Eva Funderburgh

Here in Seattle, we’ve been snowed in since last Thursday.  We’ve gotten a total of nine inches, with another couple predicted tonight.  In most cities, this would be no problem.  However, the city of Seattle has about 25 snowplows - less snow removal capability the the SeaTac airport.  Even as the city’s been warming up, the roads have been freezing again every night in to two inch thick sheets of ice.  Between that, the city’s use of sand (not salt), and the fact that no one up here knows how to drive in the snow, we’ll probably be stuck here until New Years.  Well, at least I’ve been staying useful.

I recently got myself a scanner (well, maybe it was an early Christmas present), and have been enjoying the heck out of it.  I’ve gone through my old sketchbooks, finding interesting sketches to scan.  I made one or two nice prints for people, recreations of early sketches of critters they now own.  I’ll upload a few more sketches the next few weeks.

I also took the time to finally finish up another time lapse video.  This the the video for the creation of “Conversation #3″.  The music from the soundtrack to “Paprika”, a truly bizarre and spectacular anime movie by Satoshi Kon.  I recommend going to youtube to watch the timelapse in higher resolution.

Of course, I haven’t just been spending the last week hard at work.  I’ve also been relaxing, making and eating a number of cookies, sledding down our street on a piece of cardboard, and introducing our cats to snow.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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.

There’s been a few things I found recently that seemed worthy of passing along.  First off is the mysterious myspace artist known as Milk / Logyu.  I found her work a little while ago due to random site called NotCot. She has no portfolio site, or really any information out there.  There’s pretty much only her myspace profile that tells you that she’s 32 and from Tuscon, and her mind blowing work.  What I love so much about it is her use of tiny continued themes, such as her skeleton birds, cards with hearts, and mp3 players. Have fun perusing her fascinating work.  I wonder if her work only exists in the digital world?

Next is an oddly equally fascinating medieval beastiary.  It’s truly fun to explore.  It has a huge list of creatures, with each one having examples of medieval art and an explanation of what it was, along with bibliographic sources for the earliest references.  Sure, it has all the standard creatures like hyenas and dragons, but it also has weird ones like … Barnacle geese??  And also, who knew that asps were originally lion- like creatures that guarded trees.  To avoid being lulled to sleep by music, the asp would keep one ear pressed to the ground, and the other plugged with its tail.

The one other thing worth passing along is that I’ve been working to clear out my flickr backlog.  I have unsorted and un-uploaded photos that go back to the last fourth of July.  So if you follow my flickr feed, please enjoy chronologically random stuff that should be showing up over the next bit or so.

In addition to using some of my new found free time to sign up for an “Anything-goes Art Event”, I also put together another bit of stop motion.  I recommend going to youtube, where it is possible to click on the “view in higher quality” option.

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.

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 I just now finished getting everything photographed and uploaded to flickr! (well, almost everything).  I had been planning on re-photographing a few things, but decided that it was more important to have everything up now.

Anyway, in order to celebrate all this new work, I’ll be hosting a slightly impromptu opening at my studio tonight.  It’s going to be pretty low key, but I will have all of the new work there and on display, along with food and drink of some type. If you’re in the Seattle area, I recommend coming on by! It’s at 218 Florentia st, just on the south end of the Fremont Bridge. We’re in the building with the crazy mural. I’ll be there from 6pm to 8, and maybe till 9.  Stop on by!

The kiln has been above 2000 degrees in both front and back for about a day now. It’s been keeping between 2200 and 2300 in front, and we’ve been fighting to get the back to match that. We’ll gain maybe 100 degrees over the next two days. It’s funny how you spend the first day or two working to keep it slow, and now we might have to fight for every 20 degrees.
For the next few days it will mainly be about what the cones are doing, and what the coal bed is like. Cones measure a combination of heat + time, and give us a better idea of how the pots are doing than just temperature. Last I heard, cone 13 is bending in front, and 10 is down in the middle. Not sure about the far back. The kiln will continue to feel hotter and hotter as we go on.
Flame and smoke from the stack with every stoke now. Also, it is a VERY beautiful day.

I’ve been on shift since 4, and right now we’re at 2250 in front, and 2100 in back. I’m on the back of the kiln, and have been fighting with it for the last hour. It went down to 2040. I had to switch to small rapid stokes (3 pieces at once) from larger stokes (7 pieces). I ask Steve, who’s down at the front, as to how many pieces he’s been putting in - “how ever many pieces he #%}^* well feels like”