One More Week to See Windows Alive

This is it, your last chance to see Windows Alive with my sculpture in downtown Yakima.

Some of my work for Window's Alive

Next Thursday, September 15 is the Downtown Yakima Art Walk. You can see my sculpture in the Window of the old Yakima Mall on the north side of Yakima Ave between 3rd and 4th Street. Some of my ceramic students also have work on display for Windows Alive. We take the work down the very next day!

My Window--Alive!

You can also see my work at Fourth Street Theatre Gallery as part of the Art on the Wall: Metal Exhibition. This show opens tonight, Thursday, September 8 from 5:45-7pm, but runs all year, I think. Join us at 14 South 4th Street in Yakima.

Detail of the piece at the 4th Street Theatre

You can also see YVC Photography instructor, Jennifer Saracino,'s photography downtown at Gilbert Cellars for next week's art walk. And lots of other folks. Check it out.

Art on the Wall Piece

bowl form with cake decorations

I've been working on my Art on the Wall piece for the Capital Theatre's Fourth Street Theatre a few weeks. The theme is metal, so of course I planned to use bike parts, but in combination with some ceramic forms.

the first arrangement of bowl forms and sprigs (at random)

I threw some concave bowl forms with wiggly rims to mimic open flower forms. I added some cake decorating things into a sprig molded form to suggest the flower's stamen. I also made some small forms from sprig molds of bicycle gears and other parts. 

too many bowl forms

Once I started planning the form, I learned about a group of plants called hyperaccumulators, which are plants that pull metals from the ground and store them in the fibers of the plants themselves. These plants can be used for phytoremediatio--for cleaning up the environment. I get a kick out of the idea that I made flowers for a project whose theme is metal, and then it turns out that there are real plants that have an excess of metal.

spiral bowl forms with "leaves"

I made more flower forms than I needed and then tried to think of how to arrange them inside the prescribed shadowbox form. All the Art on the Wall pieces are done on or in the same square gessoboard/shadowbox. It is a different process to work within a constrained form for a project than to build a free-standing sculpture in which all the dimensions and surfaces are my choice.

close up shot of the gears around the edge of the form

The arrangement I ended up using for the flower forms is an attempt to gain some control over the very regular, square, and not-very-exciting form of the project. The flowers themselves vary, so they are arranged in a spiral. I was going to make it a fibbonacci spiral, but I should have started planning to control the sizes of the forms more than I did.

finished piece: it is very difficulty to photography shiny metal in a small studio

As I worked through the project, I was experimenting with metal pieces as leaves and sepals. The irregular placement of these hopefully adds to the interest when viewing the entire piece. One factor that I included to entertain me, but that may not work for my audience, is that two of the flowers can spin on their bases.

Art on the Wall opens September 8 from 5:45-7pm at the 4th Street Theatre.

First Summer 2016 Sculpture(s) in Progress (3 of 3)

top of this third sculpture (a similar form to those on the most recent large piece)

I was working on three sculptures for the last week and a half. I wrote about the others last week. The third "first" piece is smaller and simpler in form now, though I plan to attach some more non-ceramic elements once it is colored, glazed, and fired.

working on texture and sprigs

I didn't alter the form much from how it was thrown, though I added sprigs and texture. The piece consists of two ceramic forms now, though there will be some ceramic pieces added later that haven't been built yet.

bike part additions temporarily in place (and lighting fail)

To be honest, this piece got less of my attention last week. I got a little distracted when I was reminded that I agreed to make a piece for a show at the Fourth Street Theatre at the Capitol Theatre. I have spent this week under-glazing for the metal themed piece that I plan to make for the Art on the Wall exhibition.

my barely-started "metal" piece for Art on the Wall

I will get back to the small sculpture after this other piece is farther along or while parts are in the kiln this week. 

first small sculpture of the summer--incomplete