Installing Dallas

When I worked for the Dallas Museum of Art, nothing was as thrilling to me as what went on behind-the-scenes. So here is a peek of the installation of my work at the McKinney Ave. Contemporary. And out front, I'm in high cotton...just look at this incredible list of sponsors.

It took FIVE or was it SIX carloads to get the art to Dallas...major kudos to Adam Geyer for this! We had a wonderful mother/son trip up to Arkansas to retrieve several pieces from Tyson Foods and from my parents. Adam's muscles are almost as good as his brain!

Then, at the MAC, here's how it began, with a pile of beautiful unstained ash and poplar...the installation tables created by Gary Cunningham Architects. These are the most elegant Lincoln Logs ever. Gary and his assistant, Michael Bessner put together these tables with no hardware; they should patent this design!

At the same time, I was unpacking my porcelains, from a motley assortment of 50 or so cardboard boxes. A lot of tissue paper and bubble wrap! I did most of the art handling myself, but enjoyed the help of Leslie Connally, David McCollough and the MAC interns. Here, the Director, Liliana Bloch, and I pose beside the scarecrow, which was the first piece to go up.

The unpacking and installing took five days, which was good because it gave me mulling time. It also helped to have my sister Wendy come one afternoon for moral support!Later Rick arrived. Here he points out the poor little porcelain shoe that is the guinea pig for visitors who need to touch the art. We hope the shoe can still dance after this! As work came out of the boxes, it was fun to see juxtapostions gather.Unwrapping the five pieces from Tyson Foods in Arkansas, like the quilt, was like a family reunion.

Better yet, Adam and Larkin arrived, here posing by their graduation gift pieces, also exhibited.

Some gallery views, almost done, with a bit of tweaking on Saturday before the opening...sort of like Turner on "Varnishing Day", I did some touch-ups, and it all came together.

One long shelf, two low tables, two high tables, 2 small wall tables...46 (I think) pieces.

I couldn't be happier with the minimal, cool, humble feel of this installation.

Gilgamesh, etc. off to Big D!

As I was packing up all these pieces for the shows in Dallas, I suddenly decided to let the Gilgamesh rolling pin make some cookies before he got stuck in a box. With a real rolling pin I rolled out some slabs of porcelain and then used "Gilgamesh Repeating Himself" to do just that...repeat himself. It was quite a thrill to see little Mesopotamian warriors, griffins, Trees of Life, etc. unroll into the clay. I used about two-thirds of a bag of Grolleg porcelain making these slabs that look like cartoon versions of ancient Sumerian roller seals.

Meanwhile, other pieces needed small repairs before packing. Feeney the monkey from "Monkey Mind Marriage" got a facelift. Not really. Her wedding veil broke a long time ago and I had to fix it up.

Ha! These slabs look like the Rosetta Stone or something. Then I had to wash off the porcelain rolling pin. I suppose it could go in the dishwasher. And, get back to packing up 28 boxes of art. Many more have already been delivered to Valley House Gallery and the McKinney Ave. Contemporary. Somehow all these fit in our two cars, thanks to Adam the art sherpa who is driving with me to Dallas. The exhibit is finally happening, thanks to Rick Brettell. AND Rick Geyer, who has been my unpaid communications director for the last month. What would I do without you???

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Pie Just Out of the Oven

Somehow I got into making cherry pies for the
Fourth of July, and that led to all sorts of other pies...
peach, chocolate, cranberry, pear, pecan, blueberry,
lemon, and any combination thereof. For a ceramic pie, you can't beat juicy cherries. I made one of those aluminum pie pans just because it'd show off the white gold. Some lumps of clay then became the filling so that the crust could drape over it in that lumpy way that crust does. Rolling out the porcelain crust and pinching it was exactly like using pastry dough, fun!

Because my upcoming show at the MAC is titled "The Porcelain Reformation", I'd been doing some reading on THE Reformation. When I came across a Last Supper by Lucas Cranach the Elder, it said "pie" all over it...the picture is circular and has a lot of red and beige in it. Martin Luther and his cohorts play disciples and they are serving each other wine, indicating the priesthood of all believers. There had to be a slice cut out of the pie so you can see the mess of cherries. So naturally I cut out Judas. Unfortunately Jesus and John had to go with him, since they were part of the same piece--John's head is on his lap and Jesus is putting bread into Judas' mouth. It should be encouraging to all of us that Judas got fed even though Jesus knew he was going to betray him. Mercy!

