Rare Find

DailyMail: An auctioneer holds the Egyptian jar used as a garden ornament for 20 years

DailyMail (uk): Owner of garden patio ornament is told it's actually an ancient Egyptian artefact

A garden ornament that had been sitting on a patio for 20 years has turned out to be a rare, 3,000 year old ancient Egyptian jar.

The 13inch-high vessel was made during the time of the pharaohs to hold the organs of the dead ready for the afterlife.

With a distinctive top in the style of a face and easily recognisable headdress, the Canopic funerary jar had blended into its surroundings in an English garden for two decades.

[]

The terracotta jar with the top shaped with the face of the god Imseti was built to hold a human liver. The goddess Isis would have protected it.

Dating from the New Kingdom - 1550-1069 BC - the brown-coloured jar would once have been a painted receptacle fit for a pyramid.

The Arts Go First

Looks like I'm losing my studio space. The Worcester Craft Center, where I have rented space for the past two years, has announced it is closing its doors for a "strategic pause" [pdf file]. To me, strategic pause sounds very ominous. The Board is basically giving up and putting out an APB for funding. I'm not sure whether to use the past tense or the present tense in writing this post. The Center took the studio renters money for January so we are allowed to continue to use our spaces until the end of the month; but there are no longer any employees at the Center. No classes, no gift shop, no one to pay for supplies or clay, no one to fire the kilns, no one to maintain the equipment.

Everyone but the Executive Director was fired yesterday; a few people will stay on for a day or two, but that's it. They even closed the gift shop so apparently bringing in modest amounts of money is not considered important. (The gift shop was profitable.) The glass studio which is in a separate building is now offering all kinds of rentals, of space and different kinds of equipment.

The Craft Center has been in financial straits for years and the economic crisis has made things worse. Here's the financial situation according to the Telegram:

The decision, reached at a trustees meeting Monday night, came after pressure from creditors and a significant decline in tuition, donations and other revenue added up to a shortfall of about $700,000, said David J. Firstenberg, president of the board of trustees. To reopen, the center needs about $1.2 million, to retire debt and finance a restart, he said, while acknowledging that that is a steep challenge in the current economic climate.

Last summer, the Center for Crafts had just begun to recover from several years of serious financial struggles. The board had worked hard to stabilize the venerable institution, Ms. Walzer had been hired as a permanent director after a period when the position had been a revolving-door, and a $1.2 million capital campaign was showing promise. The board had hoped to use some of the money to rebuild the staff after several rounds of budget cuts in recent years had gutted it. There was no marketing director or accountant on staff, for example, and several craft areas languished without department heads.

Then, in October, the recession deepened and the money flow ebbed. Some capital campaign pledges didn’t come through, and investment portfolios deflated. Tuition revenue declined as prospective students became more conservative with spending.

[]

The craft center is hampered in borrowing its way out of the crisis by the debt it has already incurred. Among major creditors are vendors such as utilities and printers, who are owed about $140,000. “A significant portion of that is over 90 days and so we’ve been stringing vendors along and that gets dicey after a while,” Mr. Firstenberg said.

There also is a substantial institutional debt. The Non-Profit Funding Foundation loaned the craft center $330,000 in 2004, on which $290,000 is still owed. “We’ve been making interest-only payments for a period of time and they’ve been, not at all inappropriately, asking when we were going to begin making principal payments,” Mr. Firstenberg said. The Commonwealth National Bank in Worcester, where the craft center does most of its banking, also has been receiving interest-only payments on loans totaling about $29,000, he said. Other debt is in friendlier hands, he said, friends of the institution that had made loans last fiscal year to help hold the center over until pledge money came in.

I stopped in yesterday afternoon to check on the work which came out of the soda kiln the Monday before Christmas. (Which turned out really well, BTW.) The lights were off, but I figured that there was just no one in working. Nope. The head of the clay studio broke the bad news to me; of course, it's far worse for him, a loyal 15-year-professional who is out of a job. Apparently rumors had been swirling around the entire time I've been gone, so at least I missed the anticipatory anxiety. I just get the thud of loss and stress.

Angry deep thought: If the Craft Center had had the foresight to change its name to Worcester Center for Banking and Crafts a few years ago, we could fill out a two page form [pdf file] and get a billion dollars from Hank Paulsen.

