Jenn Brazelton sent me a link to Katsuyo's "Predictive Dreams" series. I won't bore you with fumbling for words to talk about this. Visit HERE and take time to look - also read the artist statement, it's exceptionally well written.
Katsuyo Aoki
Jenn Brazelton sent me a link to Katsuyo's "Predictive Dreams" series. I won't bore you with fumbling for words to talk about this. Visit HERE and take time to look - also read the artist statement, it's exceptionally well written.
accepted!
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The coldest summer is the summer I spent in San Francisco...
I've been off the grid. I spent 10 days in Gualala, CA and stayed with my boyfriend at his family home. I had never been to Gualala until recently and this trip was my second. The real gift, and there were many. was that there is no signal. ZERO reception. No iphone. No computer. No blog. NO Facebook! It's so exacting that when you cross into "no signal country" you now have no choice but to cross into "no signal country". In our world, it's a lot like crossing "to the other side". It can be a very scary thing. There is little or no thought at all to even trying to find a signal. I was a little bummed at myself that I was back "on" almost as soon as I had access - but I did value the time off and it did illustrate how much time and energy is devoted online. I really got how much more space it opens up when you're not on, or distracted by, what you think you might be missing.
The Mendocino Coast is breathtaking, Gualala is no exception. It's beautiful up there. It was hot, we ate, we worked hard, we played hard, and slept like the dead! I can't wait to go back!
The property is 10+ acres of trees, meadows, gardens, old cabins and sheds. It's beautiful. There is a little trail to walk through the forrest on the property, all of it feels like being home. The peace and quiet - it reminds me so much of hot summers at our family home in Glen Ellen when I was a kid. The Gualala river is near by, not to mention an ocean, and the water is glassy crystal clear. See where I'm going with this...so super easy to blow off your stupid signal.
on the clay front:
I've applied to a show in November and we'll see if I've made it; tough competition this year. If it's a go, it's time to ramp up production. I've made some vases and cups in an effort to get my ass in gear and back in some kind of making groove...even the boyfriend recently got in on the act. I have to say that it's an interesting thing to spend time in your studio with your significant other. I enjoy his company in the evening studio time together. I often need to work alone to concentrate. There are some points in process when I still do need to just do my shit. When someone in my studio with me, I notice I have a tendency to slightly downplay whatever I'm working on - I have no idea why - I have to work harder to concentrate on what I'm doing which means I get very quiet. But, I do like the juxtaposition. He's a creative and talented builder in his own right; I learn a lot from experiencing his approach and process. Really, I'm just super stoked he get's it! love and art are pretty fucking good together.
here's the boyfriend cup! awesome, I think. it's been glazed and going in the kiln tonight.....stay tuned.
forward motion
hey gang - I'm off for a bit here - I'll be back on in mid-july and hope to have some tales to tell and visual spectacles for you to behold.
see you soon, eh!
photo; via morgan maassan
the incomplete manifesto for growth | Bruce Mau
All over this today!
Happy Full MOON eclipse - because it's big even it you don't notice it...
Bruce Mau Design
Thomas Christopher Haag
Thomas Christopher Haag - I met him on Saturday at The Compound Gallery opening. I bought those lower two pieces. He is referencing when Buddha reaches enlightenment, He exclaimed:
"I have had numerous births. In vain have I sought the builder of the house. Oh, the torment of perpetual rebirth! But I have seen you at last, O builder of the house. You no longer build the house. The rafters are broken; the old walls are down. The ancient mountain crumbles; the mind attains to nirvana; birth is no more for desire is no more."
Thomas' work is amazing - it requires your attention and curiosity to investigate each piece and the multidimensional symbolism and incredibly intricate layering of imagery and text. Trust me that the pictures do these pieces no justice whatsoever you need to see this stuff in the flesh.
He uses reclaimed house paint and wood and old books and periodicals. Clever.
I was blown away.
Thomas Christopher Haag has a space at The Compound Gallery
Website
Bronwyn Oliver
Bronwyn Oliver had that rarest of all skills: she knew how to create beauty.
It might seem facile to read her life, and her death, into the works, but she was so much like her work: simple yet complicated, fragile yet strong, eccentric though oddly straightfoward. She was a deeply awkward person, but it was this awkwardness that lent her works their peculiar grace, that made them interesting. The shadows cast by the object were an integral part of the artwork, and sometimes the shadow would be more powerful than the object, become the work itself. One wonders if her extraordinary industriousness was a way of warding off the shadows that finally engulfed her.
