A"hand"some place...

Much like the bumble bee in my bee balm above, I've been buzzing between two towns  located west and east of the steel city the last couple of weeks..but as promised, here's my follow up from the last post...The Artists Hand Gallery opened to a wonderful crowd last Friday night. I met with the managing director Sandy Trimble this week and she told me that there were more than double the number of people she had expected and even had to make another wine run during the opening...that's a good thing!

So now that they are all up and running I wanted to show off this good looking and thriving new space. Check out the front of this place....

...and here's a few from the inside to give you an idea of this place. The coffee shop is up and running...the cafe is bright and comfortable and a great place to sit and people watch on the main street in Indiana when you are done checking out all the really great local art.

Below are a couple shots from the back to the front with my work  set up in the "featured" artist space. The back of the gallery is set up as a workshop area...complete with very cool re-purposed bath tub as a great wash-up sink!

Once again, I just want to add how happy I am to be a featured artist here and wish this place the best of luck. If you are ever in the greater metropolitan area of Indiana, PA, you should make plans to stop by and check out the artwork then kick back for a while with some java. As always click to view bigger...and you can click here to see some close ups of more of my work in the show. Enjoy the pics...later homies.

Give'm a hand!

getting ready for Friday night!

Last night was the big opening...The Artists Hand Gallery opened on the main drag through Indiana, PA. Unfortunately I was not able to attend, but I was there in spirit. Its been long coming but its been worth the wait. I was in there setting my work up last week, as I am one of two featured artists in this newly renovated, sharp space. The Artists Hand has been a labor of love(and maybe blood, sweat and tears too) for founder Brian Jones and managing director Sandy Trimble and now they should be able to really step back and smile proudly. 


The Artists Hand Gallery will function as a community art center for Indiana, offering workshops in their ample studio space, featured gallery shows, fine art/fine craft from local artists, and a pretty damn fine coffee shop too. That's right....COFFEE too! When I stepped in through their big glass doors and checked out the slick, stained concrete floors, exposed brick, clean bright colors, I had to say,"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore". It is everything you might want and more in a local gallery and art center.

"Adrift"

I shot some pics while I was setting up my 7 small works and while the crew there was hustling to get things ready for Friday night. I will be returning this coming week to Indiana and will shoot some more pics of everything all finished up...so that I can once again post about them! I am featured with another artist, Joy Fairbanks who is showing large scale photographs of people viewing famous art works. This is a pretty interesting concept...you first recognize the art in the photo and then your eyes and brain explore the rest. The combination of her large photos on the wall and my small pieces on pedestals really work well together in that space. I am happy to have been asked by Sandy Trimble to exhibit my more sculptural oriented work.  

"Direction"

 The pieces are a mix of really new, re-imagined works and ideas that I have been exploring for some time now. I have been in a difficult transitional period since moving from Indiana. I now live almost 2 hours away from Indiana and that means away from Nancy Smeltzer's Little Mahoning Creek Pottery where I made and fired all my work. Between all the travel and other j-o-b, I have only been able to eek out a very small bit of work. I have had to rely on the kiln kindness of my friend Dan Kuhn and trying to align my crazy schedule with Nancy's firing times. I am thankful to both for allowing me to continue to make work. So when I was asked to do this show, I knew I had a few pieces ready to rock but also knew that I had to approach the "making" in a different way.

"The Ride"

 As a clay guy, artist, potter, whatever, I tend to make multiples of everything...not just utilitarian works but also odd closed forms. I believe this to be a habit born from the tradition of throwing sets or groups of mugs, cups, or other functional items. This leaves me with extras, bits and pieces that have no home, no purpose except that they were created and for one reason or another pushed aside and set on the back burner. I focused my attention on these "art parts" and on the recent treasures I acquired through junk shops and thrift store adventures. I treated them all equally as found objects...some that I created and fired multiple times and others formed for commercial purposes...but the playing field was leveled and I looked hard for relationships among the group. All the pieces I am showing have a found object component that comprises the whole. The glazed surfaces are paired up with nontraditional mediums like flocking and "tool dip" and a few pieces sit on various faux turf or in a couple cases, a plastic tray and a funky old stand. This relationship creates a "ground" or in my mind a "-scape"...a place where that small piece actually inhabits and through that habitation there becomes a mini-representation of our natural world...a strange little landscape if you will. 

"Autumnal Landscape with Goose"

That's what I am calling this little show... "-scapes". The pieces felt a little risky and I had no feedback on most but just put them out there anyways...risk and my own feelings about the works came first. The kitsch elements, like the addition of the seated toy railroad people on the tips of these flowery closed forms, brought a sense of basic human emotion to these otherwise very abstract little forms. However close I am traveling to the land of cheese and raw sentiment, I don't care. I simply like the addition of the little seated folks and am amazed at what power and basic viewer connection a single 1/4 inch piece of mass produced plastic can produce. (This is where I side step a major discourse in Duchampian Modernism...lets save that for another time.) Another work, "Poppy Field", makes an appearance in its yet 3rd composition...this piece has been in 4 very good exhibitions and in 3 of those has appeared in different configurations... 1) "Poppy Field" on its original heavily flocked table top, 2) "Poppy Field as Window Box" on a long floating shelf on the wall with turf, 3) and now "Poppy Field as Hors D'oeuvres" a paired down grouping on an 80's inspired sleek black and red plastic serving tray. Going back to what I was talking about earlier, I made a lot of these forms with the poppy images and now I can configure them in multiple settings.

"Poppy Field as Hors D'oeuvres"

I will post more from The Artists Hand Gallery next week...there is still plenty more to show off, like the hand crafted coffee bar and workshop space of this wonderful new art venue. Enjoy the pics(click to enlarge), feel free to chime in here with comments(much appreciated)and stay cool.

A drive -by lookie-loo...

soon to be...studio.

That's what your getting today folks...a drive by lookie-loo...a sneak peek...a little looksie...a peep at what will be ...wait for it...wait for it...drum roll please...the new studio!!! But man is it ever slow coming...we are waiting...and waiting some more for everything to be in place so we can inhabit this newly renovated space. I keep telling myself,"be patient" because I know it will be worth the wait. The owner of this building is doing a lot for us on the inside by getting it ready to be a clay studio...honestly, up and beyond what I would expect. And of course, everything moves a little slower in the summer.

ex-hotel bar turned studio...

But lets talk about the outside of this space for now. The studio space is conveniently  located on the main street that runs through our little town of Beaver Falls, PA. It is part of a great old brick building that at one time was a thriving hotel on the lower end of town. The actual space that we will be in is located behind the two minty green facades. It is a double store front that is connected on the interior. The one side opens directly on to the sidewalk and the other side has an inset covered entrance. My father-in-law, who has lived here since the late 20's, told me that that particular space used to be the bar for the hotel and has seen its share of troubles. Well, not anymore folks...currently the building is part of a supportive services group that assists people with varying challenges to become mostly  independent and eventually live on their own in the community of their choosing. As part of our deal there, we will also provide a "class" of sorts once a month for those residents that would like to participate. 


Like I said in the last post, we plan to offer classes for both children and adults, "rent" out studio space to those who already have a little experience, offer a clean retail gallery space, and also make our own work from this space. I am anxious to get it going... in the meantime I have plenty to keep me busy but I still feel like the little man in my terrarium...waiting ever so patiently and peering in through the glass.

What I did on my summer vacation or...

...the importance of stepping away, ocean air, and finding inspiration while having fun. Whew, I know that's a long title but it is perfect for this post. I recently returned from my native land...Florida. All my family still lives down there and whats better is that they now all live within about 20 minutes of each other. So annually the wife and I along with our daughter and wiener dog, Maximus, pack up all our stuff and head down to visit. Like I have said before...ITS GREAT HAVING FAMILY AT THE BEACH! This year we drove the 18 hour trip from PA down to South Walton County where my parents, brother and sister all live. Taking a lot of the back roads, we picked up fresh peaches and conch(or lady) peas and saw really cool home made yard art(see here) along with a handful of sweet bottle trees. 

My family lives out on the panhandle between Panama City Beach and Destin...a pristine stretch of land devoid of rows of high rise condos instead opting for more high end housing communities mostly located across the street from the beach on 30A. These are places that have been extremely well planned and designed and offer some of the highest priced zip codes in the nation, places like Seaside, Watercolor, Rosemary Beach and Alys. Now don't get me wrong, my family do not live in these communities but like most locals live around them on the more affordable outskirts. That's what makes this area great...you have these high end planned "towns" that mingle with the saltier local crowds...so you get nice amenities AND a thriving cultural underbelly that is more often than not supported by the rather affluent tourists. 


