May 2013
5 posts
Summer Sleep
“Aestivation or æstivation (from Latin aestas, summer, but also spelled “estivation” in American English) is a state of animal dormancy, similar to hibernation, characterized by inactivity and a lowered metabolic rate, that is entered in response to high temperatures and arid conditions.[1] It takes place during times of heat and dryness, the hot dry season, which are often the...
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Field Trip to Frist: tonight!
Last minute call to Nashville ceramic students and aficionados: we’ll walk through the Art of the Ancient Americas exhibit at the Frist tonight (May 9). Meet us in the hall outside the exhibit on the second floor at 6. Bring your school photo ID and get in free. And bring a sketch pad - the Frist doesn’t allow cameras!
April 2013
15 posts
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WatchNew vase form: the shoulder vase. In a shoot out between memorized Chaucer and stylized sunflowers, the sunflowers won out. What do you think?
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The Mug Exchange: The Mug Exchange →
themugexchange:
The Mug Exchange is an ongoing project by Brent Pafford. The intention of this project is to exchange or barter items/experiences that hold value relative to one hour of time. I have begun exchanging mugs that I have handcrafted for the project in hopes that there is continual expansion and…
Happy Birthday Russell Wright →
March 2013
21 posts
Kessler leaping hare bowls on Etsy
Starting my spring push on Etsy, and why not bust out the rabbits?
(Buy them here.)
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Nashville today
Join me at noon at the Frist for the curator’s tour of Art of the Ancient Americas.
And this evening my leaping hare bowls open their three month run at Beth Haley Design in 12 South - I’ll be there for a little while starting at 5.
This week at Welcome to the Yard
If you don’t already follow Aaron Sober’s “Welcome to the Yard” blog tracking his life while pursuing an MFA in clay, I hope to get you hooked. His latest kicks it off here:
“Imagery comes directly out of your own core. It comes from how you perceive the world, how carefully you look and listen, how well you remember, how well your mind works. What we draw on is...
February 2013
19 posts
Art in the Ancient Americas, pot #2
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Nashville area: join me at "Art of the Ancient...
Join me at the curator’s talk on opening day of the Frist’s new exhibition “Art of the Ancient Americas”, tomorrow (Friday) at 6:30 in the auditorium. It’s rare for Nashville to host any exhibitions of ceramics at the international level. This will be a welcome chance to get a close-up look at how cultures vastly different from our own used familiar materials...
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opportunity of a lifetime: study with Ostrom in...
I’m not given to hyperbole, but WVU is offering an amazing opportunity: study this fall with Walter Ostrom in Jingdezhen, the birthplace of porcelain. It’s a commitment: the full fall semester. In return, you get undergrad or grad credit, study in basics of the language, Chinese ceramic history and lots of hands-on studio work.
Walter Ostrom is an inspiring teacher whose insights into...
Michael Cardew bio
“One problem was his adherence to the mystic over the practical. It was not until he reached his early fifties that he finally buckled down and studied ceramic technology.”
The Telegraph reviews a fine new biography of Michael Cardew. Handmade pottery was dying a natural death in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. A handful of bold souls devoted their careers to saving this...
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Clay forensics: Roman brick with cat paw prints... →
“1 Kitty, 2 Empires, 2,000 Years: World History Told Through a Brick”
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Spend It All, Shoot It, Play It, Lose It
If I posted excerpts from Annie Dillard as often as I wanted to, this would be a Dillard blog instead of a clay one. Last night we heard Eric Owens give a masterful, disarmingly vulnerable performance, including a Schumann song of a text by Michelangelo. That brought this back to me, an essay Dillard wrote for the NY Times that held the seed of her book The Writing Life:
One of the few things...
