Here are my first attempts at getting back into creating my own glazes since getting back into ceramics in the last 18 months. They are a series of cone 04 line blends based on two very simple glazes I had written down in my notes from college, one gloss and one matte.

I like some of the things happening on either end of the spectrums represented here. 2% iron and 2% rutile worked quite beautifully in the matte glaze. For the gloss, the manganese and the combination of cobalt and rutile in higher percentages are quite nice. The photographs don’t convey the subtleties very well. I want to keep pushing these glazes with some different combinations, but probably need to acquire a few more colorants before going at it again.

My electric kiln supposedly has the ability to fire to cone 10, although I haven’t fired it this high yet and probably won’t until I buy new elements. High fire glazes generally have more depth, more complicated surfaces, desired by many ceramic artists. For the time being, I’m looking forward to the challenge of creating subtle and beautiful glazes in a simple electric kiln.

I hope to be able to, some day, do some soda firing again. Design-Realized did an ‘expose’ of sorts on her blog of the inside of a soda kiln in a post called Up Close and Personal: Soda kiln. It’s worth looking at her pictures. A friend who is building a house just outside of town is also interested in building a wood kiln on his property. Apparently a new technology, something called Kaowool, can be used in place of bricks. It’s a lot less expensive than spending $3-4 on single firebricks to piece together a kiln according to my local ceramic supplier.

From the International Herald Tribune, an article titled Dwindling art supplies generate blindness - and erratic prices. This interesting, if unfathomable, piece ends with this paragraph:

Art lovers with millions to spare, do not despair in these lean times. Even when there is not much left to sift through, great works of art can still be found, if only because so few buyers have the eye needed to recognize them.

The article basically laments how wealthy collectors bid up mediocre works by popular artists while overlooking better paintings by lesser known craftsmen. Regardless, the numbers being thrown around are the kinds of money I think of retiring on — after giving most of it away.

But I’m not writing this post in response to the numbers or to desperate connoisseurs shelling out boatloads of clams just so they can say they own a Monet. I’m writing this to ask whether or not we can we create more of a sense of balance in the art world, with more reasonable prices and local markets. This was where my mind went after reading the title of the aforementioned article.

It’s OK that galleries, museums and individuals express such desire, via their wallets, for certain works of art by categorically revered artists. But, and this is really just brainstorming here, isn’t there a better way for all of this money to be spent? Why can’t these cash laden art lovers do a little more research and help out the quality up-and-coming local artist by purchasing his or her canvases. Not just paintings by the dead ones. What if they spent a little less on antiques and a little more on new works?

Just a thought. A rant. An aspiring artist’s ramble. Sure I have a vested interest in how collector’s spend their money on the work of living painters and sculptors. But, seriously, aren’t the prices being paid for these masterworks more than just a little bit out of hand?

I just finished a brief examination of Picasso’s full and long life in the book Pablo Picasso: A Modern Master by one Richard Leslie. I’m not sure the book is worth commenting on in depth, but I sat down to write a little about it and we’ll see what the html editor spits out.

The presentation of Leslie’s short biographical work is impressive. The reproductions of Picasso’s work are very nice, printed on heavy, glossy paper. It feels good in your hands. That’s where my praise for the book ends, however. The short work is adequate enough in giving a person an overview of the artist’s life, but it does so with pretentious and unsubstantiated language. More than once I read a paragraph and came away wondering what orifice the writer pulled that out of. These recurring and somewhat convoluted observations would bother me less if they were elaborated upon. They might actually be accurate or warranted statements if Leslie gave us citations, or even if he prefaced certain paragraphs with “in my opinion,” but the author makes no reference to where his ideas are coming from.

As already noted, the writing does communicate the basics of Picasso’s life and work, from his youth and background to cubism and from harlequins to minotaurs. Unfortunately, the images of his paintings don’t follow the text with any semblance of order. I found myself paging around after seeing a reference to a particular work, wondering if it was pictured in the book on some far flung back page. The writing is chronological. The images are, in a very loose sense, attempting to chronological. But not.

