Around and About with Bulldog Pottery: Luke Syson, Karen Karnes, World Science

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Luke Syson, Karen Karnes, World Science

Clay Share - Tuesday

Luke Syson - Ted Talks

Excerpt from "How I learned to stop worrying and love "useless" art" filmed October 2013.
..... "Luke Syson was a curator of Renaissance art, of transcendent paintings of saints and solemn Italian ladies — serious art. And then he changed jobs, and inherited the Met's collection of ceramics — pretty, frilly, "useless" candlesticks and vases. He didn't like it. He didn't get it. Until one day … (Filmed at TEDxMet.)"

The two vases (vase à tête d'éléphant) were made by the Royal Sèvres Manufactory, made of porcelain in the late 1750s, and designed by the designer Jean-Claude Duplessis. These vases are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1958)

Potters Pick - Thursday

Karen Karnes

Karen Karnes - A photo still from the movie "Don't Know, We'll See" Movie by Lucy Pheonix

Born in 1925, Karen Karnes has had a very full life of making pots and engaging in the Ceramic Art World. A long pottery career and a passion for ceramics, she has paved a path for many studio art potters. She recently celebrated her 40th year curating the The Art School at Old Church Pottery Invitational in Demarest, NJ. She established this event with Mikhail Zakin (1920-2012) a friend, fellow potter and the founder of the Art School at Old Church, Demarest, New Jersey in 1974.

Mark Shapiro edited "The Chosen Path" a book about Karen Karnes that includes an introduction by Mark Shapiro, a foreword by Garth Clark, and narratives by Christopher Benfy, Jody Clowes, Janet Koplos, Edward Lebow, and Karen Karens. Mark also conducted an oral interview with Karen Karnes for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Beginning in 1997 there was a film produced about Karen Karnes by Lucy Pheonix. This documentary of Karen Karnes is called "Don't Know, We'll See".

The Salt Glazed Covered Jar, made by Karen Karnes in 1969 is in the collection of AMOCA (Gift of James W. and Jackie Voell), The American Museum of Ceramic Art, located in Pomana, California.

Karen Karnes, Covered Jar, 1969, Salt Glazed, stoneware, cone 11, in collection of AMOCA

Playing off the Instrument - Sunday

18 Mind-Blowing Images From The World Of Science

Photo by Stefan Eberhard

The photo above is by Stefan Eberhard, an image of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, commonly known as thale cress.

Excerpt from Fast Company blog titled Fast Co.Design....

"The annual award celebrates the intersection of science and art, reminding us that the best visual inspiration often comes from the shocking beauty of the natural world."

...."The images will be added to Wellcome's vast collection of more than 40,000 science images, culled from researchers, clinical photographers, and illustrators, which are available freely to the public. "

The Wellcome Images is one of the world's richest and most unique collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science.

You can see and read about the 18 award winning images at the Wellcome Images Award 2014.

Below is an image by Spike Williams of a Lagena, a class of marine protists with an external shell, made using ‘Spikeberg’ illumination, a combination of polarised light and Rheinberg illumination pioneered by the photographer, and captured on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera.