IUP GRAD CRIT

2009-07-25T15:25:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to remind the others, who work with material and not concept, that there are things in life that are exciting and satisfying and for a potter this is one. A loaded kiln waiting for the fire, beckoning for that lick of flame to impose a permanence on this delicate earthen surface. Do not forget that life is not a concept and neither is your work. Make sure that in the end it is still fun...

John Cage

2008-12-07T18:35:00.001-08:00

John Cage was an American composer. Cage was a pioneer in the music scene and one of the leading figures in post-war avant-grade. He was one of the leading members in the Fluxus group. He was influenced by both of his teachers Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, but his primary influence was in the Eastern cultures. He studied Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism. He worked with chance music, electronic music, and the non-standard use of musical instruments. He was a key person in the development of modern dance. He was best known for his 4'33?, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. A performance of 4'33? can be perceived as including the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence.

Fluxus

2008-12-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

Fluxus is a network of artists that is made up of composers and designers that are known for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They were seen as an intermediate group through their involvement with Neo-Dada noise music, literature, urban planning, architecture, visual art, and design. The groups’ early work explore the idea of chance in art. The Fluxus boxes that were organized with Geogre Maciunas. He was the one that gathered the printed cards, games, and ideas, then organized them into the small boxes. One of the ideas that was a part of Fluxus was that each person is their own composer, as well as the idea that art was created by the artist creating the work and “doing it” which was the art itself. Fluxus performances were usually brief and simple, which they called event scores. They were to be performances that sought to elevate the banal, to be mindful of the mundane, and to frustrate the high culture of academic and market-driven music and art.

Gutai group

2008-12-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

Gutai group was an avant-garde Japanese artistic movement. It was founded by Jiro Yoshihara and Shozo Shimamoto in 1954. The name Gutai means concrete. The group was composed of Japanese artists. Jiro Yoshihara wrote the manifesto for the Gutai group in 1956. In the manifesto, it expresses a fascination with the beauty that arises when things become damaged or decayed. The process of damage or destruction is celebrated as a way of revealing the inner "life" of a given material or object: "Yet what is interesting in this respect is the novel beauty to be found in works of art and architecture of the past which have changed their appearance due to the damage of time or destruction by disasters in the course of the centuries. This is described as the beauty of decay, but is it not perhaps that beauty which material assumes when it is freed from artificial make-up and reveals its original characteristics? The fact that the ruins receive us warmly and kindly after all, and that they attract us with their cracks and flaking surfaces, could this not really be a sign of the material taking revenge, having recaptured its original life?" This group would later influence the Fluxus group.

Allan Kaprow

2008-12-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

Allan Kaprow was an American painter and was one of the pioneering artists that established the concept of performing art. He helped create and develop the “environment” which installation art incorporates almost any media to create an experience which is the environment. He helped develop the term “ Happening” which is a performance, event, or situation meant to be considered as art. He created 200 performance pieces. He was influenced by the Fluxus group and installation art. His work started out a scripted pieces that were planned out. His work soon evolved and became looser in the planning of them. He also involved more everyday activities in his work to integrate art and life.

Yves Klein

2008-12-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

Yves Klein was a French artist who was an important figure in post-war European art. His parents were both painters and were involved with the abstract movement in Paris. Klein was known for his monochrome paintings. He got his influence of Zen with the idea of a void. The void is a nirvana-like state that is void of worldly influences. His work can also be linked to performance art when he had his audience formally dress up and have models go around making the paintings with their bodies. As he was directing the piece, a monotone symphony played during the event. He was also known for the photograph “Leap Into the Void”, in which the artist is jumping off a wall with his arms stretched out while falling to the payment below the wall. He also did a series of fire painting where he would paint using a torch in his work. He would use this alone or paint before he would use the fire.

Carl Jung

2008-12-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. His approach to psychology has been influential in the field. In his work, he understood the psyche through exploration of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. The most important ideas that he introduced included the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity. These archetypes represent innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. In order to be synchronous, the events should be unlikely to occur together by random chance.

Atsuko Tanaka

2008-12-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

Atsuko Tanaka’s work as an artist in several medias includes abstract painting, sculptures, performances and installation art. Her work consisted of everyday objects like textiles, doorbells, light bulbs. She was one of the pioneering avant-grade artists. She was also a part of the Gutai group, an avant-garde artists' movement. The Gutai group was an artistic movement and association of artists founded by Jiro Yoshihara in Japan in 1954. Her best known work was called “The Electric Dress”, which consisted of electric wires that lit-up colored light bulbs which she wore to an opening exhibition. The work symbolized post-war Japan’s rapid transformation and urbanization.

Joseph Beuys

2008-12-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Joseph Beuys was a performing artist who was most famous for his public performances. Along with his performing arts, Beuys also produced sculptures, prints, posters, and thousands of drawings in his lifetime. Beuys was encouraged to become an artist after he returned home from World War II. He gathered about 327 drawings between the 1940’s and 50’s and created a book which was entitled “The Secret Block for a Person in Ireland”. The title draws reference to his inspiration of James Joyce was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Through his involvement with Fluxus, Bueys pushed the boundaries of art. He took a different focus than the Fluxus group who were interested in the radical Dada. Bueys had a different message “The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated” with his practical focus of Duchamp and the Readymade. This created the primary aspect of controversy that surrounded Bueys in his work. Beuys was motivated by a utopian belief in the power of universal human creativity and was confident in the potential for art to bring about revolutionary change.

Dorothea Lange

2008-12-07T18:12:00.001-08:00

Dorothea Lange was educated as a psychologist and had a minor in photography. She had started her photographing career in San Francisco where she opened up a portrait studio. With the onset of the Great Depression, she focused on the people at that time. With unemployed and homeless people, she captured the attention of other photographers. She turned to the Federal Resettlement Administration, which was later called the Farm Security Administration. She documented the rural poverty and exploitation of the sharecroppers and migrate laborers, bringing them to public attention. Her images became iconic of the era with the distribution of a free newspaper. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her focus went to the Japanese-Americans and the “relocation camps” in America. She covered the evacuation to temporary centers and then to Manzanar, the first internment camp. Her images were critical of the Army and the containment of people that where detained without charging them with any crime or any appeal.

Alfred Stieglitz

2008-12-07T18:11:00.001-08:00

Alfred Stieglitz was one of American early photographers who witness the radical change in the landscape of American society and culture. He saw New York go from a sleeping giant to a vibrant symbol of the modern metropolis. The body of his works were filmed in the first full length film that was entitled “Alfred Stieglitz - The Eloquent Eye“. As a photographer, and through the use of the medium, he was able to open a window onto many crucial developments of the time. He rebelled against the academic assumption that photography, though useful to the artist, was inferior to painting. He strived to have his photos equal to paintings. There were two kinds of pictorials: soft and hard. Alfred was a hard in the way he wanted infused photographic prints to predominate; he allowed his images to evoke the character of painting. He was interested in the condition of life in America and using a black and white format to depict his images of the New York environment.

Ansel Adams

2008-12-07T18:09:00.001-08:00

One of America’s famous photographers, Ansel Adams was best know for his black and white photos of the American West and Yosemite National Park. His photography is straight forward of nature in a crisp and realistic way. They portray the beauty and elegance of nature with an underlying motivation of persuading the people of America to value the land and to preserve the American wilderness. His first artistic career was as a pianist, but he than began experimenting in amateur photography. He became serious about photography in the 1920s with the dispute of photograph being more persuasive than a hand-drawn illustration. He had several technical accomplishments, one being the use of his own zone system. The zone system allows photographers to calculate and control the range of gray-scale tones in their negative by using a light meter.

