Redstar Studios Holiday Shop!

 I'm very excited to be a part of the holiday shop at Redstar Studios this year.  They do it up right!  And remember.......Big gifts come in little packages.  Stop by if your in the Kansas City area.  

"Oh No Pinky"

Whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito

"Devil Dog"

Whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito

"Oh No Pinky"

Whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito

Happy Holidays!

Art's Alive Exhibition

~ Art's Alive Exhibition ~

I've been a real night owl lately burning the candle at both ends and the middle trying to complete a few new pieces of sculpture for an exhibition that opens tomorrow night in La Conner.   "Art's Alive" is an annual weekend to celebrate the Art's and La Conner's reputation as an art centric community.  I was fortunate to be asked to participate this year in the invitational show.  As always I used every last moment to prepare the work and I dropped of the final piece this morning ( Pictured below).

The 6 works that I'm showing are made of ceramic or paper and range in size from 12 inches in height (top picture) to 6 feet in height "Hutch" pictured directly above.

The show will be at Maple Hall, 104 Commercial St. in La Conner and will be open to view Friday, November 4th from 10 am - 4 pm, Saturday,  10-5pm, and Sunday, 10-4pm.  Admission is free but the artist reception on Friday night from 5-9pm will cost you $8.  Maybe I'll see you there.

Pressure

I was recently invited to participate in a large group show at a local gallery.
It wasn't much notice considering my primary medium is ceramics and you just can't knock that out over night, so I was forced to think outside the box and come up with a way to produce my work in differently.  In my position as director and curator of a design house called "hutch studio", I focus on the idea of resourceful art.  I'm repurposing anything I can get my hands on and cardboard has been the material of choice lately.  If you have read any of my previous posts you know.  In my ceramic work I never buy premixed boxed clay.  I'm a bit of a purist at times.  I mix my own clay body, the same one that I've been using since my risd days, but at the college where I teach ceramics we empty many a clay box and I've always had to flatten them and carry them out to the recycling bin.  Not any more. I'm using them to create my sculptures!  Below are two images of my sculpture. The one on the left is ceramic and the one on the right is the piece that I just completed repurposing cardboard clay boxes.

Now I'm not saying that I'm giving up the mud or anything, but I do recognize that there are advantages and drawbacks to working with the cardboard.  I will definitely continue using it in some capacity.  It was fun! The thing I really want to talk about in the post is the fact that putting yourself into a high pressure situation can often produce great results.  In the first year of art school it became evident that the cream would rise to the top and the weeds would be pulled.  This experience really did remind me of old school days and nights, and nights, and nights. The difference for me is that back then I didn't have a full time job, a part time job, a wife, and toddler.  Back then you could push yourself to the brink of total exhaustion in order to complete an idea and nobody else could get hurt. Finding a way to get into the studio to create the work that truly comes from a personal place can be a huge challenge.  But if it wasn't for challenge life would be quite blah.  
And how do we find time for reality TV. I'm talking about the good shows. I really do watch "Project Runway" and "Top Chef" because of the creative challenges.  Under the gun, when the clock is ticking down, you discover if you have what it takes. You know..... the artistic "stuff".  Tim Gunn knows what I'm saying.