Stone Art

I like to pick up stones on the beach and take them with me. While idling away one afternoon in Cape Cod, I started drawing on one. My Prismacolor pencils were handy and the smooth green stone's shape suggested a cartoonish face. This is the first stone face I made.









And in order of completion, here are the others:

Sometimes there were holes in the stone that suggested mouths or eyes. A pretty face they did not make.

This last group picture shows all the faces on the reverse side of all the stones, except the last one, the man with blue hair. It doesn't have a face on the other side. 

It's not hard to match them up - they're all such different shapes. I did this for fun, and that's the main reason I do art these days. On the other hand, sometimes I think I'm working too hard. But fun can be hard work, at least clay work is hard. These stones? They were just fun.

360 View of Raisin Studio

The studio is tidy so I took the opportunity to record in images what it looks like today.

two tables pushed together are my work surface

finished ware

As you walk in the door, this is what you see.

L&L Kiln

empty shelves, full kiln

No  running water in the studio, so buckets supply our needs.












A stereo with CD, tape, iPod and radio keeps me company in the long hours I spend here.





I work facing the double doors so I can see out into the garden.

The total square footage is about 144 square feet. Lately I have shared the space with a student who I instruct in the basics of hand building. During the 3 hours she is here, I also work. However I usually do some finishing rather than full scale projects when we work together.

The kiln is loaded ready for the bisque firing.
My student has made the violin box and the leaf shaped dish. Good job, yes?

Salt Pig Glazed

I had meant to post this fellow complete with glaze that was pictured before firing in August.

It needs a name to differentiate between it and the plain salt pigs. Maybe, "Opie." No reference to the Andy Griffith Show character, but primarily named for its gaping maw. I like to give things names.

Here is its predecessor, Bizzaro Salt Pig with its spoon holder and the most beautifully glazed spoon one could imagine (keep faith, I tell myself, sometimes it happens).

Salt pigs with names. This may become a series, we shall see.

Style in Clay and Glazing

Brown speckled clay.

In the making mode, I am near to using up 50 lbs. of it to fill the kiln with some pieces I made of a whimsical nature ("Tree Woman," sculpture) between bouts of making utilitarian ware (spice shakers, spoon rests). I am pleased with the forms. However, now I am more than ever overwhelmed at choosing the right glaze or surface treatment. The more I learn the more choices I have.

I have been looking at glaze websites, Youtube, videos on Ceramics Arts Daily and Facebook (there is an Amaco Potter's Choice glazes page) for tips and new ideas. I ordered three new glazes in "spice" colors. though I have a shelf full of glazes, I want, I think, I NEED more, and still I have a formidable task to pick just three.

I have Mayco, Amaco, Coyote, and Spectum glazes. Experimenting, searching, looking for the glaze that will become my trusty friend, and be identified with me, my style.

So far, I am all over the place and have no style, I know it. I would rather it emerged on its own rather than be manufactured because I should have one.  That's why I keep cranking out ideas and trying new techniques. Maybe I am not ready for a style yet. Maybe I have one and don't see it. Maybe it's okay either way. I really try to, and do, enjoy the clay and try not to get too identified* with the El's Clay "image."

The image of El's Clay? Here it is.

What is my style?

*see writings of George Gurdjieff on the meaning of "identified" that I use here.

Lee Bontecou

This drawing is taller than I am (and also wider, should you be wondering) and constructed from three pieces of canvas stitched together and mounted on a round stretcher.  It is the first thing you view when  you walk into the exhibit of drawings by Lee Bontecou currently at the Princeton University Art  Museum.

I was already familiar with Bontecou's sculptures. I found them mysterious and spooky, and a little ooky, too, not unlike some object you might find hanging on the wall of the Addams family's parlor. She welds the pieces together and adds fabric, molded plastic and found objects, and often favors sharp pointed teeth made out of saw blades. 

She's American, born in 1931, the same year as my mother, and she is still producing art.  

The drawings are very expressive emotionally. Pousette-Dart, star of yesterday's post, is also expressive but in a more spiritual way. Bontecou is more visceral, illustrated by this large drawing. it's hard not to feel the fierce threat of the talon shapes and dread the possible route through them to the light beyond. Fear.






