Don't ask me why, but I like this free form stuff.
And it is fun to make free form things. You get the clay nice and slick and start running your hands every which way. Playin' in the mud.
These pots have been around the studio a long time. I pulled them out to glaze them up. The curvy forms in this photo make we think of women under a street light. They are trying to seduce me into spending some time with them. Scroll a little down the page and you will see just how much they made me think about women.
The last few months have had me working on a number of buildings I own. I have a commercial building with a few store fronts and I am setting one store front as a shop for "building" work. Actually, I have used this store front for all kinds of things through the years. It is that just now, there is a sense of order. And some room to move about in. There is one monolith sitting in the middle of the room
One residue of something I did long ago in this storefront is this tandoor oven. I was involved in developing a fast food recipe for a chicken franchising operation. I used to cook chicken with this clay oven on a daily basis. I do in fact have a patent on a chicken recipe! More about that and this oven- which I intend to fire up and cook with again- another time.
On an artier note, I bought a few woodblock prints recently. These wonderful prints are made entirely by Paul Binnie in London. He designs them, cuts the blocks and prints them all by himself. It is obvious that he was trained by masters in Japan. I have wanted the left and right one for years and the middle one was a spur of the moment purchase. I had to have all three side by side.
This one, "Sagi Musume" is a fascinating portrait of the contemporary "kabuki" actor, Bando Tamasaburo, in the play "Sagi Musume."
"Butterfly Bow" is a wonderfully flowing and sensual design featuring a Japanese beauty named Akiko. It is recognized as Binnie's most technically excellent print to date. It was also chosen as THE Binnie print to be on the front cover of a catalogue raisonne all of Binnie's lifetime works for a book out in the fall of 2007.
Finally there is "Kurosuka" It is a bold portrait of the contemporary "kabuki" actor, Ichikawa Ennosuke III, in the role of the demon in the play "Kurozuka." Little kids are going to walk through my house and be taken aback when they see this one.
Killer stuff. Absolutely killer.
Well, here is where those ladies took me. Don't ask me why or what they are going to end up like. I do not know. But you will see.
