This is the sixth post about the making of my wall installation regarding Apple and the EEOC. To read the whole series from the beginning, start with It's Raining Men, then Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Purple Rain, and Heavy Cloud No Rain.
After finishing most of the raindrops, I began making the clouds to hang them from. In total I'd need nine clouds: eight to represent the male coworkers who shared their compensation data with me, and one to symbolize myself.
I started by exploring how to make each cloud congruent yet unique. My coworkers and I had all held the same title: Software Engineering Author. We were the engineers who wrote Apple's developer documentation. While each of us tackled different subject areas, we were essentially doing the same job. Legally speaking, we were similarly situated employees.
To illustrate our analogous skills and work tasks, I would construct clouds of a consistent size and shape. Creating a template for this felt straightforward, and like a task I could defer. The more pressing question was how to differentiate each cloud from the next.
I decided to explore the idea of varying the clouds in a gradient from white, through shades of gray, to black. To contrast the glossy wet finish of the raindrops, I also wanted the clouds to feel wispier.
For years I have been using glazes with a white or black satin finish ($20/pint) on my Fix Systems, Not Women mugs. I love how smooth it feels, the way it diffuses light without any specular glare, and how it plays a quiet counterpart to vibrant color elsewhere on the piece. It would be perfect, if I could mix grays.
So I bisqued a big batch of test tiles.
Next I pulled out my jeweler's scale and a couple syringes. I carefully measured out various proportions of white to black glaze, mixed them thoroughly, and applied them to the tiles.
Then, I fired them in the kiln, and used each result to iterate on the next round of tests.
After several firings over the course of a few weeks, I landed on seven grays in proportions of white to black: 70+:1, 35:1, 10:1, 5:1, 5:2, 5:3, and 1:1. As you can see, the black is really potent, so I had to use it super sparingly to create lighter shades.
Satisfied with my glazing plan, I needed to make tools to impress text on the clouds, which I'll share next time.