Back On The Sculpture Wagon!

FIRST! NEWS, I just got a internship at the soap factory for the FLO(we){u}R exhibition! It is a performative installation that highlights a little known detail of American history. Beginning in 1914 terra cotta factories, which produced the decorative facades on buildings in downtowns across the United States, were commissioned to make ceramic test bombs for the military. Historically, the ceramic bombs were filled with baking flour and dropped from airplanes. The white marks made by the broken shells allowed early pilots to calibrate their targeting. The Soap Factory’s location in Minneapolis’ historic milling district lends rich context to the humble materials filling each bomb. if you would like to learn more about the exhibition, here is the exhibit page http://www.soapfactory.org/exhibit.php?content_id=446 . Im so excited for this opportunity i can hardly contain it. 

here are some new photos of some sculptures. it feels good to be back making sculptures, these are my 3 favorite piece i did with piping in mind. I also wanted this work to have no mixed media additions. 

Ill keep you updated on the progress of the show as well as the internship!

All Good Things, 

Mike. 

Been A long While.

Hey Guys,



Its been 4 months since my last entry, actually more than 4 months. The past months were a period of flux for myself. At the beginning of December I was accepted to Alfred University, in Alfred, New York. Alfred University is known for their incredible ceramics program, and although it was 1000 miles away from comfortable Mankato, I felt it necessary to at least visit the campus and see if it was a fitting school for me. My mother and I flew to Buffalo, and drove the few hours through some of the most rustic, untouched land i had ever laid eyes on. When you think of New York you think of the city, obviously, but beyond the city and more inland the land is near untouched. I saw one corn field the entire time I was there, which came as an utter shock coming from a place where all i see outside of a town is corn. The town of Alfred was beyond anything i could have ever imagined, and I mean that. Alfred is a very small town, and by small town i mean one stop light, and maybe a mile long main road. on either side of main street there was a college, Alfred University, and New York State University. The majority of the town is populated by art students, I dont believe I saw one "bro" while I was there. the first day I began a long day of three different tours, a general campus tour, then an art department tour, then finally a specific ceramics tour. I met John Gill at the final tour. We began discussing my plans to maybe attend Alfred next fall. After 45 minutes he said how nice it was for a graduate candidate to come down and actually have a meeting with him. When I told him I was a undergraduate and a sophomore, he seemed confused and asked me why i would travel so far as an undergrad to just see the campus. I didnt really have an answer.

he walked me around the ceramic studio and I was in awe. amazing facilites, amazing people, and the most rigorous curriculum in the nation. It was the closest i had ever come to perfection. it was a perfect school in a perfect town, with some of the nicest and most passionate people i had ever met. After being offered a substantial scholarship that would cover a portion of the tuition. I returned home hell bent on going to school at Alfred the following fall.

During winter break I had plenty of time to think about my decision before i committed to the school. The more I thought about the decision, the more something kept prodding me in the back of the head. Like I was about to betray something or someone. I pushed the feeling down and kept thinking about how incredible of an experience it would be. Over time I came to realize that Alfred was the perfect school for a ceramist, it wasnt the perfect school for me. Something about the art program at MSU has fostered my growth in the best way possible. I started in the most humble way possible at MSU, and I intend on finishing my undergraduate degree here. The combination of the people/ my professors/ the freedom to study whatever I want in ceramics, regardless if the professor is teaching it/ the women of Minnesota/ Minnesota in general helped me make my decision to stay. There are days I regret the decision, but theres always grad school, I just need to teach myself to slow down and look towards the more near future rather than the ever romantic distant future. sometimes I look so far into the future that all it becomes is just dreams and fantasies.

ok, enough Alfred shit. what was a doing over the 4 months? Functional work. I needed a break from sculpture and functional ceramics always has been like a brain massage for me. Ive recently gotten back into sculptures and im back at it with a vengeance.

O, I took my first Best In Show last week! that was cool, it felt like christmas.

I also have friends now, which is a pretty cool feeling.

