FIRING IN PROGRESS

Here you see the work amidst others from my group... hint: mine looks like wood...



















and other things.. unmentionable...

Visions of Morhdorh

Having some fun with sculptural vessel forms, with walls the texture of wood bark, which i have made a new mold of. These remind of me several things at once, and i have heard the same from others. I like their irregular wall height which moves the eye and provides the empty space necessary for the viewer to fill in the blanks for themselves. I am doing a series, and have four set up already...

perhaps i will stop making them when they cease to amuse me. At least, they provide the background noise while i do the more important large pieces this year, which take far more patience, thus leaving me with intervals of free time in the lab that i must entertain.
This new mold pours simply, pops out within the the course of two & a half hours and can be cut in multiple places to create nuances, as well as limit the amount of replication throughout the pieces.








They call to mind
cavernous volcano ranges,
perhaps a rough hewn crown,
an ancient & weathered tree stump,
campfires, and upside-down icicles.
Being a believer in the made-up lands of man,
I would call them
"Visions of Morhdorh"
and let them give you whatever visions they will...

I wanted to be posting over the last three months, but have unfortunately found myself between several rocks and some very hard places. Alas, the summer has treated me so badly that i longed only for the respite of my much beloved studio on the Bay, which i had gladly said goodbye to in May only to return in August with so much relief and elation. This was just this week on my way in to the studio in the morning... it was a perfect & productive day.
To be back to work that, again, i forgot to write until the first month of the semester had worked its way furiously on by, and some of the summer's demons were finally expelled from me.

It started with a trip to Kabuki Spa, to bath eternally and rid my mind and soul of the negative energy it has been carrying around lately. After the first half, consisting of a long hot sauna, and two stints in the hotter steam room (salt scrub and all), feeling ever foggier and yet all-the-more present, i was meditating in the darkest back corner chair, really zoning out... when i looked up to see the very dim and only source of light: two simple, yet elegant, wood box laterns, which i had never before noticed in all my Kabuki bathing, and which were extremely low lit but had such a defined presence in the space. That moment was an epiphany for me, to recreate these as a narrative and in the language of my wood planks would be my journey...

in that brief breath of time, I had already set a course... and so far, i have almost four sets of these:















And eventually... these wood frame-boxes will become a sort of japanese latern, complete with rice paper, and will each tell a small story with the sculpture being lit from behind inside of them... approx. 20"x 20" x 22", these should make for a very impressive and beautiful series.