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.
I’ve recently been putting together some timelapse videos of pieces from March 2009 firing. I have a couple more videos lined up, but they all still need to have the notes put in, the slowest step. I’m also planning on making a few new videos of my saggar fire pieces – I’m looking forward to seeing the burnishing process via timelapse.
Anyway, for now, here’s a timelapse of the creation of “Berry Eater”
Tomorrow morning, I will be heading off to my thrice yearly anagama firing. We’ll spend Saturday and Sunday loading the kiln, and start up the fire Sunday night. When will depend on when we get done loading. In the past we’ve started it at times ranging from 6pm Sunday to 3am Monday. Hopefully, it won’t be anything nearly so late as that.
Right now, it looks like I’ll be working the swing shift, 4pm to 12:30am. The schedules are still a bit amorphous, but I hope it works out like that. There’ll be nine of us, working three different shifts. We’ll fire for about 110 hours, shutting it down some time on Friday.
I’ll try too keep things updated on the blog, and I’ll also keep things going on twitter as well! Off I go!
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.
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.