Alex Irvine Ceramics

The Odyssey Mural

2011-12-31T18:56:00.004-07:00

Brian and Gail McCarthy commissioned Kathy Triplett and I to make a 10 by 20 foot mural outside of Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. These pictures are som

e of the process. The beginning is at the bottom, and the most recent images are at the top.

The finished mural. (photo by Lawrence Irvine)

Meeting the deadline with a little help from my friends (from left to right): Kathy, Dustin Fowler, me, Bandit, Will Fortenbaugh. Not pictured, but many thanks to Drew, Mary Edson, Ron, Jon Graham, and all the staff, studio assistants and resident artists at Odyssey.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Beginning the grout on the far right.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Kathy Triplett in her element.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Kathy and I.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Our plaque, before grouting.

The yellow background tiles were placed free-hand--there was no predetermined order. We just made a whole bunch of odd shapes and fit them together randomly.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Detail of left side of mural part-way through installation.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Beginning the installation. The blue water tiles are very dimensional (they stick out 6 inches from the wall), so were hung on masonry screws and then mortared to the wall. The screws can be seen in this photo with washers. (photo by Frank Bott)

Glazed water tiles laid out on the floor.

(photo by Frank Bott)

Done modeling. Letting it dry out before the terra sig is applied.

All cleaned up.

Eventually I laid the wall and the figure down horizontally so I could cut it up and make the slab walls on the sides of the grout joints. Also notice I changed the coffee mug.

Finishing the hand (thanks for the pics, Rachel).

My scaffolding system.

The figure is hollow slabs.

Making it 3-dimensional.

I was afraid the clay would fall off the wall since it was standing almost vertically, so these little plywood blocks were screwed down to hold it up. You can barely see the approximate grout joints traced into the clay.

Starting the figure.

The wall it will be installed on is curved, so I built a curved plywood wall so the back of the tiles are curved the same.

unfired water tiles.

arial view

the right edge

The bottom edge

We were dogsitting too. That's cassie standing by the wall the figure was modeled on. I turned it into a table so the tiles would make the curve of the wall

The top courses of tile on the left, full depth on the right.

The full depth of the mold was used for most of the tiles, but the top courses of tile taper into the wall, so the backs of the tiles were angled in the mold.

Pressing a slab of clay into the mold

Kathy's studio.

While Kathy was traveling the world, I got to housesit for her and work in her shop. Here's all the molds laid out.

The finished stack of 45 molds

Half way done molding! I actually really enjoy plaster mold-making.

Back to my photos... here is one of the more complicated cottle set-ups. Notice the clay on the cottle boards contours the sides of the tile to reduce the weight of the mold.

Cleaning the plaster and clay residue off with a sponge.

Cleaning the inside up with a loop tool.

Cleaning the edges of the top.

Pulling out the clay from the plaster mold.

Cleaning up the sides and edges with a surform.

Labeling the tile number so I can keep track of how it all goes together.

Smoothing out the bottom.

Frosting the top half of the mold.

Pouring plaster into the cottles.

Once all 54 tiles were sculpted I started making plaster molds of them. I combined some of the smaller tiles to bring the number of molds down to 43. Thanks again Frank for taking these great photos of making one of the molds. Here the cottle boards are clamped around one of the tiles. I inherited a glass countertop that works great for making molds on as the plaster and clay dont stick to it.

I moved the tiles around several times, rearranging the tessellation to make sure the lines were continuous.

A great Bott shot that captures the attention to the edges of the tiles.

Woah.. notice the first professional photograph? That's local photo journalist Frank Bott. He graciously offered to take some process photos and it's pretty obvious which ones he took. Here you can see my hands using their favorite Mudtool to sculpt the volume of the tiles (yeah I hooked up a link to mudtools.com cause I worked there over the summer and they gave me my favorite tool for free, thanks Kelly!).

The right-angle wire cutter I built to help make the solid-clay tiles.

The beginning of making the tiles 3-dimensional. Basically, I built up 6.5 inches of clay on the plywood. The wood acts like a wareboard, letting me move the pieces around without misshaping them. I knew how the clay should line up based on the edges of the plywood.

