. Each must be nearly identical.
c) Theme and variations: Construct a series of pieces (6 minimum) assembled from a minimum of 4 parts cast from molds. Each piece need not be the same but should generally use the same molds.