This Week's Favourite Things! Monday November 16th - Sunday November 22nd 2015

1. "Eighty-One" the current exhibition on at Slate Fine Art Gallery in Regina (through December 6th) of gas-fired stoneware pieces by Jack Sures, to celebrate his 81st birthday.  Jack Sures is a master potter and set up the ceramics department at University of Regina.  He had retired by the time I got there in 2006 - 2008 but was still coming in frequently to work on stuff for sale, and we all got to use his glazes and gas kiln.  Plus he gave me some good tips.  

It was so nice to randomly stumble across pics of him on twitter and see him apparently aging backwards! And the show looks amazing. When I was at the department, Jack would work on his pots for a few hours everyday, and then go off and do something athletic, like swimming or curling I think. I guess that's how you keep making pottery into your 80's!  Here's his bio from the Slate Fine Art Gallery site.

This CBC article has the pics I saw on twitter, of both Jack and his installation, here's a screen grab from the article:

2.  The Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council (NSDCC) Christmas Craft show that was just on this past weekend in downtown Halifax at the Cunard Centre.  So much beautiful stuff, here's this year's list of presenters. My very favourite I think was the handpainted Limoges porcelain by New Brunswick artist Isabelle Lafargue.  Here's a link to her site with a bunch of pics, and a closeup of this teapot with houses, not sure if it was the same one at the show. 

 I also loved La P'tit Poterie by Suzanne Babineau from New Brunwick and added to my mug collection, the artist does awesome cone 6 stoneware and wood fired pieces.

my new stoneware mug by La P'tit Poterie

 Clairvoyant Art Glass was there too, and impressed I wore the pendant I bought 2 years ago so much that the cord broke, and tied a new one on.  Then it was hard to leave without getting one of their new pendants.

My new pendant by Clairvoyant Art Glass

3.  The colourful, cheerful bird prints by Sarah Duggan available at The Dart Gallery - where it's 2D I won't take a pic! but I picked up a really great one with a bunch of blue birds on it.

4.  Handknit chicken vests meant to keep former battery hens warm in this article:  A woman is knitting tiny wool jumpers to keep her chickens warm.

5. This bear sleeping bag by artist Eiko Ishizawa

6.  This article: 10 Easy Social Media Tips for the Struggling Artist. 

7.  This Destroyer album: Thief, plus the song of that title.  I forgot I had this and listened to it a tonne this past week.

8.  Regina Indie rock band Rah Rah's first album "Going Steady" from 2008 which is the only one of theirs I have, but I listened to it lots lately too, it reminds me so much of the time I spent in Regina!

9.  Seen a couple movies on Canadian Netflix lately that I really liked:  The Sapphires (based on the true story of an Australian Aboriginal all girl soul singing group in the 60's), and French cartoon: Asterix and Obelix: the mansion of the gods.

New Christmas Ornaments at Jenny Jib, November 18th 2015

Here are pics of the ornaments from this most recent firing that I dropped off at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg on November 4th, along with some other new pieces. 

All of these are handsculpted stoneware, created in Lunenburg County the Balsam Fir Christmas Tree Capital of the world!  There are lots of tree farms near our rural home.  

These new ornaments are made with ornament hooks embedded in them, instead of heavy wire, which means they're now finished on the bottom. There were 28 of them total at Jenny's shop, they're $25 each and include a wire ornament hanger:

Lobster, whale, seagull

 

Reindeer and an owl wearing a Santa hat

Three Great White Sharks, 2 wearing Santa hats, and a baby Harp Seal which looks like it might be in some trouble...

Close up of a shark and the seal, where they've decided to be friends

Bald Eagle

Polar Bear and Squirrel

Flock of 5 sheep with a donkey

Four Fish

Farmyard friends: Horse, Goat, Rooster

Four doves

 

Birdfeeder Buddies: Blue Jay, Cardinal, Chickadee

Fox

The Blue Jay, from above, demonstrating how these new ornaments hang with a simple wire which is provided for all of them

I also brought in 5 older ornaments:

A seagull, displaying my new tags, and 2 fish.  These are $20 each

And finally, two Kevin O'Leary Christmas Tree Heads.  There will be another post coming up about these now that I have some nice pics of a bunch of them hanging in a hawthorn tree.