This is a tragedy for the city of Worcester. The schoolkids who took classes at the Center, the high school students in the Teen Apprentice Program, all the adults who have taken classes, all will miss the school. Of course, part of the problem that the Crafts Center has had is that it is not the most well-known of Worcester's cultural institutions. PR was never their strong suit.

The clay studio is the largest of the Craft Center's areas by number of students, and that community will want to stay together. One of the great things about the Craft Center is the ability to work in a collegial atmosphere, with everyone getting great ideas and inspiration from each other. If the Center does close that will be my priority, being able to stay in touch and work near some of the artists I've met and become good friends with.

A sad day.


Worcester Telegram: Center for Crafts shuts doors

Slide Show: Worcester Craft Center Over the Years

Worcester Craft Center

Strategic Pause letter from WCC (pdf)

New Street Glass Studio Hot Shop Rental Rates

More Inspiration

A clay man sports an elaborate headdress at the Museum of Archaeology in Campeche, Mexico, which features various such depictions of ancient Maya in traditional dress.
(Paul Ross)

Experts describe the terra-cotta statuettes as the finest figurine art of ancient America. The museum in Campeche houses one of the most complete collections of Maya art in Mexico.
(Paul Ross)

Archaeologists say the Maya figures were buried with each deceased person on the island of Jaina, as many as 10,000 in all.
(Paul Ross)

Less politics, more art. From this Los Angeles Times travel section article.

OBAMAWARE!

An Ayumi Horie mug Photoshopped into Obama's hand

Ebay store: Obamaware

The OBAMAWARE SALE will now go live on October 19th, Sunday night 8pm EST and will be up as an auction for 3 days. There will be a Buy It Now option, which will be first come, first serve as soon as it goes live. Please register on Ebay beforehand so that you will be ready to bid.

Thank you for all your good wishes and support and good luck bidding!!

Go Obama/Biden!

From 27 of the best ceramic artists in the country, an online sale featuring Obama-Biden specific pots in limited editions.

You can preview the work available here.

Pottery and politics, together at last.

OBAMAWARE!

Organized by Ayumi Horie (I own two of her mugs) 20 potters have made pottery to raise money for Barack Obama. Preview of the work available here. The sale was supposed to start tomorrow, but their server crashed, so now it will take place on Monday.

I'll post further information on the sale once it's online.

Your Daily Inspiration

I think my next mug will be a Tiki Mug:



hat tip to BoingBoing

Summer Museum Trip: Grounds for Sculpture

Huge sculpture collection (35 acres) on view in Hamilton, New Jersey, about 75 minutes south of New York City. Right now there's a ceramic sculpture exhibit that looks fascinating.

“Untitled” (1988) by Toshiko Takaezu.

NYTimes: Masterful Sculptures, Formed of Clay

Grounds for Sculpture, a 35-acre sculpture park and museum on the site of the former New Jersey State fairgrounds, is perhaps best appreciated in the fall, when the landscaped grounds are a paintbox of color. But the summer also holds appeal, when marquee exhibits open in two exhibition spaces, known as the museum and the domestic arts building.

This summer is no different. Currently on display is “Masters in Clay,” a thoughtful two-part exhibition of contemporary American clay artists. In the museum are works by Toshiko Takaezu and Peter Voulkos, two of the most important and widely admired 20th-century American artists working in clay. In the domestic arts building next door are works by five other contemporary clay artists who have been influenced in different ways by Mr. Voulkos and Ms. Takaezu.

Grounds for Sculpture

Collection: List of Artists Exhibited at Grounds for Sculpture

How To Be Creative

Interesting meditation on creativity by public radio's Ira Glass:



Last night in the studio someone asked me, why are you making so many pears? This is really the answer. Making lots of work is how you get better at what you do.

Hat tip to Jeannette Zeis Vessels & Wares

Around the Blogroll

flickr: SI Neg. 92-96. Date: 1992...Snake motif pottery. ..Credit: Laurie Minor-Penland (Smithsonian Institution)

A few matters I've been meaning to write about:

(1) I've been looking at pottery on the internet lots lately, and found a great post on Emily Murphy's Pottery Blog listing 63 blogs that she reads. 63! Eventually I need to add a category of pottery blogs to my blogroll, but not today as taxes loom.