Rachelle Thiewes

2008-12-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Rachelle Thiewes is a metal-smith which creates wearable pieces of jewelry. She works with the materials of steel, gold, silver, and slate to create her artwork. Rachelle creates her work to be not just wearable but also to be an extension of the human body. Her metal creations come in the form of highly-detailed necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Rachelle’s work captures the imagination because it challenges the modern perception of what art is and gives the word an entirely new meaning. She is interested in both integration of the piece of jewelry, the movement with the body, and the sound which it creates.

Marilyn da Silva

2008-12-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

Marilyn da Silva works as a metal-smith in a narrative way. She has been using birds in her work since 1999 and has been inspired by them. She does not consider herself a bird watcher but thinks that the bird spend more time watching us instead. She is also inspired by small detailed drawings from the 19th century of bird identification. In her recent work, which included six of the panels in this exhibition, she depicts etchings of birds in their natural environments. Each one comes to life as a relief in the form of a brooch and is housed in a shadow box which frames the image. The subtle beauty of female birds is depicted in four smaller panels. Their placement and composition is inspired by the simplicity and elegance of Japanese flower arrangements. These birds are also removable and can be worn as brooches. To her they act as a metaphors for her everyday experiences, from personal to universal, in her sculpture and including her wearable pieces.

Helen Shirk

2008-12-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Helen Shirk is a metal-smith artist and works with the idea of hallow ware. Her inspiration comes from nature and the landscapes she encountered during her travels to Europe and Australia. In each piece she creates the feeling of sensuousness, strangeness, and vitality that is found in the natural word.
Through the challenge of physically manipulating metal Helen constructs the three dimensional object and then manipulates its mood with color to suit her own intention. The color she is able to produce with color pencils on to metal and a patina that is applied on top of the color pencils. The parts she uses in her work are orchestrated to create an intriguing and seductively energetic natural world.

Inni Parnanen

2008-12-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

Inni Parnanen is a jewelry artist. Her metal works take on three-dimensional structures with a complex inner space that proceed from simple to geometric shapes that are characteristic of her work. The repeating lines create an elegant form that is both simple and complex. Interested in the interior and exterior aspect in her jewelry,s he will use different material in her work like parchment and cow horn. She takes an account for the use of each material as well. She likes to keep a simple beauty to her work while studying the structure of the form for its strength, durability and cellular forms. She also uses traditional material like sterling silver in her work, because the material is malleable enough to create the form that she wants and creates organic structure. While most of her pieces are one of a kind pieces, she will also work in editions.

Carol Windsor

2008-12-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

Carol Windsor is a jewelry maker who currently works with metal and paper to create her pieces. Through her pieces she is able to create the fragility of life and the preciousness of the moment. Before she started working with paper, she would work with metal, enamels, and wood. The pieces then were physically and emotionally heavy. Putting aside the wood and the enamels, her work is drawn from the awareness of the beautiful and fleeting nature of life. Carol will create a structure of each petal using sterling silver. Then she laminates the sterling silver between the two pieces of paper to create her work.

Sharon Church

2008-12-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

Sharon Church is a jewelry maker that uses nature to inspire her work. She takes most of her inspiration from her garden and domestic environment. Her brooch “Shimmer” is to be worn pinned above the heart, and she describes this placement on the body as both a lure and an animate curiosity. In the brooch she has accomplished the moist movement of a slug and combined it with the plumpness of her aloe plants. One has the potential to sting and irritate the skin, the other to heal it; both ooze protective moisture when touched or pierced. Church carved “Shimmer” from wood, studding them with old European cut diamonds, and using buttermilk paint to create a reminder of nature at its most vulnerable. In “Alone/Allure” she creates this piece from oxidized sterling silver, carved antler and old European cut diamonds. This piece is about life and longing.

Jayne Redman

2008-12-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

With the linear quality that it brings from the stems and the fullness of the flower buds, nature inspires endlessly in reference to Jayne’s work. Redman primarily uses 18k gold and sterling silver. Many of her forms are multiples of the same shape, engineered to fit together with precise economy that results in an abstract interpretation of their botanical source material. She also uses a technique called keum-boo which is 24K gold that is heat-fused to silver. Redman uses different patina in her work as well. She uses handmade dies to cut out the pieces of her work so that she can make multiples quite easily .

Morley Price

2008-12-07T12:37:00.001-08:00

Morley Price is a ceramic artist that works primarily in porcelain. Morley uses the coiling technique to make her work by pinching and pulling the clay coils into delicate convoluted shapes. She finishes with the use of a matt glaze that shows the dramatic concept of light and shadow. In the exploration of movement in her work she has used extensions in a repeating pattern to suggest this. Her works are characterized by numerous flanges. These flanges are paper-thin vanes or wings which are built onto hollow vessel or bottle shapes. These run vertically around each piece and convey a sense of movement while others add depth and illusion. She creates these form without the use of any supports during the making process.

Jennifer McCurdy

2008-12-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

Jennifer McCurdy works as ceramic artist choosing to work primarily in porcelain. She is inspired by the ordered symmetry and asymmetry of natural forms revealing the growth of life and its movement. She takes the patterns that she sees around her and integrates them in to her forms. Jennifer uses the emanative space in her work to the express the qualities of light and shadows. Showing the dramatic concept of the light and shadow, she puts on a white microcrystalline glaze. Creating movement and balance in her form is important in her current body of work. With the use of curving patterns in her work she is able to create an energy to the work. She fires her work to cone 10, where the porcelain becomes non-porous and translucent, and one of the hardest surfaces known to man.

Lindsay Feuer

2008-12-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

Lindsay Feuer uses organic forms in her porcelain work, inspired by nature and the mysteries that it holds. Lindsay creates these hybrid forms which have recognizable organic parts that are pieced together. In doing this she is able to create these ambiguous forms that have movement and fluidity. They have an animated and fantastical view of our biological surroundings. Lindsey works in porcelain for the white luminescence which shows the rich surface and curvilinear components. The porcelain’s strength and the responsiveness of the clay let her create these whimsical and delicate pieces. With detail in the pieces that make us want to look more closely at them to discover something more that lies within the work. Forming these pieces she is able to bring about a sense of them being born rather than a manufactured feel .

Jessica Mohl

2008-12-07T12:21:00.001-08:00

Jessica Mohl is a metal-smith. She works organically with silver, copper, lenses, and enameling in her work. Working with the metal, she creates beautiful line and form, with an emphasis on growth. Jessica wants us to find something hidden within the form that seem almost precious… that we are supposed to which we have to pay attention, yet something that we have to find within the form and not out in the open for everyone to see. She creates an intimate and protective feeling with her work through the layering of the metal and with the texture she uses on the piece. This process of etching and hammering to create the texture creates an organic feel to her work.

Bonnie Bishoff

2008-12-07T12:19:00.001-08:00

Bonnie Bishoff and J.M. Syron create furniture together. In their objects they strive to reveal the beauty of nature through furniture with patterns that engage the eyes with both form and color that blends the two beautifully. As collaborating artist, they work with the material of wood, polymer clay, and fabric to produce their work. The two artists use vibrant color in the work to catch the viewer’s eye. The patterns keep the viewer interested in the work throughout the whole piece of furniture. The repetition of line and form in their work echoes fractal geometric patterns, like those found in shells and plants.

Janet Kelman

2008-12-07T12:15:00.001-08:00

Janet Kelman blows and carves glass to create her work. She is inspired by underwater creatures, sea anemones. The movement that these forms create are interesting to her with their open, flowing and succulent forms and movement. The forms emerge for her as a feminine reflection of these attributes. They’re fragile yet strong, vulnerable yet buoyant, showy yet austere, and delicate yet grand. She keeps asking herself the question of the preciousness of these forms in relation to the female emphasis. Her intent is to convey a complexity of a coral reef with the motion and overlapping that the forms take with the translucence of the glass. These elegant forms are created somewhat by chance with the slumping technique. The form will twist and turn while in the kiln and creates a dynamic and stable piece of work.

