I’m excited to announce I’ve finally finished fabrication of all of the ceramic elements for A Feast of Fennels and every surface of the studio is covered in parts. Scroll down to see the progress on the metal fabrication happening!
Kirk McNeil and Franco Di Majo working on bending the rods that will create the flowerhead structures. Love the custom jig they made to get each curve just right. Can’t wait to see all these parts start to come together!
This project is sponsored by:
Umbels have been an inspiration for me for years now, and I’ve created numerous works based on their forms. I found this fennel umbel in full bloom on a morning walk the other day and had to share side-by-side views of my studio in full bloom next to these guys. Nature definitely inspires!
To learn more about A Feast of Fennels, click here.
Apparently my blog feed has gotten stuck here on my website for the past month for unknown reasons and you have not been receiving your weekly The Dirt emails from me. Grrr…
I ~think~ I’ve fixed the issue and if the stars align, you should receive your regularly scheduled email on Friday morning. It should give you links to all the posts that got stuck or you might just get this post or possibly once again nothing at all will hit your inbox. sigh…
Thanks for your patience and fingers crossed we’ll be up and running again soon. You can always check out what I’m up to by navigating to The Dirt here. Including a scene from the studio here so you get a preview of what’s been going on!
I’ve been making progress on the ceramic components of ‘A Feast of Flowers’ public art project and it’s starting to take over the studio! I’ve got thousands of flower buds in various stages of being processed taking up every surface of the studio and the thrown ceramic forms they will attach to starting to come to life as well. Now I’ve got to come up with a plan for where all of these flowers are going to live while they dry. Excited to see each flowers personality come out with the subtle uniqueness of each form.
About the project: A Feast of Flowers will be six ceramic and steel sculptures inspired by the umbel flower structure of fennel plants. Placed staggered along the sides of the trail and silhouetted against the sky, the installation will create a sense of whimsy and wonder for the thousands of patrons who use the trail as well as bring an awareness to our connection with nature.
My inspiration for this particular installation comes from my exploration of the natural world, and my curiosity about identifying plants, especially the edible ones. As an amateur forager, every hike in the woods has become like a trip to the grocery store for me. Fennels are one of the most recognized edibles that grow in California, available for the taking, yet there is a tendency to not trust the wild plants. This disconnect we humans have with nature, the loss of knowledge about native plants and how that relates to the global issue of food insecurity are all concepts explored with this project.
It is also my hope that whimsical oversized flowers will create a fun and dramatic impact for the area, will draw locals and tourists alike outside to connect with nature, learn about local plants and of course take a moment to stop and smell the flowers.
This project is sponsored by:
Excited to start ordering materials and making prototypes for the Feast of Flowers public art project for the Santa Cruz Rail Trail!
Travis Adams came to the studio and threw a few large flower head forms so we could play with the shape and size we will need. Later, he trimmed the forms to round out the shapes. Trying to make them sturdy and strong while keeping the weight of them as light as possible is part of the challenge with these guys, but there are definitely some winners here!
600′ of high temperature wire arrived in the studio this week and I got busy cutting it into manageable 15′ lengths, all of which eventually needs to be cut into 3″ long pieces. Whew… it’s going to be awhile to get through this pile
But check out this first prototype! All this work is totally going to be worth it!
This project is sponsored by:
I’ll be taking the final weeks of the year off from writing blog posts as I let this year settle and start exciting plans for 2023 but I wanted to take the time to do a quick look back at all that has happened this year.
I participated in 6 exhibitions including one solo show and one show I co-created and co-curated. I created a large public art piece and have another in the works. I made ~literally~ thousands of porcelain pieces inspired by plankton and I still have a million ideas for more. And on a personal note, I swam dozens of miles this year in the open ocean, and hiked more miles than I could keep track of. Working hard, playing hard. I can’t wait to see what next year brings.
As a reminder, the online shop is always open so take a peek to find something special for yourself or your art loving friends and family. And once again, thank you for your support, it takes a village to raise an artist and I’m grateful that you are my village. Happy Happy, Merry Merry.
