Vitrified Studio- Take a break........

Give yourself a big treat and check out Shelley Martin's blog Vitrified Studio. Shelley runs a small ceramics studio in Portland , Oregon and her blog is just the thing you need at lunchtime, when you have a lot of boring e-mails to reply to,or tax forms to fill out. DON'T DO IT!!!!! Take a break and browse through beautiful ceramics from around the world.
Shelley Martin's pots from Vitrified Studio

Monday morning eye candy from Josie Jurczenia

Here's some Monday morning eye candy from American potter Josie Jurczenia.


I love Josie's loose, slab style and retro 30's/40's feel. This pomegranate vase is in the new Lark books publication 500 Vases, unfortunately with the wrong name! (page 282). So now when you open page 282 and are stunned speechless by the vessel , you will be able to think "Hang on a minute..........Josie Jurczenia!"

Molly Hatch- Contemporary American Decorative

This is the work of American ceramicist Molly Hatch. Molly's practice combines making domestic ware and creating amazing, beautiful exhibition installations. Molly's work explores the power of the domestic vessel. She says

"A cup or a bowl is almost universally accessible and navigable as most people use them in their daily lives. For me, the blank cup is anonymous in a manner similar to a blank piece of paper. The three-dimensional surface tableware provides is rich with conceptual potential as a place for drawings and paintings. Interaction is encouraged through the decoration of hidden surfaces—the underside of a cup, beneath a lid or on a handle. "
I've voiced many similar sentiments over the years!

As well as being a great artist Molly is a writer and academic and her blog "stripes and dots" is essential reading for followers of contemporary decorative ceramics and aesthetic concerns within the strange world of modern pottery.

Shoko Teruyama- lyrical decorative

Scraffitto is one of my favourite techniques. This is one of the very first, most simple techniques people learn when they are first starting ceramics but there are never-ending variations on the technique of scraffitto.

Shoko Teruyama, Japanese born American ceramicist is inspired by the temples and shrines "decorated with texture and pattern contrasted by areas of calm and stillness" of her native country.
These beautiful works use overwhelming pattern in a poetic way leading the viewer around the pot. Decoration functions as an end in itself as details are revealed on closer viewing and also as an integral part of the form. Teruyama's use of pattern and colour reveals and amplifies the shape of the vessel. You often see decorated ware taken over by strident decoration but Teruyama's work avoids this by an insistence on the form and function within the decorative field. I like this work very much."Birds appear throughout my work to create focal points. Some birds swim in the motion of slip and fly around the vine patterns. Others are walking or sitting in thought. To me, the birds represent my sense of freedom."
From Shoko Teruyama's website

Solving Logistical Problems

I've just finished this Beastie cake plate and set of cups for a special order. The Beastie were inspired by a masterclass I did a few years ago with Marino Moretti in Umbria (it's not like I go to Italy all the time or anything. It was just that I did go once or twice.) The cake plate presented quite a few logistical problems as the shape of a flat plate supported on a raised base is not really suited to porcelain.
I threw the plate first and turned it upside down onto the base and bisque fired it upside down but then I was stuck...... If I fired the cake plate upright the porcelain would slump. San Fransisco potter Whitney Smith offered some excellent suggestions such as grogging the porcelain before I threw the plate and covering the piece with porcelain slip. (unfortunately it was a bit late for that particular bit of good sense), or throwing a concave plate to compensate for the slumping during the gloss firing. I did it the difficult, time- consuming way by throwing a stand to support the plate from underneath and leaving a ring under the cake plate unglazed so the stand could fit exactly under the plate and support it during the firing. This was labour intensive but I now have two stands to use when I am making more cake plates and, very importantly, the plate fired absolutely flat.
All cake bakers will know that a flat cake plate is essential to the success of an afternoon tea!

Marek Cecula

I have started a blog for the Australian Ceramics Triennale so sometimes for the next couple of months the entries might crossover. Marek Cecula is a keynote speaker. His diverse output ranges from playful post-modern comment on the nature of contemporary ceramics and our interaction with objects through to amazing industrial design.

"ZIG ZAG TEAPOT 1
Extreme teapot where spout and handle make the most of the form and linear decor, stretching the limits of conventional tea serving. This strongly decorative design with links to art deco and modernistic architecture will guide you in creating a stylish environment."(from Marek Cecula's website)

One thing that is consistent over Marek Cecula's oeuvre is his irreverent approach to ceramics as a material.


These works entitled In Dust Real (2004)
"Select(ed) forms from various porcelain manufactures (which) were “burned again” in high temperature in traditional anagama wood fire kilns to achieve totally opposite condition from conventional industrial standards.
Destruction of classic pose and twist in appearance, breaks down established values and standards of a mass-product, as we know it, long hours of wood fire leaves marks of ash and fire on the industrial forms, transforming the classic porcelain into new original artwork." (from Marek Cecula's website)



This is my sort of post-modernism, the concepts are funny and have a slight edge of the absurd while the product is beautiful. Often with post-modern work the physical object is not well enough crafted to carry the idea. Although Marek Cecula's pieces play with (and take a totally irreverent approach to) ceramic materials I feel his connection to ceramics and enjoyment of surface comes through.