Same heads as above, front view

This has become the time of year when all I want to do is make ornaments, so I am working on another firing that will include some new whale and dolphin ornaments for the shop if all goes well!
 

New Christmas Ornaments at The Dart Gallery, November 18th, 2015

Here are pics of ornaments I dropped off at The Dart Gallery in Dartmouth on November 3rd, along with some other new pieces.

I love making Christmas ornaments and have made hundreds over the years: clay ones since 2009, and papier mache ones since 2005.  I'm pretty excited with how they are evolving.

This year for the first time I'm using ornament hooks! Thanks, France at Dragonfire Pottery and Supplies for telling me about these!  So now all my ornaments are finished underneath (thanks, husband Brendan, for telling me I should do this).  Unless they're standing on feet, they're mostly all glazed underneath too - which means firing them with on stilts, something I just started doing this year.  

All of my ornaments are handsculpted stoneware, and all of these new ones are signed with my initials.  Clay is a heavy medium, but I've tried to make them as light as possible by hollowing them out as much as I can.

There are 18 of the new ones at Dart, most are $25 each but there are few smaller ones for $20.

Owl, sitting bunny, mushroom (these first three are the smaller $20 ones), spotted frog, fox

Close up of the mushroom and sitting bunny from the above pic

Giraffe, owl with santa hat, another fox, 2 sheep and a squirrel

Two doves

Pig

Polar bear

Puffin with Santa hat

Crouching bunny

And last but not least, a Sullivan's Pond Goose with Santa Hat

 All of the above ornaments come with a simple ornament wire, ready to hang, as well as one of my new homemade tags (photo paper + inkjet printer) if desired.

Here's an action shot of a fox ornament in a live tree, though the tags at Dart say "handsculpted in Nova Scotia Canada":

I also dropped off a selection of older ornaments, most are $15 - $20 each.  Here's a group shot with most of them.  What have we got here... three chickens, a couple of ghosts, a few skulls, white rat, meerkat, blue jay, duckling, santa head, alien, 4 doves in 2 styles, pumpkin, jack o'lantern... and 3 Kevin O'Leary Christmas Tree Heads (more about them at the end of this post).

Here's a flying bat that missed the class photo:

 And a small flying dove: 

This flying goose was actually made this year, but in the old style - open on the bottom with a heavy wire through it.

And here's one of the skulls in action.  

Back to the Kevin O'Leary Christmas Tree Heads.  I made a dozen or so of these tributes to "Mr. Wonderful" in 2012 while binge watching Shark Tank, thinking I'd get into doing celebrity ornaments.  I still plan on it, and have a few other people in mind, but probably not for this season.   I'll do another post with more pics of the photo shoot fun I had finally hanging the ornaments in a hawthorn tree outside.  Meanwhile here is one example of a group shot:

And here's a shot of the 3 heads that I took to  Dart:

The Dart Gallery has a couple of very nice shows starting soon.  "Le Jardin Magique" opens November 19th 7 - 9pm, running until Dec 2nd, and features paintings by Estelle Thomson, this year's Gold winner artist for both Visual Artist and Yoga Instructor in The Coast's Best of Halifax awards.

Opening in early December and running until Christmas is "Dart Wars", a group show inspired by the latest Star Wars movie release.

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday November 9th - Sunday November 15th, 2015

1.  Helen Opie's new paintings.  Helen painted 4 small paintings: 3 pears and an orange, for the Christmas show at Going Coastal Fine Art and Furnishings in Chester.  The pear on the red background is my favourite.  

Helen had stopped in on the way to Chester to give the edges another coat of gold paint, and sign them, so I took a pic of them on our kitchen table.  This photo isn't the best and doesn't capture the juiciness of the paint, but the paintings are lovely and you can tell Helen has been painting for decades and enjoys it very much.  They're $95 each.  Going Coastal also has a few of her landscapes, and the gallery owners make really nice furniture which are used as display pieces throughout their space.

