Semester 1 Final Project
Historical Background
Created by William Merritt Chase, Pink Azalea—Chinese Vase was painted using oil paint on wood. According to the MET, "Chase was an avid collector of bric-à-brac, including Asian artifacts" like the Chinese vase pictured here. I liked the Impressionist style and darker colors of the painting. The subject, being flowers, would typically represent love or happiness, but with the darker colors it could suggest a more melancholy feeling. With the addition of the dark blue bottle laying on it's side, could imply other darker meanings as well.
William Merit Chase grew up in Indiana and at the age of 19 left the family business where he eventually moved to New York where he attended the National Academy of Design. He had to abandon his artistic ventures, however when his family back home ran into economic troubles. To support them, he moved to St. Louis where his family was living and gained support from wealthy art collectors. They paid for him to go to study in Europe at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He came back to the states where he established his own studio, got married, and had eight children. At his studio he taught privately to individual students, and then later would teach larger classes and open his own schools, namely the Chase School, which later became the Parson School of Design in New York. Additionally he traveled to California in the 1910s where he taught summer classes at Carmel Arts and Crafts Club's Summer School Of Art.
Seen here is his Self Portrait painted in his later years. ​​
Plan
Making the vase/pitcher:
- using the coil builder/press make long coil​
- make the vase with the coil, spiraling up to build the sides
- smooth coils from outside
- using wooden tool, press from inside out to thin the sides and make larger
- make spout and handle for pitcher
- add flowers and leaves
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Making the flowers:
- roll slab
- cut out petals
- roll out stamen
- take 5 cut out petals and put them together in a circle, then place the stamen pieces in middle of petals, then pinch the base of the flower together
attach to pitcher
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Making leaves:
- roll slab
- cut out leaf shapes
- pinch ends of leaf and attach to pitcher
before first firing -- painted w/ white underglazed to make colors that will be painted on later brighter
Vase before it was a pitcher
After first firing -- painted w/ colored underglazed
The center cracked a bit, most likely because it was fired while it was still too wet.
Refection
This project went through many different stages before I settled on making a pitcher. Originally I was going to just make the artwork 3D, but it would have little purpose beyond decoration. Then I tried making the vase and flowers into a jewelry holder, with earrings hanging off the edge of the vase, with rings and necklaces hanging on the flowers/branches. However with both these designs the main branch that held up flowers could not hold the weight of the flowers and leaves; it was too flimsy. With the pitcher, though, there was no need for the main branch to hold up the flowers.
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Overall I am satisfied with the way that the pitcher turned out. I liked the original shape of it better when it was just a vase (instead of a pitcher), but it was too thick. I think that the spout is very clean and the handle has a nice shape. I wanted to add a bark-like texture to make the handle look more like a branch, but I was short on time and the piece needed to be fired. The most fun part about making this project was the flowers. They are my favorite part. In the future, I would like to try making a bouquet of flowers with the same technique. The color with underglaze is fine, but not exactly what I wanted. I like the shade of blue, but the color of the flowers is not as pink as in the original painting, which I wanted to match more closely. My painting job was also rushed so it was harder to achieve more detail, similarly to the construction. The hardest part of this project was not as much the construction techniques, but making a decision about how to make the piece useful and successfully executing it with the time given. While given much time in class to start, there were other projects I worked on that deserved more immediate attention (such as finishing Unit 3 before the semester was over), but I still should have started it earlier. I think that if I had, I would have achieved a much higher level of detail and been able to spend more time adding color. Despite these constraints, I am proud of the piece.