I’ve been experimenting with the process of cyanotype combined with my porcelain plankton shaped pieces. The silhouette of the porcelain pieces creates an ethereal water-like quality and with the variations of exposure time and base material, there are a lot of variations to play with. It’s also got a ton of potential for large scale installation applications.
But, I’ve started off simple creating circular designs on tote bags – I’ve only made a few so far but I already love them! I’m debating between adding in an Earth Art Studio logo to the design and/or creating ceramic tags to hang off the straps, let me know if you have an opinion on this! Once I dial it in, I’m hoping to have these up for sale in the online shop soon and also available at the studio. Here’s a few pics of the first batch in progress.
The sculpture garden at Earth Art Studio is a perpetual work in progress. We want you to have new corners to visit and new art to enjoy, making each visit unique. When you donate, you help us…
create new sculptures + installations for the permanent collection of the garden
off-set local artists costs for exhibiting like transportation, installation + infrastructure
maintain the sculpture trail – the desert likes to take over!
make upgrades to the garden like new features, nooks + trails to explore
make visits free to local schools + educational groups
It hasn’t rained in almost a year, and it would appear that most of the plants in the desert are dead. When you look out the studio windows, you see the desert in all shades of brown with leafless gnarled, tangled sticks, sparse and bare except for the green of the cardón cactus. But, what has amazed me about this landscape is that if you look closer, you will see signs of life everywhere. There may not be enough energy in a plant to put out leaves and photosynthesize but it might throw out some flowers for the pollinators. Sometimes the flowers are very short lived, wilting in the summer heat but they are there and getting their seeds ready for when the rains do come.
Last week we were overrun by ants that were carrying all their eggs to higher ground, trying to nest in our kitchen and furniture. They weren’t looking for the crumbs on the counter or the drip down the side of the honey jar, they somehow knew that it is the season of the rains and they needed to find a better spot to hide out their next generation. Life in the desert is a lesson in patience and opportunity, you see it in the birds, plants and mammals and I find it fascinating to watch.
Just this morning we got a light sprinkling of the first rain of the season – it was hardly enough to even be called rain, but in the desert every drop counts. As the season progresses, the storms off the ocean will inevitability come closer to land and the afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains will spill out to our area. We will be inundated with water, and for a time it will feel like way too much water. But it only lasts for a small period of time and the desert will soak up enough to last through the whole next year. Stay tuned as we watch the desert come alive again and turn from brown to vibrant green, until then, we wait for the rain.
We have wearables, stickers, books and more available! We will be adding more products in soon for local pick up in Todos Santos but if you’re from out of the area, there are downloadable books and classes too!
You can also donate to our sculpture garden to help us keep it growing and share our space with educational groups!
It took me about four years of trial and a lot of errors to figure out how to make these porcelain urchin and medusa pieces consistently successful. Now, a small simple urchin form takes me about an hour to make and I have a pretty high confidence that it will make it through the kiln firing process. Although, larger and more complex forms can take much longer to create. Here’s a little time-lapse video of the process…
The heat of summer has officially descended on us in the desert! If you want to come sweat it out with us over here, we just posted our summer rates for tours of the studio and sculpture garden.
These rates will only be good through the end of September, so take advantage of the off season rates while you can!
We took advantage of the cool weather and cloud cover today to work on the sculpture trail and make a new path to one of the largest cardón cactus we have on the property. Now when you visit you can get up close and personal with this amazing cardón that could be hundreds of years old! Come visit again soon!🌵
Now that our big exhibition has ended, I’m getting to reclaim my studio and experiment with new ideas. I’ve been wanting to experiment with cyanotype on fabrics, using my porcelain plankton pieces as the masking objects and I finally got the time to play with it. These are all just tests but I’m so excited by the results and I think there’s a lot of potential with this idea. I love that the translucent edges of the porcelain let enough light through to recreate that glow on the fabric.
You might remember making cyanotypes when you were a kid with a blue paper and some collected leaves and flowers, you’d expose it to the UV rays of the sun and then rinse it off, revealing the silhouette of the objects. It’s one of the oldest and simplest photography processes to do – and that Prussian blue is so gorgeous its hard not to be mesmorized by the process and results.
We are SO grateful for everyone who has donated to our sculpture garden mission!
With your help we are able to create new sculptures for the permanent collection of the Earth Art Studio sculpture garden, off-set local artists costs for exhibiting here, maintain the trails + make upgrades to the garden but most importantly, make visits free to local schools + educational groups.
We have installed new 3D ceramic GRACIAS letters in the garden and are creating personalized plaques for each donor. New native plants are being added alongside ceramic creations, it is a perpetual work in progress!