(2) Alas, the best women's soccer blog, USA Women's Soccer, is no more. That's good news for the blogger, however, as she's been hired by the new Women's Professional Soccer League and will be maintaining the WPS website.

(3) Don to Earth is back! Still not updating a lot, but I love the world's oldest blogger's take.

New Work

 

This is a plate I made for the Worcester Craft Center's pasta dinner fundraiser. I liked it so much I bought it back! Now I'm working on an entire series to match.

For the pottery geeks out there, it's a combination of temmoku and rutile blue glazes, fired in a cone 10 electric kiln.

 

Another view

George Bush's Broken Legacy

Saad khalaf / Los Angeles Times
Reportedly George Bush has spent a lot of time recently thinking and talking about his legacy. The looting of the Iraqi museums and cultural sites will be one of the most shameful things he leaves behind.

LATimes: 'Ancient civilization . . . broken to pieces'
Illegal diggers are chipping away at Iraq's heritage at thousands of largely unguarded sites. The artifacts may never be returned.

Officials at the Iraq National Museum receive antiquities recovered from recent excavations in southern Iraq.
(Saad khalaf / Los Angeles Times)

In An Octopus's Garden*

chosun.com (South Korea): Octopus Discovers Koryo Pottery

Kim Yong-chul, a 58-year-old fisherman from Taean, South Chungcheong Province, dreamed of swimming before going to work on May 18, which is believed to bring luck. To catch webfoot octopus, which like to hide in shells, he had scattered hundreds of spiny turban shell bait on the shore the day before. When he pulled in the bait, he found some pottery pieces stuck to the suckers of webfoot octopus. One animal was attached to a plate dating to the Koryo period.

Kim reported the find to authorities, and the National Maritime Museum conducted an urgent excavation. Around the spot where the octopus was caught, they found 30 pieces of 12th century Koryo pottery with chrysanthemum or vine patterns. “It seems that a ship carrying Koryo pottery in 12th century was wrecked there,” a spokesman with National Maritime Museum said on Monday. “The unearthed pottery is not of the highest quality made for royals, but it nonetheless shows the beauty of Koryo pottery.” The museum plans to start a full excavation at the beginning of July and assumes that the wreck will be found nearby.

The title of this post comes from the Beatles song, written by Ringo Starr.

A Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion

Worcester Craft Center
25 Sagamore Road
Worcester, MA 01605
508-753-8183

The Worcester Craft Center, where I take ceramics classes, is having a Studio Sale (pdf link) on March 24th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All the studios in the center will be represented (clay, glass, photography, metals/jewelry, textiles, and wood) though I think there will be more pottery than anything else, as we are the largest and most active studio.

Brave (or crazy) soul that I am, I have signed up to sell my pots. No, those pictures up there aren't of my work, although they are available in the Center's gift shop. I do mostly handbuilding, and those pieces are all thrown on a wheel. I took a couple of wheel throwing classes, but wheel throwing is a much more physical process than handbuilding, as you lean and use your whole body as your hands push the clay into place, always fighting the spinning of the wheel. It tired me out. I wish I'd started at a younger age. I do love handbuilding though. There's nothing like playing with clay to clear your mind.

I am currently unpacking the many boxes of work in my spare room deciding what is good enough to sell, and then deciding how to price things. I'm bringing tiles, Christmas ornaments, vases, platters, and several raku pieces that aren't functional. (Raku is a Japanese firing technique where you take the pieces out of an outdoor kiln while they're red hot and quickly cool them. You get great colors, but the work isn't sealed and isn't food safe. Just fun to look at.) I have to get over my inner critic voice which sees the flaw in every pot rather than the beauty. So, stop by and check us out. There's a bake sale, too.

I wish I was as talented as my wheel throwing teacher, Kristen Kieffer. Check out her website:

Kristen Kieffer Ceramics

Calling All Collectors

One of my favorite pieces of art is a collage/mosaic/sculpture displayed at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery in DC. It's called "Game Fish", by artist Larry Fuente, and it's a huge blue marlin completely covered with old game pieces. Here's a pic of the head only (the entire piece is over 6 feet long.)



