Underneath a large pumpkin I found a "grub" - Commence magnified Video

(video still)

 

(video still)

 

(~00:02:00 ->movement!)

shadow sketches on super skinny wrists

        (kidnapped two people on their way out of the studio...

                                    this is personal reference material...)

As has been typical, this is unedited - though it has some really great bits.
I suggest turning sound off the video (traffic...)

Loupe (8x-18x) plus video-camera digital zoom
Video features a few clovers, a couple bugs, and a wire sculpture made from brazed and hand-filed 14g brass wire, aprox 5'' in height, submerged in the grass.

This was not the intended documentation of the piece, so that's still to come.

(VCU Jewelry/Metalsmithing Course: "Mechanisms" 2011 w/Stephanie Voegele)

 

Gessoed Bisque-ware played by Nevin Kight (preview)

From collected crystal clay earth mush, wedged to airless ball shapes slapped onto a wheel and moistened, pushed to pulling up and opened out, cut off wrapped up and waiting on a shelf.  Fired to over 1600*F and again waiting on the shelf.  Brought home and set in a hallway, bottoms pierced, body covered in white polymer goo, waiting in a bucket, frequently tripped over for about a month, finally hung and played.

Oh no...

I seem to have forgotten April... Oh... oh my...

This is one of those space-saving posts, final photos soon.  Right here. Yup.

astro-biocentrism

http://www.radiolaria.org/what_are_radiolarians.htm

...1)...with solid skeletal elements of simple opaline silica...

Radiolarians have existed since the beginning of the Paleozoic era, producing an astonishing diversity of intricate shapes during their 600 million year history. 

The central capsule . .  enclosed in a membrane . .  contains not only the nucleus but mitochondria (respiratory organelles) and Golgi bodies (secretory organelles), as well as vacuoles, lipid droplets, and food reserves. Reproduction, respiration, and biochemical synthesis are functions carried out in the central capsule.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton are also crucially dependent on minerals.

While almost all phytoplankton species are obligate photoautotrophs, there are some that are mixotrophic and other, non-pigmented species that are actually heterotrophic (the latter are often viewed as zooplankton).

The term phytoplankton encompasses all photoautotrophic microorganisms in aquatic food webs.

...unlike terrestrial communities, where most autotrophs are plants, phytoplankton are a diverse group, incorporating protistan eukaryotes and both eubacterial and archaebacterial prokaryotes.

There are about 5,000 known species of marine phytoplankton.


https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bacteriophage

A bacteriophage (from 'bacteria' and Greek φᾰγεῖν phagein "to eat") is any one of a number of viruses that infect bacteria. Bacteriophages are among the most common biological entities on Earth.^[1] The term is commonly used in its shortened form, phage.



In July 2007, the same bacteriophages were approved for use on all food products.^[17] Government agencies in the West have for several years been looking to Georgia and the Former Soviet Union for help with exploiting phages for counteracting bioweapons and toxins, such as anthrax and botulism.

MARCH!!!!!

Mostly a chrono-space saving post.  No more room for pictures currently, time for a good full-blog edit.  Turn things to pdfs, etc.

Making noises and being with people, pushing moistened minerals into rotationally symmetrical vessels, loving the chemistry of oxides and digging around with thermodynamics. 

Interest in record technology extends from photo, film, to sound. Film chemistry deserves research in the nearing future.

Petro arts and earth mounds this summer.  USA please, yes.  Ok geology.  'Sa.

Word, y'all.

Teapot made using Solid Tools in Sketchup8.  The program is not vector-based and its ability to mock up realistic objects is approximate - great for problem solving an environment.

 sketchup.google.com.

http://dtti.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/che-mangino-brioche-digital-rococo/

Happy 2nd Birthday, CalmCraft :)

Yesterday (it's 12:35am Monday) made two years that Calm Craft has been up with increasingly consistent posts  -  albeit they've become less directly about my work of late.  The aim of my energy is being directed toward the eventual mobilization of a modern library/art action unit. Semantics and Tangents aside, *yay*.
It just so happened I bought a domain name and soon I'll decide on a host :) yea, sunn
calmcraft.org
But you can still use this address (calmcraft.blogspot.com) to get here.

More soon, as usual.

Happy New Year.

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

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.

Morandi and me

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

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/)

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!]

(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.

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.

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...