Kathleen Elliot

2008-12-07T12:12:00.000-08:00

Kathleen Elliot creates her glass work based on her concept of the American culture. These concepts include taking the American Dream, trying to get ahead, the achievement of money, beauty and perfect children, mass production products, machine produced things, Hollywood in facets of every day life with its surgically altered fantasy of the movie stars and their dreams of perfection. Her inspiration comes from flower petals, the veins in the leaves, the changing colors of autumn leaves, and seed pods. She wants her art to inspire and to awe us with the simple things that can occur in life. Kathleen wants to remind us of these things, and to appreciate and be grateful for them. Her piece entitled “We’re All On The Same Tree” reminds us from whence we came, that in life we may take different form from another person but in the end we all start from the same place and we all end in the same place.

Renee Robbins

2008-12-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

As a painter Renee displays a vivid use of color in her work. With the use of rhythmic lines and meticulous textures, Renee creates a landscape of mind, referencing the molecular, biological, architectural and cultural views in her work. This is used as the metaphor for how our exterior and interior selves come together. Renee creates these hybrid forms through the use of layers the paint with thin washes and glazes. She also applies modeling and gel medium to create a complex build up for a layered effect. Creating this atmosphere within her work, she is able to show the complexity within the detailed painting of the piece. This layering effect gives suggestion to the layers and complexity of the human mind. Renee will add to the complexity with the use of mixed media, adding string, paper, sand, fabric and lace to her work.

David Hering

2008-12-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

David Hering is a glass work artist who recalls the processes that he has used in his work as a painter within his glass work. Creating these paintings in glass is what this artist is trying to achieve in his work. It is not an easy task to convert one field into another. With this new found tools and logic, David’s work shows his respect for the new technique. This created his current body of work, where the surfaces are meant to be inviting. The silver foil over the black background color and powders create the bases of his glass vessels. He than sandblasts these vessels to create a surface texture. The graphic view of the silver and the colored ground of the vessel’s exterior is important to his individual expression in his work.

Tom Hadley

2008-12-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

Tom is a ceramic artist that reflects on several areas of interest and is able to combine them all into one form. One example of this is the function of the vessel as a abstract sculpture form and its many associations, both of which are literal and metaphoric. Pattern and color is another idea that he wants to get in his pieces as well. Tom does this to create various feeling or impressions. The third interest is integration of surface pattern, which he does with the thickness of the wall so they can be viewed from the outside and the inside of his vessels. He use a degree of illusion in the pieces through color and pattern with the combination of both the flat modulating surface of the pot and the real depth that is present in the interior space. He also concerns himself with not only how his pieces look in three dimensions but in two dimensions as well.

Mark Levin

2008-12-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Mark works with wood and tries to infuse it with a “Beethoven dynamic” which is pulling the melodic filigree out of wood along with the power and passion of the work. Mark starts his pieces by designing them in a flat black design rather than working with the wood and the design together. This allows him to create a much more powerful piece once the piece is then made from wood. His organic shelves and table that he creates has a visual fellow to them. The table tops or the shelves have a nature leafy feeling to them. The ripple has been carved so elegantly that they look like they have been made out of some material other than wood. The forms are than complemented by the natural texture of the wood which is prominent in his work.

Sarah Obreccht

2008-12-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

The objects that Sarah makes out of metal and mix media are to be viewed as botanical specimens in a collection. She focuses in on the detail of her organic forms. Putting detail in her leaves, berries and pods in the way she clusters her tactile creates a line quality in her work allowing the viewer to move throughout the piece with ease. Sarah chooses to place the elements together in layers, clustering them together for a repeating pattern in her work. Through the exploration of the shape of her forms, the patina, and the material that she uses, she is able to have a controlling element in her work with the branches and the stem. The objects’ scale invites the viewer for closer observation of the work. By combining references of controlled forms she is able to catalog her personal nature through her pieces.

Kyung-Ok Choi

2008-12-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

Kyung-Ok Choi is a glass artist that creates delicate forms in her work. She is interested in portraying the human experience with the use of organic forms. She focuses on communicating the graceful flow of our emotional tendencies in her sculptural forms. She creates these narratives of human success and failure in the pursuit of personal ambition and experience as the subject in her work. She depicts this by the use of ladder in her work and by the use of clear glass. The glass, I believe, gives us the feeling that things are not ways clear in life, that we have to keep trying even though the path to our dream will not appear in front of us, and that we have to climb to work for it. Choi blends her Korean heritage into her work. She works in her personal philosophy and experience. She uses clear flame work glass to portray this image. While working her sculptures she utilizes form and its surrounding atmosphere.

Eva Hild

2008-12-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Eva Hild works in clay in a large sculptural scale. Eva’s influence in her work is influence. Her current hand built clay forms show the pressure and strain. These delicate and continuously flowing forms are made with thinly built white clay. The size of the sculptures relate to the size of the body. The thin walls are pulled and bent in different directions to reflect varying degrees of external and internal pressures, and how, as a consequence, perception of inner and outer space is changed or challenged. Her inspiration comes from life itself. She tries to relate her work to her life. With the different pressures, strains, flows and ramifications that may influence how one feels at any given point in time throughout life. With the ins and outs of life’s path so too does the path that Eva sculptures take. You want to be able to look around the next corner in her sculpture and see what lies ahead but not know until you get there, always finding something different around each corner.

Cheryl Thomas

2008-12-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

Cheryl Thomas is a ceramist who makes hand-coiled porcelain vessels. At first glance these forms look like they are made out of a fiber material. Cheryl works in a simplified palette of black and white. Her vessels seem to take on a life of there own when she forms them. They resemble collapsed baskets, and they are made out of porcelain. The artist assembles these vessels with care, coiling each tiny rope of porcelain into thin walls. With the containers first being balanced, she fires them in the kiln where they collapse into unpredictable forms. Cheryl then takes these collapsed forms and matches them up and puts them in for re-firing. Cheryl creates these sculptures for the chance of the out come… “ My sculptures are created by marriage of design and accident.” Cheryl creates a ancient but modern look to these vessels.

Crutis Arima

2008-12-07T07:44:00.001-08:00

Crutis Arima is a metalsmith and ceramic artist. In his more sculptural work he uses the language of gardening as a metaphor for self and society. Crutis uses a 3D surface treatment, acrylic wash on metal, which brings heightened surrealism to his work. The “Transformed Adornment” series tries to find beauty in the overlooked and underappreciated through representation in metal, while being a reminder of the chaos that can occur when one does not temper ideologies. The objects' adornments grow out of the pieces linking them back to their decorative equalities. He wants the viewer or wearer of his pieces to see the little bit of beauty that can exist in everything. His pieces usually have a patina on them, while some pieces have a gold or silver tone to them to giving them a preciousness quality.

Lindsey Gates

2008-12-07T07:41:00.001-08:00

Lindsey Gates is a fiber artist that uses everyday objects in a unique way. She gets her inspiration from the different parts of clothing from necklines to ruffles to fasteners from all around the world. She draws from her own vocabulary to create interesting patterns and textures from different materials used in repetition. Lindsey was taught that everything that was around her was useful in one way or another, and she uses this idea in her work from using pistachio shells, paperclips, clothing tags, cut nails and steel washers in her work. She uses silver and copper along with a metal mesh as the foundation of materials in her work. She works with a couple different techniques in her work including knotless knitting with wire and other sewing techniques. She also has different patinas that she uses on her work to create a variety of color .

Dale Chihuly

2008-12-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

Dale Chihuly is a glass artist that works with a vibrant color palate. His vessel forms come about by accident, this happening in the majority of his work. He has always been interested in glass, ever since he was a child. He consider himself both an artist and a crafter. Chihuly creates organic forms and works, and he is concerned not with questions of imitation but for autonomous worlds of organic forms and colors. He is drawn to the media for its ability to transmits light, color and forms as beautifully. Precisely arranged lighting brings out the coldness of the glass and, at the same time, an overall atmosphere of warmth. Chihuly's spectacular glass art is displayed in museums worldwide and in massive installations. He brings together countless individual pieces to create a beautiful instillation that resembles an underwater garden.