Today I saw a sculpture that reminded me of my beloved Game Fish. And you can commission your own, if you have a few grand to throw around:

Lost Found Art
Antique & Vintage Collections & Objects

"Betty" is a custom made sculpture based on the turn of the century memory jar concept. Memory jars were vessels such as tea pots, jugs and milk bottles that were covered in a clay like substance in which various found and keepsake objects were pressed into before it dried. Everything from shards of broken pottery to medallions, keys, buttons, doll parts, pins, vintage jewlery, anything the maker chose was applied. In this case we use the female form as our base. But expand greatly on both the types of items used and the amount of pieces. Each figure measures 30" x 16" x 7" and contains 3000 to 4000 pieces. Items such as old watch and watch parts, vintage Cracker Jack prizes, old train tokens, vintage and antique political and social pins, vintage jewlery, old toys, medals, glass beads and much more. The list goes on and on. We encourage our customers to contribute, if they wish a few small keepsakes such as, pins, badges, buttons, broken costume jewlery, small photographs (which are returned undamaged after they are copied, reduced and aged before applying). This adds a more personal touch to each sculpture made. Waiting time is 4 months for each piece. Click on last image for blown up image.

I saw this on BoingBoing.

Ancient Celestial Observatory Found in Peru

GATEWAY: Archeologist Robert Benfer’s team found this clay sculpture of a frowning face at the Buena Vista site near Lima. The disk, marks the position of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.
(Robert Benfer / University of Missouri)

LATimes: Celestial Find at Ancient Andes Site
The discovery in Peru of a 4,200-year-old temple and observatory pushes back estimates of the rise of an advanced culture in the Americas.

Archeologists working high in the Peruvian Andes have discovered the oldest known celestial observatory in the Americas — a 4,200-year-old structure marking the summer and winter solstices that is as old as the stone pillars of Stonehenge.

The observatory was built on the top of a 33-foot-tall pyramid with precise alignments and sightlines that provide an astronomical calendar for agriculture, archeologist Robert Benfer of the University of Missouri said.

The people who built the observatory — three millenniums before the emergence of the Incas — are a mystery, but they achieved a level of art and science that archeologists say they did not know existed in the region until at least 800 years later.

Among the most impressive finds was a massive clay sculpture — an ancient version of the modern frowning "sad face" icon flanked by two animals. The disk, protected from looters beneath thousands of years of dirt and debris, marked the position of the winter solstice.

"It's really quite a shock to everyone … to see sculptures of that sophistication coming out of a building of that time period," said archeologist Richard L. Burger of Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the discovery.

The find adds strong evidence to support the recent idea that a sophisticated civilization developed in South America in the pre-ceramic era, before the development of fired pottery sometime after 1500 BC.

Benfer's discovery "pushes the envelope of civilization farther south and inland from the coast, and adds the important dimension of astronomy to these ancient folks' way of life," said archeologist Michael Moseley of the University of Florida, a noted Peru expert.

Centering

Just took my first wheel throwing class at the Worcester Craft Center. It seemed so simple when my teacher demonstrated. Then I got up there and couldn't remember which part of which hand was supposed to push or pull. Centering the clay is much more difficult than it looks. Great fun, though. I returned home covered with mud.

I am learning to throw while standing up. This is unusual. Most people learn on a low wheel while sitting on a small stool. You have to bend forward a little as you work. Many older throwers end up with significant back injuries and back surgeries. I read some articles this summer by a potter named John Glick. He would throw for 8 to 10 hours a day when he was young. I read an article of his from the 1970s where he described the dinnerware sets he made, one of which was purchased by Vice President Walter Mondale. Then I read an article he wrote in the late 1990s where he described learning to throw standing up after having disc surgery on his back. He made his own wheel by building a stand for his old one. I had been wary of the seated throwing position before reading his articles, and they cemented my desire to learn the modern way.

My teacher is Kristin Keiffer. She makes beautiful elegant ware, through a combination of throwing and handbuilding. She throws standing up, and told me she apprenticed with John Glick for a year! Small world. That's when she started to throw standing.

Kristin Keiffer Tea Set

John Glick dinnerware

Throwing is very different than handbuilding. You get and keep the clay so wet. I did make one small pot that wasn't horrible. I didn't have high expectations for my first day so was pleased that I made one thrown pot. There are two women in my class who took their first class last session. They were both amazed that I made a pot worth keeping!

Ornaments

I've been making all kinds of Christmas ornaments this year: some in my ceramics class, and some at home. Right now my house is perfumed with cinnamon from the smell of the stars & trees in the oven.

