Finally Filling Up the Studio

Well,  I have been busy and with 2 weeks to go I am finally filling up the studio.  I do have to glaze it all unfortunately.

The tunnel kiln is shut down until after thanksgiving, so I will try to have some of this ready then.  I do have a small wall set up with fired work, but have to work on it some more.  Elyse has come to help me in the studio and has given me hope that I can get it all done.

Elyse in the Studio!

The pieces are pretty rough and I decided that they should remain that way.  Ironically, the glaze really covers them and smooths the roughness, sort of like snow obscuring the hard sections of the landscape.  It is pretty liberating to leave in the mold lines and imperfections.  I love the cartoonish branches.

 These arrangements really remind me of taxidermy dioramas from local nature centers.  If you ever wonder what is inside these nature centers, it is taxidermy of all kinds. Driving from Sheboygan to De Pere twice a week and then sometimes to Appleton, seems to have influenced this work.  The landscape changing to fall and then winter seems to have sunk in.

Whenever I feel like I'm filling the space, I just have to look at this picture of Sunkoo laying out all his tiles before packing.  He has filled 8 crates!

Well,  I'm off to Appleton tomorrow after finishing up a few things.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Armando Ramos Interview- Studio Visit

Armando Ramos is a sculptor who works in a variety of materials.  He is an Assistant Professor of Art at Valley City State University in Valley City, North Dakota.  I had a chance to visit with him over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Armando Ramos in his studio

 You work with 2D images in conjunction with your sculptural work.  How do they work together and influence each other?

I try to approach them in the same way.  Having a small studio forced me to look at all the work as one because I wasn’t able to separate the two into mental compartments or spaces.  I began to look at what material was most appropriate to the idea, rather that beginning with the materials.  When you’re a student, a material is often associated with a department, but it isn’t in the real world.  Stuff is just stuff and you have to find the materials that have the right properties for your idea.  It’s all the same work to me.

Altered paintings

Your work references pop culture and childhood.  How do you find images and objects for your work?

When I started out I would choose images that had meaning to me, like a specific memory.  Latin American pop culture or imagery that I had experienced as a young person was something I gravitated to.  Now I’m more interested in objects and images that aren’t really about me, but have a wider reach.  I went to the historical museum in Minneapolis and saw some images of Americana from the 1920’s.  These were ads and boxes from old toys and I started to think about them as a sort of propaganda that communicates this fake idea about how the ideal world is or should be.  The repeated image reinforces this and gives it strength. This power of images to persuade and train us to think along a certain line is something that I’m interested in.  I want my own work to be a process of revealing how and questioning how images function.

I used to go to the thrift stores or junk stores for inspiration, but I also find things on the street or at junk sales. I also buy postcards and write down words and phrases that are interesting and ambiguous.  The illustrations in old books are something I look at and will sometimes scan to create a template for a piece.

Finished work in the studio

Studio

What do you think about the life these objects and images had before you encountered them or do you? 

The very idea that someone used these things makes them compelling to me.  They were precious to someone.  I have a piece cast from a plastic, Halloween ghost and someone had to keep it in their basement, clean it and plug it in for Halloween year after year.  The history still lives in the object, but by remaking it I can somehow reveal other parts of it that the original owner never saw.  The ghost is a weird, phallic image, but the family that owned it probably had more that one and never saw that in them.

How do you think your background in ceramics has influenced your approach to sculpture?  

When I began working with clay, I really responded to the material and the process of making, but I realize that I approach material in general in a more direct sculptural way.  It is a complex material that demands planning and thinking ahead, but I wish I had begun to work with other materials earlier. 

Ceramic heads, finished and unfired, in the studio

You have a lot of toys and other objects around the studio, do you keep these around as influences?

I see them as objects of interest.  Either the tactile quality or color are things I think about in my own work.  I’m also interested in the relationships between the parts.

What themes run through your work?

The tension and awkwardness in the vulnerability of objects is something I like to explore.  I’m interested in looking at another side of things that we ordinarily don’t look at.  Something soft and comforting might become something ominous, or a sentimental decorative object that has a specific meaning in a holiday or in childhood might be altered to communicate an entirely different meaning.  Visual communication is at the heart of it.  I’m really trying to explore modes of visual communication and how the disruption of that communication can reveal the process itself.

Painting the wood sections of a sculpture

Do you work in series or have you been making individual pieces? 

I think I have been working in individual pieces, but my work is going more towards the direction of series.  This last piece I’ve been working with is a Halloween ghost and I cast them in series in different colors.  Right now they are in groupings of three or four, but I want to make a mass installation of 40 or 50 in a space.  A lot of my work is related even if the pieces are different, but the repetition is definitely something that I’m working with.  It also takes some discipline to work through an idea entirely and not get distracted by something else.  The  series allows me to play out an idea and realize it’s potential.

What questions do you ask yourself when you are making work?

I ask myself what is the most essential part that I want to get across.  How can I communicate this in the most basic way.  I began the ghosts with an interest in a nativity scene from the thrift store, but it was gone when I went back to get it.  So I began to think about what elements of it interested me.  The ghost was sort of a bastardization of something that was sacred.  The outdoor nativity scene that I remembered from my childhood had been coopted into the fake sacred image for a completely secular ‘holiday’.  The image was something that I thought revealed the absurdity of we use images to construct meaning.

