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!

"Working Play"

"Working Play"

The idea of making a large scale sculpture out of paper that could go from flat to a three dimensional form in space is something that I've been wanting to realize for a long time now. A virtual "pop up sculpture" if you will. 

"Working Play" as it is titled embodies for me the combination of creative fun and hard work. It is approximately 7 feet tall x 4 feet wide and made out of repurposed corrugated cardboard.  The surface was painted with black and white acrylic gesso.  The subject matter for this piece was my son's room and boy does he have fun stuff to play with.  From vintage Fisher Price to the latest and the greatest in toy design.  And I can't forget all his artwork and books, books, books.  this space was such a rich resource for me to pull from.

Above are 7 views that circumnavigate the sculpture from left to right.  I'm essentially walking you around the piece.

One of my favorite elements of the sculpture is the elephant toy container that my wife found for our son at a local antique shop. It's round polka dotted and fun.

I edited through my son's toy selecting and including only ones that he really loves and that are important to him.  I remember him banging on his mini piano when he was only a few months old.

I am so glad that I finally had an opportunity to create this piece of paper sculpture.  The time had finally come.

Now back to the clay!

Little Houses

~ little houses ~

Recently I was asked by the Anchor Art Space in Anacortes if I would be interested in coming up with an art project that would tie their current exhibit titled "Shelter" in with the town's rather large Arts Festival.  I said yes of course not having any idea what I would actually do.  I had a month to figure that out.

Little houses on the sidewalk, little houses in the gallery.....

On day one of the project I was stationed in front of the Anchor Space and I started making many little cardboard houses that would eventually be a part of something bigger.  I temporarily trailed them from inside the gallery out onto the sidewalk.  The biggest realization I had that first day was that wind moves paper easily.  Pretty obvious I know but I hadn't thought about it at all.  The next day I would be building a structure much much bigger out of cardboard and I would be doing it a block further down the street where the wind could be much stronger.

It was a beautiful morning on day 2 and I began by creating a foundation that was weighted on the corners and center.  I had broken down I'm not sure how many Seattle Pottery Supply clay boxes into uniformly sized pieces and cut slots so they could be put together like modular tiles.

At the end of day 2 I had about 3 feet of vertical wall built and I packed all the remaining materials inside, hoping that everything would be there the next morning.

Below is a detail shot of the interlocking flat panels.  I liked the texture the smaller key pieces created on the walls.

Inside the structure was a great add for Seattle Pottery Supply.

On Day 3 (the final day) I was pushing  pretty hard to finish the house structure.  Thanks to a couple of friends and their sweet granddaughters helping me cut slots in cardboard, the end was near.

After getting the roof on, the last thing to do was hang all the tiny houses from day 1, inside the big house.

This was quite the process of planning to preparation to production to documentation to finally deconstruction.  Which went extremely fast.  What took me 3 days to build took 15 minutes to break down.  I felt just like the big bad wolf.

Thanks Anchor Art Space for asking me to do a project.  I truly enjoyed the creative experience.

Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear

The Mint Museum cordially invites you to a suite of events celebrating the opening of Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear at Mint Museum Uptown.

A very cool thing about a Museum having something of yours in their permanent collection is that occasionally they will use it in a special show.  The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC has one of my ceramic sculptures and when an upcoming show titled Fairytales,Fantasy, & Fear was being curated they thought it would be a good fit.  Thank you Mint!  It sounds like a very interesting show to me and all three of these subjects have been a part of my work for as long as I can remember.  Below I've pictured the Piece that is in the show.

     On The Bridge,  29"x24"x17",  Whiteware, Vitreous Slip, Sgraffito.


I also wanted to picture a different piece that was made around the same time period but much larger (aprox. 48" tall).  I think it would be an even better fit for the show.  What do you think?  It's titled "Angel Nightmare"(originally "Dreaming of Angels"). Sometimes I change titles over time for various reasons.

         Angel Nightmare, 48"x 38"x 32", Whiteware, Vitreous Slip, Sgraffito

Being Productive

~ Being Productive ~

There is nothing like a deadline to intensify the creative process.  A couple of months ago I had a number of opportunities come my way regarding showing my ceramic and paper sculpture.  I make a point of never passing up an opportunity so as a result I was loaded with deadlines.  I know that there is always a certain amount of stress involved but I think it is the good kind that can focus the mind toward a goal.  Above is an example of one of the very recent objects to come out of my studio stress tank.  It's titled "Radio Flyer Teapot", made with a whiteware clay body.   I apply a vitreous slip to the white clay and then use a technique called sgraffito to scratch and carve the imagery into the clay surface.  Finally when I am finished with the drawing the object is fired once to cone 1.