2008-12-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

James Tisdale is a Ceramic Artist who uses his work to speak the words he cannot. Tisdale grew up in the conservative south and was confronted everyday buy the injustices and idyocracies of southern culture. He uses common imagery, such as black face minstrels, Klu Klux Klan members side by side with black men. Tisdale is the son of a blue collar family that worked long hours and with that they needed a nanny. So the Tisdale kids were raised by an black woman as were many kids of the south. He thinks the hypocrisy of the racist culture leaving there most precious of family in the hands of the “enemy” molded his views of the the world which he depicts in his art.

2008-12-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Jack Earl is a ceramic artist that has strong visual ties to Robert Arneson. Earl’s depiction of iconic and sarcastic images through the use of the traditional sculptural bust is a layered idea. The bust has long been a symbol of importance and respect, yet the subject matter used by Earl is often a bit tongue in cheek. For instance why is the dog wearing a suit and why is Madonna of the Woods actually the Madonna and the wodds. He creates questions in the viewers minds, such as “is this serious or a joke” or “is there a meaning that lost to us”. This mixture of subtle tradition and iconic imagery is a interesting way of addressing some of the questions of art and clay.

2008-12-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

Donald Rietz is a ceramic artist who has evolved through the influences of artist that are major contributors to the minds of ceramic art today. Reitz, just by looking at his work, has been influenced by Peter Voulkos, Toshiko Takaezu, Paul Soldner to name a few. His work has always combined the vessel, often in an abstract form, with the sculptural ideas of the minimalist and abstract. One of those macho 50’s men scale was always involved not for aesthetic reasons but egotistic. Reitz in not given the recognition he deserves for keeping the clay movement going when many others have said it is dead.

2008-12-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

Barbara Kruger is a conceptual based artist from Newark NJ. Her work uses everyday imagery, often iconic subjects, to speak to the objectification of women in media and the miscommunication between men and women. I also believe that she speaks to the consumer culture in which the media controls the remote. Printed images in magazines and advertisements on tv can effectively control an entire culture and help them to believe just about anything, from the cleaning habits of women to the evil ideas of democrats. Kruger leaves a lot to interpretation, so much so that just about any silly advertisement idea can be inserted.

2008-12-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

Edward Hicks, having grown up in Bucks County PA, was as a Quaker and artist of the Mid 1800’s. His work was mostly production works, meaning he made multiples. His imagery was Quaker based. He often depicted William Penn signing the treaty with the Indians of PA in the back-round while the for-ground was Mary and baby Jesus sitting with all manner of Gods animals in a peaceful arrangement. The subject matter of the work spoke to the Quaker congregations of America from the 1800’s to today. He has been collected by the major museums and plain folk alike. I grew up with on over the dinner table and looked at it everyday and it helped me to be the kind of man I am today.

2008-12-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Banksy is a Graffiti artist from England. For years he has been painting rogue art on walls of public and private buildings. Much of his work comments on the silliness of current culture or the down right racist, classist, and elitist ways of culture round the world. As many graffiti artists the artist is unknown in the sense that he has not been photographed or documented beyond his “tag” or signature. This idea of anonymity is a very ancient idea, to speak the voice of the people not the self. Banksy’s work can be seen from London to LA and most likely many little spots inbetween. We, as artists and humans, should not fear society, we should change it.

2008-12-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

Buckminster Fuller was a very insightful and interesting man. He was coined a Futurist or Utopian by others but really he was a humanist. He spent much of his life finding sustainable ways for humans to continue living on earth. One of his great achievements was the design and construction of the geodesic dome, which is arranges like a carbon molecule or bucky ball ( a term he labeled ). Fuller was a man with endless imagination at a time when the world could sustain a great mind. Unfortunately Like many great minds his only limits were trust and money, two things Americans give up rarely. Late in his life, after working on his concepts for several decades, Fuller achieved considerable public visibility. He travelled the world giving lectures, and received numerous honorary doctorates. Most of his inventions, however, never made it into production. Often dismissed as a hopeless utopian he was strongly criticized in most fields he tried to influence, including architecture. His proponents, on the other hand, continue to assert that his work has not yet received the attention that it deserves

2008-12-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

Friedrich Nietzsche

2008-11-30T17:40:00.001-08:00

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers, Nietzsche's revitalizing philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.

Giorgio de Chirico

2008-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

The art of De Chirico centers upon the antithesis between classical culture and modern mechanistic civilization. These two elements are locked in struggle, and the tragic quality of this situation exudes an aura of melancholy of which De Chirico is a prime exponent. The iconographic elements of his early art, modern railways and clock towers combined with ancient architecture, are to be sought in the artist's childhood memories of Greece. For the strange visual images in which De Chirico cast his mature works, he used an airless dreamlike space in his townscapes with an exaggerated perspective artificially illuminated, with long sinister shadows, and strewn about with antique statues. There is an elegiac loneliness too (the Delights of the Poet, 1913) and the disturbing juxtaposition of such banal everyday objects as biscuits and rubber gloves with those of mythical significance.

Works of De Chirico

A favorite amusement of ancient Greece was the composition of enigmas. In De Chirico's art they symbolize an endangered transitional period of European culture. From the enigma to the riddle presented by one's dream life is but a short step.

Pablo Neruda

2008-11-30T16:56:00.000-08:00

Pablo Neruda was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile on July 12, 1904. His family’s disapproval drove the young Basoalto to write under the pseudonym of Pablo Neruda, which he officially adopted in 1946. Although his published poetry was widely respected by the time he reached age twenty, Neruda found it necessary to follow his budding political career to Asia in order to make a living. In Europe in the 1930’s he became involved in Communism , which would influence his later political actions as well as much of his poetry. In 1946 he successfully campaigned in Chile for the regime of Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, but he soon publicly expressed displeasure with Videla’s presidency and was forced to flee his homeland for several years. Neruda was able to return to Chile in 1952, finally both wealthy and widely respected. In 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature . He died of cancer at age 69 on September 23, 1973. By that time he was recognized as a national hero and the greatest Latin American poet of the twentieth century.

Samuel Beckett

2008-11-29T14:09:00.000-08:00

Waiting for Godot, 1961 Odeon Theatre, Paris. Directed by Roger Blin and set by Alberto Giacometti.

Irish playwright, poet, writer, and critic, April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989.
Widely considered one of the most influential Irish intellectuals of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett is a cornerstone of Modernity. Of his prolific body of work including poetry, critical essays, and prose, Beckett’s plays are the highlight. Waiting for Godot is Beckett’s most popular two act play that is famously about nothing but deeply considers the existential plight of humans. This play influenced many in contemporary culture, including Larry David and Seinfeld. During the 1961 Paris revival of Waiting for Godot, Beckett asked Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti to design the set, a scant tree by a country roadside. Of Beckett’s prodigious oeuvre, his lesser know short plays, radio plays, and experimental dance pieces are considered to be groundbreaking in Modern theatre and drama.

Kiki Smith

2008-11-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Kiki Smith: A Gathering 1980--2005, installation view Walker Center for the Arts.

Born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany, lives and works in New York.
Born to opera singer and actress Jane Smith and architect and abstract sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki grew up in New Jersey surrounded by creative people and was exposed to many art practices. Her earliest works use the human body and its functions as a point of departure, using diverse materials—handmade paper, papier-mache, glass, plaster, wax, and bronze, to articulate unique visions of the body, from clinical to primal. During the 1990s Smith began to engage with themes from literature and history, reimagining biblical and mythological characters in corporeality. Smith’s focus on anonymous feminine forms rather than particular personalities led her to examine female archetypes in religion, mythology, and folklore. In some cases she sought unexpected variations on familiar themes. Virgin Mary (1992), for instance, renders the Madonna flayed skinless like an anatomical model, with muscles exposed.