The 7 pieces of plywood cut into 54 pieces.

The 5 x 5 square foot tesserae cut into 7 pieces.

Cutting it out with a jigsaw.

Transferring to plywood.

Translating the design onto a 5 x 5 foot piece of paper.

The fractured tesserae.

You can get a sense of how it fits together.

Here the notched square is cut up and reassembled to make this tessellating shape.

The basic tessellating shape of the water: a square missing a notch.

It sets the pattern off a little to add complexity.

The wall, approximately 10 x 20 feet.

You can faintly see some chalk lines drawn of the water design.

TRANSFORMUS 2011 SCULPTURE KILN

2011-07-18T16:13:00.047-06:00

Asheville artists Joey Sheehan, Rachel Wilder and I got a grant to build a fire sculpture for the regional Burning Man festival called Transformus. Our vision was to make a larger than life-size figure out of clay, wood fire it from the inside out, and then reveal it glowing hot over 2000 degrees. We would bring the sculpture to the festival unfired and transform it into ceramic in front of everybody. It was a big experiment. A lot of things could go wrong. We had never done anything like it before and we didn't know what to expect.

The experience transformed us.

Below are some pictures I took of our process. There are still some gaps as we wait for missing photos to manifest. A huge thank you to everyone who took pictures and got them to me. If you have any pics of the sculpture please email me at alexirvine@verizon.net.

The drawings we submitted with the grant. The sculpture sits on top of a firebox. The wood goes in the openings in the front.

Drawing of cross section of kiln. The wood goes in the front and then through the sculpture.

Starting the sculpture. Joey operating the weed burner.

Our maquette sitting next to the big sculpture.

The first seam. We built the sculpture in sections so we could lift it. The seam has a flange to keep the section lined up.

View of the back. Rachel working on the hands.

Top of the second section almost done with some perspective.

We built the sculpture with big coils. We put plastic over the seams to keep the clay from sticking to itself.

Rachel operating the weed burner. Bandit looking concerned

The finished head before we drilled the holes.

The crew.

And here's the first big gap. The journey from the studio to the festival was the most intimidating part. We took the sculpture apart in four sections and transported them on thick foam in a caravan of several cars and trucks with two trailers of wood 20 miles to the site. It went pretty smoothly.

The crew assembled in front of the sculpture on the burn field.

The effigy burn the night before. We candled the kiln the day and night with a propane burner to try and purge the moisture out of the clay.

We wrapped the sculpture in high temperature fiber blanket to insulate the heat and help us get it up past 2000 degrees. You can see where some of the moisture exploded part of the chest. Things had been going pretty smooth until the sculpture started cracking and exploding. We were afraid it might fall over at some point, hopefully not on us when we unwrapped it. At this point we were really riding by the seat of our pants.

Wrapping the fiber over the shoulders.

Samurai mummy

The sculpture glowing underneath the fiber.

Many thanks to all the people who were there taking pictures, especially Carter Smith, who took the above photo and some others below

Unwrapping the fiber (thanks Weasel for the photos!!)

The sculpture revealed glowing hot. There was a struggle to remove the fiber. By the time the bottom was uncovered the head had cooled some.

We didnt know what the fire was going to do with the small holes we drilled. Maybe it would flicker upwards? Flames wound up coming out from every hole.

photo: Carter Smith

We weren't sure if fire was going to come out of the pots in the hands at all when we made it. Every time we stoked it flames shot out several feet.

A beautiful shot of the crew with special celebrity appearance by Alex Greenwood who helped tremendously with the transportation and firing. Thanks dudebro!!! photo: Carter Smith

Our friends kept the kiln burning all night.

Personally, it is going to take a while to really process what we saw.

The sculpture in the morning. A combination of moisture exploding in the walls, shrinkage, and thermal shock shattered the sculpture into a million pieces.

The firebox was still over 600 degrees in the morning but we had to start breaking down to leave the festival that afternoon.

The top section removed. It came apart in several pieces.

Taking the next section down in pieces.

The firebricks and sculpture fragments cooling off around the floor of the firebox.

Some of the fragments

The site cleared.

