Walking around the streets of Philadelphia the morning after I arrived, I literally became dizzy from the culture shock.  Huge slabs of granite and walls of brick and stone rising far above my head, the crowds of bodies/faces/expressions pressing in on my eyes, and the alien smells and sounds that washed over me were almost too much.   I had a warm welcome from Jeff Guido, the director here at the Clay Studio and I was elated to meet the rest of the residents over the course of the next week.  I dove into the clay immediately, feeling a sense of panic about the limited time I have here. So far, it has been amazing to get the chance to rub shoulders with some of my favorite artists, such as Adelaide Paul and Rain Harris.  Hide Sadohara, resident and technician for the studio, has been the best so far...helping me to get my feet on the ground and taking the time to make me feel welcome.  The whole experience at the Clay Studio thus far has been outstanding!  Now if I can just live up to the honor of the invitation......

              I had a whirlwind couple of days to settle in before taking off for Portland, Oregon in order to set up the exhibition at the Contemporary Crafts Museum, "Outside, Looking In."  Lisa Conte, Simon, and Eric at CCG were all a great help getting me set up, but the gold medal definitely goes to Keith Simpson for being insane enough to fly up from Spokane, Washington with three days notice to help with the installation.  What a guy!  The whole thing went alarmingly smoothly, and the reception Friday night was a hit!  I had the chance to talk with so many folks that I have only known by reputation: Thomas Orr, Lisa Conway, and Deborah Horrell just to name a few.  It was strange and wonderful to see all that work to come together in one room--the most amount of work I have had in a group since my thesis exhibition, "tremble, shiver', over two years ago.  I *did* put together a web page highlighting the pieces in the exhibition right here:  *"Outside, Looking In."*  The show will be up until September 25th, at which point I will be leaving The Clay Studio in Philadelphia to drive across the country to collect the remaining work.  Thanks to The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture for lending "Black Minuet" from their permanent collection for this installation and to Pat Sullivan for lending "Crimson Camouflage" from her own private herd.  Most profoundly, I would like to thank the American Craft Council for making this whole body of work possible with the support of the Emerging Artist Grant. 

              Looking ahead. . . I have a month left of intense studio hours at the The Clay Studio.  I am presently working on a medium sized piece with two rabbits, and I am already fidgeting to bite into a much larger piece next! I have yet to set an exact date for the slide lecture I will be presenting in conjunction with my visit here, but I should know in the next few days. 
             After I pick up the show in Portland September 28th, I will be heading back to Ohio for a time, to set up my new studio and tackle a heavy spring exhibition schedule.  More immediately, I have a small show with Marty Shuter and Janis Mars Wunderlich at the Ohio Art League Gallery called, "Alter Egos: Voices From Inside" opening October 2nd in Columbus, Ohio.  I have included the description of the show here. I am also slated to make a small piece for a show called "Election 2004: The State of the Union" at Santa Fe Clay opening October 29 through November 27. Much more to come after that, but I will leave that news for another night.

Meanwhile. . . .

              I have posted many new updates to the site!!!!  Finally!!!!  I hope you will take some time to look around the Gallery where I have added some new large work as well as a plethora of small studies: goats and rabbits that led up to my large projects at the Bray.  New stuff to come posted on the Resume section, Guest Artists, and yes, I even tweaked a few sentences in the Artist Statement!  Ok, well, maybe not much of a change there, but, hey.  The Bookstore and Techniques pages are on my list next, so stay tuned, and keep in touch!

              I am presently in the Billings, Montana airport, on my way across the country to Philadelphia. It is hard to express the patterns of my thoughts and feelings about this.  My last days at the Archie Bray Foundation were brimming over with activity, and I guess I am lucky that I was so busy,  that I didn't have time to get caught in the reality of leaving.  (Of course, now, it has caught up with me and is scratching its claws on the backdoor in my head).   All of my most recent  memories are heavily salted with an impending sense of loss.  I don't mean to say that I was sad.  Only that I knew I was collecting them.