I wouldn't dismiss the element of spirituality as well in some pieces, especially ones based on a circle form. However, she seems to be playing more often with ideas about the relationships, hostilities and threats that exist between the natural world and the civilized, man-made world.

I played the favorites game with my companion, and I chose this one. It suggests a place, maybe in the future, maybe on another planet. I said I liked the round shapes. Yes, I preferred them to the talons.

The blacks she is able to achieve on her paper are accomplished by passing a welding torch over it leaving a deep black soot. Bontecou uses this in drawings much like you would use charcoal, but it is even blacker.

It's an amazing exhibit.
I recommend it and invite you to see it before it's gone.

Pousette-Dart

I saw two inspiring art exhibits this week:  first, Lee Bontecou drawings at the Princeton Art Museum and second Richard Pousettte-Dart at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I took lots of photos at the Philly show so I will write about that first.






As a member, I was informed of a members only preview of the new exhibit of Pousette-Dart at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday evening. A lot of people were in the museum to hear jazz in their "Art After Five" series, and I think anyone who wished could pop in to the show, member or not. The exhibit was in two rooms only - it's not one of those mega-shows - a very manageable size for all attention spans.

Here is a large painting and a detail showing the mix of art media and the copious mark making that he favors. He is all about marks and experimentation with drawing and painting materials, combining disparate tools and substances.

One collage was in the exhibit. It also has a variety of materials from foil to paper bags to printed boxes and signs.

Upon the Land Of Greece

A talented colorist as well, there were some outstanding watercolors done later in his career.

One of the sketchbooks that were included in the show:











And another that states: "black and white is the guts of all color...the extacy (sic) of abstract beauty."












Almost half of the work in the show was black and white. "Implosion" is a large graphite drawing with a scratched out center. Surprisingly, it's fascinating to look at close up, simple as it is.

Room of Mirrors

Pattern appears frequently in his compositions.

The Trace Print of Shadow

And seemingly random compositions improvised from what may by sudden impulses. I sense he can both improvise and organize to both extremes and also meld the two without conflict.














Some of the black and whites were favorites of mine, but hard to choose among such a plethora of powerful and interesting pieces. Yet, I like to play the game of choosing a favorite, so one did "jump out at me." It really did, although it is one of the more serene images, in a way, yet also a very active one. How can that be?

Night Voyager

 I don't like to buy art books nowadays because I have so many that I never look at, but I bought the museum's book/catalogue. Excellent! The whole show is in there. I came home and looked through it and was delighted to see again all the images I so admired that evening.

Kat L. with an R. P-D

Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble

By the way, the jazz was highly entertaining, and a preview of the upcoming jazz festival coming to Philly Sept. 20.

http://www.philaunitedjazzfestival.com/

TCNJ Art Show

Last evening I arrived wearing my self tie-dyed poncho to the opening reception of The College of New Jersey Alumni Show to a gallery crowded with people. Displayed effectively by gallery head Emily Croll was artwork by 30 artists selected by juror Sara Reisman.

(l-r) ?, Bonnie Berkowitz, Barbara Atwood

I showed in the last alumni show 4 years ago which I remember as an exciting show. This year's show also had work by recent graduates and alums from longer ago.

Friends from my chorus, Sarah and Anita

I graduated in 1990 and had work done in the past 3 years in the show. I was puzzled to see some work in the show from the 1970's. I would have liked to see what alumni are doing NOW.

Looking in the eyes of a photograph by Katie Petrillo '11

Work I thought was interesting were some color pencil drawings by Bonnie Berkowitz, now a professor of Art Therapy at Caldwell University. I was introduced to her by another alum, Barbara Atwood. I also liked a wall relief by Michael Pyrdsa and a watercolor portrait in black and gray by Teri McCans.

In front of the wall sculpture by Michael Pyrdsa with Barb

My work was set up in a grouping on pedestals of three different heights, which I thought worked very well. They are sculptures done at different times and side by side had no relationship I thought, but somehow they do seem to have commonalities displayed this way - they seem to speak to each other. What are they saying? It bears thinking about.

"Hmmmm..."