Pack it in, pack it out.

(those aren't our chairs)

Face-jugs!

2010-03-25T16:17:00.019-06:00

UPCOMING SHOWS:

Emerging Clay at BLUE SPIRAL 1 in Asheville, NC

Contemporary Facejugs at Artspace Upstairs in Tryon, NC

Politics, Satire, and the Appalachian Vernacular

Face-jugs are packed with untapped potential. This dawned on me after moving to the mountains of Western North Carolina for a residency at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. It was during this time I began to assist folk potter, Michel Bayne in his South Carolina studio. Having a penchant for modeling faces in clay, the transition to face jugs came naturally to me. In this series I allowed my mind to wander. After completing the series and assembling this subconscious cast of characters I became aware of unusual juxtapositions. The Hobo jug next to the Tranny jug suggests two forms of poverty, urban and rural. While each head is a sculpture in itself, placing any one in the context of another multiplies the meanings. Like many old time jugs, most of the series is salt-fired.

Throughout the world face-jug traditions abound, but in Appalachia “ugly-jugs” were used for storing grandpa’s moonshine, and that just strikes me as the perfect canvas for contemplating politics.

Cop jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

10 H x 10 W x 8 in. D

Hobo jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

13 H x 6.5 W x 9.5 in. D

Tranny jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, high-temperature wire (in the cigarette)

13.5 H x 9 W x 10 in. D

Uncle Sam jug

stoneware, porcelain, oxide, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

16.5 H x 10 W x 10 in. D

Big Buddha jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

13 H x 7.5 W x 9 in. D

Skull jug (large)

stoneware, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

13 H x 5.5 W x 9 in. D

Soldier Boy jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

15 H x 8 W x 9.5 in. D

Green jug

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

12.5 H x 5.6 W 7 in. D

Faces-jug 2

stoneware, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, residual salt-fired

12 H x 7 W x 10 in. D

2009-11-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

My backyard ramp

2009-11-09T19:54:00.018-07:00

lonely beginnings..

32 sheets = $400

still framing by myself

Help sweet help. Finally.
There is one piece of plywood that I bought for the framing.
Everything else in this photo was salvaged. About 80 studs.
A third of them solid oak rough cut barn wood.

Rachel, ramp godess

11 foot stretch of concrete cast in place.
Opted for the 2 and a half inch PVC.
Rare stuff: $27 a 20 ft. piece.

60 somethin' bricks, cast red and black in home-made molds.
The most labor-intensive coping ever. so worth it.

Our humble abode

almost done!!

Free mulch!!

self-portrait

Rachel, Bandit, and Mimieux with a broken arm

Saturday night sesh

I love my backyard.

Liberty

2009-07-03T11:46:00.004-06:00

LIBERTY

about 2 and half feet tall

detail

This piece was originally going to be a teapot, but I decided to glaze the lid on, so now it's an ewer. The black glaze represents our dead and dying civil liberties. Instead of a roman woman she is African-American in honor of our new President.

devil-jugs!

2009-05-13T19:11:00.007-06:00

Rummy

dick Cheney

9.5 inches tall

2009-05-13T18:59:00.006-06:00

Check out the latest batch of lava sculptures:

4.5 inches long

4 inches long

3.5 inch long hand resting atop a real lave rock

5 inches tall

Same skull from above image resting atop two others

6 inches long

13 inches tall

13.5 inches tall

12 inches tall

12.5 inches tall

New Lava Sculptures

2009-05-13T18:44:00.006-06:00

12 inches tall

12.5 inches tall

13 inches tall

13.5 inches tall

6 inches long

another view

4 inches long

3.5 inches long hand resting atop a lava rock

4.5 inches long

OBAMA mugs

2009-03-14T11:04:00.006-06:00

Handmade Obama face-mugs, made in Asheville, NC.

$35 + shipping

Skin color varies.

3 different quotations:

Yes we can

Be the change

I inhaled frequently, that was the point.

