Eva Funderburgh

I’ve been back from Japan for a week or two now, working on sorting through the 1200 photos I took over there, and starting to get back to work in the studio.  Now that the the whole crazy japan trip has finally sunk in, and I’m no longer jet lagged, I figured I should try and compile my thoughts on Design Festa into a blog post.

Design Festa was great, but really, unlike anything I could ever imagine.  I think for the most part, nothing in my experiences could have given me an idea of what I’d gotten myself into.  (Think one part art fair, one part Japanese school festival, one part burning man.)  It really boiled down into 16 hours of interacting and talking with people, across a culture and language barrier, about art.  And when it comes down to it, that’s pretty cool.

Design Festa is made up of a maze of tiny little art cubicals.  There’s about 1500 booths, many with different artists each day, so it’s practically impossible to see everything.  It’s loosely divided by type, ranging from 2-D art to clothing to a darkened zone for lit sculptures and installations.  Artists get a chunk of floor – either one or two tatami mat’s worth  – and do anything that they might want with it.  I get the feeling the more people get their both to show off their work then to make a profit from the show.  Installation, performance art, and just hanging out were quite common. In fact, the booth walls (which you had to rent) were designed for you to attack with ink, acrylic, and almost anything you wanted.

There were also several stage areas where you could sign up for a time slot.  There was a constant stream of really cool and different performances going on at all time, from 20 pieces bands to very happy girls playing taiko.  There were a surprising number of different ninja gymnastics dance groups.  (They did backflips to music while holding swords, in ninja garb)

While I’d seen photos of all the individual parts of the show online, there was nothing out there that could give me a feeling of what it would be like to actually have a booth there. In the end, while there were a number of things I might have changed, I would go back again in a second. It was just so cool to be able to interact and talk with artists and art fans from all over the world.  (I speak a little Japanese, and folks generally spoke English).  I got to talk about using a traditional Japanese kiln in America, about ceramics, and about Seattle. I got to watch the crowds streaming by, in everything from pink frilly dresses to Godzilla suits, to a troop of knights in armor (Europeain, not samurai). In short, it was an amazing chance to spend a weekend dedicated to art, in all of it’s strange, strange forms.

I recommend spending some time exploring the design festa flickr pool – there was so much more stuff out there than I could photograph.

I’ve been running around for the past few weeks, trying to get everything together for Design Festa vol. 29, one of Asia’s biggest art events.  Design Festa is a twice yearly free for all of art, with 15,000 booths of art, 70,000 visitors, live music, and all sorts of art related things.  Tomorrow, we leave to fly across the world and to set up our little booth in Tokyo Big Sight, the largest (and possibly strangest looking) expo site in Japan.

The fair will open at 11am on Saturday the 16th and should be a crazy non-stop art experience.  We’ll be in booth D-001, the very first booth in the main Atrium.  We’ll be pretty easy to spot.  I’m bringing 15 critters, 1000 postcards, and 200 business cards (assuming the business cards get here in time).  Should be an awesome weekend.

I’m not sure what the wireless internet set up will be like in the convention center.  I’m going to be taking photos non-stop and will be trying to upload them as I go.  I should also be posting to twitter when I can, so feel free to follow me.  In addition to our time in Tokyo, we’ll also be spending a while in Kyushu and Shikoku.  We’ll also be stopping by the studio of Mike Martino, an American working as a traditional potter in Karatsu, Japan. All in all, this should be an incredible trip!

All of my newest work is now up on flickr. Enjoy!

Despite the late hours I’ve been spending in the studio, I’ve also been playing around with a twitter account. You can follow my twitter account here! It’s mostly photos of in progress critters, along with random observations and so forth. Now then, back to the studio.

I have a woodfiring coming up in less than three weeks. Since I only fire three times a year, this is a pretty big deal. I’ve been stressing a bit about getting enough done. I’ll be putting in extra studio time on nights and weekends.

However, I’m pretty excited about some of the work that I have coming up.  I’ve already taken start to finish timelapse of about 4 pieces, though I’ll have to wait until after the firing to compile the videos.  Here’s a sneak peek at some of the piece I’ve been working on.

Since I’d pretty much sold out of work, I went to retrieve some pieces from a few of my galleries.  I now have more pieces avaliable for sale online!  Check them out here!

