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[leesalisaleesa]

Week OFF

Summer season is coming very soon and it was nice to have the week off, from work obligations too!! to actually finish work that has been sitting around. I spent some time in metals sanding and polishing some casted rings from winter residency. They're casted in sterling silver and then I sandblasted them to create a matte finish. I've really fallen in love with this method and find it meditative to carve when I'm stuck in a rut/frustrated with wood. I find furniture so tricky to sell and so I think I would like to eventually be able to have a production line of rings and earrings as income. Right now I've been creating these architecture inspired rings with lab made gemstones. Oh and I also sandblasted the all the organic objects. It was fun to geek out about the pores and details!

[leesalisaleesa]

Designing with Curvature with Yuri Kobayashi

I spent my 8 weeks spring concentration with Yuri and Sayer H. , her studio assistant, learning about bent lamination, using a vacuum form, coopering, and various methods of steam bending. Yuri gave us optional assignments for each curvature technique and also mentioned how the last two weeks were going to be open studio in which she encouraged us to choose a technique and make a piece during that time. My first exposure to steam bending was with Yuri in the summer of 2021. It was my first time at Penland and my first time meeting Yuri, and so taking this concentration with her was a real treat.

The first assignment was for an LED light sculpture. She had us steam bend strips of ash to understand the feel of steam bending. She gave us each an LED strip and then instructed us to create a light sculpture using the strips of 3/16 ash to sandwich the LED light inside. Yuri also made us a steel base in which the wood and wires sat in. heres mine:

We learned coopering, this is a squiggly bookshelf and is meant to be hung on the wall:

I made a couple coopered trays:

I commend those who understand compound coopering, I'm almost there, kinda.

And for the last couple weeks, I focused on making a lounge seating piece that included bent lamination, coopering, and steam bending. I went back and forth on if it should include Leo, my cat, or if it should only focus on one specific technique. In the end, I decided to include Leo and also to incorporate several of the techniques into the chair because I really wanted to take advantage of the time with Yuri. A couple things I would do differently is to make the spacing between the slats on the seat smaller and to have a thicker, chunkier legs. Yuri suggested next time I steam bend the slats for the seat and then use bent lamination to create thick legs instead of using bent lamination for the seat and steam bending the legs. There were man unsuccessful bends using the steaming method because the wood was so thick and we were using kiln dried ash but I am still happy with the end results. here she is:

This was the thickest the kiln dried ash could bend without creating major cracks but honestly at this point my material fee was getting high and so Yuri suggested to sandwich the cracks with bent lamination. And so I did with walnut.

I'm hoping to borrow a resident's cat for photos!

[leesalisaleesa]

One day piece !

For this assignment, I was limited to making a piece in one day. I'll admit it took me a long time to come up with something, my brain thinks of function rather than sculpture when to comes to making. Since I'm taking Yuri's worksop, I wanted to incorporate some sort of bending. I decided to use the hot pipe method since it gives the most immediate results. I used the hot pipe to bend 8 pieces of ash and then I connected them all into one continuous strip. At first, I connected them by cutting the ends at a 45 degree angle and then tried to glue side grain to side grain to create the effect of one continuous strip, but the spring clamps just wasn't keeping them together. Eventually I decided to glue them face to face and wrap them in this plastic red twine where the two ash pieces met. The red twine is something we use to wrap Banh Chung which is a traditional Vietnamese food made from glutinous rice, mung beans, pork and other ingredients. It's an instrument of bonding a family by bringing them together in making and eating this dish during the Lunar New Year. For me, the 6 different bent pieces of ash represents my dad and his 5 siblings. Since we were there for Christmas, all of my dads siblings made an effort to come back home for the holidays where we spent two days celebrating and feasting on banh chung. it had also been a while since they were all in the same household since the passing of their mom. It was really special to meet and have conversations of life, childhood upbringing, politics, and memories. Although my vietnamese isn't that strong (they make fun of my vietnamese accent), there is mutual understanding of love and the importance of family. I still talk to them today using a translator app and I strive to keep that relationship going. My dad is the only one in his family that doesn't live in Vietnam and so I would love to make it my priority to go back often to visit and share new memories.

-I do want to come back to this piece in hopes of trying again but without the twine.

[leesalisaleesa]

Assignment 3- Journey

There has been many journeys that have shaped me as person, artist, friend, sister, daughter, etc. Some have been emotional, psychological, and geographic. A journey in particular that has left me questioning my own journey was my recent trip to Vietnam with my Dad. Although we've both have traveled to Vietnam on separate occasions, this was our first time going together. We spent a whole month in Vietnam, two weeks with his side of the family down south, and then I went up north with my Aunt, to visit my mom's side of the family that lived near Hanoi. It had been 10+ years since my dad last visited and so I was really grateful to be able to travel back with him and to really get to know his hometown and his family. They live in Song Cau, a poor rural town near the beach. It was extra special to see him revisit his childhood home and to see how much the town has changed. I got to meet all of his siblings that are still alive and all of their kids (my cousins) and their grandchildren. My dad is the only one without grandchildren....oops. In Vietnam its normal to get married and start a family at a very young age, starting at 18. For them, its a priority while here in the Western culture, that is not the case. While we move out at 18, in Vietnam you live at home until you get married at 18. Depending on if you are the son or daughter, it is typical for the daughter to move to where her husband is from, to help take care of his parents. In the case where you don't have a son, then you ask for one your daughters to stay and take care of you. While there are families who chose to not to participate in those traditions, it is still a priority for young females to get married at an early age.

