Eva Funderburgh

I had some very odd news this week.

One of my pieces, Cuckoos #3: Unexpected Twist, just finished being displayed in the 3rd Biennial Concordia Continental Ceramics Competition in St. Paul, MN.  I’d been stressing about the piece being shipped back, since it’s both large and delicate.  When I got a call on Monday from the organizer, I immediately started worrying, only to be utterly surprised.  The piece had been stolen.

While the gallery was open for local artists to pick up their work, someone had walked in and left with four piece that did not belong to them.  The university didn’t realize the problem until they were preparing to pack up the out-of-town pieces. A vase by Leopold Foulem, a wonderful teapot-ish sculpture by Gerald Ferrari, and a piece by Kevin Snipes were also taken.  (Gerald has a very insightful blog post about the theft.) The total listed value for the work was over $12,000, most of that was due to Foulem’s vase. All the same, a life of crime stealing ceramics sculptures is hardly a way to get rich quick. Heck, if there’s a way to get rich in ceramics, there’s lots of ceramics artists who’d love to know about it.

Overall, my response has mostly been confusion.  I am a bit worried about my piece, as to whether or not its safe.  My biggest fear if that some scofflaws just grabbed it on a whim, and it’s been trashed somewhere.  That would break my heart.  The university has said that they’ll deal with the insurance, so at least I’m not worrying about that.  They could have handled the show taken down better, but no sense in being angry about that – they didn’t want this to happen either. I guess it’s a bit flattering that someone likes the piece so much, but really, it would have been better to for them to just buy it.  It’s been so weird seeing pictures of it on the local news, and having my relatives emailing each other about it. Add to all that, it’s not a small piece! It’s large enough it needs to be carried in both arms, and the surface is delicate enough that it could be scratched by snaps or zippers. While I guess do feel strangely honored to be on a list that includes everyone from Miro and Van Gogh to the other 3 artists from this show, I would really rather people just didn’t do stuff like this. It’s so disrespectful to the artists, the work, and the institution that it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around it.

Not cool, random thief, not cool.

This last woodfiring turned out great.  Every single piece I got from it was a jewel – an outcome practically unheard of in woodfiring.  I normally have at least few pieces I’m not happy with, and people having success rates under 50% is not unheard of.  However, as I said, this firing was just amazing.  I’ve put all the pieces up into a flickr set, for people browse and enjoy.

Here’s the gallery of all the new work.  Most of the pieces are presently on display at the Island Gallery on Bainbridge Island, and they’re also for sale in their online store!

Also, it’s time again my studio’s annual holiday sale.  We’ll have an opening party this Friday, December 11th from 6 to 9pm.  On Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 4pm, we’ll be around the studio if you want to come in and browse through all the work for sale from myself and my studiomates! The address of the studio is 218 Florentia st, and here’s the facebook invite for more info!  Also, during the opening, I’ll be having a silent action of “Relaxation”, with all proceeds going to charity!

I have a whole selection of shows coming up this holiday season. Hopefully, it should be fun for one and all.  Here’s a quick run down of the line up. Further details will come for all of these as the dates get closer.

Eva Funderburgh at Snow Monkey’s House of Monsters!

1205 East Pike street, Suite 1A, Seattle WA

November 12th through December 3rd, opening reception November 12th

Snow Monkey’s is a new gallery that just opened in the Capital Hill neighborhood of Seattle.  It’s an awesome little place, focusing on strange great art,  handmade stuff, with a smattering of amusing things from Japan.  I’ll be showing off a selection of fun work, focusing on saggar fired stuff I made over this summer.

The Island Gallery’s Holiday Good Times

100 Madison Avenue, Bainbridge Island WA

December 4th through 31st, Opening reception December 4th

The Island Gallery is a long time favorite of mine.  They’re located across Puget Sound on Bainbridge Island, and focus on the finest woodfired ceramics, wearable textile art, and beautiful hand made furniture.  This December they’ll be displaying off a selection of my newest woodfired work – so new they’re still in progress right now! I’ll be sharing the stage with their annual fashion show.

Florentia Clayworks 4th annual Holiday Sale!

218 Florentia st, Seattle WA

December 11th, 12th and 13th.  Opening reception/ party on the 11th.

