ART HUB

Welcome Back!!

I just arrived from Pilchuck Glass School. This is a hidden gem in the woods where the uber-famous have studied, experimented, and manipulated all kinds of materials, namely glass. Dale Chihuly and team founded this beautifully secluded spot in the 70's. Even today, you can escape and immerse yourself with a community of artists by taking an "art-cation", in which the temporality of your experience there can last a lifetime.

 

While immersed in the campus culture, I enjoyed meeting and networking with skilled professionals and teachers. My journal is filled with ideas and new methods and I can't wait to share them with my local creative comrads!

 

What is a dream and reality is that art-making should be a daily, weekly, and monthly practice. There is no need to "escape" if you dedicate yourself to your work and your place. Travel through the stroke of a brush, a hand dipped in plaster, or perhaps a slide to the right-left-right.

An "art-hub" is "home"...where you connect with other people on your block, who also share your passion for making and movement. Your creative energy is simply accessed by walking in and getting to work!

Find an "art-hub" in your community. No matter if you are young or old, rich or poor...creating your works of art is just as important as anyone else who has had the chance to shine!

 

 

 

 

Here are some of my favorite local art-hubs!
Vala Eastside Art Center
Pratt Fine Art Center
Bellevue College
Velocity Dance Center
Plaster Workshops @ Stucco Italiano

Confessions of a Kiln-Caster

 

Ode to all the anticipatory angst of a Kiln-Caster!!!

Life is of a different breed

We forage the streets and trails with a found object lense

Or daydream about manipulating it

Molds are made, waxes are poured, every stage builds

Did I do it right?

To the final drop into the kiln

A blessing is made and the lid closes...

What is it doing right now?

Glass may you travel well to all those crevices

May you not flash out

Or break

But we will start over again and again.  

 

 

 

"Creativity is a type of learning process where

the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. "

Arthur Koestler

The "Butcher" Series

Signs of life, evidences of trace. Celebration of man and beast. This is the core of the 3 Beasts and 40 Bones Project. Our earliest story-tellers carved on clay walls or left remnants of artifact of man and beast. They honored the animal through rituals of arts and crafts. Once the season's plants and animals were harvested, toasts in bone vessels were made. Feast and fest began.

 

The "Butcher" Series captures the primitive and raw notions of our connection to animals through food sources. The coral glow of marrow coupled with crimson stripes evokes an odd kind of beauty. On one end, the thought of a bloody bone feels visceral. But then...it transforms itself into casted glass, capturing the organic fluidity of light.

 

 

 

I was especially inspired to create this collection for the grand opening of the Bill the Butcher Edmonds, WA location. Our values interweave. They believe in the art of celebrating the animal through pride and passion in their work.

 

 

Thank you Bill the Butcher and Edmonds for a great exhibition!

http://myedmondsnews.com/2013/02/artfully-edmonds-art-walk-and-play-openings-this-week/

www.billthebutcher.com

Making Space

My passion for glass continues to un-earth. So much that I savor both process and the space that creates the work. My art-making area must be just-so, optimal for production and energetic to the eye. Chaotic splashes of plaster and paint paired with just the right areas of space produce a well-oiled mold making machine.

Warm summer evenings of mold-making I cherish the most. Slowly ice layers and my workspace responds. Ahhh! heat....a Pacific Northwest artist's dream! I know why Seattle is molten with glass artists. We are all in search of the light and creative glow that transcends all cool grays and bright blues.

Now...time to make some molds, steam out, and FIRE!

In honor of my beloved mentor

Susan Balshor 1949 - 2013

"The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” Neil Gaiman

Un-Earth

Late summer 2012 gifted me the chance to channel my instincts to a molten glow. We spend our days and nights managing our ideas...trying to figure out which ones are brightest. August swelled with plaster projects..."Aim, trowel, fire!!" September gifted the chance to unearth simmered creative potential.

I received a scholarship to attend Pilchuck Glass School, a place to work within nature and offer your hands to glass, all set in the serenity of the Pacific Northwest. 3 days to make! Blast off! I'll sleep later.

There were plenty of things to learn; glassblowing, enameling, engraving, and the list goes on. Hot casting was calling me back to it's primal roots. Hello again dirt and fire!

We grabbed our shovels and used our hands to sift the sand and clay, forming and manipulating with anything imaginable. As the process unfolds, time shifts. Damp soil and daydreams fade. Enter the furnace. Time to execute. Picking up the ladle signals complete presence.

