Thaddeus Erdahl

Thaddeus Erdahl


I'm studying this.  The eyes, the surface depth and detail.  The eyes!  Such amazing work.  I am loving the little skateboard ramp as a substructure!

visit his blog and I urge you to click on these pictures and look at them full frame.  They are incredible.

What's in a name?

Here's  No. 3 (after I put on the glaze - so we're looking through the purple haze).

Of course, this one has no name.  I never know what to call anything; it's one of my stuck places, not unlike pricing work - I feel like the mouse trying to find the cheese bit in a maze when someone asks, how much?
I tend to like "untitled", it has become my default.  This one asking me for a title not to be nameless.

It's friday; deadlines approach.  time for drinks.

Josh Keyes inspiration

I'm a HUGE Josh Keyes fan; definitely check out his website; his sketchbook page is a wonder!

His work is,,,,well, George Melrod put it pretty succinctly:


“Few contemporary artists portray animals with the empathy of Josh Keyes. At once meticulous and fantastic, poignant and absurd, Keyes’ carefully crafted drawings and paintings depict animals isolated dramatically in fragments of their natural environment, overrun with shards of man-made artifice and debris. Seemingly lost and stranded in their dreamlike stage sets, they look like characters in some existential drama written by a modern-day environmentalist Samuel Beckett.”
[George Melrod, Art Ltd West Coast Art and Design]

JoshKeyes.net

Brian Kakas

I keep staring at that first picture.  This scale feels like an altered reality, maybe I'm tired today.  I find this work interesting in how it reads construction - but it has organic flow and movement darting in and out of a very constrained presence.  Interesting.  And it's got this underground glorified plumbing feel to me (that's not a bad thing).  What lies beneath...it's mysterious.

liking it!


Brian Kakas 

Fetish Ghost's Secret Studio and Beatrice Wood

GO HERE and watch.................beautiful!

Carol Schwartz Sculpture

Carol Schwartz sculpts in wood.  For me, the style and scale is a reference to Akio Takamori and Viola Frey, don't you think?  Big, bold and strong and yet there's an elegance toward gestural storytelling.

Turns out Carol once lived in San Francisco and worked on the design for the BART signage.  I wonder if Carol ever met Viola?

Visit Carol's website; many more beautiful pictures and info.

these caught my eye

the cast in order of appearance:


Benben Li
Kaori Tatebayashi
Joe Christopherson
Piet Stockman

the power and charisma of simplicity, elegance and quiet beauty.

Vanessa Smith

BEHOLD; Vanessa Smith's work...

more here

Lauren Gallaspy

Lauren Gallaspy's work is intriguing and creepy but pretty too; it's like 'the thing' - only a 1000x better than John Carpenter ;)  it is porcelain after all.

This works requires concentration to enjoy and long periods of time to work through the feelings and responses it elicits.  The intricacies and attention to detail living on and within the over all abstract form is delightfully complicated.

ma jun

Ma Jun  neat-O!

Raku Fest, David Kuraoka, Coyotes attack, and various other bits

Richmond Art Center (an amazing place!) had a Raku Fest on Saturday.  For a fee, you support the RAC and could choose to have two pieces raku fired.  There was food, demos and David Kuraoka did a lecture on his history of Raku and Pit Fire both at San Jose State and SF State including a slide show....highlight!

I have only had second hand knowledge of David Kuraoka.  I had a teacher (Tiffany Schmierer) now a friend who was a student of his at State - I've heard all the stories, good, bad and everything in between, tales and mythic legends of huge beach pit fires and raku fires sometimes with as many as a 1000 people; the original burning man!  In listening to him talk about his career all the stories, hearsay and bits of information came together.  I started to get some of the scope of David's influence and power.  It is so fantastic how many of his students are now teaching, influencing the next generation of artists.  Not a few of his former students working and impacting the ceramic stage on a large scale - many in the Bay Area.   People like Dave Kuraoka are (as mentioned in an article I linked below) living treasures.  The dude is a powerful & amazing guy - funny, cute and humble; a real original, a master.  I've heard a lot of stories about State and David - it was a real cool thing to get a chance to listen to his storytelling with pictures!  I sat there in awe.

MORE on David
MORE

Jane McDonald fired some large pieces - it was great to see big work !
Bruno Kark did a throwing demo - Bruno is super cute and fun to watch and listen to.
The RAC is a gem!

I left the Raku event SO high on creative fumes and Dave Kuraoka and FIRE...couldn't wait to get in the studio and do something, anything with clay.



I thought I'd take my dogs out and them go to the studio and work all night.  It would have been a walk like every other walk we've taken in the last 10 years.....

except for these guys

They wanted my dogs.....for dinner.  To make a long story shorter; we were a mile from the car and we were "hunted" the entire way back to my vehicle.  There was no one anywhere near me to help and the two coyotes were extremely aggressive and deadly serious!  I had the tiny dog in my arms and had to tie my other dog to me with my scarf - at one point after circling us for a half mile they were less than 6 ft away lunging in at Dante.

I threw rocks, yelled - it was an intense exchange to say the least.  Nature is beautiful until it tries to kill you; or  your dogs in my case.  It's always good to keep your eyes open and keep your cool...

now we will have to rethink our walk strategy...


the next day:

At Clay Creations Studio where I have been working and teaching a mosaic class we have built a cute little gallery.  Sunday a friend of the studio came by with some reclaimed wood to build two shelves for work!

How cute is that shelf - thank you Dave Blackman - you are an awesome speed racer builder guy!
the gallery is OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!  come see us at FogFEST this weekend.


so, that was mostly my weekend: I got my pyro fix, listened to a Master, made my first concrete counter top, fought off marauding animals, made some cups and bowls, helped build shelves, set up a gallery....

Ceramics Annual of America download

Here are a few pics that I took - I went to Reception Night on Thursday.  I thought the show was very well done.  The lighting was a disappointment.  Pieces were area lit, but it was too greatly contrasted against not enough general light - so the effect was "dramatic" lighting - and not in a good way!

It did have a CCACA feel to it as well, which isn't a bad thing only because John Natsoulas is heavily involved in creating this show (with John Toki of Leslies Clay in Berkeley).

I like the opening nights - a lot of people to talk to about their work and the atmosphere is usually party-ish!

Lauren Ari was stand out for me!  Here all this time she has been over in Berkeley and I've never seen her work or met her! I instantly became a fan.  I love it.
The other was Carmen Lang - her small sculpture vignettes were so gestural, sweet and subtle.

I confess, though I have a 3 day pass, I've not been back - it's been a tough weekend with the fire disaster and  a friend losing her home - there is still one person from work not accounted for and just hearing other stories about what is happening is sobering.

I am going back to the CAA on the end side of today; helping pack up some work.

It would be great to hear your thoughts, opinions, feelings about the show?