Philladelphia Museum Craft Show 2014

Nathan Falter

Deena, a friend whom I first met in a ceramics class a few years ago, and I made the rounds together. We would check out each ceramic booth at the craft show, and to hell with the rest of the stuff - until after we saw all the ceramics.

We were dutiful. We were not distracted by leather handbags, fine gold or silver jewelry, felted hats, glass paperweights - nothing would keep us from our task.

There were some familiar favorite artists from last year: the wonderful Jonathan White of Maine with his large architectural lamps and gorgeous organic vases, the animal- loving Elizabeth Maurland, the clean and bold work of Eshelman Pottery and Nicole Aquillano (more on her later).

Jennifer Falter

We talked to artists, and some were enthusiastic about giving us descriptions of their working process. A few seemed utterly bored and disgruntled, as though sitting on a stool while people repeatedly asked the same questions and uttered the same banal niceties was not their very favorite way to spend their day. How very odd.

The two artists of black and white ware (above) are a married couple from Missouri. Jennifer's booth was the first clay booth we encountered. Nathan was particularly happy to describe his working process, but not nearly as much as the artist of Van Der Ven Studios. Simon told us all the steps involved in making his double walled vessels with the pierced outer wall.


I told him I would go right home and duplicate his process. Not very likely.

Though not usually considered a beautiful object, paint cans and meat grinders and other industrial objects were beautifully, even elegantly recreated in clay by Michael Schwegmann. Images were stenciled on the cans such as a child with a push broom and on another an antlered deer.

I wondered where these would look right in someone's home, I couldn't picture one on my coffee table, but he assured us that they would be incongruous, but attractive anywhere.

Both Deena and I fell for Irina Okula's work. I fell for the "Shards" pieces. They are broken, the pieces given a variety of interesting surface treatments, fired, and reassembled with epoxy.

Deena preferred the saggar pieces with their lovely soft organic bursts of color on simple bowls. She nearly sprang for a $300 bowl, but instead purchased a more affordable piece from Liz Kinder of Philadelphia.

Liz paints arabesques with wax on brown clay then adds lots of color with glaze. Of course the wax burns off and the bare clay is left exposed.

She had a very handsome booth made of metal panels and shelves, designed and, I think, made by her architect husband.

I bought this whiskey cup from Nicole K. Aquillano. I have been coveting her work for awhile and finally I succumbed. She draws on each slip cast piece by scratching and filling the lines with underglaze. The clear final glazing causes the drawings to blur and run a little.















This cup shows her childhood home in Pittsburgh both front and back on the outside of the cup, and inside (tricky to do I think) is a staircase.

Totally saturated with the abundance of ceramics, I have only touched on a few artists here, we didn't see more than a smidgen of other crafts. But the color, textures, forms of beautiful glass, weavings, and wood were hard to ignore or completely pass by.


It was a good day, being so full of the the sight of skillful and beautiful craft work.