The pie needed something more, so how about a pie cutter thingey? It had to be a Cutco "Slice & Serve", since our goddaughter Grace sells Cutco. And painted on it is the wonderful Grant Wood at the Amon Carter Museum, called "Pastor Weem's Fable". Why? Well because it is about the young George Washington cutting down a cherry tree...which was a big fat legend. Story goes that Georgie's dad was merciful to him for admitting his indiscretion.

At the last minute I got really corny with it and added a pot holder that has the words and music to "Pie Jesu". I did not make that up. "Pie Jesu" means "merciful Jesus" or "Oh, Sweet Jesus", and is a common part of requiems. The one on this pot holder is a beauty by Gabriel Faure.
Thus, the title "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy"...and yes, you can hum along to the jazz tune by Joe Zaurinul (sp?). The pie has now taken its place in the warm kitchen in the November Chlora story, and she's looking for the missing piece at Thanksgiving dinner. That story will go online soon...and I will be eating humble pie!

Ex Nihilo

Hooray! Got all the art supplies finished. Those itty bitty paint tubes gave me a neckache...but they were simple compared to the darned clay box. Who'd think cardboard would be so hard? The flaps on the box (modeled after MANY 50 lb. boxes I have purchased from Austin's own Armadillo Clay & Supply--great place, check it out!) ...well, the flaps had problems with gravity. But all is adhered now and here it is, called "Ex Nihilo"...out of nothing.

Along with the clay box, we now have a small turntable, after a metal one made by Amaco. On top is incised the labyrinth from Chartres Cathedral. A lot of carving went into these pieces--carving leatherhard porcelain is one of my favorite techniques.

The relief carvings on the ends of the cardboard box are from Andrea Pisano's medallions somewhere on the exterior of the Florence Duomo. Naturally, they are of the Creation of Adam and Eve, since this is a box of terracotta clay ("Longhorn Red" to be exact)...

The problematic cardboard flap has a sgraffito adaptation of the Hebrew Brickmakers, from the ancient Egyptian tomb of Rekhmire....you know those slaves hated clay as much as the Creator loved it. Here is an in-process shot and the finished one. The curly white thing is a clay cutter string, on top of the plastic bag of terracotta.

And the real killer was this rolling pin...six images deeply incised into stained clay...from the myth of Gilgamesh. These are liberally taken from ancient Sumerian cuneiform roller seals. Sort of like one of those springerlie (sp?) cookie rollers, you know, but here we have "Gilgamesh Repeating Himself." What more can I say, all that violence just comes back around...














So now the clay tools can join with all the paint stuff...for a table full of "What Art Supplies". In the MAC show, we'll add the typewriter and box of paper to the mix. Plus it'll be installed on a good-looking table by architect Gary Cunningham, without my living room in the background!

What Art Supplies

The question is: what DOES art supply? That is the one that plagues many artists, holed up in our studios creating things that nobody may ever see, while the world suffers from earthquakes, hunger and war. And yet we do it because that is what we are meant to do. The slim hope in artmaking is that the work will carry something good into a place that desperately needs it. Art materials are messy and seductive; the pull of porcelain is enough to keep me going. The notion that the Incarnation blessed matter makes me feel privileged to work in this material.

In my studio now are several objects in process, all of them art supplies, continuing that motif begun long ago--see "Art Toy Triptych" and "Chlora's Hope Chest", where the art supplies are those of a child. With the recent "Typo", "Chlora's Writing Room", "In the Making", and "Rochambeau", the art supplies have grown up. Three varieties are blended in my work--clay, writing, and painting--and they got intermingled in a coffee can in the recent piece "All in One". With these works in process, a big paint box and clay box, my trio is complete. Maybe. It'd be fun to install all of these items together.

Above, in the kiln, is greenware ready to go directly to Cone 6...several pieces that mimic ceramic tools. The box is modelled after a 50 lb. box of terracotta from Armadillo Clay, my Austin supplier. Clay in the kiln in more ways than one! The other items are a turntable, a flap for the box, and a rolling pin with its handles. Here's some process shots, first of the box, which I think will be titled "Ex Nihilo":

The ends of the box are adaptations of Andrea Pisano's "Creation of Adam and Eve", stone reliefs from the exterior of the Campanile of the Florence Duomo. I've used a terracotta Mason Stain slip on this which should come out the color of cardboard. With the box flaps in place, the piece barely fit in the kiln, and then one of the flaps fell off and broke. That gave me the "opportunity" to remake it...it is now a two colored slab, done in sgraffito, showing the Hebrew slaves building clay bricks for Egyptian monuments.

