October 17 - Thursday - Opening

Thursday evening Ju-Ian and I headed down to Rock Hill for the opening of Reassessing Tradition featuring work by Bob Hasselle, Daniel Johnston, Ron Philbeck, and Peter Rose.  It was an interesting show with beautiful work in a good space.

.

2009-05-09 Saturday Barn Sale

Saturday was the barn sale and the weather co-operated nicely since there was a chance of thunderstorms and they didn't materialize. There was a wonderful display of everyone's work and it was beautiful. We are truly blessed with a lot of talented people in the Clay Matters Guild. I only got a chance to dash through the rest of the sale, so I don't have as many pictures as I normally would have taken.

I had the good fortune to be sharing a booth with Becky and Elaine. I couldn't have asked for better friends with which to share a space. We worked together and got along swimmingly --quite a feat in the withering heat. Thanks, you two!

I signed up for Andy Smith's workshop on June 6th and can't wait --it should be great since Andy is very creative and entertaining. I have enjoyed talking with him before at the ACC and Saturday I was amazed all over again.

I talked to Bob Hasselle again about running a barrel fire workshop. He gets some great results on his pit-fired pieces and a lot of us at Clayworks would love to learn some of his techniques. He has added some over-sized tea pots to his collection that I wish I had taken some pictures of since they were beautiful.

Unfortunately there is never enough time to see everyone you'd like to at the sale. There are several people I didn't get a chance to see. Hopefully I'll be seeing them at the meetings.

Ralph had quite a collection of work.
I never get to see his work all together at the studio.

Corine and Hal got a nice spot inside the barn.

Barbara Chadwick-Bland was there.

More of Barbara's work.

Ron Philbeck was there.
(He left his apron home.)

Ro and Ju-Ian had a booth together.

My two booth-mates, Elaine and Becky.

Yours truly.

Elaine's art shot.
(That guy looks scary.)

"I'm not going to look at you."

"Oh, ok."

(Proof that I was not the only one holding the umbrella.)

Peter Lenzo Workshop

Today for the second time in as many months, we were treated to some fine hospitality by Bob Hasselle and company at the Rock Hill Pottery Center. The last time it was for the Peter Rose workshop, this time for Peter Lenzo's.

I already mentioned in a previous post that I am fascinated by Peter Lenzo's face jugs and now I am equally impressed with the man who makes them. The life and spirit that he imparts in the pieces is amazing. He starts off with a simple thrown form and in twenty minutes, it's got a life of its own. In another twenty, it's refined to museum quality, but it's in the next little while that it becomes a whimsical, haunting, narrative. He achieves this final step by adding all manner of "found items" to the piece and making it work as a unified statement. It is an amazing process to observe.

When he talks about his "found items" his eyes sparkle. It could be the porcelain cats and dogs he found at a thrift store or shards of broken pottery he found on a walk or unearthed doll parts from the former East Germany or even 800+ year old Mayan pottery pieces. Anything and everything is fair game when he's telling his story in clay. Peter brought quite a few of his treasures to show us before using some of them on his work.

Not only did we get to watch Peter work, but we got to see him work with his son Joe. Joe, who's twelve, was right by his father's side making a sculpture of his own. Joe's mom, Virginia was there to help out as well.

It was truly inspirational and a privilege to meet Peter, observe his work, and interact with him today. My mind is racing with all the possibilities he's got me thinking about, and I will be watching where I walk. You never know what you'll miss if you don't.

Peter's counting down from 100 pots and I believe he said today's was 57. I hope he gets as much enjoyment out of his next 56, I know everyone else will.

Thank you Mr. Lenzo.

Just beginning the forming.

Closer.

Eyes and nose taking shape.

Peter and Joe.

A different perspective.

More detail.

A finished product next to a work in progress.

Greg admiring the piece.

Joe's piece is coming along nicely.

Peter starts on another leather-hard piece.

A chapeau.

Some underglaze and now the "found objects".

Both artists working.

More visual storytelling.

Everyone helps Joe.

Hard at work.

Getting there...

The finished (for today) product.

The second face.

Joe's piece.

Following are some finished pieces that Peter brought along.
Some are low-fire and some are fired to cone 10.

Finally here are some videos of the work completed today.

Peter's piece.

Joe's piece.

For more about Peter Lenzo, read here.
For more of his face jugs, go here.
For some of his earlier work, go here.

You can see all my pictures from the workshop here.