             Let's see....well, the workshop in Seattle at Pottery Northwest was *great!*  Wally Bivins, the director there, was every bit as personable and entertaining as I was led to believe- the folks at the Pottery must feel lucky to have snared him.  Thanks especially to Julie and Quinn for making me feel so welcome, and bending over backwards to make the best of my short visit.  I didn't realize how much I had missed the large deciduous forests until I breathed them in near the coast.  I was also terrified to learn that Tip Toland had signed up for my workshop.   I should have been taking a workshop from her!  I  felt that I could have spent the whole weekend just talking non-stop with her about everything under the sun.  I was also honored to meet Akio Takamori for the first time.  It was very humbling to be in the presence of people I have admired from afar for so long. 

This past weekend here at the Bray was a whirlwind of events:

             The Summer  Exhibition for the Residents of the Archie Bray Exhibition was a great success.  We held the closing reception for the show and the silent auction this past Saturday.  Huge crowd, lots of high-energy bidding, live music, good friends, and plenty of local beer made for an entertaining night.  Thank you thank you thank you to all of those who bid on the works and helped to support the resident artist program at the Bray.  I don't know what the final tally was for the evening, but it seemed that almost everything was flying off the walls and pedestals. Josh DeWeese also announced that our next Voulkos Visiting Artist will be none other than Don Reitz!  I will miss crossing paths with him, but I know it will be a great draw for the Bray.  I did get a chance to talk to Adrian Arleo at the reception, despite my frantic running around....Yay!  I really wish I could have visited her studio while I was in Montana.  So many things left undone.
             The Stephen De Staebler visit/workshop was also this past week, though I am afraid I had very little time to absorb anything.  De Staebler was one of the very first sculptors I was ever aware when I was first beginning to work with the figure, and I was a bit  intimidated ...which, of course, was a boneheaded attitude, since he turned out to be a wonderfully friendly and approachable guy.  Part of my distraction was also the flurry of activity while finishing my last works for the Contemporary Crafts Museum Exhibition, "Outside, Looking In". ( I will post a web page with pictures of pieces from the show next week.)  I made a 24 hour round trip drive to Portland right after the Bray's closing reception to drop off all the work.  Then, I was a crazed woman packing up my studio and my apartment all of Monday.  Now, after staying up all night to pack, I am sitting here exhausted in Billings, on my way to Philadelphia.

          It seems ridiculous how much I have packed into such a small space of time.  I am anxious and excited about the months ahead at the Clay Studio, but I don't think any of it seems real yet.  Not leaving. Not arriving. Not even the last few pieces that I managed to finish before I left (I was firing my last kiln during the closing reception Saturday night(!), and then stayed up all night to photograph them before driving to Portland).  I really never got a chance to properly say goodbye to everyone at the Bray who made my time spent there incredible:  Josh DeWeese, Rosie Wyncoop, Albion Stafford, Claire Hedden, Jason Walker, Sandra Trujillo, Curtis Stewardson, Kowkie Durst, Liz Zacher, Jeremy Kane, Keith Simpson... to name just a few.  These people deserve more thanks than I can possibly express.

        Well, time to get on that flight and see what awaits me on the other end.  Wish me luck and a lot of sleep!

               Here at the Archie Bray Foundation, we are in high gear for the summer.  The new building is finally looking like a building, after much bulldozing and dust raising.  Sometimes I just like to sit out by the site and watch them raise the giant I-beams side by side with the old crumbling brick walls of the old factory.  This is truly an amazing place.  We have also just swelled our ranks with an additional 10 residents, doubling our small community within a week.  I still haven't met everyone yet, but people are already digging in.  We have Anne Currier here for the month as a Guest Artist, and next month we have Stephen De Staebler coming out for the rest of the summer (!!!).  Let me repeat:  This is truly an amazing place.
               The big summer resident show is coming together, and it is *packed*.  I installed “J’ai Une Ame Solitaire” (The Beast), and it took up the entire space I had been allotted, so I am letting her dominate it.  I also got some great new photos of the piece if you want to follow that previous link.  In addition to the resident exhibition, we also host a silent auction to raise money for the resident program (we used to have to pay studio rent, but the funds raised each year in this auction help us out!)  I also will have a small piece in the silent auction, called "No Going Back"....here it is:

Probably one of the few small pieces I will have available for a while...time to tackle the big stuff!  So, if you are interested and want to support us at the Bray, I encourage you to go to the Auction Website and send in your bid. 

