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.

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.

Anyway, for now, here’s a timelapse of the creation of “Berry Eater”

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!

We unloaded the kiln on Saturday, and it looks like a great firing. I’ve spent the last two days trying to clean up all of the work, and sort it as to where it will be going. Most of the beasts came off of their wads cleanly, meaning there wasn’t too much work to do as far as that. What was harder was deciding where each piece should go. I’ve set aside four to submit to jurried shows, another four or five to send to a show in Idaho, about 10 to take with me to Japan, and another 10 to 12 that will be for sale online. They’ll all be showing up online at around noon (PDT) on April 18th – so if you feel like buying a piece, check back near then!

I’m also finally all packed up for NCECA. I’ll be spending four days there, and then camping in the area with my dad, my brother, and my brother’s wife. It should be a lot of fun!

I’m back from the woodfiring, and have finally had a chance to relax, and get caught up email and so forth.  Overall, I feel like it was a pretty solid firing.  There were no crisis and no drama.  Everything went as planned.  We dropped cone 13 in the front of the kiln, and were probably in the cone 12 range in far back section of the kiln.  That’s fairly standard, and where we like to be.  We kept front of the kiln over 2300f for a day or two, though we would have liked the back to be hotter.  It was generally in the 2100′s for the last couple days, seldom staying in the 2200′s, which would have been nicer.  Regardless, there’s not too much point in speculating until we unload it on the 4th.

It’s going to take a few days for me to sort and clean all of my new work.  I need to decide which pieces will be traveling to Idaho for a show at the Art Spirt Gallery, and which pieces will be coming with me to Design Festa in Tokyo.  However, it’s my goal to to have all the photos go online, and new pieces for sale on the 18th.  I’ll post more information after I’ve unloaded the kiln.

All my firing photos are up on flickr now.  Enjoy!