Musing About Mud | Carole Epp

Medalta Day Four

by Carole Epp | Jul 7, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

So today started with a tour of Hycroft China, which was so exciting i barely slept last night. (i know i’m a super geek). I’ve got a ton of pictures to share with you but I’ll likely not do any commentary simply because it wouldn’t do the space/objects/history justice. I will entice you with images and suggest that you make the trek out here to visit and have the fantastic Mr. Aaron Nelson take you on a tour in the flesh.

Resident Artist Talks at the Bray

by Carole Epp | Jul 7, 2010 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Sean Erwin, Jeff Campana, Kelly Garrett Rathbone and Shanna Fliegel
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Bray Resident Center
All artist talks are free and open to the public.

Bray Resident Artist Talks

Join us Wednesday evening to hear current Bray Resident Artists Sean Erwin, Jeff Campana, Kelly Garrett Rathbone and Shanna Fliegel discuss their artwork, influences and inspirations.

Click here to view more artwork

Call for entry – Beyond the Brickyard

by Carole Epp | Jul 7, 2010 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday | 0 Comments

We are pleased to be holding our third annual international call for entries, Beyond the Brickyard.
The selected works will be exhibited at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena. MT, January 2011. This year’s exhibition will be juried by 2010 Voulkos Fellow Paul Mathieu.

Specifications

The competition is open internationally to ceramic artists 18 years of age or older.
Artists may submit up to 3 works for consideration, and up to 2 images of each piece (one complete photo plus one detail or alternate angle).
All artwork must be available for sale and available during the time of exhibition.
The artwork exhibited must be the same piece(s) submitted for consideration.
Submitted artwork must not exceed 36” in any direction.
The artwork entered should be prepared for professional display and not so fragile as to be potentially dangerous to the work or others when shipped/displayed/handled with reasonable care.
Artists are responsible for cost of shipping selected work(s) to the Archie Bray Foundation (ABF). Artists are responsible for their own insurance for shipping to ABF and during the time that artwork resides there. ABF will assume cost and shipping insurance for the return of any unsold work.
For good image quality and a fast upload, your image files should be sized no larger than 1800 x 1800 pixels at 72 dpi (approximately 6″ x 6″ at 300 dpi)

Applying
Submissions to Beyond the Brickyard will only be accepted online. By clicking on the link at the bottom of the page you will be taken to Slideroom.com which will allow you to register and upload your images. Submissions can be edited and are not officially submitted until you choose the “Complete Submission” tab and enter your payment method.
Submissions must be received online by midnight MST, September 15, 2010. Entry Fee
The cost of entering Beyond the Brickyard is $35 USD for up to 3 works.
All major credit cards are accepted.

Awards
From the successful entrants, two awards will be selected:
Juror’s Choice Award: $400
Director’s Choice Award: $400 Sales Commission
Artists will receive 55% commission of their work sold during exhibition, while ABF will retain 45%. Exhibition Schedule
By applying all applicants agree to the following schedule if selected to exhibit:

Applications due September 15, 2010
Entrants notified of jury results by email no later than October 31, 2010
Work to be received by Archie Bray Foundation by December 11, 2010
Work exhibited in Beyond the Brickyard, January 2011 Questions about your application?
For technical support please contact [email protected]
For questions about submission information please contact [email protected] Your completed application must be received on or before September 15, 2010.

Click here to view the 2010 Beyond the Brickyard Exhibition.

Medalta day 3.5 – visual diaries

by Carole Epp | Jul 7, 2010 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

The other thing I wanted to do why here was post a bit of a visual diary/sketchbook of what i’m working on since this is such a concentrated production time. I have to admit while i’m compelled to do this, the thought of exposing so much unfinished work, random thoughts and, well, potential garbage scares me. It’s hard to be vulnerable. And you know before, as much as I thought of all of you readers out there and tried to put faces to my audience, it’s been pretty creepy/cool/strange and thought provoking to actually be in a studio where there are people who will read this online and then potentially come and talk to me face to face about what’s here. It’s a pretty different feel alright. Makes you think more about what you’re writing about. But also in a positive way adds some humanity and closeness back into the whole blog/online community. Something to think about anyway.

