Cecile Deladier, Part 2

Remember the post I did on French ceramicist Cecile Deladier back in January? Well, here she is again, with more work. I saw her featured on Remodelista, here, and here, and I was struck by how wonderfully she understands flowers. That's what makes her vases so perfect. She obviously loves to give flowers and plants something to accentuate their unique beauty. I also like the tenderness of her forms. I've been gardening like crazy since we returned from Italy. No time for anything else right now. It's amazing what a few weeks away in the middle of May will do to your garden. Havoc! So that must be why I am so drawn to these vessels. Also, I am taking a break from making ceramics because my teacher had a baby and is moving house (good excuses!) so we will start back up again in September. I miss working with clay so much. 

Sophie Truong shares Sharon Etgar

Thanks to Sophie Truong, here, I have been introduced to Sharon Etgar. She sews in old ledgers, among other things. You can see more at her website,  here. She is showing in NYC currently at  Davis & Langdale. The idea of a stitched diary is very appealing. Sophie did some new work this winter at the Mills Gallery in Boston. The show was composed of a group of artists showing their process in real time. Here is some of what Sophie worked on.

And Justine Hand of Designskool Blog did a studio visit with Sophie earlier this month. Check it out here. Just in case you don't know, Sophie also makes beautiful handmade leather  goods which she sells from her shop, here, and at select shows.

Grandfather's Envelopes

Have you ever seen this work ? I just came across it on the blog Art Found Out, here. It is a body of work done by Kouzaki Hiromu, an elderly Japanese man, in the last 15 years of his life. He started at age 80 to make envelopes out of paper he found around the house. They were not thought of by him as art. They were something to keep his hands busy. And he made thousands of them. His granddaughter, Fujii Sakaka  published a book in 2007 of selected envelopes. A large number of the envelopes were shown for the first time outside of Japan, in Dublin in 2011 at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, here. These photos came from there and can be enlarged for better viewing on that site. Also, Sri Threads, here, had an article about the show back in 2011. I'm going to see if I can find more images elsewhere. I am always so fascinated and excited by projects like these that grow out of a simple need and become a deep exploration. To me this is the very essence of art-making. I imagine the process to be very meditative and engrossing. I would love to get my hands on the book!

Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa is such an icon of American art that perhaps nothing new can be said about her. But I like this YouTube video because it shows how much she loves making art, and experimenting with such humility, and with no regard for anything but process. I've been asking myself lately what inspires me. I've heard more than one artist detest this word, inspire, but I like it. To me it means to bring in fresh air. I need that, especially in the form of artists who are deeply involved in making art for what it does for their inner life and what it can offer as enrichment to others. It's the opposite of trying to deliver a specific message. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I particularly like Asawa's crocheted wire sculpture, for which she is probably best known. I found some works I'd never seen before on this blog, and then went over to her website here. Asawa learned crochet in Mexico in the 50's. She also studied at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers among others. I want to do more research on Black Mountain, because something incredible was happening there back in those days.

Home

Photographer Erin Wallace of Bluebirdbaby blog, is doing another EyesOpen  photography e-course. She asked me to be a contributor, which means I got to wax philosophical about my creative process and share some photos of my work and home. You can see the post here. I thought you might want to see some more photos of my home. Sometimes people say I should share more of my home, but I always feel a bit self-conscious about doing that. I don't know why since most of these have been on my Flickr stream for quite awhile. I live in a very old house (1763) that my husband and I have been slowly working on for 10 years now. We live in a little village on the coast of Maine, and it is a very quiet life for us. We have the feeling that our house chose us because we are hardworking fools who will devote that kind of crazy time and effort to this kind of endeavor! We love the house though. I fell in love with the old doors, and John loves the 2 chimneys we had to have rebuilt from the roof up (ahem, you see what I mean...we could have had a pretty nice vacation for what that cost!). But there is something about making a house a home, and one that reflects who lives there, and how. It is an art form, and one of the most satisfying to me. So here goes.

Terri Brooks

I'd like to find out more about this Australian artist, Terri Brooks. She has a website with a catalog of works here, and she writes a blog about her art here. What I have read so far interests me because she is exploring surfaces for their own sake. That is what I have been doing in my work for the past 18 months. I am getting deeper into that study, so I admire what this artist has done over the course of many years. Inspiration for me, and validation that surface is a valid focus for serious art.

Dante Terzigni

I love illustration, and I just found this wonderful blog Fishink, which seems to be mainly devoted to sharing information about illustrators and designers. The depth of information and breadth of coverage is amazing. Just this one illustrator and surface designer, Dante Terzigni, could keep me busy all morning. There are lots of resources as well for illustrators on this blog.