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 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
by Carole Epp | Nov 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
by Paul Andrew Wandless
I can’t embed the video so you’ll have to jump over to here to see it.
by Carole Epp | Oct 31, 2010 | Uncategorized
Julie York’s work deals with complex themes – means of processing information, cognition and recognition, how one sees and perceives objects – issues typically not explored within the ceramics medium. She is one of a handful of young makers currently redefining the use of clay in sculptural work and her efforts have been recognized. York received the Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2007, the Independence Foundation Fellowship in 2006 and two Creative Production Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Julie York is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and Material Practice at Emily Carr University, where she teaches in the Ceramics Department. She received her BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1996 and her MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2000. Subsequently she has held fellowships and residencies at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia and at the International Ceramic Research Centre, Guldagergaard, in Skaelskor, Denmark.
Models, Mold Making & Casting Techniques Demonstrations
Monday, November 8, 2010 | 9 am – 4 pm
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 | 9 am – noon
Conflation of Object and Image
Lecture Monday, November 8, 2010 | 7:00 pm
All events:
Ceramics Studio University of Manitoba
School of Art
203 FitzGerald Building
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB
R3T 2N2
204.474.9367
umanitoba.ca/schools/art/
