Wood and Brains

  Love this image.  I cut up some wood from a pile of old pallets behind the studio to use as risers.  Carefully avoiding the rusty nails, I got some beauties.  I lined them up to paint it all white, then I realized that some of the pieces have wood grain that is just too beautiful to paint over.  This is the kind of grain that is only gained through age and experience; who am I to mask that with standard white?

In other news, I have been working on a large brain inspired form.  I have made it a point to never be literal in my work; it's just too easy to be literal and really doesn't say anything new.  This brain inspired form is likely to be the most directly derivative piece you will ever see come from my studio.  The overall shape is not necessarily brain-like, but the folds and movements are brain-like.

Early front view of the piece (above image)

And a back/side view

The piece from above

And the front almost finished.

I will post more images soon.  I added more to the top, and built a "peephole" in where you see the large gap in the last image.  The opposite side of the piece, where there is a large smooth spot, now has a hole cut so that I can install a resin dome post firing.  Inside the piece I am going to install lights and mirrors so that when you look through the peephole you see the resin dome on the opposite side of the piece.  I am not sure what I will be casting in the resin dome, but I am open to suggestions! (perhaps a neuron...)  I think it will be a really exciting piece in which the viewer gets to be the scientist and peer into the brain, discovering what is on the other side...

Have a lovely week everyone!

Finished a new wall installation!

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a wonderful fall and holiday season!

 I finished a new wall installation last week! I had it up just for a day before it got whisked away to the exchange show at Flux Studios in DC. Tell me what you think please!! Here are some images:

Neuro Stratus wall installation

Whew, I worked so hard on this piece. I had to take a mental break after I sent it away.  It was basically all I worked on for almost a month.  I had separation anxiety for a bit when it first left, haha.  But I am very excited to have completed another large wall piece. 

I was hoping for a break after I sent this piece out, you know, chill down a bit and get ready for the holidays.  But then I got invited last minute to a group show at the Craft Guild of Southern Highlands.  Word on the street is everyone got notified last minute, which isn't so exciting to accommodate.  But, of course, since its a good gallery and a great opportunity, I accepted the invitation.  When I go home to Stl, I expect to do nothing but sit on my arse and consume tastey goodies in the comfort on my families' homes! 

I hope you all enjoy the pictures!!  Til next time...!

Turkeyday and Sending work to DC!

   The residents are busily preparing to send work off at the end of this week!  We are participating in an exchange show with the residents from Flux Studio.  Their work is super fantastic, and I feel very honored to participate in an exchange with them!  More information about the exchange here:  Flux/Odyssey Exchange Show

Here is the card for our show at the Flux Studio in DC:  

      I posted images in my last post of the wall piece I am making in progress.  I am nearly finished with this piece, and hopefully will have images up soon.  It leaves for DC Friday, so I am expecting a very productive week to finish it up!  


      Also.....I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!! My two younger siblings came down from Illinois for a visit.  We had a fantastic time! I showed them the mountains, and we went hiking.  This is super exciting for flatlanders from the Midwest!!

 Here is me in my 1950s house-wifery from baking the turkey.  (ps. you should know I wore heels while I did the cooking, in true June Cleaver form!)

Here is the four of us, left to right, Julie, Jared (my man friend), me, and Tony:
 

At the base of a waterfall we climbed down...Julie dropped her phone into it...
 

Soon I will post the images of the wall piece finished!  Also, I took images of new work a short while ago, and should have some of those up in the next week or so as well...

Hope everyone had a lovely start to their holidays!!

Is this real life?!

  Hello! Hello! Hope you all are having a happy fall!  My studio is looking crazy!!  I have been working crazy hard getting ready for all the fall sales I have had going on with the resident studio and WePot, the women's collective I am in.  Also, there has been an onslaught of show deadlines for me this fall.  It was nice to have so much work getting out there, but damn, I am tired!  No, in reality I am really grateful for all the invitations and opportunities.  I have one major show deadline left before the end of November, and I am working on a wall installation for it.  The show is an exchange show between Odyssey resident artists and Flux Studios resident artists organized by Handmade in America.  I am super excited since opportunities for showing installations can be hard to find. The piece is going to have a surface similar to some recent wall pieces, and a format similar to a mixed media wall piece I did awhile ago for a solo in IL:

When you study the parts, the whole disappear

  

Ex.: Molecular Plasticity

Getting this surface involves many, many layers of color application.  I have to wait between layers while each dries.  So in the meantime, I am working on some drawings and also decorating a few pots.  My studio is super disorganized from so many things going on at once!