Wassilly Kandinsky

2008-11-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

Wassilly Kandinsky was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist, whose exploration of the possibilities of abstraction make him one of the most important innovators in modern art. Both as an artist and as a theorist he played a pivotal role in the development of abstract art.
In 1911, along with Franz Marc and other German expressionists, Kandinsky formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group (named for Kandinsky's love of blue and Marc's love of horses). He produced both abstract and figurative works during this period, all of which were characterized by brilliant colors and complex patterns.Kandinsky's influence on the course of 20th-century art was further increased by his activities as a theorist and teacher. In 1912 he published Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the first theoretical treatise on abstraction, which spread his ideas through Europe. Returning to Germany in 1921, Kandinsky taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, and became a French citizen in 1939. Five years later passing away

Mark DelGuidice

2008-11-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Mark DelGuidice has been creating artwork for over 17 years. initially self taught, Mark went on to study with Alphonse Mattia and Jerry Osgood at Boston Universities Program in Artisanary. Their he was inspired to enhance his craftsmanship and develop my own aesthetics. DelGuidice is inspired by post-modern influences and eclectic use of materials. His current explorations include carved hieroglyphs and colorful surface treatments. Carving Morse code into his work, DelGuidice uses the text as a visual and textural quality to his furniture and sculptural pieces.

Alexander Calder

2008-11-28T11:58:00.000-08:00

Born in 1898 in Philadelphia, legendary American artist Alexander Calder began his career as an engineer. But art soon won out over engineering At 28, Calder moved to Paris, where he came into contact with the avant-garde scene. Drawn to both art and technology, he developed a uniquely individual style of sculpture. His often large-scale pieces have a whimsical effect, and are painted in primary colors. Often mobile sculptures, they combine Calder's love of art with his knowledge of engineering. His most famous works of abstract art entitled “Mobiles” were viewed as the most innovative sculptures of the 20 th century. Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry and jewelry, and designed carpets.

George Lucas

2008-11-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

George Lucas was born in Modesto, California. The son of a stationery store owner, he was raised on a walnut ranch, and attended Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a student at USC, Lucas made several short films, including Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138: 4EB, which took first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival. Today George Lucus is an American film director, produce, screenwriter and chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is the creator Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and more. Today, Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers. Lucus has influenced 20th and 21st century popular culture.

John Lewis Glass

2008-11-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

John Lewis founded his studio in 1969. He was one of the first artists to open a hot glass studio in the Bay Area where, for 10 years, his focus was blowing glass. After receiving an NEA grant in 1980, he started experimenting with the possibilities of cast glass as a sculptural medium. He built a furnace specifically for casting, which melted and poured glass, and began exploring the various forms possible with different types of molds.

John Cederquist

2008-11-28T10:50:00.000-08:00

John Cederquist is a woodworker in San Juan Capistrano, CA, who references traditional forms but uses surface painting to create optical effects. Because his surface painting explores perspective and depth, his works appears to be 3-dimensional. His imagery is heavily influenced by contemporary culture: comic strips, television, advertising, and other graphic imagery as well as traditional Japanese woodblock prints. His work references to OP and POP art as well as cubism. He received his B.A. and M.A. from California State University, Long Beach. His work can be found in the Museum of Arts and Design, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Mint Museum of Craft and Design, among others.

Wharton Esherick

2008-11-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) was a woodworker who lived and was among those artists of the early 20th century who were concerned with conceiving and creating a uniquely American handwork. He lived and worked in Paoli, Pennsylvania, where his hand-built studio houses the Wharton Esherick Museum today. He was a modernist, influenced by Brancusi and others. Esherick kept in step by creating modern furniture, intriguing woodblocks, and inspired sculpture that spanned decades of changing artistic and design trends. Esherick only began using power tools (except for a ban saw built with bicycle wheels) in the 1960s. Thus, the majority of his works, including the massive ones for which he is most famous, were produced with hand tools similar to those used by eastern Pennsylvania's original settlers. Today, much of his work can be found at the Wharton Esherick Studio Museum in Paoli, PA, a must-visit for anyone interested in either woodwork or craft history.

George Nakashima

2008-11-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

George Katsutoshi Nakashima (May 24, 1905 – June 15, 1990) was a Japanese American woodworker, architect, and furniture maker who was one of the leading innovators of 20th Century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement. Born in Spokane, Washington, He attended the University of Washington and received his Masters in Architecture from M.I.T. During WWII, he was placed in an internment camp where he learned woodworking from a Japanese carpenter. Drawing on Japanese designs and shop practices, as well as on American and International Modern styles, Nakashima created a body of work that would make his name synonymous with the best of 20th century American Art furniture.

Dale Chihuly

2008-11-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

Chihuly was introduced to glass in 1964, when, as a weaving student, he made large and small tapestries incorporating strips of fused glass and metal. He didn't begin blowing glass until a year later. During the latter half of the 1960s, Chihuly studied with Harvey Littleton at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, finished his graduate work at RISD, worked in Murano, and then began teaching at RISD in all before the 1970's. He has revolutionized glass in the same way Wendell Caslte did for the studio furniture movement. His fusion of form and color has expanded the field beyond the realm of goblets and vases. He is responsible for founding the RISD Glass program as well as the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State.

Donald Judd

2008-11-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

Donald Judd is typically associated with three dimensional installations and sculpture; however his furniture pieces are his most stimulating work. As one of the first artists to declare and explore minimalism, his furniture designs are elegant. At the same time the designs are practical and are appealing to the eye.Judd was very insistent that his furniture should not be seen as artist’s furniture but as real furniture.

"I’m very touchy about it being considered art. To me the chairs and benches are perfectly comfortable, not hard and uncomfortable as people sometimes seem to think they are. I have nineteenth-century wooden chairs from Sweden and I’ve sat on them for years. I think the thing to do is to either sit up or lie down or stand up: I’m not sympathetic to in-between positions.” *

* http://www.louisaguinnessgallery.com/exhibitions/donald_judd.htm

David Smith

2008-11-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

David Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures. His stints of studying at Ohio University, the University of Notre Dame, and George Washington, led to Smith dropping out to become a welder on an automobile production line in his home state of Indiana. However, after moving to New York, Smith joined the Art Students League in 1926 in New York to focus on painting. Later to be influenced by the welded sculptures of Julio Gonzalez and the paintings and drawings of Picasso, Smith started devoting himself entirely to metal sculptures, constructing compositions from steel and found material. He along with many other sculptors during the 1930's and 40's raised a new awareness for effectiveness of materials both fabricated and found.

Jaume Plensa

2008-11-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

Jaume Plensa is an internationally acclaimed Spanish artist. Plensa works in a variety of media, including; drawing, sculpture and print, to set design and video and sound installations. His work is made to meld the various elements from our shared universe, including water, light, nature and dreams. Crown Fountain(above) named after the multi-million-dollar gift from the Crown and Goodman families of Chicago, is derived from an ever-changing, year-round exhibition of lights, electronic images and cascading water. It is designed to provide a dynamic space for silent reflection. Jaume has worked and exhibited internationally, including Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Austria.

Isaac Arms

2008-11-25T10:55:00.000-08:00

Working with three-dimensional software, Arms turns rough drawings from his sketchbook into digital models on a computer screen. Exploding these digital renderings into flat, two-dimensional shapes--which are then cut out using an automated laser system--Isaac is able to generate his furniture objects quickly and predictably. Much of the guesswork and fitting of complex shapes is calculated by the computer, freeing the artist to focus on the creative elements of his designs, as well as the craft involved in the fabrication of his works. Once welded, his pieces receive a wide range of surface treatments ranging from natural patinas powder coating. He is a graduate of Wisconsin-Madison and currently operates his independent studio practice in Bozeman, Montana.