This piece is titled "Staged Cup" and is made in the same way.  Although these two objects refer to function they are not usable.  My slip gets really close to being a glaze but the clay that is scratched into is still somewhat porous and wouldn't well suited for use.

This last piece is title "Familiar Place" and the tallest of the 3 at 8 1/2 ".  Another thing that working with all of these deadlines looming has shown me is what I am capable of.  I generally do not work really fast yet what I admire in other artists is the energy that they often capture in their work due to their process.  I want that as well in my work but it challenges my very nature. Well, there's nothing like a good challenge.

All three of these objects will be in a show of ceramic sculpture at Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park on Camano Island from March 3rd- April 8th.

My Art's Alive Show.

~ My Art's Alive Show ~

"All Around the Kitchen", 31"x 18"x 14", whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito.

One of my wonderful blog followers mentioned that it would be nice to see more examples of my sculpture that I recently had on display at La Conner's Art's Alive Invitational Show.  I really appreciate the interest in what I make in my studio and  I thought why not just post everything that I had there, an cyber show you might say. The space at Maple hall was limited so it made it difficult to get a smooth 360 degree view of my pieces which in my mind is largely the point of my work but I can understand the issues that faced the venue.  The show consisted of all the ceramic and paper sculptures that I had on hand and they varied in size from small to quite large.  I hope that you enjoy the show.

"Old Tub and Knob", 9"x 6"x 6", whitware, vitreous slip, sgraffito.

"A Bubble Off Plumb", 9.5"x 9"x 5", whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito.

"A Change Of Direction", 16"x 13"x 6", whiteware, vitreous slip, sgraffito.

"Shut Toilet", 23"x 14"x 11", paper, acrylic gesso.

"Hutch", 72"x 17"x 16", paper, acrylic gesso.

I would love to hear any of your comments and if you are interested in purchasing any of these works except "Bubble Of Plumb" which sold,  please let me know and I'll give you the price list. My work will be in a number of regional shows over the next few months and I will post the when and where info on my blog if you would like to view it in person.  Thank you so much for coming to my cyber show.

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.

Clay Demo at Hutch Studio

The magic in a potter's wheel.

"A Clay Demonstration at Hutch"

This April I wanted to have art demonstrations at Hutch that went beyond the makings that occur there every day.  Something that would be extra special or even possibly magical.  The first thing that popped into my head was the Thread drawings of Kristin Loffer Theiss aka my wife, which are amazing beyond words to witness in person.  I really wanted to do a demo myself as well but watching me work on my ceramic sgraffito sculpture is probably like watching grass grow in the desert.  So I thought it would be fun to make something completely different and do it in a way that would be a fresh and new experience for me.  When I think of magic what first comes to mind is a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.  I thought pulling a rabbit out of a potter's wheel might hold a bit of magic as well......if I could pull it off that is.  Kristin was there documenting the demo with about 200 to 300 photos,  making sure that there wasn't any slight of hand trickery on my part.  She later put together a great post for her blog.  I invited her to be my very first guest blogger and she lovingly agreed.   Here it is......enjoy.

A few weekends ago, I had a chance to spend a little time at hutch studio. Chris was giving a demo in clay & hung around a bit to shoot some photos of the event. 

Here are a few glimpses of how he displays some klt:works items. It's always a treat to be able to see my work in that space.

Chris set out to do something that he had never done before...to throw a bunny on a wheel. Sounds cool doesn't it? It was really quite an interesting thing to view. It's the type of thing that only someone with his experience, could pull off with a crowd of people watching. Not to mention, the shop was actually open. So in between working on the rabbit, he was helping customers! 

The atmosphere at hutch studio is really wonderful. It's calm & creative with a sense of wonder in the air of what cool discovery might be around the corner. Chris has created playlists by subjects that are always playing - songs about  water, hands, boats, birds... etc which just adds to the "hutch" experience. 

So this is the final product! He (or she) was just unloaded from the kiln yesterday. Chris literally pulled a bunny out of his sleeve that day. Amazing! What I love the most about it, is the process & that he had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. I admire that...it is my favorite way to work.  Chris has demos & workshops set up all of the time at hutch & if you are in the area, I highly recommend attending- they are quite inspirational. Stop by the hutch studio blog or FB page to keep an eye on what fun new project is being worked on. 

She's a great blogger wouldn't you say?  I would.  I wanted to wrap up this post with a couple of photos of the finished rabbit from that demo and another that I made in later demo for my ceramic class at Skagit Valley College.  They are both at Hutch so stop on in for a visit and some magic some time.

"Wild Hare" sitting, Brown Clay, Slip, Frit.

"Wild Hare" on all fours, Brown Clay, Slip, Frit.

"Wild Hare" on all fours, Brown Clay, Slip, Frit.