An extremely guarded person, she gave an unusually candid interview a few months before her death, revealing insights into a painful childhood and complex feelings about parenthood. She had no children, and several of her works referred to barrenness in some way – the suggestion of a shrivelled pod inside the lacy carapace of the larger shape, for example. She loved her years of teaching art to small children at Cranbrook – a career she could afford to retire from a couple of years ago – and one wonders whether the responsibilities and human contact of this job helped to keep her aloft. Although she had an angular sort of personality and could be brusque at times, she had a touching nature, and a surprising, almost old-fashioned unworldliness. At the same time the covert aggression and defensiveness of some of the works hinted at an inner darkness: as she said, ‘I haven’t made an innocent work in a long time.’
Bronwyn was modest yet utterly sure of her vision, secure in the confidence of her originality. Her art was fully resolved – perfect, really – and she stands alone in the annals of Australian art history. There was no-one like her: she invented her own deeply intelligent form, and entered fully into the world that it opened out to her.
Her most successful works were like a flourish, a single expressive gesture. The idea of the work was always perfectly worked out which gave the finished object a wholeness, an authority and sense of inevitability, as though it had always existed. There was an astonishing clarity in the entire thinking behind her work. Her titles, apt and always sophisticated, were an integral part of the work, a clue into the meanings of her unique conceptual language. The objects were painstakingly produced, and sometimes – but only if the work was not entirely successful – slightly tortuous. Of course we will read her work this way now – for the moment the shadows will dominate the art, and will change the way we read it forever – but nothing can alter the resilience of the works themselves, their eternal elegance, intelligence and beauty.
Hannah Fink
all pics courtesy of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
I'm still trying to recover from the story of Bronwyn Oliver. The painful parallels. Her work is beautiful, intelligent....and silent. Silent like the hours and hours she spent alone - the existence she had in the world that created them. moving.
Sylvain Deleu blog
found via sylvain deleu photography blog.
An interesting pictorial dynamic of design, art, fashion among other interesting happenings. His wife is Aneta Regel Deleu - so there is a regular bent toward the ceramic community in the UK.
Plate: Cormac Boydell (incredible)
Rings: Aneta Regel Deleu
Box: Hitomi Hosono - made for wedgewood. so quiet and brilliant.
I want to talk about Gundi Deitz
words from her website: "Creatures with a strange sexuality, girl-like an massive lost in meditation and whimsical at the same time, helplessly plump and yet frivolous."
I'm drawn in. The power of this work for me is it is all about contrast and extremes, but in so subtle a way - there is such solid, stubborn power displayed in the fragile porcelain 'picture' of a pudgy, seemingly simple, innocent, young (?) girl.
Gundi Deitz website is very interesting in that the gallery format shows photos of work spanning 30 years. I find it a fascinating commentary on the emergence of a style and it's spectacular expansion. I found it very informative to see such an amazing artists career arc.
Please go check out the works page on her website.
and here
I'm feeling akio and esther in these pieces too!
Guess what? Stuck and unstuck go hand in hand
Pulled this out of the kiln still nice and warm and WHAM! Instantly unstuck. The other piece I was suffering through finishing - well, it's drying. I'm still ambivalent about it, though.
Then this got my attention and I couldn't be more unstuck, more engaged.
Interesting that this is mirroring some personal life events too, but I digress. How did I not get that the two things often happen simultaneously or semi-simultaneously. Am I oversimplifying the complexities of the creative process? I am just thinking if you have a lot of tools in the tool box - stuck is a way less existential crisis-y, little downward spiral and therefore less impactful to the creative psyche. This isn't coming out right...I think it's just that sometimes you're ahead and sometimes you're behind.
Shakespeare said; "Everything and Nothing"
I still feel the same way about the windy/water piece - wishy washy, but I don't about this one.
For this piece: I thought I'd capture the glaze process as I go along on this one (please, my super talented friends; chime in at any time if you think I need saving!)
Depth Perception
Olaf Hajek
I've been sitting on these for months and months. This work is a big factor in what spawned my interest in doing my recent pieces. I have gone back to these Olaf Hajek over and over in my mind - for me they instantly got under my skin, instantly became unforgettable. I don't even know how to begin to describe the connection I felt to this work. Every time I look at them, my heart almost jumps out of my body. This is connection/inspiration on a spirit journey level. I had already been going down the road of doing "big hair" - I have seen Susan Beiner's work which inspires me, and Cristina Cordova's work - the large head pieces. BUT, when I saw these it was like finding a suitcase full of $1000 bills! a big suitcase, people.
this is where you crack it open and the sweetest juice comes pouring out!
intense.
here's an interview
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