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Summer in Schenectady: Art and Medicine 101

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Union's very own ceramics studio! Notice the exceptionally clean pottery wheel in the front. It's not any of ours, that's for sure. Aleena and Mark get their glaze on for the final kiln firing. Prof. Weisse -- a neuroscience professor -- glazes her "brain bowl." Even our pots get to lay out in the summer heat. Nancy ponders the placement of our pots in the kiln. Only a few thousand degrees (2118, to be exact) and they'll be ready to glaze. Glazes of every color and texture. Our favorite? Pippin Green. Prof. Weisse prepares the ceramic stand for the ourdoor raku kiln. Two guys and a tank full of propane. This could get ugly. We're almost ready! Our pots are about to enjoy 1800 degrees of steely, fiberglass heaven. Seriously, kids: don't try this at home. In the meantime, let's put all of our pots out on display. Aleena compares her very first pot to her very last one. Trust us; it's harder than it looks. Nancy talks about how to talk about art. Aleena's lung sculpture with a crazy cool lace design. Mark's 'wooden heart.' You can never have too much fun with clay. This is what 1814 degrees Fahrenheit looks like. That's 1263 Kelvin for you science nerds. Suiting up for sawdust duty! Holy cow, she wasn't kidding around. Raku: the only time you take a red-hot object, spray it with water, and dump it in a trash can full of sawdust. ...and then let it catch on fire. Nancy wants us to add more sawdust?! One more quick dunk in cold water for good measure. And our raku pots are done! (Seriously, they don't look like this once you clean off the ash.) Art and Medicine students and their organs. And no, not their REAL organs.

 

This summer, three Leadership in Medicine students — including two Concordiensis editors — enrolled in the Art and Medicine practicum with Prof. Carol Weisse and ceramics instructor Nancy Niefield. Their goal? To explore human form and function through the age-old art of pottery. Five weeks of wheel throwing, sculpting, and kiln firing later, this photo essay exposes their foray into glazing and the Japanese style of open-air raku firing.

Captions by Ajay Major | Photos by Ajay Major and Nayan Patel


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