            So what do I have going on in the next few months?  Basically, I am trying to hold to each day I have left here at the Bray.  I am preparing for my ACC Grant solo exhibition at the Contemporary Crafts Museum  by starting on a few more large works.  As I mentioned in the last post, I am headed out to Pottery Northwest in Seattle to teach a workshop June 25-27, which should be a load of fun...especially since I have heard so many great stories about Wally Bivins, the director there.  It also looks like I will be doing a workshop at Lewis and Clark College in conjunction with my show in Portland around the tail end of September....again, details will follow as soon as I have them, but I think they will be opening that one up to the whole Portland community.

            It is really hard for me to look ahead right now, knowing that by the end of July, I will be leaving this place.  (sigh)  It is time.  I do have a lot of things to look forward to, though.  I will be heading to Philadelphia directly from Helena, Montana to spend two months at the Clay Studio as a Guest Artist in Residence there (August 3rd- September 23)!  I will be flying into Portland to set up the show a week into the residency, which should keep things exciting.  After Philadelphia, I have plans to head back to Ohio to join my husband, Matt, in Bowling Green, and set up my own studio. Yay!   I have a number of exhibition commitments for  early 2005, so I need to set up fast and get going...

           Stay tuned and keep in touch!

   Just got back from Alaska!

               What An Experience!!!   As soon as I get some pictures back from Anchorage (and I hope they send me some), I will post a thorough account of the workshop... Look for the bear link above to take you to the page when it is ready.  I had an absolutely *fantastic* time this past weekend.  Steve Godfrey and Jeff Dalton, the Ceramic professors at UAA, treated me like royalty, and I am truly at a loss as to how to thank them properly.  The students at UAA deserve my most deeply felt thanks for working hard to raise the money for this workshop, and then honoring me with the invitation.  I had a great crowd Friday and Saturday during my all day demonstration, and I was thoroughly impressed with the questions and lively discussions that persisted throughout.  I sincerely feel that those guys have a top notch program going up there, and I am wildly hoping that I get a chance to come back sometime for a longer visit!  I have no idea how I am going to be able to concentrate in the studio this week with all the thoughts, images, and ideas that I gathered there, roiling around in my head.....To all the folks at The University of Alaska Anchorage:  
Thank You!

             I also want to send out a hearty thank you to the ceramics department at University of Montana in Bozeman for having me, and two other Bray Residents, Ben Krupka, and Karen Swyler, out for a "Bray Days" workshop last week.  We all had a great time and I was excited about finally getting to meet Beth Lo, who has been one of my favorite contemporary ceramic figurative artists since I discovered clay.  

             These past three weeks have been -so full-, that I am spilling over in my attempt to absorb them....even the act of trying to highlight the events here seems woefully inadequate. Let's see..... The exhibition at The Art Spirit Gallery opened April 9th, though it was a mad mad dash to pull it off on my end.  I was immediately humbled by the large body of work that Chris Antemann had brought down from her residency at the Kohler factory....she had a lot of fantastic work for the show, and was selling pieces before they even arrived at the gallery!  Steve Gibbs has posted a sampling of work from the show on his site here, if you want to take a look.  It is the largest body of work I have had together in one place since my thesis exhibition, "tremble, shiver", almost two years ago. It gave me a lot to think about, and even though I was exhausted beyond belief, I wanted more than ever to dash back into the studio and start madly throwing more clay around.  I am haunted by the suspicion that this frenetic drive has taken permanent root. 

