My Ceramics World

There was a method to the madness that was Jackson Pollock’s vast paintings. Through the lines, dots, and dribbles of paint, there always seemed to be meaning and deliberation blended into his crazed splatters. Every time I see one of his paintings, I see the genius that hides beneath the surface, almost visible, undeniable but also a bit unfathomable all at the same time. It was that feeling of wanting to understand why I felt the emotions I did, awe and curiosity as well as fascination, that drew me into art and have never let my mind stray far.
Art has always played a major role in my life. From the time I was young, I watched my father sketch random objects and watched beautifully animated cartoons. But it was the summer before fifth grade that my mother enrolled me, pottery classes, that art started to play a central role in my focus and has helped shaped my college and career choices.

There is a special feeling about how the clay tends to glide in my hands while I am on the wheel. There is a method for how to create bigger pieces and old wives tales on how to avoid S-shaped cracks along the bottom of the pot. There are rumors about how to wedge the clay to get it softer and an endless debate on how to raku fire pieces without causing them to fall apart due to temperature differences.
And although I followed the advice I got to a T, I really wondered how many of the things I was doing really had a solid impact on pieces. There were so many ways to get the optimal piece, but on the scientific side of things, the general answer was very vague. Trial and error dominated and if it worked, it worked. So when I got to college, I gravitated to what I knew in hopes to bridge the gap in my knowledge. Almost immediately when I got into college, I found the specialized field of materials and now am currently am studying material sciences and engineering and researching in phosphorescence ceramic materials.
Phosphorescence ceramic powders are powders made of ceramic compounds that glow when exposed to UV light. These powders can glow over and over again with losing much intensity. This means that they can be charged up with UV light from a source like sun and glow for long periods of time, and this process can be done over and over again. This makes them appealing because they don’t need electricity to make them glow. This could mean that in outages, these powders can be interlaced in many materials such as glass and road pavement which then can glow a help guide in emergency situations.
The problem with these powders is that nature poses many challenges. In my research, the main focus is on making them water resistant. The most prevalent natural degradation is water because the particles tend hydrate with water and lose the ability to glow. Coating such powders in aluminum and titanium allow them to retain their glow and be waterproof. My research hopes to coat these powders in aluminum oxide or titanium oxide in hopes that they don’t hydrate when exposed to water via ALD, or atomic layer deposition.
Before I got my research position, I was looking into other research in my department and was also interested in the development of boron carbide body armor. This lightweight and extremely dense body armor shatters bullets on impact and is used in armor plating on tanks as well as bullet-proof vests. These examples of advanced ceramics slowly mold my career path and I hope to pursue something in structural-functional materials.
Ceramics, including silicon nitride bearings and lanthanum hexaboride, have touched my lives in more ways than just the pottery I make. In my free time, I still teach pottery. As a teach beginners of all levels and revel in the progress that my students make, I also find myself starting to learn the background and unique properties that have influenced my life in so many ways.
For more information, please visit http://www.samaterials.com/