This last Saturday, I got posted on Notcot.org, a really cool design blog.  I’d been enjoying it for a while, and their recent posts about ceramics inspired me to send in a link to my site. They were kind enough to post it, and for the past few days, people from across the entire globe have been stumbling onto my site! I decided it would be fun to collect some of blogs from around the world that have been posting my work.

Russia – http://www.lookatme.ru/flow/eva-funderburgh-zabavnyie-keramicheskie-monstryi

I had a whole lot of fun looking over this site with a Russian speaking friend of mine.  Their commentary is really interesting. Also, the phrase “Keramicheskie Monstryi” totally made my day.

France – http://marieaunet.blogspot.com/2008/11/eva-funderburgh.html

I really like their mouse icon. Also, they have a post of creepy if cool dolls.

China – http://handcraft.blogbus.com/logs/31692079.html

Great site design.  Also, I’m totally blown away by this post. If I ever break my arm, I’ll need to get one of those.

China- http://designwonderland.blog.sohu.com/105087744.html

The design of their site is amazing, and has already changed once while I’ve been watching.  This is where I got the title of the post.

Taiwan – http://www.nisan.tw/design-blog/design.asp?ano=31

This site is run by a very nice guy named Nick.  I like the tag line of “Design will save the world right after Rock ‘n Roll will”

Brazil -  http://www.bemlegaus.com/2008/11/bichos-estranhos.html

Google Translate appears to have a bit of trouble with this one.  However, I’m posted in between a post about an igloo cake tray and a Simpsons action figure set.  I’m in good company.

It’s been a long week.  I finally have all the work photographed, sorted, titled and captioned.  I’ve even sent off the first boxes to galleries and costumers.  The photo is from Monday, when I’d been pushing really hard to get off an application to an emerging artist contest thing.  I was going to just keep working on stuff on my laptop, but between the soft pillow and the soft cat, I didn’t stand a chance. However, everything is now finally up! Enjoy!

So now that I’m back from the firing, and have had a bit of sleep, I think that this was a pretty good firing.  It will be completely fascinating to see how it turns out, but I’ll have to wait until we unload on Nov 1st to see what it looks like.

I still find it weird how hot we got.  Normally, we might have cone 13 down in front, 12 in the middle, and 11 down in back.  Having 13 downs through out the kiln, is unusual, alarming, and a bit awesome.  I feel like shutting it down early was the right thing to do, though.  The risk of going on and getting everything too hot, were greater than any downsides of shutting it down 15 hours early.  I think that since we started side stoking early than normal, there won’t be much of a difference in the amount of ash especially in the back of the kiln.  However, there’s just so many variables (very tightly packed kiln, no stoking in the far back port, very hot, short firing, early side stoking, heavy reduction cooling in front, but we forgot to seal off some of the air to the middle) that it will be hard to figure out any cause or effect.  Well, no sense in guessing until Nov 1st.

In the mean time, I’ll take some time to tackle all those less glamorous tasks in the life of an artists: sales tax, expense receipts, website maintenance, and dirty laundry.

The firing is just over a week away.  I’ve been pushing pretty hard in the studio, and am quite satisfied with what I have.  I think I should have enough pieces to supply both my galleries, and our holiday sale. I’ll just still have to keep pushing though, to finish every piece that I possibly can. Here’s another peek at my drying shelf.

Here I am, working away.

We’ll be unloading the kiln on Saturday, November 1st, and it will be my goal to have most of everything photographed by Monday the 3rd.  That means that it will be a super busy weekend, but I have to send out some slides on the 3rd, anyway.  If I’m going to be applying to something, I’d like to use my newest work, even if it does mean spending another weekend in the studio.

Oh, funny thing.  I can tell it’s starting to be winter now.  Between the colder weather and the extra time in the studio, my hand dry up and take the texture of sand paper.  It’s sort of a joke, that every potter is an expert on hand lotion.  Everyone will tell you what the best brand is (always different), and why. In my opinion, Eucerin Plus Intensive Hand Repair Cream (Not the Eucerin Plus Intensive Dry Skin Repair Cream) is truly the way to go.  Here’s my winter hands, pre-lotion.  If you want to be creeped out, check it out at full resolution.

That’s how long I prefer my fingernails.  It drives me nuts when they leave little fingernail marks in the clay. Also, if they aren’t that short, they get clay stuck under them.  I’m so used to them being like that that if they were longer I’d probably accidentally scratch my eye out or something.