Cinnamon ornaments

1 cup cinnamon
1/3 cup applesauce
1/2 cup white glue

Mix ingredients well. I found the dough hook on my stand mixer to be the best way; you may find a food processor works as well. Let dough stand for an hour. Roll out on a cinnamon-dusted surface & cut into shapes. Cut a hole near the top of each ornament with a straw for hanging. Bake at 200 degrees for 2 hours; alternatively, air dry for two days. (You will have to turn the cookies every 5 hours or so as they air dry as the edges curl up.) You can leave them plain or decorate with glue, beads, sequins, feathers, nail polish, etc. They also make great car air fresheners!

Questions & Answers

Part of our Ithaca weekend was a writing circle with a wonderful writing teacher. Zee gave each of us a copy of Number 2 of her journal "Blue Moon". The topic of Number 2 was Questions and it is 14 pages of questions. Just questions.

Here's a brief sample: "What are the names of Snow White's little friends? Can I be trusted? Can you be trusted? How much longer can it rain? Do you ever wake up laughing? Can you love too much? Who discovered whistling? Is it ever going to be over? Are we there yet? Is there ever enough? Is there always enough? Are you listening? Could it get any hotter? Why does this look so familiar? Would you care to join me?"

I wrote this essay during our writing time:

Why do I have to have quiet when I write? Who's your daddy? (Gratuitous Red Sox reference.) What would my life be like if I turned off my television? How can I break old habits? Can a person really change? Why am I such a saver? Why can't I throw food away the day I know I've finished eating it? Why do I save every letter I've ever gotten? (Actually I know why I do that -- I like to read them years later and be reminded of (or realize I've completely forgotten) past events.) Why do I have 5 boxes of bubble wrap in my basement? Why do I have 3 boxes of used padded envelopes in my office? (Could be that ebay ceramics book tear I went on this year.) Why is the surface of every table in my house covered with paper? Why do I own 6 sets of nesting bowls? Why do I own 17 glass reamers? Why do I own 39 tabletalk pie tins? Why do I own an untold number of teapots?

Some of these things are preparation for the future I don't even know yet is in front of me. The bubblewrap has come in handy for transporting pots. Ditto with the envelopes. All the china and pottery I've collected gives me inspiration as I go into the studio to make my own pieces.

Why didn't I ever take pottery classes until I was 46? Why didn't I realize that a kid who loved to play in the mud would love wet dirty messy sensuous clay?

Questions from the popular culture of my past:

Why is there air?
Who are you?
Why don't you love me like you used to do?
Why do you treat me like a worn out shoe?
What is success?
Where are you going to?
Do you really care?
Why not call Roto-Rooter -- that's the name -- and away go troubles down the drain?
Cream and sugar?
Care to dance?
Dance with me?
Walk much?
Talk much?
Tell me -- tell me -- tell me -- do you love me?
Why not us? (Second gratuitous Red Sox reference.)
Would you?
Could you?
Where's the rest of me?
How many roads must a man walk down before he can see the sky?
Do you know the way to San Jose?
Have you been a good little girl this year?
Did you send Santa a letter?
Do you have to wear that?

Veering back to my own life I think, How did I ever get this old? When did I have to start learning slang from kids instead of my friends? When did the word "versus" replace "against"? When did random become a popular adjective (or adverb, and why don't I know the difference between the two? Why wasn't I taught grammar in grade school?) Why do kids have so much homework these days? How did I survive in school without an hour or two of homework every night? If kids' parents control their play when they're 13, how will kids decide what to do in their own lives when they're 26? Is SpongeBob SquarePants a better or worse cartoon than Heckle & Jeckle? Who was the first person to think, there should be a TV network just for kids? Did that person make a lot of money? Will that person burn in hell? Is there really a hell and do people really burn there? Purgatory: fact or legend? How many years do I have left in my life? Will I be judged in the afterlife? Will I be judged on my beliefs or my actions? Who's the official scorekeeper? Is God dead? Do you get to meet everyone you've ever known in the afterlife? Are departed family and friends looking down on us now? Do they know what happens next to us or is it like live theatre to them? Do they have odds on what we'll do next? What are the odds on me?

Do you have any questions? Post them in comments, below.