As you see from the photos, my work is taking a different direction, and with 8 months till the opening reception, it looks like it may stay in this direction, unless i take another long hiatus for some reason. I update with a new post ( i promise) as soon as the new pieces are fired.

All Good Things,

Michael Cimino.

Busy Busy

Hello Readers!

Ive been a busy guy lately and ive been neglecting to make a post but ive found some time tonight. Ive just returned from a quick trip out to Chicago. Saw my family, visited my dead influences in the museum, and ate some incredible food! the week before that was the MSU Student Art League juried art show, which i took second place in. and during all of this i was finishing up my application and portfolio to Alfred University in New York. Hopefully all the dumb work of letters and photographing my work and filling out applications will pay off and i will be able to live out in New York for a while.

In other news: Barrel firing/hotdog roast tomorrow! i will photograph the firing and discuss it in a later feed.

All Good Things,



Michael Cimino

Vulture Culture, Performance Art, Cake Batter Vomit.

I had the opportunity tonight to go to the opening of Vulture Culture.at Minnesota State University, Mankato's student union gallery.  It was a group show highlighting a select artist from each concentration in our art program. I first heard about the show this summer, tagging along side a friend who was curating the show and also showing in it. Her vagueness to the concept and participating artists aroused my curiosity to what I was in for on opening night. Any glimpses into the gallery through the wall of glass were shut down by the large ambiguous collages (a work of art in itself) that lined the glass.

Finally, opening night arrived. To get first grabs at the food, I arrived a bit early. The doors opened and i was awash in media. two projectors spewing videos of abstraction and what looked like Nazi propaganda, walls of chaotic installation and a collection of other work all connected by concept. while all the work had an equal allure and aura to them. One piece had a overpowering draw from the crowd. Dana Sikkila's "Peppermint Puke" was a mix media performance piece that consistently had a crowd surrounding it. Dana laid in a puddle of pink cake batter, amid a pile of cupcakes and wrapped around a toilet that was spewing an organic mass of pink and orange matter. Her body seemingly unconscious to the viewer. Flies flew and crawled around her cake batter laced hands. An aroma of strawberries and sugar contradicted the depressive scene. The crowds consensus was that she had to move at some point, though no one really knew what was going to happen. I stuck around to watch what might happen. slowly, her body convulsed for a period of time, and her head rose from the pile of filth, only to vomit out another puddle of cake batter. drenched in batter and glitter, Dana got up and nonchalantly walked out of the gallery.

I had never seen performance art in person and before tonight, I never had much respect for it. My eye lids were torn off tonight to the potential for performance art and the raw unadulterated feeling it can evoke.

I highly encourage anyone stop into the CSU Gallery between now and October 19th to see the show and the remnants of the performance.

All Good Things,

Michael Cimino

Alcohol Reduction, Good friends,

Opening the kiln. 

Hello readers! I'm rushing off some adrenaline and high amounts of nicotine from tonights raku firing. Our kiln, lovely as she is, is old, beat down, and horribly inefficient. So instead of a quick 45 minute firing in those fancy top hat raku kilns, our firings take around 3 hours at best. This is not horrible though. This allows time to pull up a few chairs around the warm kiln, chain smoke, and hang out with some good friends around the fire. These firings are much more fun with friends. I came to MSU Mankato last year as a total stranger to everyone in the ceramic studio. After a short time i became friends with mostly everyone in the studio. I now regard them as my family. Were not the only studio with a family atmosphere either. Most ceramists I talk to recall the family like atmosphere in their own college. Theres something to the art of ceramics, such as the late hours required, the amount of knowledge that can be shared, and the absolute insanity that goes on in a studio that brings us all together. Enough about that so after enough nicotine to kill a horse has been inhaled the kiln reaches the graces of 1800 degrees. In any other firing i would have pulled the pieces, reduced, and let cool. Tonight, However, I had a secret weapon. ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL. Now, Being the complete pyromaniac that I am, I was very excited to spray this all over the piece. For those unaware of the process of raku firing, here is a brief over view. Raku firing takes place in a small compact kiln with glazes that mature (or melt) around 1800 F. Once temperature is reached, the door is opened, and the pieces are pulled from the hot kiln. They are usually thrown into combustibles, such as saw dust, newspaper, clothes left at your apartment from the drunk girl the night before... Etc. Once lit on fire, the pieces are covered with a  air tight metal container, this covering, with the combustion creates reduction. Any air is sucked out by the fire trying to burn and soon the smoke is the only thing left in the container. This reacts with the glazes and causes the color to form in different, beautiful patterns.