Here's a pic of Helen signing her paintings.  She's in her early 80's - I think at that point one's age becomes something to brag about - and is still super active.  Helen just bought a nifty camper van for road trips now that her puddle duck sailboat she built is finished.  Inspiring!

While Helen was doing this we had a great art chat during which I mentioned I feel a real stubbornness about not wanting to use molds eventhough some of my sculptures may look similar when I work in series.  She pointed out that photos of art, and cast objects may be more affordable for customers and quicker to produce, but 'lack the hand of the maker' so may not have the same energy.  Good food for thought, and probably why she's made black and white cards in the past that she then coloured by hand. 

 2.  This new Lunenburg winter scene by Evgenia Makogon, available as cards (great for Christmas!) at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg.   After dropping off Helen's paintings we visited the shop, which is looking mighty fine and is always cozily displayed with lots to see, from fine art to home decor to body care and jewelry.   The original painting is also available of course, pictured below.  My pics of her work are a little blurry though, and once again don't capture the liveliness of the paint.  Best to go see the real thing!

Here's another shot with more of Evgenia's paintings, except the top middle boat, though she has others in the shop   The larger boat painting is the Eastern Star and the glare in the photo is from varnish.  The lamp and shelving in the photo give a little taste of how homelike the layout of the store is.

Since I published this post, Evgenia did her own really nice blog post about Lunenburg and her latest pieces there, her pics are much better!


3.  Strolling.  Lunenburg is a strollable town I've noticed, after strolling around after the most excellent Thursday morning Farmer's Market there.  It's nice!

4.  Gali's Healthy Kitchen.  Gali, Evgenia's mom, makes and sells really great raw vegan, glutenfree food at the Halifax Seaport Market on Saturdays.  They brought down an order for me on Thursday when we met up: homemade sauerkraut (fermented foods are full of probiotics), seed crackers full of turmeric and kale, and seed cookies and bars.  

Gali uses top end organic ingredients that she orders in by mail, and soaks all the nuts and seeds to remove the enzyme inhibitors.  She has been studying nutrition for years, really cares about her customers health, and has lots of great information for anyone looking to clean up their diet.  Her new bars with raw pistachios and goji berries are seriously delicious.  

5.  Lexicon Books.  This is a cool new Independent bookshop in Lunenburg that opened this year where the Spotted Frog Folk Art gallery was - that owner retired.  It's really nice with a great assortment of books in a variety of subjects, the children's books section looks especially fun.  The shop hosts a book club and events such as readings.

6.  Bob Dylan on the Mystery of Creativity by David McDonald.  This is a very short youtube video, narrated by Bob Dylan, on the writing of the song 'Stardust' by Hoagy Carmichael.

7.  More about aliens.   This past week while working on more ornaments I listened to a bunch of video blogs on this youtube channel: Rich2150x.  He swears a lot and a lot of people will pass this all of this off as crazy, and maybe it is, but he says some stuff that explains a few experiences I had decades ago, so, hey.  Here are a couple of favourites:
Entities.  How to detect and remove
How to hack your life, your mind, and the game of life

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday November 2nd - Sunday November 8th, 2015

1.  This little pottery cup (approx 2" tall) by France Arruda.  It's so sweet, it says smile on one side

has a camera on the other















and is green inside.  

It totally makes me smile.  I picked it up at Dragonfire Pottery and Supplies  in Burnside while grabbing supplies - the shop has a nice selection of pottery by the instructors.  It is a pottery school as well, and will be having a sale of student and instructor work December 4/5.  France has her superawesome work at The Dart Gallery as well.

2. This TED talk by artist Alex Grey: Cosmic Creativity - How Art Evolves Consciousness (youtube video)

3.  This TED talk by Jim Kempner, a New York art dealer/gallery owner - The Madness of Art (youtube video).  The cool thing about this is that Jim and pals actually produced a series of short youtube videos called "The Madness of Art" poking fun at the fine art industry.  According to the youtube channel these are based on true stories.

