Chesapeake Bay, United States
Aspiring writer/illustrator of books for children of all ages, friendly introductions to science through sailing and nature play.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

My very own bisque

First bisque that I've done all by my self, ha.  I think...

Anyway! enjoy! (Morgan's cups and bowls, my poor crushed cone from "To Systemize" and it's subsequent stop motion - the one with the sequins, acorns, and pine needles- ,, and!! two layers of stoneware beads covered in local clay!)

w00t




Saturday, November 27, 2010

What am I up to? I'll tell you!

Check out my final project statement here.
That blog corresponds to the www real-estate required for its eventual fulfillment.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Morandi and me







 (In studio process shots, go to claywork2010.blogspot.com to see what's up with that)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Laws Which Govern Exceptions

The following post was spontaneous and for future reference.


http://www.susanburnstine.com/

Susan Burnstine said in an interview that she considers her journey into fine-art photography to have begun unintentionally after making her first home-made camera.  Her main influences have been painters, Christina's World by Wyeth is a favorite.

Andrew Wyeth
Helga

Burnstine is based in Los Angeles and writes monthly for Black and White Photography (UK).

Read her interview with Ann Marie Popko here.




Suspend
From "Between" series





http://www.sidonievillere.com/

Villere has both her BFA (The Newcomb School of Art at Tulane University ) & MFA (The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth) in Ceramics and teaches the same in New Orleans (Louise S. McGehee School).

To quote from above link:
"As a sculptor, her ceramic works often use geology to shape metaphorical self-portraits. As a painter, Villere layers non-traditional materials maintaining a painterly effect while also pushing her sculptural aesthetic."

Discipline
Glaze, string and plaster on porcelain
14” x 5” x 4” each
2009 Art Melt 2nd Place Prize


The above work was found on the same blog, Inside Art New Orleans.  Thinking about what attracted me to this work reminded me of Philadelphia artist Thomas Chimes (1921-2009).

Chimes's 50 year retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art coincided with a school trip my senior year in high school.  His work notably included ghostlike paintings, metal-boxes with drawings, monochromatic white mandalas arranged as tiles on the wall.  It's hard for me not to wonder the degree to which his retrospective has affected my aesthetic - being surrounded by so many years' work of an individual so unique and so well placed in time...



Faustroll Helmet, 1984. 
Oil on canvas, 18 ? x 22 ? inches. 
Private Collection, Courtesy of Locks Gallery, Philadelphia




Set (The Descent), 1972. 
Mixed media metal box, 17 1/16 x 13 1/18 inches. 
Private Collection, Courtesy of Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.)



 Iambos II, 2005-7
Oil on 25 Panels
3x3 inches each

(images: http://www.philamuseum.org/)




Monday, November 15, 2010

Revisiting Backyard Wetclay Mandala


Disturbance

It rained! Note the sand-heavy soil of my back yard! 
Lots of marshes on this part of Earth's crust.  
Mythological has become Scientific: 
Geologic, Anthropologic 
Chronologic
(logic)


I bisqued the commercial clay pieces from the "backyard mandala" (see previous "Verb assignment" posts) with dirt still on them.  Some unexpected orang-ish dust became more evident after the firing.

I plan to display these without glazing them. Perhaps a clear coat or resin over the interesting particulates that add to their history.  

I should add My Backyard as a "location sample!" More on that (my Ceramics Handbuilding class final) [soon!]

Beth Argent Inlight 2010

October 22, the third annual public exhibition "Inlight Richmond" took place as described below. 


Beth Argent
Untitled, 2010, High fired stoneware, candles
Beth Argent's untitled piece is comprised of wheel-thrown luminaries containing tea lights arranged in an interior space. As viewers pass the space, the subtle wind affects the light cast by the flames.  The effect of the dim, flickering light creates a calming presence, soothing the worries of the viewer, providing an environment that allows for cathartic release of stressful thoughts. Argent is currently working towards her BFA in Craft and Material Studies and Virginia Commonwealth University. This is her debut exhibition.

Beth was excited with how the installation transformed as the night went on, the candles lowering and how the wax melted over the stairs...