"Humans, like any other creature, have very specific ways of acting when they are surrounded by strangers. A bench or a chair is an inanimate object that forces interaction among strangers"- Isaac Arms

Andy Buck

2008-11-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

Andy Buck's furniture falls on the more sculptural side of the contemporary studio furniture movement. Whimsical color schemes mixed with forms suggestive of tribal carvings render Buck's furniture humorous and distinctive. His work brings together traditional craftsmanship with sculpted forms and richly painted surfaces. His furniture is painted with layers of milk paint, carved and sanded. He is interested in the shared relationship between craftsmanship and idea, between the medium and the message. Currently he teaches at RIT and exhibits and lectures nationally.

www.andybuck.com

Anish Kapoor

2008-11-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

Kapoor's pieces are frequently simple, curved forms, usually monochromatic and brightly coloured. Most often, the intention is to engage the viewer, evoking mystery through the works' dark cavities, awe through their size and simple beauty, tactility through their inviting surfaces and fascination through their reflective facades. His early pieces rely on powder pigment to cover the works and the floor around them. This practice was inspired by the mounds of brightly coloured pigment in the markets and temples of India. His later works are made of solid, quarried stone, many of which have carved apertures and cavities, often alluding to, and playing with, dualities (earth-sky, matter-spirit, lightness-darkness, visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, male-female and body-mind). His most recent works are mirror-like, reflecting or distorting the viewer and surroundings.

Cloud Gate- Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high. Cloud Gate sits upon the At&T Plaza, which was made possible by a gift from AT&T.

Salvatore Quasimodo

2008-11-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968) was born of Sicilian parents in Modica, near Syracuse. Desiring to become an engineer, he attended technical schools in Palermo and later enrolled at the Politecnico in Rome. In addition, he studied Latin and Greek at the University there. However, for economic reasons he was unable to complete his studies. He obtained a position with the Italian government's civil engineering corps and was sent to various parts of Italy. In 1930 he had three poems published in the avant-garde review, Solaria, and later that same year appeared his first book of verse, Acque e terre (Waters and Lands). Two years later he published Òboe sommerso (Sunken Oboe), in which he proves a more mature poet. The "poetica della parole", the poetics of the word, which is, for Quasimodo, the fundamental and virtually limitless connotative unit, pervades his first book. While this concept still serves as the basis for Òboe sommerso, the main interest of this collection lies in the rhythmical arrangement of words around a lyrical nucleus. In both these and his later works Sicily is the constant, ever-present factor.

Quasimodo's later works show this change from individualism toward sociality, and moreover affirm the positive characteristics of life even in a world where death is an omnipresent fear. In La terra impareggiabile (The Incomparable Earth), 1958, Quasimodo has eloquently attempted to fuse life andliterature; he has developed a new language which coincides with man's new activities and ever-expanding investigations. Some of his poetry and two of his critical essays have appeared in English translation in The SelectedWritings of Salvatore Quasimodo (1960); his Selected Poems were published in 1965.

Arnaldo Pomodoro

2008-11-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

Pomodoro designed a controversial fiberglass crucifix for the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The piece is topped with a fourteen foot in diameter crown of thorns which hovers over the figure of Christ.

Some of Pomodoro's "Sphere Within Sphere" (Sfera con Sfera) can be seen in the Vatican Museums, Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and the University of California, Berkeley. His thematic work "Forme del Mito" (Forms of Myth) was displayed at Brisbane's World Expo '88 and was later purchased by Brisbane City Council for the City of Brisbane.

Pomodoro visited New York in 1956 and traveled in Europe in 1958. In Paris in 1959 he met Alberto Giacometti and Georges Mathieu, before returning to the United States, where he organized exhibitions of contemporary Italian art at the Bolles Gallery in New York and San Francisco. In New York the following year Pomodoro met Louise Nevelson and David Smith. He helped found the Continuità group in Italy in 1961–62. The sculptor traveled to Brazil on the occasion of his participation in the 1963 São Paulo Bienal, where he was awarded the International Sculpture Prize. A solo show of his work was included in the Venice Biennale of 1964.

Mariko Mori

2008-11-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

Mariko Mori lives and works in New York. The works develop Mori’s continued interest in a fusion of art and technology, Buddhism, and the idea of universal spiritual consciousness. Drawing from ancient rituals and symbols, Mori uses cutting edge technology and material to create a strikingly beautiful vision for the 21st century.

Mori's Oneness is an allegory of connectedness, a representation of the disappearance of boundaries between the self and others. It is a symbol of the acceptance of otherness and a model for overcoming national and cultural borders. It also is a representation of the Buddhist concept of oneness, of the world existing as one interconnected organism.

Mariko Mori’s remarkable sculpture, Wave UFO (seen in the image above) was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale, after being exhibited in New York with the Public Art Fund and at the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa. It was recently included in her solo exhibition at The Groniger Museum. The Wave UFO is on view through January 2008, at the Aros Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark, as part of Oneness, their survey of Mariko Mori’s work.

Ram Dass

2008-11-18T10:38:00.001-08:00

Richard Alpert is a man who is often called a burned out hippie. Yet in his time he has used his experience with the spiritual effects of the chemical compound naturally found in nature, Psilocybin. A professor at Harvard in the mid sixties, he and Timothy Leary introduced this compound to the masses and both were quickly let go as Harvard Staff. Many famous folks aligned themselves with the two merry pranksters. Ken Kesey, Alan Ginsberg of course the grateful dead and many others. experimentation was the way, and what a way it was.

Alpert traveled to India in the late 60's and was forever changed in a spiritual sense and was now called Baba Ram Dass. Baba, after the man who trained him, and Ram Dass meaning "servant of God". After coming back west to spread his word he wrote "BE HERE NOW" and began to spread the word of the ever worsening ego of the humanrace. Since then he has embraced a wide variety of spiritual traditions and practices, including guru kripa (grace of the guru); bhakti yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual deva Hanuman; meditation in various schools of Buddhism such as Theravada and Mahayana (including Tibetan and Zen); karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies. In February 1997, he suffered a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia, however, he understands his stroke as an act of grace and continues to travel giving lectures, as his health permits. When asked if he could sum up his life's message Ram Dass replied, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people... To me, that's what the emerging game is all about." He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.

This man is an artist of peace showing us a strength of spirit we should all hope to obtain.

inin August 1991.^[1]

Dante Alighieri

2008-11-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Dante Alighieri, was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia, is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.

Dante's engagement with philosophy cannot be studied apart from his vocation as a writer, in which he sought to raise the level of public discourse by educating his countrymen and inspiring them to pursue happiness in the contemplative life. He was one of the most learned Italian laymen of his day, intimately familiar with Aristotelian logic and natural philosophy, theology (he had a special affinity for the thought of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas), and classical literature. His writings reflect this in its mingling of philosophical and theological language, invoking Aristotle and the neo-Platonists side by side with the poet of the psalms. Like Aquinas, Dante wished to summon his audience to the practice of philosophical wisdom, though by means of truths embedded in his own poetry, rather than mysteriously embodied in scripture.

William Blake

2008-11-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake's work is now considered seminal in the history of both poetry and the visual arts. Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".

Considered mad for his idiosyncratic views by contemporaries, later criticism regards Blake highly for his expressiveness and creativity, as well as the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic", for its largely having appeared in the 18th century.

Noam Chomsky

2008-11-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as the father of modern linguistics.

Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, an anarchist, and a libertarian socialist intellectual. Beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War Chomsky established himself as a prominent critic of US foreign and domestic policy. He is a self-declared adherent of libertarian socialism which he regards as "the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society." His status as a leading critic of American politics has made him a controversial figure.

