Central Washington Artists' Exhibition Award Winner at Larson Galllery

 

my face bulbs at CWAE this weekend

This weekend was the opening of the Central Washington Artists' Exhibition at Larson Gallery in Yakima. I have two pieces in the show this year, my Chartreucat sculpture and a small wall-installation of face bulbs.

the CWAE program

This is the 64th annual Central Washington Artists' Exhibition and I believe this is the first year in the new Larson Gallery on the new west side campus of Yakima Valley College, behind Taco Bell. The show runs through December 11. The gallery is open Tuesday-Friday 10-5 and Saturdays 12-5.

my installation at CWAE this weekend (I really like the neighboring work by Yu-Hen Dade)

The new gallery is much larger and nicer than the already pretty decent gallery across the street. The new space has multiple rooms, including a totally separate sales gallery with small art and gifts for sale. The new gallery also boasts better parking.

Chartreucat, also at CWAE (picture taken at home)

This was the first year in a bit that I remembered to enter this show. I can't remember if they had a show last year, but it's been a busy couple of years for me. This Chartreucat sculpture was one of several abstract sculptures I started last spring and finished this summer(with one not quite finished yet). I felt pretty good about finding the time to make these pieces.

my award certificate

My wall installation was also built last summer and mostly finished in Spring 2021. This installation won an award, the Jeffery Schaap & Gilbert Young Award, which was great news, and even better when I realized it was a monetary award.

detail with sold stickers Saturday afternoon

The installation features 15 unique face bulbs with a range of features, colors and expressions. When I arrived at the gallery this weekend, a couple was in the process of purchasing a pair of the bulbs. The woman indicated that she liked the masked pieces. Someone asked about the bulbs with plants coming out of their mouths, thinking they were like a scene from Trolls 2 (which I haven't seen).

weeds as speech

I explained that when I made these, I was thinking of the weeds coming out of mouth as a metaphor for hateful language, the way it spreads quickly and chokes out the beautiful flowers or healthy vegetables that might otherwise grow in that space.

invasive choking weeds/speech

Most of the bulbs were specifically created as a reference to the hateful political climate of the past several years. The masks were clearly created post-pandemic, but the screaming faces started showing up before the pandemic in the lead up to the last election.

masked face

 

I believe more of these may have sold since I left the show on Saturday. I was asked to provide some written explanation yesterday for Larson Gallery to use on their social media. It's not up yet, but these may be featured later on Larson Gallery's Facebook or Instagram. 

detail of installation

I'm happy to get these seen. It is sometimes challenging to keep up with teaching, union work, and my own work. Especially when my own work includes making, applying, showing, advertising, and keeping up an online presence here, on my website, and (kind of) on social media. 

my face bulbs and other (abstract) bulbs in my home studio this September

I showed these pieces this summer at my home studio for the Yakima Artists Studio Tour in September, but this was the first year for this show and I think all of us are still kind of gearing back up from pandemic to semi-post-pandemic mode for attending shows and going out in public. It is strange how long it has taken to start to move back to operating how we did before the pandemic.

award page of the CWAE program

After I published this, Larson Gallery added a video tour of the CWAE show:

Politics / Protest Mugs

A screaming Trump with his wall. I like the face, but the wall is boring.

This past summer, when I began working on my 30 pieces in 30 days project, I had originally intended to make three sets of 30 pieces, because, apparently, I like to give myself too much to do. I did finish and display a set of 30 abstract bulbs and a set of 30 politics bulbs, but I wasn't able to finish the mugs.

A (poorly lit) detail shot of my abstract bulbs at Columbia Center for the Arts. As far as I can tell, exhausted me from the summer never even took a decent photograph of the other installation.

The concept I was playing with was the contrast between sides. In the abstract bulbs, I simply created contrasting textures and colors on either sides of some of the bulbs, but for both the political bulbs and the political mugs, the original plan was to create imagery that represented contrasting political perspectives on opposite sides of the same piece.

The opposite side of the "wall" mug. I'm reasonably happy with this side.

If I remember, correctly, I abandoned the reversibility of the bulbs when I realized that some of the more sculptural forms would make the bulbs difficult to hang both ways. The extra depth of the sculpted parts would force the bulbs to hang at a funny angle or not at all. Eschewing the reverse side sculpture also allowed me to close some of the bulb fronts.

I didn't glaze this one yet, in part because I'm less happy with it's opposite side, the Obama "Hope" poster.

But the mugs work as reversibles. The handles are the automatic hook for hanging, and the handle is automatically some distance from the decoration on either side. The depth of a nose won't cause them to hang much differently than they would with a flat surface. Also, the forms are larger, meaning more space for some of the sculpted forms. 

A diagram of two alternate setups for the same mugs, with A side displaying one political perspective and B side another. Each mug has an A and a B side.

I have to admit, the ubiquity of the mug form for a potter, and the fact that people buy mugs, was also part of the appeal. I teach Functional Pottery all year so when I get to the end of the year, I have trouble stepping away from the functional forms. I can't tell if it is just familiarity or if it's a result of the fact that I spend the entire year trying to get students to think critically about form, function, handle shape, rim definition, and surface decoration. After harping on about it all year, I think I need to make the forms I'm bugging them about.

This one has a male dominated side and a gender equity side, but its a little trite and a little boring. It might work ok as a supporting actor for related mugs, but I'm not excited about it. there are some flaws in the glaze on the rim and handle, too.