The turntable is a simple two-part instrument which has an engraved design from the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral.

The most difficult piece has been the rolling pin. I used tinted clay for this one, as I wanted to do a deeper relief carving. Underglaze tends to fill in the sharp details, so this is an experiment. It took considerable web research, but I found lots of Sumerian cylinder seals, and narrowed them down to designs from the epic of Gilgamesh. So six scenes of that ancient warrior are incised into this rolling pin...it's called "Gilgamesh Repeating Himself." ha! Here it is, the handles to be attached later as I figure they would warp if stuck on the roller now. Let's hope the roller doesn't blow up...I know it'll crack and can deal with that.

Next up, the second half of "What Art Supplies"-- the oil painting stuff. The paint box is taken from my beloved old metal fishing tackle box that belonged to my Granddaddy Brown and then my Dad. Here's a picture of the real thing, which is full of paints I have used since college.

And last are clay paint tubes, just blocked out. It'll be fun glazing these guys! Also a can of linseed oil. A palette and wiping rag are yet to come. I think the paint box will sport an unfinished Michelangelo, the "Manchester Madonna". The oil can has something to do with anointing, the palette may be from Velasquez's own one in "Las Meninas". And the rag may be stained like a color field painting. Or Veronica's veil...we'll see as things progress.


Art and life and love are messy. That's just how it is.

Tooting my own horn?

A week ago, I took "Chlora's Writing Room" to Dallas to introduce it to "Typo". I thought they would play well together, but they seem to have communication problems. Hopefully they will outgrow them because these two need each other. It is probably all the fault of that awful Frida Kahlo posing like St. Sebastian, impaled on the typewriter paper and still nursing her wounds. That wounded deer should deal with her pain and quit inflicting it upon others. It is enough to make poor Van Gogh cut off his other ear and turn it into a pencil sharpener, as above.

But on a much happier note, Adam is 25 today, and here he is, looking at the just-finished "Mourning Has Broken". If this piece had not been such a technical challenge, yes, I'd toot my own horn. But this golden horn buried in purple cloth has been one of those pieces that has tried my patience. Perhaps it should be named "Mourning Has Broken and I Glued it Back Together". Or "Mourning Has Broken, Pick Up the Pieces." Anyhow, I started this one way back in the spring. Conceptually it is complex, and technically, well let's just say I learned a lot.

It took the trip to Paris to get me excited about finishing it up.. Sitting there in the Orangerie, immersed in the waterlilies (the "Morning" one I'd painted on the lid and it self-destructed in the high firing)... I had an idea about how to redeem the broken lid (shown in an earlier post). Turn it into a mosaic, and toss the pieces into the case, like coins in the musician's case in the Paris Metro. I must say it is mightly fun to bash up porcelain with a hammer!

Also I saw "Impression Sunrise" in Musee Marmottan for the first time. It had seemed quite trite to use that obvious painting on a piece that deals with Easter sunrise services. But, the real thing was much more beautiful and nuanced than I imagined, and it just had to go on there. It tucks into the front of the case and peeks out of the case like the sun peeking over a mountain.

On the mute is painted Signorelli's fresco from Orvieto Cathedral, "Resurrection of the Flesh". I saw this fresco cycle a few years ago, and must say it is one of the wierdest images in art history...all those skeletons and bodies crawling out of the graves...Somebody really should mute that story!

Also from Italy, we have Ghiberti's scene of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, from the Golden Gates of Paradise (on the Florence Baptistery). I carved a portion of this, emphasizing the horns, on the bell of the trumpet. Compare the wet carving with the finished one, finally overglazed in gold.

The sheet music is Jeremiah Clark's "Trumpet Voluntary." It was a toss-up between that and Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag" which I could not find. Big thanks to Jenny Whitten and Tim Trickey for the loan of his middle-school horn and case from the 60's. It was a great model. Tim tells me it is actually a cornet, and yes, there is a difference, but when you make one out of clay, and it warps, I guess it doesn't matter. I have a new appreciation for brass players after following all the complicated loops and buttons on that thing. And, it took a lot of gold! The separate mouthpiece, overglazed in platinum, reminds me of the tuba I played in seventh grade. The tuba was bigger than I was, but I could get some noise out of that thing! Maybe if I'd played a trumpet I'd still be tooting my own horn.