Hello Musings About Mud, I wanted to say hello to you and thank
Carole for bringing me on to guest blog! My name is Damien Jones, and
I’m a ceramics artist based in Oakland. I wanted to team up with Carole
since she has a great blog on all things pottery and ceramics and share
my work and vision with you.
I’m currently in
the first week of my indiegogo campaign where I’m trying to raise
$30,000 so I can put a 15 foot public sculpture outside of the American
Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA.
I’d love
to share this campaign with you! Please check out my Fertilitree
sculpture I will be creating once funded and all of the seeds of the
Fertilitree available for a pledge. It would be great to have this
campaign shared amongst your peers if you see fit! Every little bit
counts!
Here’s the link! bit.ly/YzIxfO And here’s some more detail on my vision and my work as an artist if you feel like reading on…
FertiliTree – a 15′ Ceramic Sculpture for the American Museum of Ceramic Art, crowdfunded thru Indiegogo
Damien
Jones has developed a unique construction process for monumental
sculptures, which involves constructing large slab-formed hollow
highfired ceramic sections (3-4′ tall), then stacking them onsite and
filling them with concrete. This yields extremely durable public art
pieces, and can be used to create sculptures 50-100′ tall, at a fraction
of the cost of other public art methods. He’s completed a few public
monuments up to 10′ tall, but trying to land larger projects has been
fruitless, due to the low number of projects that come available each
year, and the extreme competition for them, with hundreds of artists
applying for each project.
After applying unsuccessfully for dozens of public art calls, he
decided to take matters into his own hands. When he found out about the
American Museum of Ceramic Art’s new facility in Pomona, he offerred to
create a monumental sculpture for them, and to crowdfund it thru
Indiegogo.com. Pomona is the Roman goddess of the orchard, of
fertility, so the sculpture will be called FertiliTree — a woman
growing from a tree trunk — as a
celebration of Femininity and Fertility. He’s attempting to raise $30K
for this project, and has developed a new line of Seeds, to acknowledge
donors for their contributions.
Once this project is complete
he hopes it will help open many more doors to creating larger public
works. Since this technique is so inexpensive, durable and versatile,
it has the potential to usher in far more art into our world than we
currently enjoy. He says “Public art makes a place feel loved and cared
for, transforming the
cities we live in from primarily functional, utilitarian spaces to
places of genuine beauty, inspiration, and joy, which our world could
sure use a lot more of!”
Have a look at his campaign, and
consider donating and spreading the word to support this wonderful and
ambitious project! Post it on your FB wall, if you like: bit.ly/YzIxfO
He’s set up a FB group to support and track the project, so please join that if you’re interested: http://www.facebook.com/groups/FertilitreeCampaign/
Also, if you become part of their campaign team you can win free
artwork, plus a $100 gift card from the company of your choice.
Bio: I’ve
spent 22 years exploring the possibilities of Clay. For the first 15
of those I was employed as a manufacturing engineer/industrial designer,
but left that career to pursue art, and since 2006 have been a
full-time artist. In that time I’ve created and installed dozens of
monumental sculptures and water features for private clients, as well as
several public art pieces. My work is represented by galleries in
Santa Fe, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, Scottsdale, and Palm Springs.
Project & Goal: -To place my 15-foot Fertilitree sculpture in front of AMOCA (American Museum of Ceramic Art) in Pomona, CA. -Pomona is the Roman Goddess of fertilitee. -Fertilitree is a project inspired by the goddess Pomona. -Raise $30,000 to help fund this project.
To Schedule Interviews for Press and Contact Info.
The following is copied from the NCECA Newsletter:
It is with immeasurable sadness that we report the passing of
Victor Spinski on Monday, January 21, 2013. At the 2013 NCECA Conference
in Houston, Victor was to be made an Honorary Member of the Council.
This award will now be presented posthumously and an observance in
memory of Victor will be planned.
Victor Spinski’s work communicated through its mastery of
material and keenness of mind. His storytelling and early performances
have become part of NCECA’s folklore and also represent important
threads in the tapestry of contemporary ceramics. Victor held a patent
on the Ceramic Photo Emulsion process and distinguished himself as one
of the foremost artists working in the vein of trompe l’oeil ceramics.
Victor’s mastery of the ceramic material enabled him to render objects
with so high a level of verisimilitude as to make us question our
powers of perception. In this manner he played a pivotal role shaping
the course of contemporary clay sculpture in adapting the trompe l’oeil
style to the ceramic medium.
The subject of NCECA’s Spirit of Ceramics video: Victor Spinski: A True American Master of Fun(k),
Victor retired seven years ago from his 38-year tenure as a Professor
of Ceramics at the University of Delaware. Victor’s acute wit was often
animated through the juxtaposition of contradictory elements and
fabrication that was so highly skilled as to confound our powers of
perception. Hammers and nails made of fragile fired clay would shatter
if employed with their intended function are examples of his
mischievous approach to his use of ceramics as a material.
Victor’s creative achievement is both a tribute to and
celebration of the value of an honest day’s work. His sculptures
sometimes manifested this obsession with labor by endowing the forms of
old and used tools with earthy stoicism and otherworldly beauty.
Victor practiced his art in the tradition of the trickster, and jester,
using humor to reveal the essential and sometimes uncomfortable truths
that make us human.
Our hearts go out to his wife, Sally Van Orden and his son,
Tristan Spinski in this great moment of loss and to all those that had
the opportunity to know him. Victor will be missed by so many. His life
was a legacy that will continue to inspire and inform generations to
come.
