getting ready to fire up the alpine. i have an evaluation at the end of next week. lots of experiments in here, colored clays, feldspar inclusions and tessellating tiles. yay.
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shigaraki peops: makiko suzuki
makiko’s station is right next to mine and while i sit working i also watch her throw. she would affix a huge pugged cylinder of clay to the wheel head, center it and throw off the hump. taped to the wall in front of her are pages of orders from galleries. the entire time i’ve been here she has been working tirelessly to fill them.
originally from saitama (near tokyo) she moved here about a year ao when she married a shigaraki local. she’s in the process of building a new studio at home and in the mean time is a resident here. though she heads home most nights she (like the rest of us) has a room here. when she’s pulling all nighters to finish work or firing kilns she stays in her room.
makiko loves trimming, or maybe i just love watching her trim? one of her forms is a wine goblet, the stem of which she throws solid and then trims out everything but the stem. above her wheel, on the window sill above her orders sit several pots of trimming tools.
though her tight schedule has meant she socializes the least, sitting next to her has lead to several nice conversations. despite the language barrier we have talked about inspiration, the virtues of shared studio space, what it will be like when her studio is done…when i had some work crack in the drying room, she gave me cookies and consoled me with her own stories of ceramic woe. i couldn’t always understand every word of what she said (and certainly she couldn’t understand my terrible japanese) her quiet, sparkling voice was a comfort.
makiko’s pots are super popular in galleries and shops in osaka, tokyo and abroad, hence the busy schedule. as i write this she and her husband are sanding the bottoms of hundres of perfect, cleverly designed and glazed forms.
i can’t wait to come back to shigaraki and to visit her home studio or, better yet, for her to come show in the u.s..
***edit as of 3/28/17
This blog post contains some links to Makiko’s work.
shigaraki peops: naoki koide
i have been having a great time at shigaraki and one reason for that is all the awesome artists i am getting to know and work next to. in this little series of blog posts i hope to briefly introduce these awesome people.
koide-san with figure.
naoki koide has appeared in this blog before, in this post about the paul clay show at salon 94. his work is in the second picture, the pink cloud-like figure in the foreground. that was my first time to see his work in person. all i really knew about him was that he was represented by tomio koyama gallery, where agatha and i curated think warm: miami draws for you back in 2006. turns out he saw the show too! i’m a big fan of his work and am now a fan of the person as well.
koide-san spends about a week of each month at togei no mori (shigaraki ceramic cultural park) and does his clay work exclusively here. he studied at tokyo zokei university and was at one time a student/assistant of yoshitomo nara. like nara, he used to work in plastics. they are both featured in a show at the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Arts right now (titled doki doki) which features artists working in other media who have created works in ceramic and variety of ceramic artists.
though he is kicking some serious butt with clay he is also beginning to explore sculpting wood, which he can do at his studio at home. he mentioned that he gets huge chunks of wood from generous wood firing friends around shigaraki.
maquettes and small figures for mini trade
koide-san said his work is always about his family. earlier works talked about his parents and brother and in his current work he explores his small family of three. in sculptures of heads, which in scale are much larger than life, he portrays his wife and himself. he often portrays his wife as larger than himself. when i asked why that was he said that it is because she possesses more power than he.
maquette of current work.
on one side of these large sculpture an active interior is visible, full of tiny sculptures, paths and, in this series, a large figure symbolizing his young daughter.
back of maquette with inner world.
the seemingly unrelated milieu of items inside the sculpture correlate to the mess of things constantly dancing around in our heads and the placement of the daughter figure explores the different relationships the mother and father have with the daughter.
koide-san with his in progress sculptures. they are only about halfway done!
for the one short week he was in residence koide-san was a great contributor to the fun and comradeship at togei no mori.
his work is up at the new hikarie building in shibuya now. click the link for images and an interview (with is in japanese but features some great shots of the insides of koide-san’s sculpture).
coffee break.
check back for more run downs on the awesome artists working at togei no mori this month:)
highlight
NCECA was in seattle this year. while there, i had the opportunity to reconnect with some seriously old friends. one of those friends, mz katie kohiha lives near the frye museum. during dinner friday night (at the amazing sitka and spruce) she mentioned the exhibition taking place at the frye.
