I hope you can join me and 21 other talented artists at JCO’s Art Haus for the Affordable Art Fair. I’ll be showcasing work from the Lichen Series, so if you’ve had your eye on these pieces, this is your chance to grab them at very very affordable prices!
If you want to learn more about my work, come and meet me on Thursday October 12th from 5 – 8 for the meet and greet!
After hours of tedium in the building process and lots of prayers to the kiln gods during the firing process, this Umbel Flower is finally finished. Inspired by a dandelion flowerhead that had gone to seed the flower has high temperature wire for the stalks that attach to the core of the flower and then a thinner gauge high temperature wire on the tips of each of the stalks. I wanted to have a stem and base so that the flower would display upright. Luckily, my studio neighbor sculptor Jamie Abbott was up to the task and he forged me a stem from steel rod which was welded onto a base. I swore I was only going to make one of these but now that I see it finished, I might just have to make a few more!
Come see this piece in person during Open Studios this October!
Classes for Kids, Teens and Adults are available at the studio for a 9 week session this fall which starts next week. Join in on all or part of the session and be creative with clay! Home-school groups are welcome and flexible punch cards are available for adult group classes.
Many of you got to see, walk and experience the Umbel Series path since the exhibit Environmental Installations opened in late May and I’ve been so thrilled to hear how much you’ve enjoyed it. I had hoped that the piece would be on display until the end of the exhibit in November but unfortunately we’ve had some incidents of vandalism and the arboretum is also planning on some dirt work close to my installation, so I’ve chosen to remove it early from the exhibit. If you didn’t get a chance to see the piece in person, the drone video of it will give you as close of an experience as possible to being there yourself.
Art in the Arboretum: Environmental Installations still has eight spectacular installations up until the close of the show November 17th and I encourage you to go explore the arboretum and discover these beautiful works.
So where have all the umbels gone? Right now the flowers are in my studio and are available for sale via the online shop. Next week, the remaining unsold Umbel Series flowers will be making their own pilgrimage to south county. They will be assembled in a completely new formation at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville as a part of the Sculpture IS: 2017 exhibit put on by the Pajaro Valley Art Gallery. Photos of the new installation will follow soon and I hope you get a chance to see it on display there as well.
Thank you for all the positivity that’s surrounded this installation!
Flip to the last page of your October issue of Ceramics Monthly (or click the link to read online!) the Spotlight article ‘A Path of Color’ about my Umbel Series Installation at the UCSC Arboretum for Art in the Arboretum: Environmental Installations curated by Susana Arias!
To learn more about the Umbel Series or to purchase flowers from this installation, click here.
Here’s the monthly wrap up of everything going on at the studio…
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I’m so thrilled to have a brand new piece from my Bone Series Installation accepted into the 2017 California Sculpture SLAM at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. The piece was selected out of 195 total entries. The show includes 49 pieces in a variety of works in metal, wood, stone, glass, and fabric by both established and up-and-coming California sculptors.
September 1 – October 29, 2017
Opening reception Friday, September 1, 6–9pm
Awards will be announced at 7pm. Entry is free
On Saturday, September 2 at 12 PM, juror Brigette Micmacker of Sculpturesite Gallery will give an ARTalk and SLAM exhibition tour at the museum. The talk and tour are free and open to the public.
For more information about San Luis Obispo Museum of Art and the upcoming SLAM events, visit the museum website here.
BIG BIG Thanks to curator Susana Arias and drone photographer Jim Clark for making this video happen!!
About the Umbel Series Installation:
The Umbel Series Installation is a temporary installation included in the Environmental Installations exhibit at the UCSC Arboretum in Santa Cruz CA. The saffron colored trail is inspired by the folklore of mustard seeds being planted along the historic Camino Real in Mexico and California which would bloom into a bright yellow path of mustard flowers helping pilgrims find their way from mission to mission. The abstract flower forms are inspired by umbel shaped flower structures, a flower whose shape resembles an umbrella. I love the idea of being able to track your path through the wilds of the world by following a color. While wild mustard flowers in reality are not the umbel shaped forms I’ve been researching, I loved this story so much I thought I could combine these concepts together to create an impactful installation.
The installation is about 100′ x 2′ x 3′ and is made up of 230 individual abstract umbel flowers, each flower is hand-built and unique. The flowers are available for pre-sale in the online shop with a picking day towards the end of the exhibition, shipping is also available for out of area buyers. SHOP NOW
Last week I didn’t add one post to The Dirt, which has become a pretty rare thing these days but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t busy with both work in the studio and out exploring in nature. So to catch you up, here’s what’s going on in the studio…
I’m working on three series at a time here, as pictured below. The Bone Series discs are now being framed up into smaller compositions of the weblike structures that I’ve done in the past and I’m thrilled with the way these are turning out! The Umbel Series is in experiment mode, I’m trying to create a dandelion flower structure using high temperature wire, this one is in the kiln right now, so fingers crossed it survives. And lastly, I’m working on the Lichen Series, these ceramic pieces are being attached to live edge walnut wood planks, the wood is sealed with a matte stain and will eventually be mounted into metal fabricated stands so that they are standing trees and you’ll be able to walk around them. All of these works will be ready for their debut this October for Open Studios, looking forward to showing them off to you then!
And as far as adventures go, I had to deliver work to the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art for the Sculpture Slam 2017 exhibit so we made a weekend trip out of driving down there and did some off roading in the van which led to an epic campsite high above the fog of Big Sur. Hoping to get a few more adventure weekends like this in, maybe bringing some art with me to photograph in nature. Loving how exploration seeds the inspiration!
By: CATHY KELLY – Register Pajaronian
SANTA CRUZ – Bizarre and beautiful plants, bulleting hummingbirds and more often inspire visitors to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. And now, through Nov. 17, a large-scale art exhibit on the picturesque hillside takes that inspiration to some intriguing places.
“Art in the Arboretum: Environmental Installations” is the arboretum’s third such art undertaking, curated by Santa Cruz artist and sculptor Susana Arias. The art varies widely, in size and style, with pieces dispersed throughout the spacious New Zealand and South African gardens. READ MORE…