Finished ceramic 'Ghosts' in the studio

What are you working on now and what do you have coming up? 

I’ve been finishing a group of work to install at an exhibition at the Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana.  I plan on working with more of the repeated image.  I’m also in an exhibition at the Rosalux gallery in Minneapolis starting in December and going through the first week of January and in a survey exhibition of contemporary ceramics in the Midwest at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota.

Upcoming Studio Works and Other News

I have been running around all summer traveling, but am now back and ready post again.  Craig and I completed a residency in Alpena, Michigan at the Alpena Wildlife Sanctuary.  It was a great experience and many thanks to our wonderful hosts, Marcia and Avery as well as Karen and everyone else associated with the Sanctuary.                                                                                                                  

The Sanctuary is mostly wetlands and I have posted a few images from our many canoe outings

We have almost finished a body of work for our exhibition at Mt. Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, inspired by our residency.

Here are some studio shots of our work this summer in preparation for the show and I will post more once the show is up.

These are our unfinished floor installation pieces that Craig has painted with underglaze.  When finished whey will be integrated with  wood bases.

 These are porcelain leaf forms or rods that will be strung together with wood and other objects like the cage forms below.

 These are part of larger clusters of repeating forms that bring together nature forms and found objects.

 This September Craig and I will be showing at the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.  The show opens on September 20th.   Here is a blurb from their website about the show and the hours and days. Here is a detail of our piece.

Echo/ Mississippi

Widely regarded as the state’s most prestigious showcase of contemporary Wisconsin visual art, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Wisconsin Triennial returns September 21, 2013. The Triennial presents active Wisconsin artists and reflects a broad range of art representing current directions in contemporary visual art.

On September 20 at 6 pm, an opening night reception for the 2013 Wisconsin Triennial will be held as a part of an MMoCA Nights event. Join the artists and other art supporters at this celebration of Wisconsin contemporary art. Enjoy music, refreshments, and hors d'ouevres on the rooftop sculpture garden. Admission is free for museum members and is $10 for non-members.

We made this short video about our work together.  I think it is also available on MMOCA's website.

I will be posting more in the days to come before we head to Iowa. But I leave you with Midwest roadside attractions.........

 

 You have to love cement dinosaurs and man eating giant snakes!

NCECA Exhibitions and stuff

Craig and I had a busy NCECA, with two exhibitions to curate and organize and the Archie Bray Foundation Exhibition, it was pretty exhausting.  Craig is still a bit tired since he spent his whole spring break driving to Houston and setting up the shows with Peter Morgan.  I just have some gallery shots for now and some images of my work, but I have to begin with this image as a shout out to Peter and his awesome endurance with making these all come together.  This is from the Location exhibition at the Spring Street Studios in Houston, TX, curated and organized by Craig Clifford.

Philly Cheese State of Mind

Craig Clifford, Blackfoot, Detail

Gallery view of Location with my work on the left and Benjie Heu on the right.

 It was a crazy week so these are the images I have with the new wall sections of this piece, but I hope to create a work for a larger space.

Debbie Kupinsky, Landscape Memory

Detail, Landscape Memory

The drawings are from the Fox River path in Appleton, WI where the industrial and the paper making past come together with the landscape.  Here is a more general shot of the show, but I will post more tonight as well.

Location

The Biota exhibition was curated by myself and Peter Morgan and was at the Motherdog Studios in Houston, TX.  It was a very 'raw' space, but was a great experience to work with a great variety of artists.  Here are a few shots of the show and my piece, Echo/ Mississippi with motion activated sound.

Location

Location 

This piece is about memory, landscape and objects.  It also is an investigation of the transformation of the ordinary through the process of making.  The piece consists of original knick knack objects, mostly birds and then their replicas in porcelain.  There are not fully formed in some way, but are left to carry the marks of the hand and the idea of incomplete memory. This has been an ongoing piece that I have bee altering and adding to over time.

Echo/Mississippi

Detail

I am going to add image of the rest of the work later tonight, but have to get home right now.  

Craig Clifford at Pewabic Pottery

Craig's solo exhibition opens today at Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, MI.  New Work: Polychromatic.  This work focuses on color and the transformation of functional objects and materials.  Most of the molds used to make these pieces are basically trash, given away from garages or storage buildings.  Check out the show if you are in the area.

January 18- March 17,  2013, Opening, Friday, January 18th, 6-8pm

10125 E. Jefferson, Detroit, MI, 48214

313-626-2000

Gallery Hours- Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm

Sundays 12pm-4pm

More images to come!

Peter Morgan's- All Aboard

If you are in Philadelphia, check out the last weekend of Peter Morgan's Fellowship Exhibition, All Aboard at the Philadelphia Clay Studio.  Here are images from the show.  Look for an interview with the artist on this blog later in the week.  The installation explores the idea of place and the nature of representation with Peter's playful use of scale and humor.  Also included are paintings that reference the pieces in the exhibition.  To view more of the work at the Clay Studio website, click the link imbedded in the title of the exhibition.

Peter Morgan: All Aboard

The 2011-2012 Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Fellowship Exhibition

October 4 through October 28, 2012

My work is an exploration of issues of perception and representation and how these concerns mold our understanding of the world. I am interested in both actual representations and cultural perceptions of the way things are and what makes each significant. The work examines how much of what we know of the world is through illustrations and representation rather than from personal experience and the difference between “real” versus simulated experiences.