Marek Cecula will present a keynote address at 9 o'clock on Friday the 17th of July

Breaking out

If there are any "Strange Fragments" readers out there who are parents of young children (or old children), who have busy and often boring commitments to others, who find themselves walking through a myriad of day to day tasks in a dream with their brains frantically thinking "I must get down to the studio." Carole Epp's inspiring story of how she created her latest work for exhibition is for you.

Carole was invited to be part of a group exhibition and started trying to break out of her usual modes of three-dimensional expression, she took inspiration from the works of the other artists involved in the show. Carole says the resulting works are "more a beginning than any attempt at an end" and that her practice has been "shaken up". I admire this so much. Working and living is time-consuming mind-consuming stuff. Creatively it is very difficult and scary breaking out of your patterns and making really new, innovative work.

Carole's exciting new work

gardening, cooking, growing old, collecting, making, ceramics, clouds, weather and art

New nests just out of the kiln at "Planet" in Sydney

"The most powerful leaders are those who have nothing to gain. That is, what they are doing is not for self-interest, but for principle. The most powerful artists, I suspect, are those who simply must live that life where art is the purpose of life and life is the purpose of art because there is no separation or distinction between their art and life."pp.8
Richard Jacobs from "Searching for Beauty- letters from a collector to a studio potter"

This quote is from an extraordinary book that came into my hands a couple of months ago. It is a series of letters written by academic, art lover and collector of ceramics Richard Jacobs to contemporary American potter Christa Assad.


Jug byChrista Assad

What Richard is doing with these letters is addressing a sweep of themes across collecting and making art using the abstract device of sending letters to a real potter. Christa did receive these letters but, in fact, never replied to them. Here is what Richard writes about this:
"But the letters were written for the generic reader who might be interested in the arts; the questions posed to Christa were questions that I hoped would be valuable for any reader to consider. I sent the letters to many potters and friends and they were circulated and passed on to many interested people."

These questions are interesting, not just as a maker but also as a valuable insight into the dedicated collector. The concerns that collectors have differ from the concerns of a maker. We exist in symbiosis but rarely cross paths and it is rarer still for the collector and the artist to engage in intellectual discussion of motivations, process and shared passions. This fascinating book encompasses gardening, cooking, growing old, collecting, making, ceramics, clouds, weather and art.


Jugs by Christa Assad

It is exciting that such an esoteric, personal reflection on the nature of our business should be published.

odd piles of plenty

This coming season of excess has made me think about plenty, multiples and piles. Is it some ancient primal urge from times of scarcity that leads us humans to be so fascinated with multiples?

Many things create random patterns, leading the eyes to make more formal patterns of pebbles on a beach or piles of folded washing. You can clearly see this process in beautiful aboriginal paintings where multiples become formal, rhythmic pattern. Maybe our longing for multiplicity is simply an yearning towards order , the continuous human struggle against EM Foster's "Chaos and Emptiness"?




Sometimes art can emulate this feeling of wonder at many by isolating a single or a few. In this way the whole universe of pebbles on the beach can be ours through the delicate jewelery of Rebbecca Ward,



The mystery of a flock of ravens translated into a single bird by Sleeping Forest.



Or the luxury of a pile of knitted jumpers translated into porcelain by Alyssa Ettinger.






Amazing photos of odd piles of plenty by Tim Walker

being an artist

Whitney Smith is an American ceramicist and has a fascinating blog called "This Artist's Life" Recently Whitney has been blogging about the progress of a "Five figure order" with all it's trails and tribulations. This is interesting reading for anyone who is, or wants to become a professional artist.


For a long time I felt that being an artist wasn't a "Real" job, and needed to justify my profession to myself and others when I was asked about it. Once I quit the last of my part-time jobs and decided I had to make a weekly wage with art I began to pay attention to all the parts of the artist job that I had previously let slide.

My least favourite part of being an artist is publicity but I realized that without being good at this I would not make it as an artist. So.... I picked my lovely sister's brains about how to present myself to galleries and what direction to take within the esoteric area of art pottery. I learnt how to use Photoshop and paid for professional photos. And did the nerve-wracking horrible business of approaching people I didn't know by e-mail or in person with my photos and seeing if they were interested in my work. Every time I steel myself to walk into a gallery, feeling like a total dag, I remind myself that there are parts of every job that are horrible and being professional means that you become good at all parts of your job.

The top three things I have learnt over the years are....
1. Don't go banging your head against a brick wall or always go through the door that's open. - No matter how good a gallery is or how much you want your work to be there it is no use persevering with things that are a bad fit.

