by Carole Epp | Nov 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
For too many of the years that i have been working as an artist i have gone back and forth with my desire to participate in/my need to participate in/my questioning of the value of art and craft markets. I have spent some of those years avoiding them completely and focusing on gallery exposure, but then there are years like this year that i have applied to as many as i figured i could handle.
This in turn equates to a reality of 4 christmas sales in just over a month. And just when you think that the theme song from the tv show intervention should be playing in my head and friends should be stopping by to question my sanity; i’ve accepted a last minute spot in yet another chirstmas sale.
This one in a concert arena. This one with likely the largest crowd of them all. This one at the end of all the other sales when fingers crossed I’m not just left with odds and ends. But this was the year that I said I was going to give it my all, take my lumps, smile the smiles needed to close the sales and in the new year look to see if it all payed off or not. Then and only then will i address the potential need for plan B.
It seems only fitting though that the following video is making it’s rounds on the internet, mocking me and my positive outlook, reminding me of the often sad and true reality of craft sales (especially the glitter part), and wishing i had just stayed in bed a bit longer as that would likely have put me further ahead in the end… : )
So i would like to ask all of you your thoughts on these sorts of sales. Does it really get better once you’ve done the same sale a few years in a row? Does it pay off for you in the end? How far are you willing to travel for a sale? Or do you stick close to home? And what sorts of “drinks” do you need to get you through the long hours?
Thanks!
by Carole Epp | Nov 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
Grace Nickel, a new assistant professor in Ceramics at the School of Art, recently saw her sculpture Donors’ Forest unveiled at the Beechwood National Cemetery of Canada in Ottawa. The piece was commissioned for the entrance-way to the new Memorial Centre that opened at the Beechwood Cemetery in 2008.
(* note i couldn’t get a large enough image of the piece discussed, sorry)
Her sculpture, consisting of a series of porcelain tree trunks resonant of birch trees, includes a seven-foot tall, forked tree sitting in the centre of her Donors Forest. The tree mimics the Y-shaped wooden columns in the Memorial Centre’s Sacred Space. “For my Donors’ Forest, I chose to work in the tradition of the commemorative tree. The inscriptions on the trees’ surface commemorate the soldiers, poets, politicians, and the cultural diversity of the Canadians buried at the Beechwood Cemetery,” Nickel said in her artist’s statement. The piece simultaneously exudes a warmth that the viewer finds inviting, a place, perhaps, to find solace. But the austerity of subject ultimately interrupts the onlooker’s reverie, forcing her to reflect on a different set of emotions. “The commissioned piece recognized the generosity of donors who made the new Memorial Centre possible, but for me it also had to commemorate the contribution of people who have gone before us. I’d say what was most poignant for me was the recognition of the young soldiers in the military cemetery.” Images of monuments in the cemetery have been transferred onto the tree. Nickel inscribed lines from a poem by Archibald Lampman, a quote from Tommy Douglas’s epitaph: “Courage my friends, ‘tis not too late to make a better world,” and excerpts from John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields, in English and French. There is also an image of the entrance marker to the Chinese section of the cemetery as well as leaves and other plant matter Nickel collected on the cemetery grounds embedded in the porcelain; the organic matter burned off in the kiln-firing, but its impressions remain.via link
by Carole Epp | Nov 3, 2010 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday
Entry Deadline: December 31, 2010
Open to bicentennial themed ceramic tiles no larger than 16 x 16 in., no smaller than 8 x 8 in., and not thicker than 4 cm.
Mural Rawson en el Bicentenario, Centro Cultural José Hernandez
54 02965 485564
http://ceramicaenrawson.blogspot.com
[email protected]
by Carole Epp | Nov 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
The Bray is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to the enrichment of the ceramic arts, located at 2915 Country Club Ave. in Helena, just 1/3 mile west of Spring Meadow Lake. Galleries are free and open to the public.
Contact us at 406/443-3502 or go to our web site at www.archiebray.org.
by Carole Epp | Nov 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
Yummy yummy gorgeous glazes to start off your week.
Enjoy.
http://sebmoh.com/home.html