I eluded a few weeks ago to the fact that, as I read through this short book, my respect for Picasso was ebbing. This caused me to wonder where this respect came from in the first place. Sure I knew who the artist was from college courses — even from culture at large — but I knew very little of him other than “cubism” and “Guernica.” He’s held up as this mythical figure in the art world, but few details go along with this unspoken heroism in my experience. It takes independent research to really examine an artist’s life and body of work. History classes don’t cut it.

I’m still smitten with Guernica. The painting above of the war in Korea is impressive too, although this painting isn’t one from the book. A lot of the paintings and sculptures featured in A Modern Master come across as scrappy. I’m hard pressed to see the craft I expected to see from a man so revered in the art world. Perhaps this book chose poorly when selecting works to represent the life of this prolific artist.

In the near future, three new contributors to The Aesthetic Elevator will introduce themselves.

Daniel Nielsen is my brother and an aspiring painter living in central Nebraska. Matt Pierson is a practicing architect and construction management prof at John Brown University. And Ben Rhoads is the long-range planner for the city of Siloam Springs. Each of these individuals will bring a new perspective in their related field to the thoughts and discussion on this blog.

They all bring expertise relevant to The Aesthetic Elevator’s mission statement: Exploring the visual arts, architecture and community planning in the context of American culture and the Christian faith — towards a well-considered visual environment. The total number of posts to the site isn’t likely to change dramatically, at least not in the near future. Look for three to six posts a week, all for a well-considered visual environment.

I fired the kiln yesterday, a very full load and a combination of functional and sculptural wares. I’m not sure how much I’ll end up liking by the time finishes are applied. I had some problems with the terra sig flaking off of a number of the pieces. I’m guessing this was on account of the very tight surface of the clay, Steve’s White, I’ve been using. This occurred on all of the 10 cups in the firing which I had high hopes for. I’ll redo them in a few weeks, after which time I hope to have built my very own kickwheel.

I’ve been thinking about building a wheel for a while now, but couldn’t figure out how to make the flywheel. For some reason I assumed these were fabricated out of stone. I finally found some instructions online, from 1970, saying to cast it out of concrete. Why I didn’t think of this earlier is beyond me; just last month I cast a small base of concrete for a future wood sculpture.

I also retain high hopes for these little guys:

They will be glazed on the bottom (not in the photo) and smoked on their sides. I don’t yet know exactly how they will be displayed, but they are intended to hang from something, somewhere. I call them funnels only because I followed them up with some tornadic forms — although neither of the forms were consciously meant to represent tornadoes when I began them, curiously enough.

Some mild frustration beset me this afternoon as I unloaded the kiln and commenced work on some line blends. This relates back to the very limited time I have to be pursuing ceramics, although I have more hours now than six months ago. When I graduated with my BFA in studio art, I figured I’d make a living as a graphic artist. Actually pursuing sculpture or pottery as a career wasn’t on my radar. Over the last couple of years I’ve warmed, perhaps I’ve been divinely wooed into considering this more.

But it’s a tricky step of faith, living off of proceeds from your artwork — when you’ve never really sold any of it up to now. My ideal life at this point in time would be to work half-time for the mission mobilizing ministry I’ve been with for almost five years now (I’m really enjoying the new project we’re working on), and be half-time in pursuing ceramics. I don’t know how this can happen financially though.

One idea that’s worth looking into a little further attempts to combine and monetize both my and my wife’s creative interests. This notion involves some kind of storefront, will probably require start-up capital we don’t have and would only work financially in the long-term if we were able to live and work out of the same space.

We’ll see where that goes, if anywhere.

It revolves, but I wouldn’t refer to it as revolutionary.