2.Excellent photographs are the best money you will ever spend. -More than anything else it is good photos that have got me more work.

3.Make your work for yourself. I took a while to learn this as time after time I took commissions to make items I really didn't like so I could be in a show or gallery that offered me a spot. Now I only make things that I like, they are better works and easier to make, things go more smoothly when you are inspired.


This is a commission that I recenly loved doing. I based the shape on a 1930's shape that I saw in a photo of Virginia Woolf's house "Charleston".

Actias Luna

Prothalamium
Fifth section of "Astoria" sequence
© Aaron Kramer

Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!

Come, let us sweep the old streets--like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.

We'll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame--and in its place we'll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing.

This beautiful poem is the preface to one of my favourite books, "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingslover. The Luna Moth is one of the main themes in this book which is about love of nature, love of a partner and love of family and how these love are so strange and complex yet every part of their weirdness weaves itself into a balance that is delicate and strong.

I learnt from this book that a moth's haphazard flight is caused by the fact that moths navigate through their olfactory system. Comparing two points in space by smell and moving towards the one of greater concentration. This creates the typical zig-zag flight path as the moth moves through currents of scent in the air. This is a description of the making process. From the first,faint whiff of inspiration, a dream, something caught out of the corner of my eye, to the clumsy yet compelling first attempts at making a form,lines that don't quite have conviction, drawn again and again on paper, on clay. Firing and firing , until.... you reach the point of greatest concentration, the end of a strange zig-zag path. Olfactory navigation for artists.

(I have learnt nearly everything I know from novels.)

Lovely teapot and tumblers (which somehow in their lightness and earthy nature remind me of butterflies) by American potter Micheal Kline.

Creeping Toad Lily

My garden is so overgrown and wild. The end of a pregnant Queensland summer has led to Morning Glory twining itself through everything and grass springing up in all the gardens. But if you look closely you can still find amazing, beautiful things growing in the weeds. We have a fine crop of pumpkins competeing with the other weeds, the Magnolia Grandiflora has a single bud (it is still a very small tree) and the other magnolia also has one, secret, fuzzy green bud.





One of my favourite plants is the Creeping Toad Lilly. I love the name and the weird spotted purple flowers, this makes me think of a plant from a fairy tale. What arcane properties does a Creeping Toad Lilly bring to a spell? Will it wake up sleeping princesses? Will it transform the unwary into something strange or terrible?



Micheal Sherrill makes these magnolia sculptures. These sculptures make me think of what art is really about- how the close observation of nature is transformed through the artists eye into something that makes conceptual or philosophical point about the world we live in. Sherrill says of his work
"I think the result of what I am doing stimulates the viewer to be inquisitive about what the eye is seeing. At the same time, the object itself is defined by its simplicity and straightforwardness."

fishing the craft sea

I have been lusting after American potter Rae Dunn's work.
These handbuilt pieces with little messages are so warm and inviting, they remind me of the lovely work of Kylie Johnson from Paperboat Press. I love the marks of the gesture on drawings and pots.











Other catches from the craft sea include Teresa Green designs.



...and Alyssa Ettinger Designs.

To old age

The Garth Clark Gallery in New York is having a retrospective of American potter Beatrice Wood. This runs from the 12th of September to the 4th of November. Beatrice Wood lived a crazy life and potted her way into old age. This is a photo of her looking fabulous and tough behind the potters wheel as an old lady. I love seeing photos like this- I hope this is me when I am old.



This Beatrice Wood chalice is a celabratory item. There is a sense of upward movement and dynamics in this pot which makes me felling like standing and "Charging my glass".
"To old age, hard work feasts and good company!"
Cheers

craft guerilla hero

I have to write more about Alleghany Meadows who I mentioned yesterday and his fantastic Art-stream Gallery.

The Art-stream Gallery is an old Airstream caravan converted into a beautiful ceramics gallery. Through favours from friends, custom cabinet making and sheer imagination and wit Allegahany Meadows has created an American mini institution, Artstream travels around the country to farmers markets, universities and conferences bringing beautiful pottery to all sorts of unexpected places. To say Art-stream is an instititution denies the fact of it's clever unpredictablity. This is a subversion of the gallery system.
Allegahany Meadows is this weeks craft guerilla hero!

vessels

Vessels

"The water is wide
I must go o'er
But neither have
I wings to fly
Give me a boat
That can carry two
and both shall row
My love and I"
....an old spiritual about vessels





Alleghany Meadows, potter and craft guerilla. Has a mobile gallery in a dashing old Airstream caravan.



Elizabeth Robinson American potter says...
"My work is about the rituals, and the making, of domestic pottery. I think about objects, how we desire them, surrounding ourselves by stuff to compose the settings for our lives; how we use them"