a long time resident and nearly daily visitor to the museum, nonagenarian frieda sondland had been asked by the frye to curate selection of works from the permanent collection.
i thought that sounded pretty cool. sunday, before driving out to bellevue to see the push/play exhibition, we went to pick up katie’s car, walked right by the frye and decided to stop in.
summer plans:)
this summer i will be spending a month in shigaraki, japan. i leave may 8 and will spend a week in tokyo seeing old friends. then down to shigaraki, where i’ll create some sculptures and an installation. i am really looking forward to it!
saturday!
come check out my fellow first years and me as we wrap up the year. saturday night at the warphaus.
uf’s warphaus gallery is located off campus at SW 6th st and SW 4th ave on the northeast corner of the intersection.
drawing at the museum of natural history.
today i went to the museum of natural history to draw items from the invertebrate collection. one of the post doc students who’s been working with the creativity in the arts and science events has organized a series of drawing days. we’ll be doing birds next.
i felt like i was in the ministry of magic in harry potter, all the rows and rows of jars and lockers of dry specimens.
check out this crazy squid. the collections manager informed us that there was a 24 foot giant squid in the collection. unfortunately it was housed off site:)
this slightly blurry image is of a sea cucumber (in ethanol). i love how the pattern looks like crystalline formation in glaze.
they mentioned that sometimes the pigments in animals is alcohol soluble so it leaches into the ethanol. i don’t know if this guys purple stripes will leach out but in the mean time it was quite beautiful to see.
love these interlocking patterns. they are organic and random but they still seem to fit together.
this armadillo was displayed up front. there were several displayed but this one’s glistening, perfect, pentagon shapes were stunning.
this was my messy drawing of a strawberry urchin. they actually took them out of the jar for us to draw. i was able to feel the ends of the protrusions and they were fuzzy! like flocking! thanks carrie for pointing this little guy out:)
cats!
remember these little cuties?
squirrel vs. falcon.
warning: this story is ridiculously cute.
draaaaa-ma.
anyone who lives in gainesville know how many squirrels there are everywhere.
so friday, we all met up at the studio to get some announcements, divvy up shelf space for classes and, of course, CLEAN. while i’m sweeping up in the kiln room i decide to open up the bay door (on the left in the picture above) so i can sweep the leaves out. (whoops) i got a shower of grime and noticed a bunch of spanish moss jamming up the works. later when someone else went to close it, 3 tiny bald squirrels fell out! their little squeaks made it pretty clear that they were not down with the situation.
everyone sprang into action. ray put in a call to animal control and mama squirrel came barreling over. she grabs one of the babies in her mouth and starts (we thought) gnawing on it. somebody (it was all a blur!) quickly shuts the solid door to protect the rest of the babies. for good measure jon scoots the little guys onto a piece of cardboard so that they wouldn’t get cold so quickly.
i guess i figured the babies didn’t stand much of a chance anyway and if mama squirrels are supposed to eat there babies then who are we to mess with nature? but i also had the image of the the squirrel that lives in my roof (another squirrel story) in my head so i just didn’t think she was munching on her baby. so i went outside to scope the situation and she she seemed to be bundling the baby up so she could hold it by it’s arms and legs. once she had it secure she ran up a big tree and put it in a nest we could see from below.
while she was running that little errand we opened the door again and moved the squirrels outside.
on her second run up the tree this giant FALCON swoops out of the sky and tries to grab her. i kid you not! mama strikes out against the falcon and the baby falls from the tree into the soft pine needles below and starts squawking. the mom runs back to the other baby and brings that one up the tree. at one point we were literally running after the falcon to discourage it from attacking the squirrels (don’t worry, no falcons were harmed).
finally mama came down and found baby number three and brought it up to the tree tops as well.
BA-NANAS!
needless to say i didn’t have my phone on me so was unable to document all this action but that just makes it more fun to tell. and everyone was so cute, acting on behalf of the little squirrels:)
wow!
i start teaching monday!