Here is more info about the auction.  Should be a great night!

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Come glimpse the Forest King’s realm and the creatures and oddities under his stewardship. New works by Justin Hillgrove, Eva Funderburgh and Mike Capp.

Justin Hillgrove grew up in Snohomish, WA and has been enjoying artistic expression since he was old enough to color on the walls.  He studied Design and Illustration at Seattle Central and has since enjoyed many years of freelance illustration and design, working on everything from collectible card games to toys. He paints monsters, imps, robots and other oddities in satirical, sweet or uncomfortable situations he finds amusing, many of which are inspired by his children. Justin has showed at galleries and shows all over the country, with collectors all over the world.

Eva Funderburgh  is a Seattle artist, who makes strange and slightly whimsical ceramics monsters.  While technically a native Seattleite, she has spent most of her life so far in Kansas and Pennsylvania, but is glad to now be back in the land of rain and delicious salmon.  A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she’s been working on art full time for the past few years, and has created a world of fat, elegant, and clumsy beasts.  Her sculptures are finished in a wood fired kiln, an anachronistic process more connected with the Japanese tea ceremony that with the present art world. The end results are beasts that share influences from comic books to Greek myth to Japanese anime, but yet are truly unique.

Mike Capp is an accomplished artist who finds inspiration for his artwork through his children’s creativity and pop imagery. His paintings don’t really mean anything dangerous, angsty or irksome. There’s no bubbling social commentary. His paintings which incorporate his young children’s’ drawings aren’t meant to provoke the unarticulated terrors of childhood. They’re just drawings of monsters, superheroes and robots.  Even though there’s plenty of angst behind his humor, more so there’s a playful, impish, boy’s mind, full of cartoons and KISS memorabilia. His technique is solid and clean, so he affords himself the privilege of choosing subject material that is loose and silly, while still keeping a close eye on small details of color and composition. He paints what feels good and what results are paintings that are funny and frivolous, in a good way. It’s not as important to understand what his paintings mean, as it is to understand that they are just what they appear to be.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.