I abandoned the mugs this summer when I'd made only about 15. I had simply taken on too much work, as I'm wont to do. and I realized that to finish the other two projects, I'd have to drop something. The mugs weren't working as well as the bulbs, so I stopped building and didn't even glaze them. I also knew I'd have to fire the mugs separately. (I was using a cone 6 throwing body and planned to use cone 6 glazes, but the bulbs were done with two different low fire sculpture bodies that I finished with the same low fire glaze.)

The opposite side of the gender equality/inequality mug.

I finished some of the mugs in December in the days I had off between the end of the quarter and our holiday travels. I took the pieces out of the kiln just before we left and mostly wasn't happy. The motifs didn't work as well as I'd initially planned, regardless of color, but I was also unhappy with some of the glazing.

One of the exciting things about the bulbs that I decided to avoid in the mugs is the use of mixed media. If these mugs are functional, they can't have holes, materials that aren't able to be washed, or undercuts that can catch water. The result is more subdued decoration.

I didn't glaze everything. Two pieces had cracked, two were too complicated to finish in a few days and I'd left one blank because I planned to paint the decoration, but I can't now remember what I was planning to do.

The idea for this mug is the two favorite amendments of the two contrasting political parties. The second here and the first, above, but as is, this just looks like guns randomly stuck on a mug. 

I'm still halfway interested in trying to finish the project, but I need dedicated time. The political or protest inspired pieces are simply more taxing mentally than the abstract pieces. Working on the abstract pieces is repetitive and relaxing and the results aren't controversial, so I don't stress about how people will react.

The glaze was either too thin or underfed on this mug. I was too lazy, too, on my glaze application. This one, on its own, probably put me off writing about these for over a month.

With the political pieces, I know I'm going to make someone unhappy if I'm doing what I mean to do, but the worst result is if people don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm afraid I've accomplished that (a lack of clarity) with some of the mugs, and in general the mugs I've finished are, across the board, more disappointing to me than the political bulbs. Some of the mugs simply feel cheesy and/or amateurish.

This one has protestors and placards on both sides. The decoration is ok, but it felt like too much work to glaze it in December. I'm glad I didn't, too, because I'm unhappy with the contrast I got from the commercial celadons in the text mug above. Instead I'll use underglaze like the gender symbol mug earlier.

The pieces I still like the best and that I most enjoyed making are the screaming faces. They're fun to make and they also feel like they capture the mood of the country right now. I've been toying with the idea of making an installation composed exclusively of screaming faces. And really, who doesn't want a screaming mug right now?

These two are my favorites. The screaming person is the opposite side of the screaming Trump above and who even cares what is opposite the birth control, because the color worked well. I used underglaze for both and the color is much more what I want than what I got with the celadons.

I think I will eventually finish the mug pieces. During the year I've got a day job that takes a lot of my mental energy, but in the summer I think it might be worth it to push past the unpleasantness and the failure of some of the mugs to see the whole set installed together. Though I'm disappointed with the current results, I'm not totally over the whole idea.

Yakima Celebrates International Sculpture Day

Join me at Yakima Maker Space and The Seasons Performance Hall on Monday, April 24 for International Sculpture Day.

Last year, I learned that rules are apparently optional for artists, so this year, after the organizers created and printed their fliers for the event, I decided to change my title. So, join me at the Seasons at 5pm for my talk "Evolution of the Bulb." Where I talk about my wall installation at Yakima Maker Space, my sculpture, and my fascination with the "bulb" form that shows up in both.

"bulbs" on the wall

Attendees at the International Sculpture Day events will get to see the early iterations of my sculptural and installation forms, including raku fired work from 2002 and the tactile sensation that was my wall installation in 2005 (it was so enticing, it had to be moved so that people would stop touching it). Also on view during my talk: the gradual improvement of my ability to operate a camera from 2002 to 2016.

work that *might* be finished this summer?

My talk is only 10 minutes long, so be there or miss out on all the fun times. If you can swing it, join Carolyn Nelson for an exclusive walking tour of downtown Yakima sculpture and public art starting at North Town Coffeehouse at 4pm. The tour will end at The Seasons in time for the artist talks.

Some Wall Stuff

Last week was yet another short studio week. Monday and Tuesday were devoted to school supply accumulation and children's art projects since Yakima Public Schools didn't start until Wednesday but our summer child care ended the week before. I had a nice relaxing week with the kid, but I did finish a few small wall pieces, too.

Two small wall pieces. The one on the right is not quite finished.

Sometime in the next year and a half I will be installing a wall installation in a Seattle storefront. I don't yet know when the work will be installed or where, but I believe I have some time to get a few more pieces finished, glazed and fired.

A slightly larger wall installation piece before firing.

In February I will be showing work at CORE Gallery near Pioneer Square in Seattle. I will be one of two artists exhibiting in the gallery for the month. If room allows, and if the Storefronts exhibition is not concurrent, I may install work on the wall at CORE. I will also have one work on display throughout the year at CORE as a member of the gallery.

A smallish and simple wall piece before firing.

Now that September has arrived, my summer work time is winding down. I'm back to work in the middle of the month, so the next few weeks mean lots of under-glazing time for me in the studio. The challenge is to keep myself interested and focused. I'm not a big fan of under-glazing, so I have a of a tendency to become interested in folding laundry or cleaning my desk to avoid the equally boring task of applying repetitive layers of under-glaze. (I tend not get distracted like this when I am building work.)

Some pieces with the first layers of underglaze, in the kiln and ready to be fired.