Eyelevel BQE is teaming up with the NYC restaurant Viva La Crepe to support emerging artists with a silent auction!  I’ve show at Eyelevel in the past, and will be including my piece  “Protector of Forests”.  The auction is this Friday night from 6 to 9pm at 300 Bleeker street.

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

Coming up in May, I’m going to be taking part in an exciting show called “Denizens of the Forest King” at the Twilight Art Collective, located in West Seattle. It will  be  Justin Hillgrove, Mike Capp, and myself presenting all manor of monstery beasts! Here’s a bit about the line up!

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.

Hey Folks!
Starting this weekend, two pieces of my work will be on display at the Eyelevel BQE in Brooklyn. It’s a group show, with a grade A line up of artist and designers, including my brother Dan Funderburgh. The show is March 20th through April 4th, and the gallery is open weekends noon to 6pm, and weekdays by appointment. Check it out if you’re in the area.

I had some very odd news this week.

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.

This last woodfiring turned out great.  Every single piece I got from it was a jewel – an outcome practically unheard of in woodfiring.  I normally have at least few pieces I’m not happy with, and people having success rates under 50% is not unheard of.  However, as I said, this firing was just amazing.  I’ve put all the pieces up into a flickr set, for people browse and enjoy.

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!