So here we go with some images. Today was a day of some thrift store shopping and getting inspired by some new kitschy objects.

(a piece i’ve wanted to make for a long while now – the ass kissing angels)

* and on a relevant and intriguing note I must say that never before in my many years of obsessive second hand shopping have I ever (or has my companion Robin L) seen so many ceramic unicorns. Got to wonder what that’s all about all you Medicine Hatters. Unicorn Power!!!!

Medalta Day Three

by Carole Epp | Jul 6, 2010 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

The early morning quiet of the studio. The long day of productivity stretched before me, and what am I doing? Wasting my time online : ) Sigh, habits die hard. I think for someone who is used to working in a panic state, in small 20 minute bursts, the thought of hours, days, weeks to work is a bit overwhelming. But i’ll deal don’t you worry! It’s so exciting to be here (have I said that enough times yet?) Yesturday I dug my hands in and got muddy, nothing to write home about, just some pots to get me started. I’m eager to work with Robin Dupont while he’s here and suck some soda firing expertise out of him. So I figured making some work for the soda kiln was as good as any other way to start.

As usual I think I’m spending too much time thinking about my pots. It’s a left over from grad school days when everything had to be justified theoretically and conceptually. It has left me with the inability to accept that sometimes a pot is just a pot, a vessel, a beautiful functional container.

If you have any sense of my past work in functional ware (see some pics and an artist statement here) you’ll know of my interest in the relationship between industrially made ceramics and handmade ones and what are the signifiers/stereotypes of either. Medalta is a perfect place to be back thinking about these things being that the studio is just steps away from the old production factory/museum and a functioning production space. We had a quick but awesome tour yesturday and as Aaron mentioned we have to remember that even “industrially” made ceramics are made by hand, there are individual people in the process, it’s just a different process. So that lead me to wonder more about why/how we have this separation between small market mass production/mass industrial production/and small scale artist production. Maybe it really just boiled down to a question of aesthetics once all of the process/technology was removed. But why then have the two sides (artist vs industry) positioned themselves at such opposing sides of the spectrum. The industry side wants to generalize their audience, create the object that will have the largest commercial appeal where as the artist wants to have a singular voice, a unique vision – but wait – they want the largest commercial appeal too!

Hmmm. Commercial appeal. Unique vision. I want both, can I have both? Which has to be more compromised to realize the other?

In terms of process right now I’m working with both thrown vessels and slab construction. The thrown pieces are attempting to be loose works, speaking to their process on the wheel. The slab built are constructed using store bought objects, cheap bowls and plates, mass produced and intended to have the largest market appeal. I’m trying to use those pieces as a base upon which to overlay a unique vision, find an individual voice and highlight handmade stereotypes of ceramic production.

At the same time i’m also using commercial stamps. This a hard one for me. I’m so compelled and put off by them at the same time for similar and different reasons. I think it’s a crossover from my sculptural work to combine a bit of kitschy contemporary visual language. It’s cutsy (yum and yuck). But how to subvert a mass produced commercial stamp to produce a unique personal vision? It’s the same dilemma as using the cheap bowls and plates.

Who knows maybe it only makes mild sense in my mind. Maybe something will come out of it all, or maybe i’ll just have some nice dinnerware to take home and use.

Well anyway, that’s enough for now. Maybe some pictures later.

In the meantime if you want a different look into the residency I encourage you to check out Robin Lambert’s blog Tiny Revolutions. He’s promised to post everyday as well so we’ll see which one of us lives up to our promises!

Medalta day two

by Carole Epp | Jul 6, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Well from crickets in the bedroom to snakes at the studio, today was filled with new friends at Medalta, oh yeah and I met the rest of the staff and artists today too : )

I really can’t tell you how excited I am to be working alongside these other incredible artists. Intimidating, yes. Inspiring, definitely. Fun, yuppers. It’s going to be a great month for so many reasons. I’m hoping over the next few weeks to get these other artists to do a brief intro to their work here on the blog so that you guys get acquainted with them as well.
In the meantime here’s a sneak peek:

Paul Maseyk