Florentia Clayworks is my shared studio space, where a total of 8 clay artists toil away making cool things.  We’ll be showing off (and selling) of those cool things over that weekend, along with consuming mulled cider, hot cocoa, and delicious wine.  Come by for a peak into the world of clay! I’ll also be holding a silent auction of one or two of my favorite pieces, and donating 50% to charity.

This weekend, I have a two person show opening at the Northwinds Art Center and Gallery, in Port Townsend, WA.  It’s a neat little gallery, in a neat little town.  Port Townsend is the city that thought it was going to be Seattle, back in the 1880s, before railroads. Once it became clear that Seattle was to be the major port for the area, all development stopped in Port Townsend. In the late 1980s, everyone realized that there was a very cool perfectly preserved Victorian seaside resort two hours from Seattle, and it’s been hopping ever since.
The show will be with Don Tiller, and will be up for the whole month of August.  There’s going to be a a variety of events going on during the month, with an art walk reception on the 1st of August, a Saturday, and a coffee talk on friday the 7th.  I won’t be able to be there for the art walk reception, but the coffee talk should be fun.  Don Tiller and I will both take some time to talk about our work and the process of creating it at 7pm at the gallery.

I just swung by the gallery dropping off work, and everything is looking great.  My work is a selection of some of the best larger pieces from the past year or so, along with some new, saggar fired work.  Saggar firing is a technique that is very reminiscent of the pit firings often seen in southwest native American pottery.  It’s a technique that I’d long been curious about, and have finally been exploring.  It serves as a good counterpoint for woodfiring, since it very similar in unpredictable nature.  I’ll do a post about the whole process pretty soon, assuming I can stay out of the studio long enough to write it up!

I’m also trying something new this show.  I’m making a flickr set of all the work, and making everything available for purchase online.  Each piece will have its purchase information and the contact information of gallery manager listed in the description.  If you see something you’re interested, just send the gallery an email, and they’ll take if from there!

I’ll be having a couple of pieces in a pretty exciting show in Sewickly, PA. The show is called “The Day after Tomorrow”, and consists of the work of five artists – . I’m really excited about it, but won’t be able to make it back to PA for the opening, which will be today, Friday, March 6th.  I’d put off posting it until I could find links for the other artist in the show. I think it was worth it, it looks like there’s going to be some really cool stuff!

Here’s the the other artists:

Michael Angelotti – Really incredible beautiful organic crystalline glaze forms.  Picture the most awesome geode ever, crossed with what you encountered last time you cleaned out the fridge.

Jae Yong Kim – I just linked to her profile at the Pittsburgh Society for Contemporary Craft.  Her piece there is an incredable wall installation of giant platinum snails.

Vince Palacios – a beautiful investigation of simple forms, with pieces that could be either teapots or machined parts for large machines.  They’re covered completley in intricate detailed decals and underglaze.

Gregory Byard is also in the show, but I couldn’t find a website for him.

Anyway, if you’re in the are, check it out! It promises to be an excellent show!

I’d mention this show a while ago, and before I knew it, it’s almost the opening!

This Saturday from 3pm to 8pm, stop by Madera Woodworking in Tacoma, WA, to explore an amazing collection of Northwest Woodfire.  The opening is longer than normal to accommodate everyone who might wander by.  I’ll probably be at the gallery between 5 and 8.  I think I’ll even try and finally explore Tacoma’s famous glass museum!

The line up for the show looks incredible: John Benn, Colleen Gallagher, John Harris, Sam Hoffman, Terry Inokuma, Chris Knapp, Jen Lee, Andy Lewis-Lechner, Susan Lochner, Hiroshi Ogawa, Reid Ozaki, Erin Solberg, and Natalie, Warrens.

I’m also going to be using the show to unveil “Glowback”, a creature that I’ve been working on for a while.  I teamed up with my husband to wire up LEDs and a microcontroller to cause the back of the beast to glow.  I have an entire flickr set up documenting the whole process.  If all goes as planned, we’ll finish up the last bit of work tonight, and I’ll take it to the gallery tomorrow.

It seems like I have all sorts of shows coming up, all over the country! Between looking forward to my next firing, and planning my trip to Japan, it’s looking like it’s going to be some very busy months. I’ll also be heading to NCECA in April, which should be a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to tracking down ceramics friends from across the country, and some even from around the world!

