Solo Show at The Artisan Gallery

This is the work I delivered to lovely Northampton, Mass on Tuesday. It was a pretty drive through the Green Mountains as Fall is arriving and patches of orange and red are visible on the hillside. The show opened on Friday and runs through Nov. 8.

Tiffany, Isa and I will be going back on October 10th for the Opening Reception where I will likely be upstaged once again by my adorable 11 month old daughter – and rightly so.

This cycle brought out some new vases, serving dishes, and box forms as well as a transparent satin matt glaze, a white terra sigillata and a heavier dose of a dijon colored glaze than usual.

I’m honored to have the opportunity to show in this great gallery in this hip little New England town. Check out the website for The Artisan Gallery. If this is your neck of the woods, please stop by and take a look.

American Pottery Festival Sept. 11-13

On Friday, the American Pottery Festival opens at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis. I’m posting a few images of the 50+ pieces I sent for the show. If you can make it by this weekend, it will be well worth the trip. Two exhibition galleries house the festival and the sales gallery is also full of beautiful work. There are demonstrations and slide shows all weekend as well.

American Pottery Festival Poster

I just received a stack of these in the mail, and lifted the image from the Northern Clay Center website. If you would like to hang one on your wall, email me with your mailing address and I’ll supply the postage.A very tasteful poster full of beautiful pots. The red bowl near the bottom left corner is a piece I sent for the APF Preview in May. I’m honored to be included in this show and will be in the studio this month making the work.

The American Pottery Festival takes place at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis from September 10 – 13, 2009. If you are from or in the Twin Cities, stop by for 2 large galleries full of some of the best pottery in the country. Saturday and Sunday are scheduled with slideshows and workshops by some of the participating potters.

What I Did at Summer Camp

To finish the series of posts from Austria, I’ll log the last one from home in Vermont. These images are of the finished pieces from Hotel Pupik. They were taken at the Hotel Pupik Presentation on July 18 & 19. The room where they are shown is the upstairs of what was once a barn and the floor is supported by cross vault arches built in the 17th century.

I have to send thanks to Angelika Fritz of Murau, Austria for firing these for me on very short notice. She started the kiln on Thursday evening and hand delivered them onf Friday just before the presentation began. As fire is the 4th and arguably the most important element in the process, it wouldn’t have been possible without you, Angelika.  Thank you so much.

For more images of the presentation  and a list of the other artists, check out David Murobi’s photography site.

Also, read the musings of Tiffany Rhynard, my wife, on  her Austrian choreograghy experience at www.bigapensemble.com.

Now that I’m home, I look forward to seeing what happens with these ideas that were planted six time zones from home.  I picked up a supply of clay today and tomorrow starts a new cycle of work in my own studio.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Austrian Update

Our stay here at Schrattenberg is coming to a close and its time to clean up my work space and wait on the pots to be fired. If all goes well I will show 4 or 5 pieces in the Hotel Pupik presentation this weekend.

The process has evolved since my last post. I started by trying to be very representational of the cross vault and morphed into a reinterpretation of the architectural form. In the end I returned to replicating and finally felt like I understood the intersecting arch. I’ll show the last piece first as it dried in the sun this morning before going into the kiln.

As I worked through a series of these forms, I began adding coils to the carved foundations and eventually making them entirely with coils. This gave more options to make them deeper, wider, and more open.

My host, Heimo Wallner, was able to procure some natronwasserglas (sodium silicate) and I made a terra sigillata from the dried scraps of the clay I’ve been using. The sodium silicate deflocculates the slip and causes the clay particles to repel each other.  The coarse particles settle to the bottom leaving the finest particles to be decanted and applied to the surface of the pots. This gives a satiny sheen even without glaze.

The pieces I’ve made here will be fired unglazed, but covered in terra sigillata. Here are images of a few more pieces, freshly coated with terra sig last night.

