Would Frankenstein Be Art or Craft?

Anchorage is Hopping! Daddy-O needed to be on the Mountain for ski clinics this weekend and Gus and I decided to stay in Anchorage and be townies. Daddy-O just called us from Girdwood and said it DUMPED snow last night and he’s getting ready to take some freshies in the POW! A winter storm last week dropped a record setting blanket of snow just in time for everyone. Friday kicked off the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Festival through March 6. Organizers were smart to time Fur Rondy

with the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race coming this Saturday, March 6 at 10:00 am. These Rondy pictures are of The Running of the Reindeer and the Sprint Dog Sled Races downtown. Lots of folks are in town for both, big events and Anchorage is hopping! From our house we could catch a glimpse of the Fur Rondy fire works that went off last night in downtown Anchorage. Gus is all about anything classic monster so he really, really, really wanted to see the original Frankenstein movie on the big screen at Bear Tooth Theatre Pub Saturday afternoon. His big brother Will, and Will’s girlfriend Kim came too and all of us shared a large booth. The black & white movie was fun and the Nachos, Cheese pizza, Gyro’s, Hard Apple Ale and Wild Country Raspberry Wheat Beer (Gus had Sprite) even better!

Gus and I were going to head downtown to catch some of the Rondy events before the movie but the temperature dropped a bit and we opted to go to Barnes & Noble instead (I know, we were weather wimps!) I did pick up the March issue of Art Calendar and the February/March issue of American Craft. Art Calendar has a special section on "Landing Grants," which may prove handy for my upcoming deadline tomorrow. American Craft has a good essay in the Critic’s Corner, “Further Notes on the Art/Craft Debate"

that has me rethinking my thoughts on Art vs. Craft. On my grant application I needed to check a box that described my discipline and I automatically checked “Crafts” until I read how the Foundation (on page 5) described each discipline and found my discipline fit better under “Visual Arts.” Interestingly, metal works and ceramics fall under “Visual Arts.” I can really get going on this debate and tend to probably try and simplify it a bit too much. Functionality and non-functionality aside, my simplified thought has always been Art is predominately created by using one hand and Craft predominately created by two hands. Probably a bit too simplified. Much to my chagrin, after reading the essay my brain has been spinning this debate again. I also think the category of “Visual Arts” tends to negate the debate between Art vs. Craft. Your thoughts on Art vs. Craft? Does the debate even matter?

Here are some of the images I had professional photographer Chris Arend take of my clay and steel pieces. The images were wonderful and a bit tricky to shoot because of their size. Though I felt that since these were some of my first mixed medium pieces I’ve really progressed with the clay in the last few months. The “Humboldt Squid” piece is large and heavy, about 55” wide and the companion piece “Nautilus” is about 38” wide. The "Tree Spirit" is 23" tall and all three use plasma cut and welded steel with hand formed ^04-05 clay components.

When the Metal Meets the Mud

The strike of inspiration continues...
Today I was able to continue work on a piece that was started back in January. I wouldn't have believed it was that long ago until I looked up the Blog entry -yikes! "The Strike of Inspiration" was about some fiberwork that I had seen by artist, Judy Perez and was so inspired by her Blog banner "Painted Threads," that I wanted to make a sculpture of a Humboldt Squid and a swimming Nautilus Shell. The clay work went pretty fast, fired well and then I opted to use some matte glazes instead of the Majolica glazes I first mentioned in my earlier Blog.

This week I finally picked up some 1/2" Cold Rolled Round Steel Stock for the squid tentacles. My first choice was to use at least 

3/4" - 1" but at more than $60 bucks a stick for the 3/4" the 1/2" would work fine ($25), Plus, with the thicker size comes added weight which starts to not be very practical for your average wall mounted sculpture. Bending that round stock was a BEAR! I'm not used to hand bending such thick material -I took a couple of Aleve after that workout!

 The Squid and the Shell have holes on their backsides that I drilled while still leather hard clay. The plan (today) is to wire the body over the tentacles o

nce all of the hot, welding and metal work is done. I'm thinking there will be some additional sealife embellishment including the strings of beadwork I like to use. I'm not sure what else... I'll weld up the Nautilus tentacles tomorrow.

The Strike of Inspiration

Most often when inspiration strikes, I’m searching for it because I need to get to work. There are also, the times I like best, when I least expect the strike of “I’ve got to create!” That is what happened when I was wandering through the Blog-o-sphere, transfixed by other artists talent and saw the banner on Judy Coates Perez Blog. Her banner is richly illustrated, beautiful and completely inspired me.

Sometimes, I think that inspiration is a combination of our subconscious, current state of mind/emotion and that artistic gift working in a symbiotic rhythm, looking for a spark to fan the flame of artmaking. Today, I choose to believe that because in combination with the beautiful banner from Painted Threads, I was recently ordering a new pottery stamp of my Nautilus shell icon, and my daughter lent me the current book I’m reading, “A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth” by Samantha Weinberg (BTW I love Coelacanths).

Everything just fell into place and time stood still as I was shaping these new clay sculptures of a Humboldt Squid and a Nautilus Shell. The latest clay I’m trying out is a White Tile ^06 -1 from Seattle Pottery. I’m going to make both sets of tentacles from cold rolled steel, hand bend and weld together, and spot weld some “suckers.” I’ll probably make one wall sculpture and wire mount the finished clay bodies of the Squid and Shell, fitting the bodies around the steel tentacles. For the Nautilus Shell I want to try out some new Majolica glazes I have coming and the Squid will probably get this bright orange-red, velvety matt glaze...if all goes well!