I’m finally ready to reveal a fun collaboration with sculptors Lucia Bruer and Franco Di Majo entitled Bling!
It all started with the pile of Rock Candy pieces in the studio. Lucia was visiting the studio one day and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if they were gigantic jewelry?’. We both looked at each other and knew we had to see this idea through.
We decided to make two rings, that would appear to be stuck into the ground at the bottom and have their big gems crowning above.
Lucia enlisted the help of Franco and they started planning out the logistics of making the structure for band of the ring. Then we designed the layout of the band so that it mimicked the shapes of the ceramic rock candy. We also designed the bezel it would sit in with similar angles. Next up, there’s a lot of welding to do but it was really exciting to get a vision of what it would look like assembled.
We’re hoping these rings will be installed at Sierra Azul Sculpture Garden early summer, details to follow.
ABOUT: The Bone Series: Urchins are hand built, perforated flanges of very thin, nearly translucent porcelain, if held up to the light the edges will glow. For this ephemeral In The Field installation, I went to one of my favorite beaches near Davenport California at a very low tide to have access to where the urchins live. Read more…
I met Rakel (aka India Maya) in the little town of Todos Santos, where I’ve recently bought some property. We met through a network of local artists at events she was participating in and hosting at her home studio. She was also kind enough to allow me to use her kiln to fire the work I was making during our stay in Baja. As I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve learned a little about her Mayan heritage and how she uses locally sourced clays (mixed with a little commercial clay) to make and fire her pots and beads to produce her work in the traditional Mayan ways. The results are burnished surfaces and smoke markings that make her work beautiful to hold and to look at. Her work is literally connected to the land and spiritually connected to her heritage.
Pienso que cuando la gente quiere llevar un recuerdo de Todos Santos buscan llevar algo auténtico y único, es la razón por la cual me gusta usar barro local, es una forma de llevar un pedacito de Todos Santos a tu hogar. Afecta de manera emocional en las personas, les encanta cuando les digo que el barro es local & ellos mismos se dan cuenta de lo auténtico que es mi arte. Es una forma de expresar lo orgullosa que estoy de mi linaje indígena y también es una forma de dejar nuestra huella. Es importante mantener nuestras raíces y el arte que mejor manera de hacerlo atravez del barro.
I think that when people want to have a souvenir of Todos Santos they seek to bring something authentic and unique, it is the reason why I like to use local clay, it is a way to bring a little piece of Todos Santos to your home. It effects people emotionally, they love it when I tell them that the clay is local & they themselves realize how authentic my art is. It is a way of expressing how proud I am of my indigenous lineage and it is also a way of leaving our mark. It is important to keep our roots to the art and the best way to do it is through the clay.
Learn more about India Maya’s work with this beautiful video designed by creative hub Mi-Zo Exchange who also operate CASA MA in Baja Sur, where they design & produce one of the kind furniture in collaboration with local artists:
Want add her work to your collection? Visit these shops in Todos Santos, BCS:
Artists Sharing Artists: is a series of posts where I share some of my favorite artists who are also inspired by nature and use their art to protect what they love. More artists coming soon…
Sculptor Jamie Abbott and I collaborate on making these fun and funky wearables, each one is unique with a selection of porcelain and forged metal forms strung on ball chain or leather cord.
This piece from the Bone Series | Urchins will be available in the online auction to support the Grants Pass Museum of Art. Join the museum in a night of Blues music, art and storytelling at their Virtual Black, White, and the Blues event.
Thursday, March 25, 2021 6PM (PDT)
This year’s event is a chance for the community to join together to ensure art remains accessible for all. RSVP and learn more here:
Last week, I announced my opportunity to create a large scale public art installation for the Price Sculpture Forest in Washington State. My studio is filling up with parts for this project, so I wanted to share my progress. (if you missed last weeks post, here’s the link!)
These pieces are in various stages of being built. I cut out all the shapes intuitively so that each piece is unique and there are a variety of sizes. The far left image shows the shapes but all the edges have yet to be attached. It’s important to let the panels of each piece set up a little before they are attached so that they hold their shape as they are handled and moved around. Once they are attached, they are left to dry a bit more and then they get a final wipe down before they are left to dry completely.
Once all of the pieces are bisque fired, they are ready for glazing. Each piece is glazed on all sides with a white matte glaze that is reminiscent of the shelf fungus color they are inspired by. Then each top edge gets a stripe of dark glaze that when fired is metallic colored where it is thicker and fades to a mossy green where it blends with the white glaze underneath. Now these guys are all ready to go for a ride in the kiln!
This batch of pieces totals to somewhere around 50 or 60 parts, but I’m estimating that I will need about 8 times that for this project- maybe more! Eventually every surface in the studio will probably be covered by these pieces, exciting times!
Just a quick behind the scenes video showing just how strong these very thin pieces of porcelain actually are. When I put them in the kiln, I just pile them up, but because of the vitreousness of the clay, they stick together just a little, kinda like porcelain nachos. Then they need to be popped apart so I can use these pieces in other projects. Enjoy!
These pieces have literally been years in the making, but I think I’m finally rounding a corner with them and wanted to share my progress. I had some success with my initial resin pours but still had a few things to tweak. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of micro bubbles in the resin, I found out that’s due to it curing too cold and possibly some air escaping from the pores of the ceramic parts. The edges of the molds aren’t as even as I’d hoped since the silicone molds had squished a bit in shipping, so I need to come up with a better frame solution. I also knew that my first experiments with led lights were really exciting and I needed to pursue that further even if it meant putting on my novice electricians hat. Some steps forward and some steps sideways, more problems to solve, and way more parts to make.
I decided to create stainless steel frames and pour directly into them so that I didn’t need to pop them out of a mold later. I wanted these frames to be versatile for both wall hanging and as suspended pieces, so I added a fender washer as the hanger to create a modern, industrial look. A metal fabricator neighbor welded them together for me and then I started working on the lighting components.
I’ve learned way more than I ever wanted to about led lighting, but in the end, I found that getting some waterproof strip lighting, a few connectors and being creative, I could get the frames lit on the insides and eventually embedded in the resin. I had small holes drilled in the sides of the frames for the wires to exit from which will ultimately connect to a power source, which for now is 9v battery to make sure that my connections actually work.
I’m ~almost~ ready to start pouring my (fingers crossed) first batch of keepers. My next steps are to coat the ceramic parts in a thin layer of resin, to seal them from leaking any air bubbles. To waterproof the end connections of my led lights and adhere them in place to the inner edges of the frames. And then I need to set everything up in a warm, dust free area to start the pouring, layering and curing of the resin, one eighth of an inch at a time. Step by step… stay tuned!