2225 degrees waved over me as the gate opened and my power unleashed. No fear of igniting into flames, I control IT. Molten on sand with precision. I sculpt into it while I can, taking control of the material and commanding it once again. Artists give a clap...only after the blades have dug deep and the annealer doors close.

Creativity is a haven. A place where you can dig deep, not question your thoughts but only act upon on them as process and material un-earth.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…" King Solomon

Clay Repairs

As plaster artisans, our love for materials advances and receeds like a salty summer tide. Recently, I visited a house I plastered in 2009 with American Clay to make some touch-up repairs. The view from the office wasn't that bad, as it was nestled in the wet earthy forests of the San Juan Islands.

I've made a couple post-construction repair visits and I knew that there were some vulnerable areas. Outside surface edges are always the ones to take the brunt of use. We can't always clad metal or wainscott everything, nor do we want to.  For homes, consider selecting a material which is easy to repair. Clay is softer than it's sibling, lime and it exudes a warm feel and sheen like no other.

 

So I grabbed my project repair tool-kit and that's when the magic happened!

"Lake bedroom...sample check!" "Main Area", etc. I rubbed the dried clay pieces together I had saved, added a bit of water to re-hydrate, and POOF! the material and the wall were waiting for my touch again. Rubbing and re-hydrating clay is like re-kindling a creative fire! I sensed my ancestry for a few moments...before caves were "homes". Pretty soon, all nicks had been infilled and repaired and the walls sang to me again like the lake swallows above...

I've been applying American Clay since 2005 and have developed my own techniques for repairs. Here are a few to help! Don't be afraid to repair your walls. Dive right in!

• Embrace Wabi Sabi:
  “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.” - Leonard Koren
• Keep good record of your materials, save, and label them!
• Love texture! The rougher, more skip-troweled the surface the easier it is to hide the repair.
• Tools: angled sponges, plastic painters knives; plastic trowel, wax paper for re-shaping edges, spray bottle

Now a word about dusting. Dusting occurs when...

• Surface is not compressed. Wall feels "loose" all over (Solution: COMPRESS!!). Anyone who has taken my campclay class knows how important this step is!
• Due to impact which causes previously compressed material to open up. This occurs from impact/abrasion to the wall.  (Solution: All you need is a simple patch and blend here!)
• Residual post-compression dusting: (Solution: Dry-brush compressed surface. If dust is still present, try re-wetting surface with a 30/70 sealer/water solution and lightly compress it with a plastic trowel.

..And some helpful links!
Camp Clay DIY Classes www.campclay.com   

Great video on the importance of compression! http://www.youtube.com/user/americanclayvideos/#p/u/0/od_6HdYPIUQ

To Seal or Not to Seal? http://www.youtube.com/user/americanclayvideos/#p/u/4/7Q71brFAxoc 

Repairing Nail Holes http://www.youtube.com/user/americanclayvideos/#p/u/5/KS_2JTcMIJ4         

"Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.” - Leonard Koren from "Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers"

 

 

Clay On! - Sherri

 

 

Below Our Feet....

Yesterday gifted me with the feeling of Christmas Eve. A warm Tuesday night of art-making and I patiently grinned. Method was a hymn as I planned color schemes and packing my molds for my next glass casting.

My control releases as the the kiln ramps to 1575 degrees. Saturday will be THE day. What will become? While my next forms are molten, I ponder the simularities between my two biggest creative passions: cast glass and earth plaster finishes.

These materials and processes resonate a quick, forceful intensity. You are lost in that brief moment when nothing else matters except what is in your hands. You must GO..don't ponder. "Catch that edge before I set!" says Lime. "You have 2 minutes till I become brittle!" shouts Gypsum. Your instincts sharpen to a fine .01 tip.

My sense of materiality is rooted in textured, stratified earthen layers. Plaster speaks through shiny hand-troweled veneers or heavy hand-built forms. Marble, clay, lime, gypsum, cement, terracotta, silica, all bring different qualities and purposes. Knowing the languege of each can help us transform spaces and evoke the spirit. It's amazing that we can find this creative abundance in the earth below our feet.

”The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.” -- Picasso.


I invite you to visit www.sageartemis.etsy.com to view more of my kiln-cast glass work!