            So what is next??  I am now turning my focus onto the next two solo exhibitions I have scheduled for this summer and early fall.  June 1st- July 30th, I will have a nice body of work going up at River Gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, including Object Lesson: Dissension, Object Lesson: Arrogance, "The Sugar Encrusted Boar",  "Shelf Rabbit 1", and "Play".  Right now I am working on the next installment of six to seven new small figures for that show, hoping that one or two of them will reveal themselves as studies for larger pieces to be tackled this fall.  I already have an overwhelming number of ideas for the large works, though....enough to kept five clones of me busy for the next year at least!  After River Gallery, I have my largest exhibition to date scheduled at the Contemporary Crafts Museum and Gallery in Portland Oregon, August 14th- September 26th.  I have no idea yet what I will have in that show, but I can already feel the stress and excitement building momentum.  
           In the meantime, we have a busy season scheduled for the Bray Summer.  THE NEW STUDIO is being built!!!!!  (check out the news on the Archie Bray Foundation's website) Although my residency at the Bray will be long over before the building project is completed in January 2005, I could not be more excited or proud to be be here at the start.  It has taken an amazing amount of dedication, time, sweat, blood, and tears from the Bray community to pull this off, and I think Josh Deweese, our director, was glowing in the dark with excitement and relief when the first earth moving machines bit into the ground.  I feel accidental and awed that I get to be here at all, and I am already storing every minute away in my mind, knowing that my time is quickly drawing to an end.
          There are a few upcoming exhibitions worth mentioning that are sneaking up here as well.  We have the big Summer Residents Exhibition and silent auction coming up June 17th- August 31st.  Since I will not be having a farewell exhibition through the Bray, I am hoping to include my two latest large works in the show, “J’ai Une Ame Solitaire” (The Beast), and "Black Minuet" (The large reclining Black Rabbit).  I will also have a small porcelain in the silent auction, and I will post more information about all of this as I draw closer to the deadline.  
         The city of Spokane is also hosting a rather impressive collection of ceramic exhibitions and events this June, "Spokane Celebrates Ceramics" (a short article can be found here), including a show  called "A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence" at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.  There will also be an exhibition of work from the current Bray Residents (not sure of the venue yet), and I am planning on having the large version of "The Inquisitors" on display there.

         Upcoming Workshops: I am in the midst of organizing a workshop at Pottery Northwest in Seattle for this summer...June 25th-June 27th...looks to be a good one!  I am also trying to feel things out for doing a workshop in Portland, Oregon in conjunction with either the opening or closing of my show at CCG in August/September.  As usual, I will keep things posted as the information comes rolling in.

        Well, I feel that I have barely skimmed over the news, but I will have to leave it at that for now.  My husband, Matt, is finally joining me here in Montana next week (it will be the most time we have spent together in over 4 years of being apart), and I am hoping that when he gets here, we can overhaul the Gallery and add all the new images of the work I have been producing.  I have a whole new section I want to add which includes an "in process" step by step visual explanation of how I create my large work.  I would truly love to hear your feedback and comments...is any of this helpful or interesting?  Drop me note!  

Thanks again to all you out there who have lent me your time, advice, and support.......

     It is 2:50am, and I am bleary-eyed from hollowing for 12 straight hours.  I honestly do have a lot of things I want to post on the site: new work, upcoming shows, and general aimless ideas I have about where I might be going and what I might be doing.  

I hope you'll hang in with me for another few weeks .

      The quick scoop:  I am feverishly working towards finishing a large body of work for my show with Chris Antemann at The Art Spirit Gallery opening April 9th.  I believe we are both giving a slide lecture about our work the next night, but I am so narrowly focused on squeezing the hours and minutes dry right in front of me, that I have trouble squinting at something beyond my deadline (laughing at self).  The plan is to have 8 Large pieces and 7 Small ones.  The disparity in scale is really quite amusing.  5 of the Large ones are completed, and will include some recent work such as The Reclining Rabbit, The White Rabbit, The Cornered Hare, Object Lesson: Arrogance, and The Sleeping/Dead Boar.  I have been gathering all my resources towards finishing the last 3:  The large version of "The Inquisitors" (the goat with two bodies and one head), a piece I call "The Beast" (the 2,000 lb piece I mentioned starting months ago...the official title will be different), and the one I am hollowing out right now...a large black hare (called "Black Minuet") who has a particularly haunting presence.
      The large version of  "The Inquisitors" was finished within seconds of me leaping into my van and making a mad dash down to Indianapolis (a very long mad dash from Montana, I might add) in time for the NCECA 2004 Invitational show, Biomimicry: The Art of Imitating Life.  What a cool show!  I really felt humbled when I dropped off my own work and saw the other sculptures in the exhibition.  David Russick, the director at the Herron Gallery, is one of the nicest people on the planet too.  I felt terrible that I wasn't going to be able to stay for the conference.  A good portion of the Bray residents are down there this week, and I am several shades of unpleasant green.
      I just sent two small, but delicious works down to Santa Fe Clay  for their exhibition "Natural Selection".  One of them is an alternate study for "Object Lesson: Apathy", and the other is the small maquette for the big black hare I am working on presently.  There are some fantastic artists in the show, and I am hoping they will post some images on their website.