Florence based architect David Fisher’s novel idea for a skyscraper leaves me scratching my scalp. The structure will be constructed by factories in Italy, already gearing up for the project, as pods which will be transported to Dubai. Authorities in Dubai haven’t yet signed off on the deal according to The Independent, nor has financing been firmed up. Says the architect:

Today’s life is dynamic, so the space we are living in should be dynamic as well. Buildings will follow rhythms of nature. They will change direction and shape from spring to summer, from sunrise to sunset, and adjust themselves to the weather. In other words, buildings will be alive.

I admire the man’s desire to think outside of the box, but this project isn’t anything more than gimmicky in my opinion. I like it as sculpture, but as a building it seems to placate an impatient, technology saturated culture. Actually living in the thing — it’s being built as condos — seems impractical.

For instance, what happens if I want to watch the sunset from my 40th floor home? Will I have to walk along the outside wall as my floor turns in order to see the clouds change colors? What if there are interior walls that go clear to the exterior wall and I can’t stroll along like I want to? Can I turn the revolving feature off?

One idea I like in this project is the plan to put wind driven turbines in between each floor to generate energy. I’m worried about possible noise from such a feature, but a self-sufficient building is a good design to pursue on this scale. Solar panels will also be used on the “roof,” although I can’t tell where the roof is on the morphing tower.

I suppose, however, I’m not the target market for this kind of dwelling anyway. I’m confident it will be way out of my budget, and moving to the desert isn’t something I plan to do on purpose either.

Beauty, and the idea that there are “objective” standards of Beauty — however far beyond our ability to imagine, create, notate and understand them in this — is a driving force in my life and my art. I generally use the word “Divine” in place of “objective,” but the meaning is the same to me.

The trick is that I also understand the notion of personal aesthetics as described by Alain de Botton in his book The Architecture of Happiness. I’ve mentioned Botton and his ideas a number of times before, particularly here.

What if there is an objective beauty and personal aesthetics. As I brainstorm in my html editor, I’m wondering if our own subjective, personal ideas of beauty aren’t each part of the larger puzzle. Some of us like Victorian architecture, some Gothic, some the beautiful Japanese structures of the Edo period and still others mid-century modern. Perhaps the Divine, objective aesthetic is some unfathomable but utterly perfect combination of all styles.

This is pure speculation of course, and needs some significant mulling over. Even beginning from the point at which I believe that the Divine aesthetic is beyond our ability to imagine, create, notate and understand, this is a thought that seems worth pursuing.

This entry was inspired by Old World Swine’s two most recent posts, No Talent Required and Objective Beauty, both good reads.

Last evening ABC World News reported on more sour real estate statistics. Prices are down almost 27% in Miami and Vegas, and a number other places have also seen 20-plus percent drops in value — although sales were higher in April than they have been recently. They really made it sound just terrible, as though the entire nation were in the grips of an armageddon.

While visiting little Kearney, Nebraska, in May for my sister’s graduation, the local newspaper featured a story titled Housing Slump? Not in Kearney. The front page article then proceeded to report that sales are up in this university town of 25,000 people. Not only that, prices are up, about $10,000 (~8%) on the average home over the last year.

Houses in Kearney are selling more quickly as well, in an average of 83 days in 2008 compared to 113 days last year. Local realtor board president Steve Coram was indignant, making it clear that there’s no such thing as a national real estate market. “Local economies drive real estate, so our market should not be judged based on what’s happening somewhere else” he said.

I’m prone to spout generalizations as much as the next person, but why must the national media insist on making such broad and inaccurate, or at the least incomplete, statements? This kind of reporting feeds an unwanted hysteria that births self-fulfilling prophecies. ABC World News, in my experience, isn’t averse to reporting on positive and less sensational items. Why then don’t they, along with other national media outlets (NPR, as I recall, is just as guilty on this particular issue), talk about this real estate mess on balanced terms? If this one somewhat innocuous midwestern housing market is bucking the mortgage mess in the larger markets, surely there are other such communities as well.

And isn’t it more interesting news to talk about the fish that swim upstream anyway?

I understand that evening news programs on television have very limited airtime, but they can do better than this. They need to do better than this.

