I began work at 9am
and was introduced to Graham Handley, whom I will be shadowing for the day.
After I signed in and had a quick tour around all the studios, I had to check
what classes was on for that day and had to set up some of the studios ready
for the 10am workshops (pottery, textiles and jewellery), ensuring all the
equipment needed was out and available for the visitors.
After all the
classes were set up and the leader had all the equipment required, i went down
to the kilns which had been firing pottery the night before and was ready to be
emptied. This process took a couple an hours, as a lot of the pieces where very
delicate and it is the technician’s reasonability to ensure the works are safe.
The pieces needed to be transferred to the storing shelves within the pottery
room, this was happening while a class was taking place. I was able to get the
chance to talk to the leader and visitors about their connection with mac.
(When chatting to
the leader of pottery, I found out she was a student at BIAD and completed the
same foundation course as me)
During this time,
we received calls for errands from other workshops, fetching equipment e.g.
clay, We had to change the acid wash within the jewellery workshop, for health
and safety reasons I just has to observe the technicians do it.
By this time it was
afternoon, and I had to set up the studios for the afternoon classes (textiles,
jewellery and life drawing).
The afternoon was
very similar to the morning, however, as the kilns where emptied, the awaiting
pottery to be fired needed to be structurally stacked into the kilns. Filling
them was a lot more time consuming and difficult as you have to ensure the pieces on the same level are all about
the same size and there is space between all the pottery but trying to put as
much in at the same time.
(we had to ensure
the shelves where clean, any clay or glaze that had stuck had to be removed
before use)
(This is a tool
used to check if the kiln has finished its firing process, as each spike softens
at different temperatures)
After all the
workshops ended and was about 2 hours before i finished, i had to clean all the
studios that had been used and get them ready for classes the following
morning, to reduce the amount of work the next day.
