Art Sales

According to the latest edition of Crafts Reports, American crafts is taking an upturn.

Shows are coming back and artists are seeing an slight increase in sales. The reason given is that consumers are searching for American-made items to buy.

Just last week, I was talking to a neighbor who is planning on revamping her kitchen and she was complaining that it was difficult to find replacement appliances that are totally made in America. I think she has her work cut out for her, although I admire her idea of supporting American business.

As far as shows go, I'm a bit dubious about that. I haven't seen the entry fees going down. And, according to the article, jewelry and photography are still doing well.* Finding a good gallery for your work might be the better solution for now.

*And I always thought the food booths were the ones who made the killing. But is it art?

Me, No More

Finally!

The last workman has left the building.

Even though we've been back in the house after the flood,* there were still things that needed to be tweeked.

The mystery flickering lights in the bathroom and the occasional whiff of gas from the cooktop, to mention a few.

Both we and the electrician (who is now talking to himself even more than he did before) have racked our brains to try and figure out why our bathroom lights flickered at unpredictable intervals. It was like trying to shave or wash your face in an old movie theater. The mystery was finally solved when a new separate outlet was installed.

Our gas cooktop emitted a slight whiff of gas every so often and investigations by the installers and finally a gas company expert pinpointed the source under the cabinets at the regulator coming into the house. He immediately 'red tagged' the line and shut everything off. Which condemned me to cooking once again with an electric skillet. I should have never bought the thing. Instead of meals out, I have had to become an expert in one-pan meals.

Although I do have the microwave and the oven, I don't like microwaved meals and there's just so much you can bake. I'm more of a 3-pans going at the same time kinda cook.

But now I'm free, Free, FREE of the skillet, the workmen showing up every day, the bottling-up of the rabid Schnauzer who wants all their guts for garters.

Yesterday, I reinstalled my big tables in the garage, sorted my glazes and tools, rehabbed my clay and threw two big platters and a big bowl.

It's nice to be back to undisturbed studio time.

(Maybe I should have put the "Me" sign on the person on the top of the pile.)

*In June of this year, the water filter connection under the kitchen sink failed and flooded the house with about 2 inches of water. Luckily it was discovered quickly and a professional disaster team was on the scene with fans and rescued most of the furniture. Our insurance covered most of the damage, but attending to the aftermath has taken every bit of the time from the initial disaster until this last week. Everything is repaired, restored, and we essentially have a nearly new house, BUT I wouldn't recommend this as a plan for remodeling.

5000 Year Old Pottery

I monitor a website that has a daily round-up of archeological news.

This article caught my interest because of the location of the site and the long history of digs that have gone on there.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/highlights/95935-shahr-e-sukhteh-unearthing-the-5000-year-old-city

The "Burnt City" was a place crossroad of cultures and trade and the habitat of artists of many disciplines.

The pottery is as fresh and beautiful as work done today and has been amazingly undisturbed due to the location of the dig is now a far more harsh environment

Who knew dice were this old?

Eye Candy

A follow-up of the previous post, here's a website that is pure design and form.

There isn't a single thing here that I don't admire and love.

Inspiring and beautiful, the presentation of sculpture and objects is done wonderfully with the use of stands that enhance the object.


Copyright © 2008 Lamont Design Company All rights reserved.


The website design isn't bad either, by the way.

And now, for something completely different....

Sometimes, you need to look at something completely the opposite of what you are doing.

Or sometimes, you need an inspiration.

You get in a rut. You hit a wall. Your muse leaves town.

Well.

Here's a website that will keep you going for months. It is so deep, so varied, so wide, you can mine it for days, months even.

It's every kind of art and craft you can think of. Organized by year, by exhibition, by country, etc. There are several indexes and ways to research within it.

It's eye candy for the soul.

Just saying......

http://www.curatedobject.us/the_curated_object_/opens-201102/

Wow and Not So Wow

The same blog that presented the wonderful Wedgwood ewers in the original WOW post, did a follow-up with a second version of the pieces.

Not so impressive.

Lesson being: Form is one thing; interpretation is totally another.

Art and Fear

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

Sir Francis Bacon, English author, courtier and philosopher (1561 - 1626)

Art & Fear, Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Sayles and Ted Orland is one of those books that should be dipped into occasionally and chewed or to be swallowed and digested--whichever way is the most useful to you. It is the kind of a book that should be on hand in your studio, bookshelf or nightstand.

