I was born and raised a California Girl. For the majority of my life I have been around and immersed in art, and never really felt compelled to do anything else with my life. I chose to come to Biola because when I was in the 5th grade I got a campus tour there and for some reason, I made the connection that I would be going there for college. When senior year of high school rolled around, I didn't apply to any other college but Biola, and got in. I guess it was fate... expensive fate.
Entering into Biola, I had a drawing/painting emphasis figuring I could just transfer my basic knowledge from high school to college. I figured out fast that I didn't want to be a draftsman. So I changed my emphasis to design. After spending 2 years in basic classes and started to scratch the surface of the design classes, I realized that I liked looking at design… I just didn't enjoy producing mass amounts of design pieces in short periods of time. I ended up taking a liking to web design, mainly because I didn't have to think about a constant media format change. It's on the internet… a web browser is what I get to play with. Anywho… I got out of design emphasis, and took a lower division ceramics class as a filler to figure out what I wanted to do. Fate would have it that I found what I was looking for. Since then, I have been addicted to clay. I took in as much knowledge as possible and went to the point of searching through books that I had to special order through the library system, self teaching myself through every ounce of knowledge people would lend me. Since then I have proficiently studied the cone 5/6 range and have just scratched the surface of cone 10. I'm looking forward to the lower luster firings and hope to participate in some pit and raku firings in the near future.
I know, I know, Gertchen is a dumb name. Well my name is Gretchen and I started a job with Red Robin Gourmet Cheeseburgers, and was hired for a 2 week period. The book keeper had no intention to keep me for a while, so he didn't really care when I found out my name had been misspelled. Gertchen was the name he had given me. So I lasted through the two weeks and made it onto the regular staff, but by the time I had become a server, no one really cared that all the tickets I printed out said Gertchen for the server. So when I got promoted my manager looked at one of my tickets for the food to be sent out, and said out loud slightly, "whose Gertchen?" and luckily I was close by to be there and witness the laughing stock of my co-workers. So since then, everyone that is close to me has been hooked on saying Gertchen. So at work I'm known as Gertch, Gertrude, Gretel, Gerdy, Gretel Cakes, Grizzle, Gretski, Gretzel, Gretch, and Ricarda. (yes that's my hispanic name)