4.   The Madness of Art episode (Season 2 Episode 11) featuring artist Charlie Hewitt - it reminded me of some of my own experiences at Art School in Regina.  As a classmate from drawing class said, he figured he could take a dump on a blank piece of paper and get a better grade than on the drawings he had worked on for dozens of hours.  For my final sculpture project I hot glued pieces of a wax eggo waffle I had made from a mold, on to a used pizza box, in the form of a happy face, and I think I got an A.  For another assignment in a 2D class I soaked various cooked pasta in ink and flung it at a piece of paper.  Anyhow this episode reminded me of all that and made me laugh.  The whole series is entertaining.

5.  This vimeo video interview of Charlie Hewitt.

6.  This free pdf ebook by photographer Richard Bernabe that I randomly found on twitter, of photos from Africa:  "Spirit of Africa".  It's very nice and includes details on camera settings, there's no cost or weird catch to downloading it, just a free trip to Africa via photos.

7.   This vimeo video about Jane Herold, super awesome potter in New York that has a studio in Cape Breton as well.  Her work is very 'slow' as in, the slow food movement.  She turns her pots on a kick wheel without the use of electricity, and fires her pots with wood.  Here is her website with more pics of her beautiful work.

8.  Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust (CREIT) for validating this story I wrote last year, The Story of the Monkeys Who Started a Real Estate Investment Trust, with their actions.  Our favourite sushi place in Halifax (Fresh Happy Healthy Sushi on Lacewood, it has good all you can eat deals) is getting hoofed out of their restaurant, after doing major renos at their own expense and being good tenants for 5 years, to make room for a bigger business that needs more space.  Best part is they've been told the renos they did are part of the building and cannot legally be removed as they're now part of the building.  They found another spot to move to, in the Larry Uteck area by the new Sobeys, but still, that just sucks for their business and I think highlights the damage that REITs can do to the economy - in the search of more profit for investors, which ironically probably includes pension funds, more small businesses get screwed over.   I'm not sure if there's any solution for this.  But my hunch is that, left unchecked, this could inspire more people to move to smaller towns where they can afford to own their buildings outright, letting REITs turn larger urban centers into something resembling these Chinese Ghost cities.

Now Available at Jenny Jib, November 5th 2015

Here are pics of work from this latest firing that I dropped off at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg yesterday.

First up is the American Thanksgiving Turkey.   

This is the most ambitious clay piece I've ever made, it took quite awhile to do and I'm surprised it didn't crack!  Like all my functional pieces it is cone 6 stoneware and foodsafe - though I wouldn't chance putting this particular piece in a dishwasher or microwave.

The back comes off such that it can be used as two serving vessels and/or maybe a good hiding place for something precious:  

Here is its backside:

 

Next up some Whaleware - completely inspired by Lunenburg and Jenny's shop.  Four new mugs:

A bowl with 2 relief carved humpack whales and two peace signs, really happy with how this turned out:

And a sperm whale plate that is wired to hang on the wall when not in use.   

 


Here's a big moose bowl:

And a few figurines.  First a seagull and two walruses:

Next is a shepherd dog:

A sheep for the dog to herd:

And a skulk of foxes scheming to heist the sheep from the shepherd dog:

A Polar bear, who could probably eat all the other figurines, and a baby bear:

I also dropped off a few other figurines that were at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia shop, which is temporarily shut while Pavia opens a new cafe (yum!) where the shop was, and the shop moves across the hall.

Hunting season buddies: a buffalo, bighorn sheep and white tailed deer stag

Earthenware birds!  A puffin, kingfisher and mallard  

And a few more figurines, 2 sheep a bear and a squirrel.

  
Along with these pieces I dropped off 33 new ornaments from this latest firing.  Out of respect and gratitude for all veterans I'll wait until later to post ornament pics - Jenny Jib honours Remembrance Day and doesn't start decorating for the holidays until later in the month.