Working Vacation in Austria

Hotel Pupik

I’m spending the month between the 22nd of June and the 22nd of July in an artist colony in Schrattenburg, Austria.  Hotel Pupik is a summer residency program for all types of art.  At the moment an animation, dance choreography, and an installation are in the works.  By the end of our stay, performance art, jazz and experimental music will be joining the group for a presentation on the 18th of July. My wife, Tiffany Rhynard, has a residency in dance (see www.bigapensemble.com).  Isa and I came along for a month in Europe. Since arriving, I’ve been given 60 kilos of beautiful butterscotch colored clay and a space to work.

Hotel Pupik is housed in the farm buildings of a baroque castle built in 1680. The cross vault is used both in the castle and in the farm building.  This is a type of ceiling support where 2 barrel arches intersect each other at a right angle. The prevalence and beauty of this simple voluminous form intrigues me and has become the subject for a formal exploration.

At the moment, I’m trying a techniue that I haven’t used much.  I’m starting with a solid block of clay and carving the interior to make a slightly compartmentalized space. I’ll post some images of some of these shapes in the coming days.

cross vault in the castle

Work in Progress

I couldn’t resist snapping this shot of the late afternoon sun drying some mugs. The backlit grass glowing with translucence. The next step for these will be brushing them with terra sigillata and bisque firing before they are glazed and fired again. Other pots in various stages of progress are lunch plates, pasta bowls, oil bottles, and an assortment of serving dishes.

They should be cooled and out of the kiln by late next week and en route to Mystic, CT and Saluda, NC. Heartwood Gallery in Saluda and Whyervernot in Mystic will have new groupings of my work on display by the beginning of July.

If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, a dozen mugs just arrived at Iota in Dallas. Stop by to take a look and see how they feel.

Red Lodge Clay Center Poster

Thanks to Red Lodge Clay Center for including a square teapot of mine on their 2009 poster. RLCC has a great website with a shows that rotate monthly and featured artists, take a look and join their mailing list. The gallery has a good selection of my work and it is all available online.

Minneapolis and Oxford Shows Open Tuesday, May 5th

Niel Hora

Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi is hosting “Contain and Deliver” curated by Bayard Morgan and Jane Hart G. Morgan. It will be on display from May 5 through June 12.

Caroline Cercone

This group show will feature work by Liz Sparks, Caroline Cercone, Ashley Chavis, Will Cook, Marty Fielding, Jane Hart G. Morgan, Niel Hora, Jay Jensen, Ky Johnston, Paul Moeller, Wendy Olson, Joe Singewald, Rachel Sonenbloom, and Bayard Morgan.

If you’re in the area, a visit to the gallery will be well worth the trip to see a diverse group of good pots.

American Pottery Festival Preview

Kari Radasch

The Northern Clay Center is putting up a preview of the American Pottery Festival show that happens in September. The APF Preview opens May 5th and runs through the 31st. To quote the NCC:

As always, an outstanding roster of potters will be featured, including Minnesota’s own Warren MacKenzie. Festival-goers will enjoy a rich variety of work—some by established potters who have achieved a high level of excellence in the ceramic arts, and some exciting, new work by emerging artists. Participating potters include Chuck Aydlett (MN), Wayne Branum (WI), Sam Chung (AZ), Naomi Cleary (PA), Steven Colby (CO), Josh DeWeese (MT), Paul Eshelman (IL), Marty Fielding (VT), Marlene Jack (VA), Julie Johnson (NY), Gail Kendall (NE), Forrest Lesch-Middleton (CA), Warren MacKenzie (MN), Matthew Metz (NY), Sequoia Miller (WA), Joseph Pintz (OH), Kari Radasch (ME), Davie Reneau (KY), Steven C. Rolf (WI), Hide Sadohara (NY), Albion Stafford (NY), Shoko Teruyama (NC), and Betsy Williams (NM).

Sequoia Miller

Marty Fielding @ AKAR

Recent Ceramics: Marty Fielding and Stacy Snyder

Featured Artist: Josh DeWeese

New Work: Guillermo Cuellar

AKAR – Iowa City, IA

4/24/09 – 5/15/09

I’m quite excited to have this show at AKAR and to be in such good company. Please click over to see it. It opens at www.akardesign.com at 10 Central Standard Time Friday morning. The show will mark the national debut of my new work. I hope you enjoy it and all of the pots are for sale through the AKAR.

Thanks for checking it out,

Marty