Wellfleet

Rain in Wellfleet Harbor

On a rainy Saturday in Wellfleet, way out on the Cape, I went gallery hopping. Maybe it was the rain or the new device for photo snapping (my first smart phone), but I didn't take a single photo. However, there was an abundance of pottery and clay sculpture. Some artists I recognized from the big craft shows I visited this past season, and some were new to me, or local. One lucky lady has a studio with two kilns behind her own gallery right on Commercial Street in Wellfleet, Andre Gallery.






A gallery I enjoyed on a warm summer evening as we waited for a table at the very popular "Mac's Shack," was the Harmon Gallery. One ceramic artist was shown amidst a bevy of mostly 2D artists, and that was Cynthia Consentino.

Is there a history of Catholicism in her life, did she grow up with statues of Mary all around? What is she intending by switching out the heads, or adding arms and other additions to the Virgin's figure? The figure in the burka, a Moslem woman, and the Krishna-esque multi-armed figure seem to suggest that she recognizes other religions as equally valid or invalid, or equally worthy of inspection and dissection. Her views are not latently expressed, but I sense an open mind in the artist's approach to religion.

The Left Bank Gallery featured beautiful earthenware bowls by Emily Rossheim. Spray painted with underglazes, they genuinely did seem to glow from within. Disappointing to me is the fact that they are non-utilitarian. What a shame not to be able to use a bowl. Yet, if you have the space for it, how lovely an object a simple bowl is.










I bought no ceramic art, but in the Wellfleet Thrift store I made two great finds: a candelabra by Bengt and Lotta and a Swedish stainless sauce boat, both beautifully made and only $5 each. Back home I immediately bought white candles and found a spot for the candelabra, which really looks good anywhere.










And I bought two prints from original watercolors by Margaret Burdick at the Burdick Gallery. One of delicately painted shells and the other a view of a beautiful park where I walked twice during our stay in Wellfleet. The view is accurate, except she added a house on the island that is not there, and the more I look at it, the more bothered I am by its presence. It just looks wrong, Margaret, though otherwise, I love it. I am going to give the print away, and not mention the bothersome house.

my photo of the park shows no house on the distant island

 Yes, there is both art and natural beauty in Wellfleet. Just don't drive Rte. 6 on Sunday to try to find it.

Salt & Spice

I confess, I am very excited by a new venture for me. Already on display at the Savory Spice Shop in Princeton, NJ are some of my vessels for salt and spices.





I had met and talked with Jon Hauge, the owner of Savory Spice Shop on Spring Street about a year ago, and in the conversation he had expressed an interest in having local pottery to sell that partnered with the store's merchandise. It has taken some time, but I brought in some pieces last week to show him and he thankfully took them all off my hands on consignment.

The little spice jars are probably not very functional, but sweet and decorative. I wanted to keep them handmade and organic looking.














Made out of brown clay the smallest ones have lids that stay on with two little triangles and the larger jars in the set with a plate have a full flange on the lid. I wouldn't use them for storage, but to put on the table for serving perhaps.

I have been experimenting with lids for jars and trying different techniques. This salt cellar has a very secure lid as does a striped jar that is in the shop.













The salt pigs have no lids. Inside they have a light tan colored glaze so that you can see how much salt is in it, and the outside has a white glaze. I have tried waxy white and glossy white and I like the glossy best.










I have been in the studio this week and have 6 salt cellars on the shelf drying now, also a new attempt at a multiple section serving dish shaped like a clover leaf.

I am really fired up!

Literary House Sculptures

I recently made a series of three sculptures based on houses in literature. I'm not saying highbrow literary references are being made here. The Brothers Grimm and Edgar Alan Poe are all geniuses of course, but highbrow? No.

Rapunzel's House

The first two sculptures were made from spontaneous sketches, emerging from my unconscious self, not intellectually hashed out. "Rapunzel's House" is as simple as it can be with only two elements - the hair and the tower, and it is all that is needed to know whose house this is.

Before the Fall of the House of Usher, with Two
Lollipop Trees

The second house I made was "Before the Fall of the House of Usher, with Two Lollipop Trees." I wanted to combine the ominous with the humorous. The massive and childish lollipop trees contrast with the tiny dark house and black pool that are the physical setting of Poe's famous story.


"No lollipop trees!" That's what an art teacher might say threateningly to their young students. I thought putting them in a horror story was appropriate.

The House of Sugar Cravings,
or the Roots of Childhood Obesity

I knew I wanted a series of three so I pondered and mulled over what third literary house to create. I couldn't escape the Gingerbread House of "Hansel and Gretel." It was inevitable. It was a time consuming house to make with its shingles and cookies, not to mention three characters inhabiting the scene.
















I have been hearing a lot about childhood obesity these days. I thought there would be some irony in making the two children who find the delectable house NOT in need of fattening up.














In the original, of course, the witch needs to cage and feed Hansel to plump him up a bit, but this is a modern version of the fairy story.