The area is full of local artists, great musicians, and new and interesting places to go and see both...usually while you are eating fresh seafood and drinking plenty of cold beverages. And that is just what I did with help from my trusty guide and brother, Marc. Music was high on our agenda and my brother seemed to know most of the local bands in town. We saw a couple great bands on different nights...both local and both starting to gain much bigger attention. The Owsley Brothers rocked the house with their own blend of grimy swamp rock mixed with a heavy duty pinch of Sabbath. In contrast The Blue Ribbon Healers(pictured first) plucked and harmonized a bluesy, folky New Orleans rag sound that was absolutely perfect for hanging out a block off the ocean and soaking in the night air and salty breeze. Both bands pictured below, thanks to my wife and her smart phone...and Instagram.

On another adventure just having spent the morning baking on the beach...then eating tender, flaky, fresh Grouper fingers at The Red Bar, we continued our trek to Hurricane Oyster Bar for happy hour...one dollar beers...five dollar a dozen ice cold oysters on the half shell...honestly, you can't beat this place. Just before heading into Hurricane's we stopped in to check out a new studio/gallery space set up by local artist Andy Saczynski.  His work is mixed media on board mostly...and I do mean MIXED. This guy seems to toss everything into his work and then unify it all through the use of paint. I see this style down there often but he really pulled it off and took it to another level. His work has a New Orleans/ Gulf Coast/Folk/Outsider/funky feel and his space where he showed and worked was pretty damn nice. Pictured below.

 Marc and I spoke with Andy for a while and  he was laid back and talked about the risk involved with opening his own public gallery space. He told us that... "Even in this economy, with the encouragement, I felt the time was right in my artistic career to just take a leap of faith and step out and do it."...this was inspirational for me to hear gentle readers because I am working on something very similar right now. In the last couple months or so I have been looking for a new studio space here in Beaver Falls, PA. I met a woman here who was interested in doing the same and has a real passion for the revitalization of this old steel town. We have recently found a wonderful space that looks like it will be perfect. It is an interesting situation that I will get into more later ...it is really a super space. It is a double storefront connected on the inside, brand new renovation in an old brick building on the main street. We will use it as a studio to do our own work from but also rent out studio space to others, have classes for kids and adults, and offer a clean retail gallery space as well. Scary, yes... but doable...YES! We are still in the planning stages and it doesn't look like we will get into the space until August sometime but my goal is to be cranking out work from there for the Fall. Like I said, more to come on this subject down the line.


 Meeting other artists and musicians, visiting with my family, and generally removing myself from the murky tub of water that I usually bath in has been hugely beneficial. It allowed for me to step back and reflect and think in a more forward direction. I highly recommend a change of scenery to everybody once in a while. Now I feel more able to focus on whats in front of me like: a two person show at a local art center that is opening in Indiana, PA, making more pots for the wood kiln at Little Mahoning Creek Pottery for firing in the month of July, teaching a graduate level class, "Visual Concepts" during the last summer session for IUP and then heading up to teach a week of ceramics  at Chautauqua Institution in New York... AND then really putting my energy into the opening of the new studio space! So stay tuned...change is in the air and there is so much coming up!

Summertime and...

Wow, I am just about half way into June and this is my first post of the month...what a slacker...or it could be that there is a lot of activity going on away from the laptop. I will admit to a bit of both in this case. I do have a lot going on right now...and I may have some big news to announce in a couple weeks as well...hate to leave you hanging but I just need to know a bit more before I shout it out. And speaking of summertime, I am about to make my annual trek down to the sugary beaches of FLA to see my family, soak up the sun(along with plenty of handmade Bloodymarys), and eat my fill of fresh, fresh seafood!

Before I go and get all sunburned however I had some more regional travel to do...I have just returned from a few days of sweaty attic cleaning back at my other house in Indiana, Pa...that along with a nice visit with Nancy at Little Mahoning Creek Pottery where I shot a whole boatload of images for everybody involved with the Indiana County Potters Tour. During the summer while everybody is busy making and firing, we also have to think about the advertisement for the upcoming tour in October. Next thing you know, Fall will be knocking on the door.