Email if you're interested: alexirvine@verizon.net

self-portrait on fire

2008-10-17T09:31:00.001-06:00

self-portrait
36 x 24 x 25 in.
flameware
2008

meditater #5

2008-10-17T08:28:00.001-06:00

meditater #5
15 x 12 x 9 in.
flameware
2008
$4,500 (available at The Snyderman-Works gallery in Philadelphia, PA: (215)238-9576)

During the firing the clay started to melt and the head fell into a kiln shelf fusing an otherwise impossible connection with a flameware heart near the edge of the shelf.

Tiles:

2008-02-29T10:30:00.005-07:00

I've made over 200 of these tiles so far.

Are you a veteran? I will give you a tile for free. Please contact me: alexirvine@verizon.net

Veteran Returning Medal:

Operation Dewey Canyon III
April 19-23, 1971
2007-present
5 x 5 x 1 in.
Stoneware, Slip, Englobe, Oxide, Glaze, Underglaze, soda ash, salt-fired, wood-fired

I started making these tiles after taking a course on the Vietnam War in college. My father is a Vietnam War veteran, so I got really into the class. One event during that war really stood out to me: Operation Dewey Canyon III, a week-long protest / demonstration in 1971 held by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Washington D.C., attended by thousands of veterans. The goverment erected a fence to keep them away from the capitol building and on the last day of the demonstration more than 700 veterans lined up, and one by one, said into a microphone why they were repudiating their medal(s, ribbons, prostheses, enlistment papers, etc.), and tossed them over that fence, as a way of returning them to Congress. There is one very iconic photograph of that event:

Photo by Bernard Martell

I made a bas-relief of this photograph and continue to reproduce it as a ceramic tile. I give them to veterans, asking them what it means to return a medal.

Steve Fowle's response makes for a good introduction to the project:

I've recieved several letters from veterans. Below are some things Vietnam War vets wrote in response to the tile I sent them:

"Yes... The event(s) when medals were 'returned' by veterans after 'Nam is terribly significant and stands in American history a warning not to get into misguided adventures." - John Jones, former Green Beret medic

"The act of returning a medal invests it with meaning, even if it had none to begin with. The meaning imparted to the Dewey Canyon III medals would have been one of repudiation, as if to say, 'I repudiate the lies you told me to trick me into serving in your pointless and cynical war, and I repudiate the bad faith in which you told me those lies.'” - Chuck Yates, ex-US Navy Communications Technichian, RVN Service: 11/68 - 3/70

"Yes, the image of the vets at Dewey Canyon throwing back their medals is one for the ages; Rusty's gesture perfectly symbolizes the intensity of that historically charged and unprecedented moment, where veterans recently home from the front organize in protest of a war that their country continues to wage half a world away. The question of what it means to really 'support the troops' was just as current then as it is today." - Michael Uhl, Ph.D., Directer, National Board of Veterans For Peace

"One of the most moving and powerful things I’ve ever seen in my life was vets giving their name and rank, naming the medals they’d received, saying why they were repudiating their decorations and throwing them away. People might not have liked that act but they couldn’t accurately call the people who rejected their medals slackers, draft dodgers, 'hippies,' traitors or cowards. The vets “had been there, done that” and the military had recognized it."
- Horace Coleman, USAF, 1965-70; Vietnam, 1967-68

"Tossing the symbols of death, destruction, and oppression was a liberating sort of Redemption. It meant a lot, then; it means a lot, now. . . . 13,515 days have passed, since we tossed our medals. My rage has NOT passed." - Bill Perry, disabled veteran, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st AIRBORNE Division, Viet Nam 1967 ~ 1968

"I regard the act [returning his Medal of Honor] as a moment of enlightenment, a realization that I participated in something immoral. In the case of Vietnam something gravely immoral, like killing millions of innocent people." - Charlie Liteky, former chaplain (capt.), U.S. Amry

"The tile you sent of a Vietnam Veteran throwing back his bronze star is for me the essential gesture. If we can remember the men you rid themselves of the decorations they won at such a cost, we might also remember the war they fought was immoral." - Gerald McCarthy, Vietnam veteran

"I watched a series on Public Television in the late seventies and early eighties--half drunk on beer most of the time and half way or so through the viewings I packed my uniform, beret, medals, jump boots, Combat Medic Badge, Parachutist Badge, etc and took them to the dump the following morning--we had an incinerator there at the time." - John Jones, former Green Beret medic

