While looking at some of Alexander Calder’s work I came across this gem…

It is the dressing table of his wife Louisa, and I wish it were mine.   

These too  

And if I wore this necklace today, it would be the only sun everyone around me would see.  

 It is thick grey, welly wearing weather in Minneapolis.  So please please, if it’s sunny where you are, do send some my way.  

All images come from the Calder Foundation

I have a bit of the winter blues, but this makes me happy.  

Hill Hut by visiondivision.

Thanks to designboom.

What if our hearts were this big? 

Magdalena Abakanowicz

courtesy of The Best Time of The Day. 

Alec Soth, Pauline, 2007

Robert Polidori, Wall detail and Surveillance Camera of Grand Cabinet de Madame Victoire, 2007.

at the Weinstein Gallery through Saturday.

And this is the last weekend to visit the Art Shanties.

Have a great weekend even if you don’t choose to look at pretty pictures or get some icy bright sun in your eyes! 

Upon opening up what I thought was going to being the last kiln before bringing my work to the gallery for the upcoming Jerome Exhibition (more on that later), I was initially quite pleased.  The top layer couldn’t have been better.  The second looked pretty good too.  But when I removed the shelves to see the bottom layer of the kiln, I did gasp.  And though my memories of the following moments are foggy, I probably did swear out loud when I found that one of my stilts bent and caused one piece to fall onto another.  Disaster!  Two beauties fused together.  

Of course the pieces were the only two of their scale in the kiln, and of course they both would have been quite stunning had they not become one.

I probably spent an hour staring at the piece(s), brainstorming how I might remedy the situation.  Would sacrificing one allow me to salvage the other?  Does Dremmel make a saw-like attachment?  Could a chisel do the job?  Many other questions raced through my mind before I realized that realistically, with the work due to the gallery in one day, I probably ought to save myself.  So I found a bit of grace, and a great deal of humility, and let it go. 

While I really wanted to include one or both of those pieces in the exhibition, I do have more than enough work to choose from, and that is a really great position to be in.  So I took a few deep breaths, had a last moment of, “oh how could this have happened now!??!” and set about editing the work and grouping the successful pieces together.

If I don’t think about the two-that-became-one, I’m quite pleased with how it has all come together.  The work is now out of the studio and in the dust-free gallery, and that feels great.  On Monday I will put up the installation piece, and then the only part left is to show up at Northern Clay Center for the Opening Reception on Friday January 15 at 6 pm. 

I will be  happy to see you there!

In the NY Times Thursday Styles section a few weeks ago I read this great quote from William Faulkner:

“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again, since it is life.”

Blue Segment, 1921

Aside from spending time with a few of my besties, the favorite moments of a recent (and way too brief) visit to NYC were spent at the Guggenheim seeing arrested motion moving again.  The Kandinsky show could not be in a better venue…to be able to see the paintings from so many different views and levels was truly wonderful.  Breathtaking indeed. 

And Memory, the Anish Kapoor piece, is a gigantic jewel!  He is a new hero.  Inspiration at it’s best.

You have until January 13 for Kandinsky and March 28 for Kapoor.  Get there!

If you are in the Twin Cities, there is still time for you to see the MNWCA group show. As a teaser, I thought I would show you some of my favorites. 

I love that in the first image Kelly Connole’s rabbit is tucked in next to Ursula Hargen’s most wonderful pitcher.  And I really like the more muted (and so not her usual) color palette that Mary Roettger chose for this piece.  There are a few faves that were overlooked…a problem with being distractible.  But you can find your own favorites when you go.

Take advantage of this weekend’s Art Attack and see much more than just ceramics.

Thanks everyone for the helpful comments.  The decision and the submission has been made and I’m happy to have that complete before a bit of time away.  I’m going to Kripalu where cell phone use is restricted, and wireless capabilities will most likely be limited.  So here’s to checking out for a bit!

It’s time to select an image to be used for the Jerome Grant press, and I am having a hard time deciding. 

The pieces that were recently photographed are still rather new to me, and I’m not sure that I see them clearly for what they really are…especialy when I see that some of my very delicate details may not be so apparent in the images here.  This makes me  question even more how something may appear in print (that may or may not be of the highest quality). 

So all of you who have not seen the pieces shown here in the reals, are being asked to weigh in.  Please leave a comment below as to which image you think might be the best one to use for press.

Gratitude to you in advance! 

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A wonderful group show opens this evening from 5-10 p.m. in suite 332 of the Northrup King Building.  The show consists of sculptural and functional ceramics by women artists living and working in Minnesota and was juried by Gail Kendall and Janet Williams. 

I am proud to be part of such a talented group.   

I’ll be gallery sitting on Monday, November 2 from 12-4 p.m. if you want to avoid the crowds.

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