Monday eye candy: Ceramic Origami

by Carole Epp | Jul 6, 2010 | Uncategorized

For more of Ann Van Hoey’s work go here.

I have arrived!

by Carole Epp | Jul 4, 2010 | Uncategorized

Medalta day one. What an incredible day for a drive. I’d almost forgotten how peaceful and gorgeous it can be to drive through the prairies in the summer. I guess traveling hasn’t been quite as peaceful lately with the two year old rocking out in the backseat : ) So today was a blessing. Couldn’t have been better timed either. I needed the quiet to start thinking about what I was going to do over the next month at Medalta. Yah I know I should have sorted that out before being on a highway a few hours away, but so be it. I’ve been busy lately. It was definitely pretty incredible to drive up to the Historic Medalta site. For a ceramist it was actually pretty awe inspiring and jaw dropping. Aaron Nelson, the AIR director greated me in the parking lot and was every bit the wonderful person as he had been described to me by so many. I got a quick breeze through the studios, meeting up with the oh so wonderful Brendan Tang (if you don’t know who he is yet, well do some googling yourself cuz he’s only one of the top young hipster/see him everywhere/amazing Canadian ceramic artists – and just a plain old down to earth awesome guy as well) and then settling into the house I’ll be calling home for the next month.

Already I’m feeling the call of college life upon me. Common studios, late night chats, art and creativity everywhere. Oh how I’ve been aching for this for too long. But now the stress and joy of sorting out what to do with my time. I came prepared to either make work like mad, obsessed with making to get ideas out and progress churning; or to breathe and think for a month, something one doesn’t get to do with young children and the everyday impinging upon creative thought and production time. If I go away empty handed but brain full I will be equally as pleased. But where to begin…do I follow familiar paths or do I find a fresh start. Comfort zone or risk it all. I might have to toss a coin…either way I’ll keep you posted.

Light and shadow

by Carole Epp | Jul 1, 2010 | Uncategorized

Coincidentally a professional photographer that I once contracted years ago, called me today during a brief photo session I was trying to get done while the babe slept. He’s a nice guy by all accounts. Chatty and quite convinced of the integral role the photographer plays in an artist’s success in grants, submissions and print media. I don’t disagree having sat on grant and gallery submission juries in the past. I just have to think of the painter I saw this past weekend at an art sale quickly photographing her paintings on a cheap digital camera in the partial shade of a wind blown tree while holding the paintings in one hand, camera in the other. Sigh.

Now I know I’m no photographer extraordinare, but i like to think i’m past the days of my first set of slides in my undergrad when i set up a neutral grey cloth on my parents dinning room table, closed the beige hanging curtains behind and took some of the most shockingly nasty images of my god awful brown pots. And while i do love the print standard lighting and backdrop that is seen in each craft and ceramic magazine, i sometimes long for something different. Sure a standard is a good thing, but it’s sorta like putting your art on a plinth and expecting the world not to see that plinth. Everything has an impact on how the object is viewed.

I’ve been making different pots lately, more organic ones than before, loose forms that mold their shape more with the folds of a hand, with lips that aim to take the eye for a wander, with simple surfaces that beckon you to remember simpler times, nostalgic old prairies scenes, the smells and light of an old farm house in the spring.

And i’m finding that the sterile environment of the fading backdrop and perfect light don’t speak to these ideas I have for the vessels. I’m not sure how to resolve this as the world of galleries, grants and media seem to want a standard by which to level the playing field so that the good will rise up. I on the other hand just want to play. To show the objects in context, in light and shadow, to show them in use. But without it being a cheezy looking ad with happy beautiful people holding ceramic cups, and without the blur of my hand held camera as i shoot an image of my work in the park before a sale in the shade of a tree with the grass as a backdrop.