. Jim Harnish of Plow Creek Farm



I thought I would do a post about the Art of Jim Harnish, whose art probably is not really known much outside of his local community of Tiskilwa, Illinois. He went to school for accounting and spent most of his working life as a carpenter and house painter, picking up ceramics as a hobby and perhaps as some supplemental income, though most of his work was for family and friends.  He was one of the early members and pillars of  a commune where I worked as an agricultural intern for a growing season. His health no longer permits him to create ceramics.

                                 
I believe much of the clay was dug from the banks of plow creek on the farm. The works are good examples of well-made folk art, and his figures, especially his fish, have a playfulness and fluidity about them. I also think that he gets his glaze combinations to work well, especially with the fish on the top left.

Jennifer McCurdy

As I was looking at some of the ceramic arts from Sherrie Gallerie website, I found this beautiful piece--"Coral Vessel." A brief procedure of how this artwork was rendered: Wheel-thrown, altered, carved, incised and burnished porcelain, and fired to cone 10. I'd love to see the process, step-by-step, because I can't imagine making a work that is so delicate and balanced at the same time. 

Ceramic cups that I want to make someday..

These are the ceramic cups that I wanted to try making. Especially, the left one with flower patterns. I think these are made by two walls. These ceramics came out one of the Korean drama and created as King's cups for a long time ago. It seems luxury that I wanted to make cups similar like those.

Jeffrey Vincent

In the same way that our class has an emphasis on playing and having fun with clay, Jeffrey Vincent  plays with paint and imagery in a similar fashion. His paintings are vibrant and fun, they lack "fussiness" standing somewhere in the realm of figurative abstraction.

The subject matter of his paintings are usually pretty bizarre and almost collage-like in their chaos but remain lighthearted and humorous. The way he throws together so many figures combined with such bright colors gives some of his super busy paintings almost a party atmosphere. This is pretty hilarious because he frequently paints people from pop culture, saintly or historical backgrounds intermingled with strangers.

His skill with such highly saturated color is pretty astounding considering how much is going on in all his paintings. The high saturation and application of paint is very graphic and dynamic yet remains painterly. 

As if his paintings weren't cool enough he also makes really sick sock monsters in his spare time.

Thalen and Thalen

In an age where artists are relying more and more on new technology and computer programs to create works of art i find it very pleasing to see that some artists such as Japp and Rob Thalen, a father son duo, still use ancient methods to create their work. Thalen and Thalen are metalworkers and all of there vessels are created through raising. Raising is the method by which a flat sheet of metal is turned into a vessel thought the repetition of heating the metal up and then hammering the metal in a concentric fashion upon a rounded metal surface until a vessel is formed. The Thalen's use this method with silver. They start by casting a disk of silver and hammering it out into a usable sheet then they hammer the sheet into a vessel. They came to university of Iowa last semester and i remember them passing around one of the vessels they had made. it was a vase about a foot hight and six inches wide at its thickest point. They told us it had taken them three months of hammering day in and day out to create such a small vase. Through perseverance, their bear hands, a hammer, and without the use of new tech, they create incredible flowing textured vessels that boggle the mind. One would think that such an archaic method of creation would get lost in the hubbub of progress as new methods of creation appear in the art world every day. But it doesn't Thalen and Thalen are incredibly successful world famous artist Here are some images of their work. Looking at it becomes very apparent why they are so successful.

Amanda Shelsher

Amanda was born in 1971 in Western Australia.  She was first introduced to clay around the age of 10 when her mother began her own career as a professional potter. She traveled extensively for 3 years and landed back in Perth Western Australia, where she lives now with her family and works as a full time sculptural ceramic artists.  Soon after her travels, her focused art theme was flight and travel.  Amanda has since changed her theme to her perception of the miracles of life, domesticity and growth. She states that "My sculptures have always reflected my life and the current journey that I am on." She also mentions that she draws inspiration from her own experiences as a mother and watching her two children grow.  She often works at night, at home in a small work space where she is always surrounded by family, but can focus and gather her thoughts.  She explores the relationships between motherhood and life-cycles by incorporating plants as a part of her work as well.

Alberto Giacometti is usually characterized as a Existential Surrealist sculpture. We all pretty much know what surrealism is cause of artists such as dali but existentialism is a little less well known. To put briefly Existentialism is a way of thought that says there is no god and human are a completely usless creature on this earth. I always enjoy this style of art because of how trippy yet truthful to our society this style of art has a tendency to be.  Giacometti in particular stands out to me one, because his work consists of large scale cast metal sculptures and two, because of his use of the human form. one of his friends is quoted saying that if Giacometti did a sculpture of you your head would end up being the width of a knife blade, which is a very accurate description of his style. the bodies he creates and usually pencil thin and yet still man sized. even with such a stylized almost shadow like approach to the figure he manages to catch the correct movements of the body which give as emotion. That emotion seems to generally be a deep sense being lost and alone, even in the midst of a crowd. here are some examples of his work.

Burlon Craig

Burlon Craig was an American folk potter from the Catawba River Valley in North Carolina, Craig was the last potter in the Catawba, and is credited with reviving an industry that was almost dead in the region. Catawba pottery used alkaline glazes that were made either from ground cinders (a glassy bi-product of iron smelting), or ground glass from bottles, the cinders created an earthy brown glaze, the bottles a dark green.   He had no higher education, and learned the trade through apprenticeships. He is best known for his face jugs, though he did not begin to make them until later in his career. Catawba face jugs trace their roots to folk art from the Germans who settled the region.
       