         Well, I had best try to catch some rest before I fall asleep at the keyboard.  I'll post some more thorough news and some new Big Pieces in the gallery after I eek through the April deadline.  In the meantime, I thought you might find this amusing....it's 2,000 lbs solid, and nearly killed me when I cut off the middle sections to hollow out (heh). 

click here to see the finished piece

 

     Well, at the top of my list is still a growing number of exhibitions and shows for 2004:  

The St. Petersburg Clay National was a great success.  Thanks to Jonathan and all the folks down there for your help!  The "Spanish Feral Meat Goats"   just left Florida and are now headed up to Louisville for an exhibition, As I See Myself: Autobiographical Art at the Kentucky Museum of Art + Design curated by Brion Clinkingbeard.  It looks to be a really packed show with some of my favorite narrative artists...I wish I could go see it.  It opens this Thursday, January 8th, and will also include the  "Cornered Hare". 

I just heard back from the NCECA folks last month, and they have included "The Sugar Encrusted Boar" and "The Inquisitors" as part of the 2004 Invitational: Biomimicry: The Art of Imitating Life, Opening March 3.  Very cool.  I am especially excited about having the opportunity to show the sugar boar again...the piece is really stunning in person....it practically glows in the dark!  I am planning on remaking the Inquisitors into a larger piece for the show....starting on the project later this month. (I am very interested in how I am going to handle the technical feat of getting those guys to stand on eight skinny cloven hooves...stay tuned).
        On a similar note, I also received a note from the Baltimore Clayworks, the onsite coordinators for NCECA 2005, and they have accepted my proposal for a solo exhibition in conjunction with the conference. Holy cow!  I need to clone 8 more copies of myself so I can make all this work.

Leslie Ferrin juried the smaller form of  "The Inquisitors" into the exhibition, Viewpoint: Ceramics 2004, held at Grossmont College's Hyde Gallery January 26- February 20th and gave it the second place award!  That little piece has definitely worked hard for me.  I definitely want to thank Garry and Karen Davis for lending it out from their collection for the show.

     The Christmas season here at the Archie Bray Foundation went very well.  I had a number of small pieces for our gallery show here in Helena, and a few pieces down in Coeur d'Alene at The Art Spirit Gallery (who have a new up and coming website, BTW).  I will be adding images of these small pieces to the website over the next few days.  I also would like to include some in process shots of my latest BIG studio work, and I will be adding a link at the top of this page for viewing those images.  Keep checking in!

     On the workshop front:  Rebecca Hutchinson and I decided to postpone my visit to Dartmouth this Spring due to a whole heap of complications with funding and travel.  We are hoping to resume planning when I am finished with my residency here at the Bray and am within driving distance of Massachusetts.  However, I have two other venues pop up:  An invitation from Steve Godfrey for a  two-day workshop at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in April (dates TBA), and another from Beth Lo in Missoula at the University of Montana. Yay!  I really really love doing these events...it should be a blast. 

     The most pressing date for me at the moment is the upcoming show with Chris Antemann at The Art Spirit Gallery, opening this April.  Steve Gibbs, the gallery owner, is really doing a tremendous amount of PR work for the exhibition.  Sheri Boggs in Spokane, WA is writing an article about the exhibition, and I have set an ambitious studio schedule for myself.  I am still wrestling with 'The Beast' (the latest 1,800 pounder...I will be posting process photos of it later this week).  It is hollowed out (39 separate pieces!), and I am now wondering how I am going to put it all back together (grin).  (I am trying to laugh about it so that I don't have a nervous breakdown instead)

     I think that sums it up for the moment.  I will get working on those gallery and process images this week.  Thanks for all your support, you guys...you know who you are.  Feel free to drop me a note....I always like hearing from you.

Merry New Year!

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