Author: James Kahn

Bikes are always accompanied by riders, at least when they are moving. So I thought it would be an interesting experiment to remove the subject/rider from the photo and leave this to the viewers imagination. The sunset was fairly easy to create behind the rider but rebuilding the bike behind the leg of the rider was a challenge.

Autobiography

My name is James and I am from Los Angeles California. I have lived in Los Angeles my entire life until coming here. I am freshman on the cross country and track teams here at WPI and am pursuing aerospace engineering. A few of my hobbies include surfing, mountain biking, and drone racing/model plane building. Growing up in Los Angeles has shaped me as a person. I live on the outskirts of Santa Monica, so I have grown up really close to the beautiful Santa Monica mountains. Mountain Biking has allowed me to explore these places and cultivate a love for nature. Similarly to mountain biking, surfing has caused me to love the ocean. These activities have given me an appreciation for nature and this is where my creative inspiration comes from. In high school I enjoyed channeling my creativity through ceramics as well as stained glass classes.

This was one of the first largish pieces I threw on the potters wheel. I was attempting to capture the different depths of the ocean through a gradient with the glaze. The glaze didn’t really turn out as planned but I still like the outcome. Topping of the piece is one of my favorite sea creatures; the orca.

In high school I created a series of Lord of the Rings characters. This is William the troll from the Hobbit. I am very pleased in how I was able to capture the skin color and texture of the troll.

This type of vase is called a hydra. The narrow neck and wide lip was very difficult to throw and I believe it is my most complicated throwing piece to date. The blue and green glaze was used to give the vase a more natural feel.

Since I love surfing, I decided to take on this project and create a stained glass of someone surfing. Cutting the glass in small thin strips proved very difficult, but I believed it was necessary to create the shape of the wave.

As an aerospace major, I decided to make a small airplane icon. I attempted to model it off of a Cessna 182 but it came out a little different. I envisioned some of the early Apple icons while creating this and therefore I went for a more simplistic approach. The two dots on opposite sides of the propeller yield a cool effect when the picture is shrunk. The propeller looks almost as if it is moving.