A few years back I began reading a compilation edited by Jeremy Begbie titled Beholding the Glory. I haven’t finished all (or even most) of the essays, but one thing from one of them I did read really stuck with me, a most simple point that had yet to be brought to my attentive attention despite growing up in the church.

That point is this: God affirmed the worth of creation, though fallen and out of His favor, by sending Jesus to Earth in human form. How wonderfully plain and straightforward.

Not long after I read that essay I picked up a book by Randy Alcorn titled Heaven. This theologically rich but down to Earth look at what the Bible says about Heaven further affirmed the value of a physical Creation. This may come as a surprise to a lot of Evangelicals. A large part of Alcorn’s Scriptural exploration debunks common and perpetuated myths about the afterlife such as getting your wings, playing harps on clouds and the oft-despised, never-ending up in the sky church service.

Alcorn suggests — based on a myriad of Scripture — that the New Jerusalem will be right here, on the same dirt you and I trip over today. Further, he points to the possibility that art we make in the here and now will be on the “New Earth.” In C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, in The Last Battle, the followers of Aslan step through a door into Aslan’s country. The children see, on the other side of the door, their home, while Narnia behind them — on the other side of the threshold resting on the same ground — is swallowed up in darkness. They see their city, their countryside, their own houses. Alcorn points to Lewis’ illustration as the best way to describe, with such brevity, what he understands about the New Heaven and the New Earth from the Bible. Thus, if we subscribe to Alcorn’s understanding, though this fallen world will be necessarily purified, restored, aspects and objects of our lives here and now will carry over into the new world, the New Jerusalem.

There’s much too much in this book to go into any further here, suffice it to say that it made sense to me, was backed up by the Bible I believe in and shows the value that God places on His Creation, despite its fallen state. As an artist, this is an incredible point of view. It is a burgeoning hope in the face of political corruption, greed, famine and so much sorrow that we see on a day to day basis. God knows about this tyranny, deception, disregard and pride so symptomatic of man’s fall from grace.

Incarnation: And yet, He still saw fit to tread this dirt.

Restoration: And still, He plans to restore this soil on His return.

As a tactile artist, as someone who is innately driven to create physical objects, palpable environments, these observations mean the world.

Adding: Anglican bishop NT Wright was interviewed by Steven Colbert this week, where the bishop says again what Alcorn wrote in his book. Via ThinkChristian.

It’s still storm season, although the more severe (read “interesting, beautiful, thrilling, where-I-wanna-be”) thunderstorms are up north this time of year in my native Nebraska. I’ve taken a number of photographs this Spring of cloud forms as they pass by, and am also mulling over a couple of new thoughts with respect to their influence in my artwork.

My first observation is pretty simple. It is a comparison between my material of choice, clay, and the material of the storms and clouds I so often choose to represent. The finished ceramic product is very hard, more or less a rock. Clouds possess a volumetric and spatial presence, but are “wispy” as my wife suggested yesterday. They are atmospheric, per se, as opposed to solid. Regardless of this stark contrast, wet clay may be the best material (that I can think of) for molding the nebulous nature of thunderstorms. Stone and wood are harder to cajole into such organic forms, and with clay an artist can model almost as quickly as a summer tempest pops up through the heat and humidity.

Observation number two. I’ve focused, with good reason, on the dramatic forms and colors of the storm clouds themselves. Recently more of my attention is being drawn to the space in between the bottom of the thunderstorm, with a commonly flat appearance, and the horizon. The characteristics of this defined space are a new fascination for me. It’s an enormous space, hard to discern when you’re in the midst of the squall. The colors contained in this environment seem to penetrate the air; they take on a tactile quality. The observed “room” is huge, the size of a city, but only able to be comprehended from a significant distance — to the point the powerful storm becomes an icon instead of a threat.

I don’t know where these new thoughts will lead, but I’m eager to find out. I’ve begun with some sketches to further this novel surveillance and hope I can act on them in the next few months.