emerging artist: Denise Joyal

by | May 25, 2013 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday

Artist’s Statement

Swirling gases surround the molten forms,
moving through and around them, seeking escape. The tumbling trapped
gases enter forcefully, slowing to ignite and escape the oxygen deprived
atmosphere. Fire and air combine to birth new formations of stone from
ancient eroded particles. Open forms with clean lines are indicative of
my work. Stoneware and Porcelain, once great rock formations now
decomposed, are reborn into complex forms with clean lines and
atmospheric glazing.

Negative space is considered in conjunction with positive to form both
functional and sculptural vessels. Lao Tsu says, “Shape clay into a
vessel. It is the space inside that makes it useful. Cut doors and
windows for a room. It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore
profit comes from what is there. Usefulness from what is not there.” The
truth lies within our selves, within our art, inside our bodily
vessels. We look inside to discover our true nature. When we bring forth
our emptiness and make it useful, we share our souls in the everyday.
My artistic goal is to bring the viewer to find meaning in presence and
absence, creating an appreciation of both the form that is there and the
space that remains open.

emerging artist: LeeAnn Janissen

by | Apr 21, 2013 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday

My
work explores the sympathetic magic that arises through representing
the natural world in miniature as a way to capture and control vast and
unfathomable forces.  In the series of functional vessels Luna-ware, the
works begin with the creation of models of the moon in porcelain. These
models are then cut and combined with handles, rims and bases to form
domestic vessels. The dark grey, cratered, uneven Luna surface provides a
visual and tactile experience that contrasts strongly with the smooth,
shiny white surfaces of the rims and handles, and invites an examination
of the difference between “natural” and “made”.