Museum Steps

Evidence of the tomb-like quality common to many art museums as shown in these photos from my recent d.c. trip. The early morning visitor will find lots of quiet and lots of pale light bathing lots of smooth granite. Like an ultimatum to calm.

Finally Something About Clay Again

Cold studio temperatures have diminished my production recently, while other things and ideas have competed for my attention, but a quick trip to visit niece in d.c. gave me a chance to look at this crazy terracotta portrait bust of a Medici dude in the National Gallery. He looks young and valiant and attractive in all the most generic ways while the detailing on the breastplate steals the show. What about that scary mean-face? Normally I do not find this genre of portraiture terribly stimulating, but now I am thinking that a light iron oxide wash to highlight some detail followed by a low firing could be a good new thing to try. This bust of Giuliano de' Medici, the younger brother of Lorenzo, was made by Andrea del Verrocchio. Our boy Giuliano was killed while attending mass in a coup that intended to unseat the hugely powerful but less hugely popular Medici family.

Street Art

Here are a couple of shots of some cool street are that I saw recently.

Birds

These bird shapes are actually small vases

El Anatsui @ Jack Shainman

After being fairly consistent in posting for a while, my camera broke and I really lost my momentum. Hopefully I can remedy this and get back to posting images of evolving pottery. But first, I need to put up some photos from a most amazing and beautiful show of sculptures that I saw at Jack Shainman gallery last saturday. The artist is El Anatsui, and these tapestry-like works are very large, and made up of myriad pieces from caps and foil wrappers from different types of liquor bottles. I don't think these photos will even come close to conveying the splendor of the works themselves, but have a look anyway.

The Golden Hand of Lily

I made this tile by tracing around my young friend Lily's hand and then putting on a gold color glaze. She just celebrated her 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday Lily!!!