an artist a day (sort of) : #2 Anne Drew Potter

Well, the "one post a day" has already been derailed by life (a baby with diarrhea and a fever) but I never claimed that as a realistic goal...just a plain old goal. Perhaps one day I'll get there, that's what goals are for...right?

Meanwhile, I found a rather appropriate artist given my current mommy struggles.

Anne Drew Potter , an American sculptor who works mainly in ceramics and haunting cinematic scenes.

 

Take a look and let her worry you a little bit.

 

 

...while I continue to deal with the baby problems at hand.

 

an artist a day : #1 Teresa & Helena Jané

*As an exercise in blogging, I'm going to post daily (yeah...ambitious) an artist who interests me. It's an effort to keep things moving blog wise but also force myself to take advantage of the great big inter-web and see the ceramic world. A mentor/friend once said, "You can't drink from an empty well.", so I am attempting to fill it...daily drop by daily drop.*

Teresa & Helena Jané struck me immediately with their colors but in reading more about their work (as much as I could, much of their website in in Portugese) I was very attracted to what they were making...drawer pulls and door handles. The tiny things that we touch all the time and never think about...my favorite!!

http://ceramicknobs.blogspot.pt/p/prototypes.html

The beads, pendants, just about everything they do is stunning.

black ware

My neighbor Joe, an incredibly interesting (and interested) nonagenarian, tossed out the name Maria Martinez while we were discussing pottery. I am embarassed that I had not heard of her before...but better late than never.

and Wow.

random act of kindness

On Saturday I received a wonderful surprise in the mail! Little knives from my friend Christina Boy's collection of wooden treasures! The giver chose to remain anonamous which is surprising, intriguing, fun and uplifting!

Thank you to my kind nameless friend!

 

I hope this is a link in a chain of random surprise gifts.

It's too good to not keep going.

 

 

 

Museums...hey, they have learning in them!

Today Baby Drew and I visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with the intent of finding some fun animal pictures and squealing at them. While chasing a kitty cat through some Japanese prints, I found a tea bowl...black and lovely and described as a winter tea bowl.
Tea bowls have seasons...!

More and more on tea bowls here.
http://teamind.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/what-to-look-for-in-a-chawan-part-1/

And there is a part 2

and next?

The next big production push will be starting in June for the Edible Fest in August. I have a good sense of what/how much I want to make and I feel good about my forms HOWEVER I want to continue to explore glazing.

Glazing is the hardest part of ceramics (for me anyway) because it only takes two seconds of careless glazing to "ruin" a pot. So much time goes into every stage of making -wedging-throwing-trimming-finishing-firing-and it can all be in vain if that very last step isn't approached thoughtfully.

All of the failures and accidents become lessons though, so a couple of pots should be sacrificed in the search of something new.

Just needed to remind myself of that...now, let's destroy some pots!

Facebook and I aren't getting along at the moment so I think I will test out a blog. Also it would be nice to have something a little more direct on my promo cards than writing out that ridiculous facebook address. I will still use facebook as a posting bulletin board but I think the blog will work better as a working journal. So...here we go!