It was interesting to see how much older all my cousins were. They ranged from late 30's to mid 50's. Obviously they all have children and even some of their children had children making my cousins grandparents. They were shocked to see me, a 29y.o female to put my career first before having a family. I got asked the same questions over and over.

-Are you married yet, when are you getting married, do you want kids, etc.

all these questions made me question myself as to what kind of future do I want, what kind of life do I want.

[leesalisaleesa]

Assignment 2 continued...

So for this assignment, I had to make two pieces. One derived from a person, and one from an event. You asked me to list 10 people and also 10 events that have been important to my life and then assign them a symbol or image. The pieces made were taken from the assigned image and not the subject itself.

For my person, Sarina Angell was on my list. She was a former core fellow that overlapped with my group as I started my core fellowship. Since she was soo tall, I gave her a giraffe as her image. Sarina played an important role in my first year as core. I admire her creative perspective and how she was able to add a sense of cleverness to her work. Sarina was honestly just really good at everything she touched.

With that being said, I decided to make a shaker wood handle step stool but with my own spin to it. This was my first time making a stool with turned legs that came thru the seat with spline wedges. I learned the importance of the orientation of the legs so when the wedges are added, it doesn't split the seat. The handle part is where the giraffe comes into play. I went back and forth on whether to add milk paint for giraffe spots but in the end decided to leave it unpainted. I figured since it already looked like a giraffe, it didn't need the milk paint.

For my event, I made a mallet. I took my first woodworking class at SDSU and I remembered how much Adam Manley, my professor at that time, emphasized the importance of a good mallet with a heavy top. He demoed the lathe and encouraged us to make our own, which I did, but it didn't really pack a punch when I used it. This time around I decided to make a mallet using a wedge head. I watched a lot of youtube videos and am fairly happy with the results.

[leesalisaleesa]

Assignment 2

Last week, you emailed me asking for many lists composing of ideas, people, events, images and action words. Because I won't share every detail of those lists, I'd like to express that during winter residency I was able to work on one of my ideas that have been ignored/set aside. I've never made any sort of seating furniture but I had this vision of a really long bench, with one side being "The Knoll".

The Knoll has been an iconic place within Penland, its a hilly valley that connects the residents with campus. It's a special part of my life at Penland, I've crossed it many times to get to class, work, to get mail, my meals, etc. I'm not going to miss the extreme incline of walking it but I am grateful its been a place for solitude and quietness.

The bench consists of upholstery and adding foam, something new to me. While its an experimental project, I am really excited to see where it goes. The build is pretty straightforward, with castle joints, I'd love to get more into seating during my last year as core.

[leesalisaleesa]

Garlic Shrine

Wendy, you've got me thinking about color and now I am contemplating whether or not I should add some accent of milk paint or I could've made the tables in a different specie of wood.

I've made keyholes on the two back columns and so this can be hung on the wall.

My next post about the garlic shrine will be in its final form. I think thats my problem, I take too long making a decision when I should move on....

[leesalisaleesa]

All hail the garlic!

Back to the garlic assignment....I've decided to construct a shrine devoted to garlic. During my time in Vietnam, many many people have shrines in their homes, dedicated to their passed loved ones. On the shrines includes photos, incense, offerings of fruit, bowl of rice, and their favorite foods. Often times the first thing one does when entering a loved ones home is to light an incense and say a prayer or an offering.

I wanted this shrine to be hung on the wall and to act as a shelf. I'm still figuring out details for the apron and how it will be hung...to add keyholes on the bottom platform or on the top of the columns...

Anyways, I think I need to come back to it tomorrow with some fresh eyes and then make some executive decisions to finish it up. My goal is to have it glued up by tomorrow.

[leesalisaleesa]

Garlic

As I continue to reflect about my time in Vietnam, I am thinking a lot about garlic. For our first assignment I’d like to incorporate garlic I casted from last session in metals. Garlic is a staple in our culture and not only do we use it for cooking but also for sickness. It is also used to keep “the hypnotics” or that’s what I called them, away from you from taking all your things. In certain places of Vietnam there are these type of hypnotics that hypnotize you into giving them all your money / luxury items. The drug they use won’t work if you have fresh garlic on you. My uncle always keeps fresh garlic on him everywhere he goes. Some words that inspire this first assignment include: garlic, candles, incense, fruit, pictures, shelf, grandma's set of plates and utensils, bowl of rice, prayers.

[leesalisaleesa]

Its been nice to be back in the wood shop with uninterrupted time and no work obligations this past week. Although I must say it was a bit hard to get into that head space after being away for so long. I chose to work on these wall cabinets with tambour doors as a warm up as I started to think about our first assignment which will include garlic pieces casted in bronze.

It was Penland's Annual 'Table in a Day' on Friday and I (still currently) am working on this console table. There will be a bottom board under the aprons, so that way your keys, mail, gloves?, etc. can be stored underneath the table. There seems to be never enough room for storage and so for me, creating room for storage or making a home for a particular object, in a way gives those certain things a memory or allows them permanence in this life time because sometimes things can be a reminder of someone special. I will also be adding a bottom shelf that I will rabbet to look like stairs. I am going for a greek architecture inspiration which is also similar to my side table, "Leo's Palace".

[leesalisaleesa]

Hi there,

The year is winding down and we're creeping into the holidays and winter season here at Penland.

Its my last year as a core fellow and I've started this blog, mainly to keep a conversation going with Wendy Maruyama, someone who I admire and seek as a mentor, as a place to document my work through craftsmanship with intentional thoughts of hopes, dreams, heart, trauma, and emotions.

I hope to use this as an inspiration and reminder as to where and how this journey started.

with a whole lotta love,

Lisa