 

    On my table is the wall piece I am working on, on the shelves back there is a few drawings soaking, and the tiny table with my blue bottle is my decorating station for some pots.  Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

Here are a couple in progress shots of the decorating process for my wall piece.:

 

Can't wait to get this done and post some images of the finished piece!

Learning lessons from the Ladies' Man

Ah, yes.  As Leon Phelps once put it "Shit will work out. Shit will randomly work out!" And it has. 

I came back to Asheville from my Snow Farm summer and had to deal with lots of stuff.  Getting some work pumped out for shows, finding a new place, finding a new job, and dealing with what we Snow Farm instructors like to call "Post-Snow Farm Depression".  This is the month it takes you to get over missing Snow Farm and all the wonderfulness and amazing people, teachers and students both included.

So how did shit work out? Well we found a new place literally days before our old lease ran out.  I was stressing hard core.  During the move, after a month of looking, I finally found an awesome job! Literally, we moved into the new place and 2 days later I started this new gig. I am working for a slip caster nearby in Brevard, NC.  The project we are working on is making the street name tiles that will be set into the sidewalks in New Orleans.  Pretty awesome.  Here is an article about the project and Nick
(the artist on the project): http://www.nola.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2010/01/post_102.html  The team Nick has working for him is serious quality and I am so excited for how much I am going to learn working with all of them. 

I finished some new wall boxes.  I am pretty excited about their surfaces. Here are a couple:

I have been incorporating more references to physics and gotten pretty darn good at painting Times New Roman in size 14 font. We won't talk about the time one word takes.

So, when I returned I was pretty stressed about finding a new place, new job, getting work to all the shows I had lined up...So I have taken care of all that! YAAY!  But no time to relax, now I have to integrate my new work schedule into my studio schedule, and make work for a large exchange show that is going to DC and make some stuff for various other this and thats.  These are good problems to have. 

We had our opening last Friday for the resident exchange show with St. Pete Clay.  The opening was tons of fun.  We definitely felt the absence of recently moved on (as in to new opportunities, not the other "moved on") residents.  It wasn't the same without Erin and Bailey to celebrate with.  We performed some of their dance moves to bring their spirit to the opening. We also took this picture so we could have a picture with them, or as close as we could get:

 

   We miss you guys!!!

Also, I am really excited about the wall installation I am working on for the Flux exchange show.  The layout is going to be similar to the piece below, but instead of having fabric in the center its going to be all clay. The surface will be treated similar to the wall boxes pictured above.  I am really excited and I can't wait to see it finished!

 

So, more to come soon!   Best to you all!



.

well hello again...life?

Hi all!

I've been a busy beaver, and haven't had time to post in a while.  Just got back to NC 2 weeks ago from being at Snow Farm Craft Program for the past month.  I taught ceramics for the high school summer program.  Living among incredible artists and highly motivated young minds for a month, wow. It was aaammaaaazing!!!  It took me about 4 days to unpack, and sleep off the 16 hour drive amidst teaching kids summer camp at Odyssey the day I rolled back into town.  Then my partner's brother visited, which was a crazy fantastic time!!

Now, I can finally get back to my studio and produce some work.  I feel very honored to say that I have several shows soon on the horizon, which means I will be living in my studio! goodbye life!

Right before I left I pulled some pieces out of the kiln that I am still excited over. Here are a couple:

  I can't wait to make more of these pieces.  I am currently working on finishing up 5 wall boxes in my studio.  I have some exciting ideas for a couple mixed media/drawing pieces and also will be starting a new wall installation.  One of these days I will become a consistent blogger.  I just, well, computers and internet stuff is annoying.  I like real life. and art. I really like art. (and craft beer)

Good day lovelies.

Just a quick peek

I have been having so much fun working on these new wall boxes I made!! Combining opaque and transparent materials on the surface of clay is really doing it for me; I am really excited about the direction these are going! (note: these are studio shots, not portfolio shots!)

 

   I have been reading a book about string theory lately.  I never took physics in college or high school, and I really wish I had!! What fun those ideas are!! They make me really giddy!  I need to get a good book on Einstein's theory of everything, if anyone wants to recommend one... I am very interested and think it would bring together many of the ideas I already have been playing with concerning mind vs brain, human compulsion to measure (even when we don't really know what the measurements mean...like in the search to find measurements for the mind), and the idea that the mind holds a universe within itself (within the larger universe we live in, ahhhh!!)

 Anywho,  these are inspired by neuroscience, the act of measuring infinity, circles, and my recent reading in physics.

I hope you like!!