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

"Mr. Sgraffito"

~ Mister Sgraffito ~

I have to say that I've had an idea for an image of myself in my studio.  I've been devoted to ceramics for the last 23 years but ever since I cheated on clay with cardboard I've had thoughts of working large once again.  When I say large I'm talking 4 ft. to 8 ft.   Not impossible to achieve in clay but the reality of firing any clay object of that size has many technical,  practical and philosophical concerns surrounding it.  

Ceramics is not a medium that I have any intention of putting on a shelf, but working in both the clay and the paper medium seems to be where my head is at these days.  I think I will work on smaller clay objects while getting crazy big with the paper works.

Sgraffito is a ceramic technique that involves scratching through an applied contrasting slip clay into the clay body beneath creating marks, designs or imagery.  I LOVE IT!  It's something I can't achieve in paper but who knows....maybe I'll figure it out.  

When it came to realizing the idea for these very unstaged snapshots there was only one choice for who the person would be behind the camera.  The phenomenal Kristin Theiss who has become an amazing photographer over the past couple of years taking probably 200 shots on any given day.  She has a way of putting the fun in "fotography" (or "photografun").  I think she nailed it.  Stay tuned for more adventures of "Mister Sgraffito" in his house of clay and paper.

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.