Hans Wegner

2008-11-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

A master of 20th century Danish Modernism, Hans Wegner was instrumental in developing a body of work known as organic functionalism. His work belongs to a minimalist school, but preserves function. although he designed all types of furniture, Wegner is best known for his chairs .Wegner worked for some time for Arne Jacobsen, another famous Danish designer to produce limited production furniture lines. He designed over 500 chairs and retired from public life only in the last decade of his life.

http://www.designaddict.com/design_index/index.cfm/fuseaction/designer_show_one/DESIGNER_ID/336/

David Trubridge

2008-11-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

New Zealand based designer David Trubridge is a leading participant in the fight for environmental awareness and action. Trained as a naval architect and self-taught as a woodworker, David is passionate about how efficiently natural materials are consumed today. He is highly influenced by marine inhabitants and is a firm believer of green design. He created his studio out of an abandoned joinery shop in a closed meatpacking district in New Zealand. In 2007, Trubridge was honored with the Green Leaf Award for artistic excellence, presented by the Natural World Museum and the United Nations Environment Program. These awards celebrate an artist's ability to inspire and engage the public in environmental awareness and action through green design.

George Nelson

2008-11-13T21:03:00.000-08:00

Noted as a renaissance man, architect, furniture designers, exhibitor, writer, graphic artist, and teacher, George Nelson is considered the most influential designer or mid century design. As the design director for Herman Miller from 1945-60, Nelson built their corporate image from the ground up. However like many other architects and designers of the early 1950-60's, the contrast of settable objects to storage objects are stikingly opposite to one another.

Eero Saarinen

2008-11-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

Of the mid-century furniture designers who were also architects, Eero Saarinen, Finish-born son of architect Eliel Saarinen, made a big impression of the landscape and homes of America. Though he saw his courageous design statements rendered in concrete and steel, like the sweeping arch of Yale universities hockey rink or John Deere's horizontal headquarters in Illinois, Eero never lost interest in pursuing good design.

http://www.eerosaarinen.net/

Wendell Castle

2008-11-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

Commonly referred to as one of the founding fathers of studio furniture, Wendell Castle examines the role of material, form, and function in furniture/sculpture. Castle creates furniture that often strolls beyond the conventional borders of even early decorative furniture, placing him in a niche that has puzzled those wanting to make a specific distinction between designer and sculptor. Although he often exhibits as a sculptor, his furniture designs for residential clients and public spaces represent a distinctive investigation of the qualities and possibilities of not only wood but other materials such as fiberglass, plastics, metal all at a high level of craftsmanship.

Drawing most of his inspiration from his “what if” philosophy, Castle generates ideas in a very unconventional manner. What if a table had thirteen legs? What is a mirror had more than one perspective? What if? What if? Castle has also drawn inspiration from Pop Art of the 1960’s as well as both modern and contemporary Italian design, going on, in the later 1970s and 1980s to explore the possibilities of Surrealism and his trompe l'œil series. Currently he draws upon the assorted possibilities of Postmodern design.

Brad Nelson

2008-11-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

Brad Nelson’s Asian inspired minimalist furniture. Nelson forces his users to question how minimal furniture can present itself before “it’s just a piece of wood” Nelson’s integration of drawers easily connects his pieced to concepts of furniture. Taking away the drawers however the user is left to decide what function Nelson develops his designs while he works on each piece of furniture, making strategic decisions as he goes. He responds to the materials at hand and their shapes to create the proper design elements. He also incorporates his love of the natural world and his concern for the environment wherever he can; often using reclaimed wood in his tables and stands. Rather than synthetics or plastics the inspiration comes from within each reclaimed piece of timber.

Matthias Pliessnig

2008-11-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

Matthias Pliessnig is one of several up and coming furniture designer.

“Naturally, furniture became my vehicle due to the intimacy of interaction and the challenges of structure with form.” (1)

Focusing on conventional construction methods and boat build processes, Matthias chooses to use solar and air dried domestic woods harvested by U.S. arborsists. Comprised of only slats of timber and a water-based non-toxic epoxy glue to hold the wooden structures together, the forms present themselves more as sculptures forms than as functional furniture objects. Having been formally trained as a metal smith, Pliessnig’s incorporates his knowledge of smithing with his understanding of conventional furniture construction. He works with controlled yet free flowing and organic forms. Resembling the work of New Zealand’s most celebrated green designers David Trubridge, Pliessnig intends for his work to communicate an understanding of how materials can be used in innovative ways. He recently had a solo exhibition at the Wexler as well as being represented at SOFA Chicago.

1. http://www.matthias-studio.com

Salvador Dali

2008-11-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Salvador Dalí's artistic repertoire also included film, sculpture, and photography. He collaborated with Walt Disney on the unfinished Academy Award-nominated short cartoon Destino, which was completed and released posthumously in 2003. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on the dream sequence from his 1945 film Spellbound.

Video of Dali Painting in Studio 1958

Winsor McCay

2008-11-10T21:23:00.000-08:00

Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator. A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.

Jim Henson

2008-11-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Today's generation of students grew up with Jim Henson, Fraggle Rock and the Dark Crystal. Henson was the most widely known puppeteers in American TV history. He was the creator of The Muppet's and the leading force behind their long run in the television series Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and films such as The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Storyteller(1988). He was also an Oscar-nominated film director Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The surreal yet informative quality of his films and TV shows have informed all of today's emerging artist's

Daniel Johnston

2008-11-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

Daniel Johnston is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

Johnston began recording John Lennon and Beatles-inspired music in the late 1970s on a $59 Sanyo monaural Boombox, singing and playing piano and chord organ. Johnston's drawings were featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. His artwork is shown in galleries around the world, including exhibits in London's Aquarium Gallery and New York's Clementine Gallery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_RbSAwMa3U

Daniel Kuhn

2008-11-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

Porcelain, Walnut

Soda Ash Glaze

Malcolm Davis

2008-11-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Davis has been a full-time studio potter since 1984 when he left his previous life as campus minister. He took his first ceramics class in 1974 and since 1985 has maintained his mountaintop studio in Upshur County, WV. He is internationally recognized for his work with shino-type glazes, specifically for the creation of a unique shino-type formula with a high concentration of soluble soda ash, which encourages the trapping of carbon in the early stages of the firing.

Daniel Kuhn

2008-11-05T06:28:00.001-08:00

Matinicus Night

Stoneware, Porcelain Slip

14"x8"x4"

Peter Pilven

2008-11-05T06:06:00.000-08:00

Peter Pilven is a woodfired Ceramic Artist from Australia. He works primarily with vessel forms which he alters in an organic sense. He is very interested in the uncontrolled aspects of the woodfired kiln. One cannot use the ancient descriptive words such as yaki, shigaraki, wabi or sabi to describe current work but old words or not the layers of interest in Pilvens work is apparent. Perhaps we need a new lexicon of terms (such as the Japanese use) in an attempt to accurately describe the plethora of marks, flashes, effects and subtleties that document and record the flow of fire and ash through a wood burning kiln. An indefinable proportion of woodfiring's unique qualities are due to the range and complexity of variables that only coalesce during a particular firing. Ash and flash, care and a prayer all contribute generously to the fired palette. Likewise, weather conditions and barometric pressure are often significant variables in the matrix of the equation. All if these factors contribute to the end result which cannot be predicted. Leaving ones work to the doings of the earth is a brave and exciting process, ancient and new at the same time.

Anselm Kiefer

2008-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Painter, sculptor, and installation artist. Kiefer was born in 1945 in Donauschingen, Germany. At the close of World War II, Anselm Kiefer studied art informally under Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Academy in the early 1970s.

