Eva Funderburgh

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.

I’m back from NYC, which was an awesome time.

I got to spend a lot of quality time with my brother, which ranged from just catching up to discussing art.  It was a chance to go out and explore the galleries of Chelsea, and I also got to explore the Museum of Art and Design. All in all, it was a great chance to get out and see all sorts of art, ranging from innovative and crazy uses of materials, to astounding minimalistic installations consisting of nothing but  a couple taut strings in a room.  My brother has a write up of some of it on his blog.

While I as in NYC, I was lucky enough to be posted on two exciting blogs.  The Urban Outfitters Blog decided to highlight my work, as part of a continuing stream of cool and interesting things that they find.  Kitsune Noir, a blog of art and design, also decided to mention my work and the collaboration with my brother.  As a long follower of Kitsune Noir, I was completely flattered by this!  However, as a side effect of all of this attention, I’m about completely out of work that’s for sale online!  I’m going to have to recall a few pieces from galleries this weekend, so I can more available for sale. There will also be all new work coming up in April, after my next wood firing.

The collaboration piece with my brother isn’t finished yet, since we couldn’t find a kiln that was firing while I was there.  We’ll be seeing the results in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can find some fun in-progress photos here.

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.

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.