The first show to open is “Endangered“, at the Gloria Kennedy Gallery in Brooklyn.  It was an international juried show, and is viewable as of today, but the opening reception will be on February 5th, as part of a First Thursday art walk.  I will actually be flying out to NYC to attend it, along with taking some time to catch up with my New York friends. I will also be working on a collaboration sculpture with Dan Funderburgh, my brother, who’s also in NYC.  I’m going to bring bisque fired critters out to him to do underglaze designs on.  I’m pretty excited about it.

The day after I return from NYC, I’ll be heading across Puguet Sound to Bremerton, WA, to attend an artists’ reception for CVG 2009.  CVG 2009 is a juried show that collected submissions from more than 260 artists, mostly across the state of Washington.  The show will opening on Feb 1st, and run through the end of the month, at the Bremerton Collectives Visions Gallery.   The show will also be open late on Thursday, Feb 5th, for the local art walk.  I’ll unfortunately still be in NYC that evening.

Also in Washington state, I’ve been invited to a show in Tacoma.  “The Path of the Flame” is a show of Pacific Northwest woodfire artists at Gallery Madera from Feb 19th to April 4th.  The opening reception will be on Feb 21st.  I’ll have more information about this as it gets closer.  So far it looks like really great list of folks, including Terry Inokuma, Hiroshi Ogawa, and John Benn.

The last show is also far enough away that precise information will have to wait.  Jamie Adams, a cool print artist in Pittsburgh, who I really respect, has asked for me to be part of a show tentatively titled “The day before yesterday/ The day after tomorrow”.  It will be going on in March, in Pennsylvania. I will put up some more information about its post-apocalyptic goodness once March gets a bit closer.

Just a short update on the silent auction that’s coming up at the Holiday extravaganza.  Since I know of several people who are interested but aren’t in Seattle, I’m going to try and figure out some sort of remote component for the silent auction.  It will most likely be something as low tech as email or text messages.  If you’re interested in being involved, send me an email and I’ll keep you updated.

On Saturday, December 13th, 2008, Florentia Clayworks will have its second Annual Holiday Sale and Party!  This year, we will be doing a single night celebrations, from 7 to 10pm.  Come on by for a chance to check out my work in person, meet my studio mates, browse fun art work, eat, drink, and generally enjoy yourselves! We are located just South of the Fremont Bridge, in Seattle, Washington, on 218 Florentia St.  Stop on by and have some fun!

As a first this year, I will be doing a silent auction of two of my favorite sculptures.  I will donate 40% of the proceeds to charity.  Here are the two beasts, and the two charities.

First off is ‘Digger Beast with Ball.”  He is one of the best pieces I got out of this last firing.  I will be donating 40% of his sale to Child’s Play.  Child’s Play is a group that raises games, toys, books, and money for childrens’ hospitals world wide. I figured this playful digging beast would approve of the choice (as long he can keep his ball).

Second is “Discovery.”  I have to admit that I often wish I could just keep all of my sculptures myself.   I just really like the interaction I’ve capture in the piece.  I leave it up to the viewer as to how these two guys will behave, but personally, I picture the big guy sniffing the little one, and maybe being hissed at.  Nothing too sinister.  However, since real world interaction seldom end up as nonviolently, (especially between countries) I will be donating 40% of his sale to the International Red Cross.

I’ve just now gotten my confirmation for signing up for Design Festa vol 29.  Design Festa is Asia’s largest freestyle art event.  The term “art fair” really doesn’t do it justice.  Twice a year, approximately 3,500 artists take over “Tokyo Big Sight“, the iconic Tokyo conference center.  Next May, I will be one of them.

The way Design Festa works is that anyone can obtain a booth.  It is then up to you as to what to do with your two tatami mats worth of floor.  Photos I’ve seen online range from people showing off paintings, selling t-shirts, jewelry, and vinyl figurines, rocking out on electric guitar, dressing up as a horse while painting a picture of a horse, doing crazy performance art, selling cardboard robots, metal monsters, and tiny faces painted on matchstick heads.  A personal favorite appeared to be a booth that sold or rented paper bags with happy animal faces drawn on them.  The idea, as described in an illustration, was that if you were sad, you would put one of these on your head, and it made you happier. As I said, anything goes.

The more I look around, the more strange and intriguing stuff I find.  (Beautiful tiny dyed fish skeletons!?) While I’m not too sure what to expect, other than an adventure, it is my plan to take myself and a large number of critters to Tokyo in May, 2009.