Kiefer reflects upon and critiques the myths and chauvinism which eventually propelled the German Third Reich to power. His paintings depict his generation's ambivalence toward the grandiose impulse of German nationalism and its impact on history. Kiefer's work balances the dual purposes of visually powerful imagery and intellectually critical analysis. One of his most important works is on six strips of burlap sewn together, which Kiefer drew perspective lines to form a deep theatrical space. The viewer is placed at the entrance of the cavernous room, slightly off center, engulfed by the wooden beams...The interior is at once a memorial hall and crematorium. Eternal fires burn along the wall as if in memory of the individuals, but the lower edge of the painting is darkened in a manner that suggests it has been singed.

Tommaso Campanella

2008-11-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639), was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet. Campanella's heterodox views brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. Denounced to the Inquisition and cited before the Holy Office in Rome, he was confined in a convent until 1597.

After his liberation, Campanella's aim was to establish a society based on the community of goods and wives. Betrayed by two of his fellow conspirators, he was captured and incarcerated in Naples. Pleading insanity, he managed to escape the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Campanella spent twenty-seven years imprisoned. During his detention, he wrote his most important works: The Monarchy in Spain, Political Aforisms, Atheismus triumphatus, Metaphysica, Theologia, and his most famous work, The City of the Sun (1602/1623). He even intervened in the first trial against Galileo Galilei with his courageous The Defense of Galileo.

Campanella was finally released from his prison in 1626, Campanella was restored to full liberty in 1629. He lived for five years in Rome, where he was Pope Urban's advisor in astrological matters.

Dorothea Tanning

2008-11-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

Tanning is an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and has also designed sets/costumes for ballet and theatre. Born in Illinois, Tanning lived in Paris for twenty-eight years then moving to New York. There she exhibited with Julien Levy Gallery and met the German painter Max Ernst in 1942. She married Ernst four years later, in a double wedding with Man Ray and Juliette Browner. Ernst introduced her to the circle of the Surrealists. Her best-known work, Eine kleine Nachtmusik is a dark painting laden with symbolism; ironically named after Mozart's light-hearted serenade. This painting marks in her career when she was a member of the surrealist group for a while, but later her painting style became more lyrical. Tanning returned to New York in 1978 after the death of Ernst. In nineties, Tanning has often published poetry in The New Yorker and is completing several books. Her most recent novel is Chasm (2004).

Precious

2008-10-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

Bruno Schulz

2008-10-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Polish writer, drawer, illustartor to his own books,(1892-1942)

The writings output of Schulz contains only two collections of short stories.

the description of the life of Polish Jews and the autobiography of the writer is held in the poetics of the dream. Here a border is fading away between reality and the myth. The author is travelling all over the childhood which he can see as the most important period in the life.Extremely language of prose is characteristic of Schulz: remarkably rich, poetic, full of archaisms,as if Schulz discovered original meaning of words again.

Author of Cinnamon Shops. You can read online in English: http://www.schulzian.net/translation/shops.htm

Casper David Friedrich

2008-10-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

Caspar David Friedrich was the most famous German romantic painter. (1774-1840)

Images of Friedrich usually shows lonely people contemplating the nature. The painter is coming up to the nature in the concentration, as the man who believes is confronted to the altar. Such experience requires the absolute solitude.

His work showed the spiritual nature of the landscape, confronting the power of the nature with the frailty of the man. He created romantic views of sea coasts, mountain snowy peaks, ruins, cemeteries oversaturated with the romantic symbolism.

James Krenov

2008-10-26T18:55:00.000-07:00

Born in Wellen in Kamchatka in 1920. Krenov is revered by many designers and makers for his inspiration to bring simplicity, harmony and above all, a love of wood as a material into ones work. Having studying his work, James use of subtle details and simple forms has been instrumental in the teaching of furniture design across the globe. Simple looking is not always simply made.

“ A curve is made to be subtle, It’s not to look like a pretzel.”*

He founded the College of Redwoods woodworking program as well as Artisanry program at Boston University. He has taught in Europe, RIT, and the Redwoods. Currently he lives in Fort Bragg, CA where he retired from cabinetmaking due to vision problems.

*Oral review of Krenov History by Oscar Fitzgerald(Aug 12-13,2004)
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/krenov04.htm
http://jameskrenov.com/furniture.htm

Jan Svankmajer

2008-10-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

Svankmajer was born in Prague(1924), is a Czech surrealist artist.

Called the "alchemist of surrealism", Jan Svankmajer, it not only the author of the animation and the director, but also the writer and the sculptor.

Svankmajer's films are surprising with diversity of applied materials from which autonomous, dark, grotesque and funny world is being built.

Svankmajer is applying ceramics, clay ,food, pieces of rubbish, wood. Equally rich, similarly to devices, a subject matter to which he is referring seems to be Svankmajer. He is touching subjects as taboos, fears, obsession connected with the death and disintegration. His animations are horrifying and entertaining in the same time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocj4-y6sc9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8wvcnbesQE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9k5Ct7EHuE&feature=related

Martin Puryear

2008-10-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Born in Washington DC, African American Sculptor, Martin Puryear is considered one of the foremost sculptors today. His work is a synthesis of minimalism and process driven traditional craft practices. Incorporating wood, stone and various types of metals, he is divided between kinetic and freestanding sculpture. Because of his admiration for 1960's and 70's Scandinavian furniture design, Puryear contacted and inevitably worked for James Krenov as an assistant. Mixing his early crafts practices with innovative sculptural approaches, Puryear has represented the United States at the São Paolo Biennial in 1989, where his exhibition won the Grand Prize. Puryear is also the recipient of numerous awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture.

Stephen Hogbin

2008-10-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hogbin dissects the relationship between artist and why we (artist) make. He focuses on how we design and make objects and how and if they resembles their intended/presented meaning. His book Appearance and Reality focuses on four key disciplines; art, craft/technology, design, and science. His theoretical background has allowed him to synthesize current ideas in a way that is cogent for general readers as well as well informed designers and artists. Aside from his theory, Hogbin is a internationally known designer and wood turner. He has been an innovator both lathe and fabrication techniques. Best know for his inverted turning or "inside out turning" Hogbin has received numerous awards and distinctions for his dedicated involvement to the field.

Susan Working

2008-10-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

An independent studio furniture maker since 1981, Susan is the director of the wood facility at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, in Aspen CO. Her furniture based work constitutes a metaphor for the body. More importantly, Working believes the process of making is like the process of aging. Dissecting the role of the female artist in a male dominated medium, Susan concentrates on inviting a collision and knowledge of function and process. Searching for the unexpected, Susan looks at functional objects as improvisational ways to create narratives of her past experiences.

Michael Puryear

2008-10-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Michael Puryear has been an independent studio furniture maker for over 20 years. Having had no formal training in art or design, Michael has developed his craft through exploration and experimentation. His most recent work incorporates shibui, the Japanese term for simple elegance. Using minimal forms that are rich in traditional furniture ascetics and meaning, Puryear’s work reflect his appreciation for the clarity and directness of Scandinavian and Shaker furniture. Here Puryear comments on how shibui is incorporated into his work;

“This simplicity belies the complexity of creating and joining furniture elements aesthetically, while maintaining full functionality in the design.”

Currently, Michael teaches woodworking at SUNY Purchase as well as maintaining his studio in New York. Michael also has taught workshops at Penland, Arrowmont, Anderson Ranch, and the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship.

Frederico Fellini

2008-10-26T08:37:00.001-07:00

Scene from La Strada

Federico Fellini (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993) was an Italian film director. Born and raised in Rimini, Italy, Fellini's childhood experiences would later play an important part in many of his films in particular, "I vitelloni", "8½" and "Amarcord." Intimate friends, such as screenwriters Tullio Pinelli and Bernardino Zapponi, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and set designer Dante Ferretti have insisted on how Fellini invented his own memories simply for the pleasure of narrating them in his films. Known for a distinct style which meshes fantasy and baroque images, he is considered as one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century.

Fellini's films are deeply personal visions of society, often portraying people at their most bizarre. The term "Felliniesque" is used to describe any scene in which a hallucinatory image invades an otherwise ordinary situation.