Tall hooter vase from Nacy Smeltzer

It was my pleasure to shoot the images that will be included in the brochure advertising the tour.  For those of you who might be newer to the ol' homefry blog click this link to check out the post from last year's tour. It was good to see people's faces that I had not seen in a while and also good to commune a bit over beer and Nancy's homemade pizza while I shot images. Its too easy to get so consumed in my own little going-ons that I forget about the fact that there is a thriving community of very talented potters all tucked away in the foothills of Indiana County...and I have proof. So I thought I would share a little of whats coming this Fall...I know its a long time from now and we are all trying to savor every drop of summertime, but hey...what the heck...its something to look forward to. The group, where I am always the guest potter at Nancy's studio, will not only be having the always well attended tour this Fall but will also be showing work at the Clay Place in Pittsburgh and very possibly with the Artist Hand Gallery(more about this place later!) that is opening in Indiana, PA too. I am very pleased to be part of this small but strong community...enjoy the pics(click to see bigger) and I will talk at ya' when I am back from the beach!

Tumbler set from Cathy Bizousky

Birch Frew

Janet Runyan

Michael Smithhammer

Bob Bonnet

Whooooo's mug?....Nancy Smeltzer's mug!

Josh Floyd

Ruth Ferrier

Working...working...

tankards!

With the big holiday weekend over and some time(not much, but some) to keep throwing, I am busy working and working to have enough of a load for the wood kiln in a couple weeks. I will be firing with Nancy Smeltzer at Little Mahoning Creek Pottery...my old stomping grounds. These days this requires an extended effort on my part as I must travel almost two hours...and come early and stay late. Currently I have no electric kiln so I need to get my pieces bisqued prior to the firing...glazed and wadded so that I am ready to help load. AND of course I want to put my time into the firing as well. This means 2 - 3 days of being away from home and family...but just think of the pots that I will get out of the firing!

I have been mostly making mugs to start and as I have been to a couple picnics and a large family reunion lately, my mind drifted back to...BEER. Beer is a great thing. I enjoy craft beers...micro brews...brown, brown ales. So while I was making mugs, I thought I would make some bigger mugs, tankards if you will...tankards complete with that thumb rest thing...seen in the pictures here...what the hell is the name of it?! I have always shied away from that thumb thing, thinking that it seems dated or so passe...it just didn't seem to fit into the style of rustic-contemporary-Japanese -American Pop culture thing that I was doing with my wood fired work. BUT, never say never I guess. Here are a couple of shots of the tankards(above and below) and their "thumb thingys".

mmmmm, beer mug.

 As I throw new pieces to be fired I am also working on a couple slabs that I wood fired...here is the one I recently fired the laser decals on. I still want to add another layer by firing some commercial decals on the surface along with a little gold luster. I will be mounting this 13x13 inch slab in a nice wooden frame to finish it off. The frame will be something new to me...I guess we will see. I love creating the images...the clean crisp graphics always look great in contrast to the more abstract backgrounds of glaze and random stuff from the firings. I think I could be content just creating images...screw the throwing and firing...that's a lot of work...and pretty dirty work at that. I need a somebody that doesn't want to finish their work, a somebody who only wants to throw and fire...heck, I would even do the glazing. Any takers out there? ...as always click on the pics to see bigger....

In the mean time, have a beer for me...cheers!

Wood Fired + Decals

detail of salt nibbled surface...

Hello and a happy Mudder's Day to all you wonderful mudders out there.

tumbler with birdscape abstraction

detail

I thought I would post some freshly fired eye candy for you all to check out. My wife is now napping off this morning's brunch and my daughter is outside playing and I have a few minutes to myself. Dan Kuhn just fired these pieces for me in his electric kiln. The mugs and tumblers were from the last firing I did with Nancy over at Little Mahoning Creek Pottery...and by the way, it looks like we will be firing again the beginning of June. All of these, like the ones I posted a couple weeks back, are now being sold out of the Self Serve Pottery Kiosk currently located here in Beaver Falls at the aptly named Beaver Falls Coffee &Tea company. Monday morning...as soon as they open, you should grab a friend and rush right over there and buy, buy, buy then sit and eat and drink...just sayin'...but for now enjoy the pics and let me know what ya think...click on the images to see them bigger

3 sides to this tumbler!

vintage wallpaper sweetness

coffee mug built for two?

double sided flamingo cup!