Here is the opening sentence:

"Making art is difficult. We leave drawings unfinished and stories unwritten. We do work that does not feel like our own. We repeat ourselves. We stop before we have mastered our materials or continue long after their potential is exhausted. Often the work we have not done seems more real in our minds than the pieces we have completed. And so questions arise. How does art get done? Why, often does it not get done? And what is the nature of the difficulties that stop so many who start?"

Very deep questions indeed. I plead guilt of many of these very things.

As you can see, this book is written by artists whose words resonate with other artist and with our particular and unique dilemmas. It isn't a book about "Art Or Craft". It isn't a book about airy theories or fluffy ArtSpeak.

If you are stuck or wondering or twisting and turning about your work, have doubts or need to hear a friendly and understanding artist's voice, this is a book to chew on.

Wow

Today, during my cruise through bookmarked websites, I ran across this image of a pair of Wedgewood ewers.

"Skinner Auction house in Massachusetts lists them as: "Pair of Wedgewood Solid Black Jasper Wine and Water Ewers, England, late 20th century, from the St. James Collection of limited editions, each with white relief, including the Sacred to Neptune water ewer with figure seated atop the shoulders and holding the horns of a marine monster below the spout, and the Sacred to Bacchus wine ewer with figure seated atop the shoulders and holding the horns of a ram's head below the spout, each with printed and impressed marks and in a limited edition of 50, ht. 16 in."

The estimated auction price is $2800.

I'm the happy owner of a large blue jasper water pitcher with sprigged classical figures, early 20th century and a black jasper tea set of the same era--the one with the 'widow' on the lid. Both are wonders to look at through magnification.

I can only imagine how wonderful these ewers are.

New Year

Well

It's been a while.

We finally got our winter house back just before Christmas. Just enough time to dig out a couple of topiary lighted trees, put a wreath on the door and a ribbon on the house numbers. That was it.

The rest of the time was taken up with moving back in and sorting everything out. Imagine unpacking boxes someone else packed up for you.

When the flood happened, all our things were quickly moved out of the house, packed up and stored away by the recovery company and the contractors came in to remove drywall down to the studs, doors, carpets, cabinets--everything attached to the walls.

It's taken six months to restore the house. Our insurance paid for most, but of course, we did not want to re-install the old stove, sink and microwave. There were things about the house we didn't like. Wall-to-wall carpet for one, so we elected to pay for new tile floors. There was a desk in the kitchen that was a store house for miscellaneous tools, polish, cleaning supplies, so I had the carpenter rework the space to make a utility closet and a home for my old rainbow vacuum. A hall installation of upper and lower cabinets which were not useful became a beautiful new linen closet.

The whole house had to be painted, so we selected soft tones of a buttery yellow, a soft blue and very light green.

Most things that were water damaged that could be repaired were fixed. We did lose some pieces of furniture, most of which were covered by insurance, but our rugs (not the wall-to-wall) didn't fare so well, so we are now living in a house with no curtains or rugs to soften the sound. Pretty echo-y at the moment.

But

We're getting there.

My studio is semi-unpacked. And I still have a lot to attend to before everything will settle down so I can once again concentrate on clay.

Yeah!

The Palm Frond Dish - Technique

This is the first of many dishes and trays I've made with the palm or branch motif.

It's really not nearly as complicated to do as it looks.

This dish was formed by laying a slab over a hump mold and letting the edges at the top and bottom remain just as formed. I trimmed the sides with a fetling knife, though.

After bisquing and waxing the bottom, I dipped the whole thing into a semi-matt white glaze. Taking a fine brush and liquid wax resist, I painted the negative spaces I imagined between a palm frond. (The white areas.)

Of course, you wouldn't have a white spine on a frond, but I decided that is artistic license.

After the wax sat, I poured weathered bronze glaze in the inside, starting at one end of the dish and, tipping and rolling it gently, covered the areas I wanted green and poured the glaze out the other end of the dish back into the glaze bucket. This glaze had a nice brown residue that showed up in the firing.

Every dish I've made in this way has sold. It's a real winner. I want to try it again and again in different combinations--one brown and a tomato red combination worked really well. And the addition of another glaze, probably applied using a brush, would be an interesting evolution to the design.

P.S. We are still involved with working on houses. We are now in our winter house, which was flooded out and we have been reconstructing it for the last 6 months as well as renovating the kitchen in Washington State.

I'm itching to get back into the studio and back to claywork!