About Inlight Richmond, by 2010 Juror Amanda McDonald Crowley:
Inlight Richmond takes as its inspiration Nuit Blanche, Light Night, or White Night events now held in over 125 cities around the world. While borrowing conceptually from the phenomena of midsummer White Nights and Festivals of Light, for Inlight Richmond,1708 Gallery invites artists from around the world to specifically respond to a different geographic location in Richmond, this year, for the third manifestation of InLight Richmond to the historic Shockoe Slip district. Artists were asked to respond to the existing urban infrastructure, bringing art out of the gallery or museum and inserting it into the cultural fabric of the city, inviting artists and audiences alike to explore a specific urban environment in creative, engaging and playful ways.
Shockoe Slip will be transformed by 39 temporary artworks and installations created by 60 artists. Taking as their referent light as a medium but also as an evocation, these works aim to activate the facades, walls, storefronts, doorways, parking lots, and alleyways of Shockoe Slip. While literally lighting up the city, in addition to light artists will employ sound, performance, ceramics, video, electronics, photography, animation, sculpture, and even surveillance technologies to help us re-imagine the urban streetscape in new ways. Inlight Richmond promises to stimulate our senses, as well as guide us in thinking about ways to re-map the city and re-imagine our future in it."
 The Exhibition took place in the four-block region approximately in the center, a cobblestone courtyard with a circular fountain marks the south-western arm of the intersection.

[Video soon!]

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

(video taken away until a more concise version is ready!)

"DEMO".  Workin it out.  Learning a lot! I'm kind of just watching myself work this out as low-tech as possible.  It's side documentation for the most part rather than anything I would call "Photography."

Experiments in photographic form, certainly.  Learning Time and Sequence, like I said - workin it out. Time to rearrange, augment, subtract.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

October!

 


bad quality acknowledged... Should update soon.  

Pics below.



face made into some sort of Bohannon green man, there is a character of a logger holding a chainsaw as the knob for the largest lid.  Here it is just seen as a lump of clay.


 individual trunks made shallow into containers, with lids (tree rings)



truck doodle.  will go into head above, back of the head is not complete but will have several portholes/frames to view diorama... this truck with a log on top...  




 made slabs, set them on top of a prismacolor drawing - the ink stayed on the wet clay.


Wet clay is a popular medium in contemporary crafts... Uber-untraditional


astronaut.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

cones etc




took these puppies out of a cone 6 kiln the other day:
(11/30/2010)

I'll use them next semester or so for a stop motion I've been planning...

Monday, September 20, 2010

"Free-loaders"

Pictures for Current ceramics project; process images further below.

 Loader on the yard.
.
 Prentice Loader, cutting down some woods, loading the logs on the truck


Same roll

 If this is a kiln, I don't know where, but from a roll near the others

Old camera - printed - reproduced - printed in a newspaper - reproduced and printed from 35mm film - digital image taken and posted online. That's my thumb. I love this. This is my mom in me.

In the cab

That's a Bohannon next to the cab. 

 
 Bohannon at the cab again.

 Bohannon forming image of family face

a nose that isn't true

 
I never knew my father to have the soft white skin he has in baby pictures.



(My) Dad
Dark-skinned from the sun, red neck because the blue collar didn't cover it all.  Moustache, butterfly kisses. But this here isn't you:  (I'm remaking some memories in clay, it's your brothers, okay?). I hope you don't mind, though it's easy enough to never let you see.  I don't show you much and you still manage to love me.





*Apparently I just want to be so honest that I make you feel embarrassed for me :) 
(gladly.)

Ceramics: encircle, encircle ii

 Encircle (height view)


 Encircle, acrylic on clay and printer paper


 Encircle ii

Encircle ii, wet stoneware clay, found (shattered) auto glass

Ceramics: systemize, flow

it was night when I pulled them out

hours had past since I threw them in to the creek

The tide had gone out and gone out and now it was 
coming back in.  The moon brought it back in.
 
 They were just jumpers on the bridge.

long white Length of string
Mandala-like surrounds clay
water below Us.




So this was an experimental sketch for class, non-traditional ways to use clay.  To clarify, balls of clay were wrapped in squares of muslin, tied with long cord and thrown into the creek as the tide was going out.  

When I came back at midnight to pull them out, the moon hadn't risen over the pines outlining the Eastern edge of the marsh.  So it was dark. It was so creepy.  And heavy... 

I half skipped back down the gravel road back to my parents' house.  Tip-toed down into the basement and rigged the dripping mass as quickly as I could - my first chance to see what I had been carrying so close to my body on the trip back home from the water.