Tonight, instead of reducing right away I took the alcohol, put it into a garden sprayer, and with the help of my friends, Taylor and Cody (pictured) I sprayed the piece with the alcohol. The alcohol engulfed the piece and made for an insane show of light and color. I felt like a child again looking at the lights of a christmas tree. I was in complete awe of the flame, I was entranced. After spraying it for a few minutes I tossed the piece into a trash can of newspaper and covered it for reduction. My face was sweating, my hair felt burnt, I was shaking a little, but all in all.  I came out feeling like I was wrapped in the warm satisfying feeling of discovery.

The finished product. 

A couple people asked me why it mattered to spray it with alcohol. Well, I really didn't know either. heres what I think makes the difference. When you throw it into..say... sawdust. All of the tiny shavings burn differently making a extremely busy, random surface Alcohol reduction calms down the surface, it gives a more even, flowing surface, without sacrificing the color intensity because you have a more even, clean burning flame around the piece. The process of it is so incredible that if you are a ceramist, or a studying one (like myself) I highly recommend doing it. I personally hate just turning a kiln on and leaving it. It takes your hand out of the process which then, takes the art (or craftsmanship) out of the piece. And shit, its fucking fun!

All Good Things,
Fire Pots Not Guns,

Mike Cimino

Cone 10 Firing, New Forms, Heavy Metal Poisoning?

Hey Guys,

Just got home from finishing up a cone 10 firing. . After some profanity, and screaming at the aging kiln, it finally crawled up to temp. Now two slow days of waiting and ill have some nice tasty art fresh out the oven! I have a few vases, some cups, and a good amount of those eggs (their for sure eggs now) in the kiln. While you die of anticipation for the kiln opening (which i know you are). ill show you some works in progress. and move your eyes to the right... now! Viola! Some new forms in progress of firing and building. On the top is a very infant piece. It was a study of slab work in my handbuilding class at Minnesota State University, Mankato. I didnt give much detail into the forms because of my obsession with surface and oxides lately. i wanted the surface to be the focal point of the piece rather than the form. Now, its older, smaller brother below him, is one firing through a series of 3+ firings, the first layer of the piece is mostly Black Copper Oxide, Red Iron Oxide, and a top coat of Manganese Dioxide, each chemical is mixed in with Terra Sigillata which acts as a bonding agent between the porcelain and the oxides. With all this talk about chemicals and such I must throw in the safety bit, Please, please please, do not work with metal oxides without wearing proper safety equipment! I had a small swelling of the throat and a pretty awful feeling day from not using a respirator. Well, thats all for now. Ill post some photos of the firings when they finally come out!

All Good Things,


Michael Cimino

Some new surfaces and forms..

After my show at the 410 Project in August I took a step back from my work to look at what I was doing wrong. I felt that I was using glazes to cheat texture. I would make the glaze then let the kiln do the work to texture it. There was no real craftsmanship in the process. So for most of the next year, the work I will be putting out will not have glaze. I feel it covers up the true beauty of porcelain as well. This piece (the first of my capsule series) is high fire porcelain with a Terra Sigillatta/Black Copper Oxide mix burnished over the surface. As to the form, im not completely sure as to what their meaning is yet. i have been using them as figures of Attraction, Love, Separation and Divorce. We will see what they end up becoming. I love the feeling of a new body of work. The ideas are in such an infant form in my head. I have what I think is a set idea in my head and then 10 minutes later a new form or idea pops in my head that changes the entire vision of it all. well, I'll talk to you soon.

All Good Things,

Mike Cimino