[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Jules Polk (May/Jun 2015) has been making pottery for years and was at a creative impasse: she knew there had to be a way to connect her love for travel photography with a practice in clay and ceramics work. During her residency Jules developed a technique for transferring images on to ceramic using a combination of Generator’s digital studio, vinyl cutter and sandblasting equipment. Her installation was truly a collaborative effort with Generator members.
Jules spent her time at Generator in the Maker-in-Residence program creating tiles with abstracted images blasted into the surface, then glazing and firing them into a sharp and cleanly finished tiles. We want to share with you her reflections of what her expectations and experiences were at Generator during her residency.
I applied to the Generator Maker in Residency program because I wanted to give myself a structure in which to experiment with the unknown. Taking risks in one’s medium, especially after 19+ years, can be a daunting task. I was unsure if I had the computer skills to allow me to succeed. I was unsure if I had the tolerance to fail repeatedly as I explored materials and processes for the right resists through using new technologies to me like the Vinyl Cutter, Sandblaster, Adobe Software Products. Every time I hit a brick wall where I wanted to run into the bathroom and play out a scene from an epic Shakespearean drama, something fell into place. Be it a sound technician, a leather crafter, a metal worker, a video game designer, a doll maker, a light technician, a photographer, a lawyer, a board member, an electrician or a jeweler; there was always someone present to ask for help and bounce ideas off of. This is what a creative community is; People of different talents coming together to share techniques and ideas, pushing boundaries, and redefining processes. It is oh so valuable![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_gallery type=”flexslider_style” interval=”3″ images=”2180,2189,2181″ layout=”3″ gallery_style=”1″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” img_size=”1000X1000″][/vc_column][/vc_row]