If feel as though I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole the past week, busily making what feels like a million parts for my upcoming exhibit, Bodies of Water this September at the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at UCSC. Working with gallery director Tauna Coulson, we’ve been choosing paint colors to turn the gallery into an ocean, creating templates for a nearly 2000 part site specific installation, selecting work, organizing pedestals, designing the layout and of course making parts.
I hit a point where it seemed daunting, but now I’m rounding the corner and can visualize it all coming together and I’m getting really excited about it. I also l.o.v.e. the color blue we chose for the gallery walls, can’t wait for you to see it!
Making all the art is one part of the job but installing them is a whole other task. I’ve started getting things boxed up to bring them up to the gallery in the coming weeks and start the process. Luckily I’ve got a long lead time since the gallery is technically closed for summer, so I can use that to my advantage and not have to rush installation. Phew! Hope to see you all at the opening September 24th 5-8pm where all these parts will magically transform into a plankton filled ocean gallery!
Bodies of Water | Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery UCSC | Sept 20th – Dec 3rd | Opening reception Sept 24th 5-8pm
If you come by my studio this year for Open Studios, you’ll get to see this piece in person, but I thought it’d be fun to share a bit of the process making it. I actually wish I took more photos in process, but hopefully this very quick video gives an idea of it’s evolution.
The composition is mimicking the rings of a droplet into water and it’s composed of around 700+ porcelain pieces that are inspired by the bone structure of radiolarians (single cell planktons). Some of the pieces are mounted directly on the wall and some are attached to metal stems so that they can float off the wall, creating depth and casting shadows. If you watch the video closely or repeatedly you’ll notice that some pieces were removed and more space was given between the ripples, sometimes these are things that you can’t predict before you’re actually installing the work. I still need to clean the chalk lines off the wall but the more I live with this piece the more I love it. Hope you all get to come see it in person!
I try to keep as ‘green’ of a studio as possible, all the while knowing that I’m working with a material that has been mined from the earth and shipped across hundreds to thousands of miles. So, it’s a bit of a quandary for me but I try to offset that heavy carbon footprint in other ways.
I’ve written posts before about recycling my fired ceramics into the tile/toilet pile at our local landfill, they grind it up and use it as aggregate for other products. Which is a great way to get rid of all my mistakes, broken bits and abandoned ideas. I also recycle all of my wet clay so that every scrap will be used even if it’s dried out on me. And I try to reuse all the packing materials that come into my studio, in addition to a regular recycling of metal, plastics and papers.
Recently I started thinking about my energy usage in the studio in regards to my kiln firings. I started playing with the idea of once firing my work, which for those that aren’t familiar with the process of working with clay means that instead of doing a slow initial firing called the bisque, followed by a second glaze firing, I’m instead going from dry clay to finished ceramic in one firing. With the cost and use of energy to get my kilns up to 2000 degrees, saving one firing seemed to be the way to go.
From a technical standpoint it doesn’t always work depending on your clay, glazes, process of building and a million other clay techy things that can go wrong. But for my porcelain pieces that don’t even get glaze put on them, I thought I could make it work. The first few times I tried, the clay seemed slightly pinker in color rather than the true white it should be, so in my last firing, I added a bit more time to the kilns firing program at it’s mature temperature, letting it soak at it’s maturity point and that worked! I’m really exciting that I can get all of these pieces done in one firing now and waste less energy all at the same time!
Any one have other ideas on how to keep a greener clay studio?
Remember all those parts I’ve been making? Well, they’ve started to find their way onto the studio walls…
This installation is far from finished but a few hundred pieces are up on the wall. It’s been fun to play with how far off the wall the parts are and the subsequent shadows become a part of the piece. The overall form is inspired by a water droplet and the outward waves of ripples.
I’ve also got my own jellyfish aquarium going here with a whole new batch of Medusas swimming through the studio. These guys are so fun to hang out with in the studio all day!