His work is a good example of how folk art, though often looked down on, is often equal to or better than work created in academic settings in concept, quality, and function.  When looking at his work one is reminded that you don't have to be educated in order to make good, sound, work, and that many of the best often never finished college.
    



   

 

Katharine Morling

These are Katharine Morling’s hand built ceramic pieces. Even though they are made out of clay, they might not seem like it upon first glance. Her work reminds me of drawings or sketches and it certainly incorporates drawn, two-dimensional elements. These pieces are like life-size 3-D line drawings, which is a really interesting concept, something that would be even more interesting to see in person. Even though her pieces initially seem like simple line drawings, the more you look at them the more you are struck with the intricacies and details that went in to making each component of every one. The way that she uses clay is fascinating!

Greg Kuharic

In his exhibition, Watershed, Greg Kuharic used gourd-form vessels, producing his own hybrid vegetable-form ceramics. He isn't interested in making realistic copies but in creating new forms using cloning different elements into shapes and surfaces that seem familiar and unfamiliar at the same time-the fact that I like this specific collection. 

Soo-Kyung Lee

Soo-Kyung Lee is made all those. She is not ceramic artist but she is just putting up all broken pieces what other people threw away. When ugly thing born new as beautiful thing, people feel better and that's when she also got comfort from this process. She is also treat her mind and recover by putting all broken pieces together. Broken pieces are white and blue which are pretty simple but with gold lines of crack, it adds some of remarkable decoration and show harmonized appearance as total so I liked her pieces.

Wayland Gregory

While I knew that there were plenty of artists in the mediums of sculpture, mural painting, and architecture that were employed by Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, public works projects I didn't know that there were any potters. Wayland Gregory happened to be a potter who did do work for the WPA. Gregory's work seems to me to have an appeal that breaks from the norm among WPA artists. While much WPA art is stylistically in the vein of social realism, and art Deco, Gregory seems to maintain a note of these styles while creating a style all his own. Gregory's figures are dark, macabre, perhaps even ghoulish, yet colorful, all the while maintaining an air of dignity and realism found in more conventional WPA art.
 Fountain of the Atoms: New York World's Fair, 1940


                                                    


Light Dispelling Darkness Fountain, 1937, Edison NJ: Represents the triumph of modern science and medicine over disease and superstition.

 

Fukami Sueharu

The puerility and simplicity in Sueharu's works are incomparable, and the this dedicated artist has purified all he learned and practiced, all the hard techs, complex operational procedure into these pieces with simple but perfect lines of beauty.

Being focus on just only one form of art and not prolific, Sueharu's works are full of the respectful spirit of traditional Japanese artist. The meaning of his works are indirect, no strong, expressive message, nor appealing theme that we can find from his works. However, these works are also telling the audience their stories, in a gentle, quite tone. 

Ai weiwei's ceramics art work of sunflower seeds!

These porcelain sunflower seeds are from Ai weiwei (one of my favorite artist)'s ceramics art work! 

There sunflower seeds  are from an original set of 100 million individual porcelain seeds, altogether weighing 150 tons. 

Each was painstakingly painted by hand by female artisans in the ancient Chinese city of Jingdezhen, renowned for more than 1,500 years of ceramic making.

 The final porcelain sunflower seed looks from the outside to be remarkably similar to the real thing. These huge work involved 1600 people to work on it!

Before seeing these amazing porcelain sunflower seeds, the theme of ceramics in my mind is really narrow. 

After seeing this large-scale ceramics art work, I learned more about ceramics. Ceramics can make into any things and any size, even a really small size sunflower seed! 

 The video I found below which recalled the whole process of making theses sunflower seeds! Please watch this video! Its really interesting! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PueYywpkJW8

There are many incredible artists who's work with clay has very inspirational for me. However, I think the most inspirational work i have ever seen was done by Richard Nockin. My favorite of his works are the teapots he makes using the slip cast method. He starts with a block of clay and creates the most life like representations i have ever seen. They usually have a sense of humor to them that comments on society. Once he is finished with the design he makes multipart plaster molds, which from experience i know is incredibly difficult to do. then he uses slip clay to create hundreds of hollow form vessels. The thing that inspires me the most about his work is his balance of dizzying detail with a quality of incredible technique and he still manages to fit conceptual ideas into his work. If i recall correctly the university of Iowa art museum actually has one of his pieces if ya want to go check it out. here are some examples of his work as well.

Mitchell Grafton

This hand-crafted ceramic (13'' tall) made by Mitchell Grafton is one of the styles that I prefer-playful. I don't see how this could be functional or practical, but it's successful in a way that expresses a strong sense of emotion (frustration, fear, anxiety?) I hope I could create something like this in the future. 

Heidi Casto

Heidi Casto is my teacher and at same time, is one of my favorite ceramic artist. She married with Andy Casto who is also ceramic artist. I like her work because of her expression on animal's exaggerated and comical like cartoon characters. Also dots that covered of animal can show the texture of the animal's skin and shape more volume. Her work is again, my favorite :)

Joanna Howells

Joanna Howell is an artist from the UK who makes porcelain pottery.  After she throws she alters the forms she has made by working with and stretching the clay. I really like the way her pieces look. They are clean and graceful, while their stretched and manipulated surfaces give them movement, allowing them to have lively and organic qualities. Many times she uses very light bluish greenish colors that contribute to their soft, neat characteristics.