“I recently have been running poetry workshops for returning Iraq and Afghan vets who are trying to write their way through PTSD. All of them knew exactly who Rusty was when they saw your tile without telling them. They have, to a man, come home feeling the way so many Nam Vets did, abandoned by those who sent them there, suspicious of the reasons why they were sent and many expressed the wish to return their medals.” – David Connolly, Ex-sergeant of Infantry, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Vietam, 1968/1969

"Many, many years later, during a return trip to Vietnam, I gave my Purple Heart Medal to a former North Vietnamese soldier and my Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal to a former Viet Cong soldier. But I have always regretted not participating in Dewey Canyon III" - Bill Ehrhart, formery Sergeant, USMC 2279361, Vietnam 1967-68

“The only other decoration I returned to the government was my Rifle Expert badge; I mailed it Dick Cheney after he shot his lawyer, “accidentally.” - Ken Campbell, USMC 1967-1970, Vietnam 1968-1969

“For Vietnam veterans who were against the war—I hardly know any other kind—the nation’s Capitol was rightly perceived as hostile territory in the hands of the generation that had sent us to war. The fact that that earlier generation has since been christened “The Greatest Generation”—by a television news anchorman, of all people—goes to show just how desperately needed your effort is." - Steve Fowle, Editor of The New Hampshire Gazette, Vietnam veteran

"My feelings have not changed at all since I was 19. If anything, they have intensified, as I see our government repeating the same mistakes and sending young men to die in a senseless, absurd war which only benefits the military-industrial complex" - Frank Dunn, veteran

"I've opposed all US wars, both overt and covert, ever since my experiences in Vietnam." - Paul Nichols, former Marine

"It breaks my heart to see that government exploiting another generation of noble young people in another cynical and pointless war, another generation who will spend the rest of their lives trying to understand what went wrong and how they were so completely taken in, trying to put their shattered lives back together." - Chuck Yates, ex-US Navy Communications Technichian, RVN Service: 11/68 - 3/70

“If I had been in Washington that day, I’d have hurled them with a vengeance; duct-taped to a brick, perhaps.” – Steve Fowle, Editor of The New Hampshire Gazette, Vietnam veteran

“I was there at the time and it is still hard for me to convey the emotional impact of the medal-throwing protest on those who participated.” – Jan Barry, Vietnam veteran, founding member of Vietnam Veterans against the War

"I was unable to be a part of Operation Dewey Canyon III, but I did eventually get rid of my ribbons at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in November 1982." - Gerald McCarthy, Vietnam veteran

"I know what the vets who “returned” their medals had done to earn them. They had put their bodies and their lives on the line. Incest and killing are two of the strongest taboos that humans have. Those vets had killed." - Horace Coleman, USAF, 1965-70; Vietnam, 1967-68

"The popular media demonized us, the public shunned us and the government wished we’d go away. We went on with our lives as best we could." - Horace Coleman, USAF, 1965-70; Vietnam, 1967-68

This photograph was donated by Vietnam veteran, Steve Sinsley, taken by him at Dewey Canyon III.

Many, many thanks to all the veterans who contributed to this project.

Do you know any vets who I should send a tile to? Please contact me: alexirvine@verizon.net

a self-portrait:

2008-02-29T10:15:00.002-07:00

(in the kiln)

self-portrait
2008
33 x 21 x 19 in.
Black Stoneware

Photo by Malcolm W. Browne

Loadedware: American Gangsta

2008-02-29T10:00:00.002-07:00

CENSORED FROM CITY HALL IN PHILADELPHIA!

Above photo by Ken Yanoviak

Loadedware: American Gangsta
2007
12.5 x 10.5 x 23 in.
Stoneware, Glaze, Englobe, Gold and Platinum Lustre

This piece was censored from the 2008 New Faces exhibition at City Hall in Philadelphia. It was juried into the show and installed for about a week and then removed with no explanation. The curators were nice enough though to let me display some tiles instead. I didn't make a fuss about being censored because my professors told me not to ("focus on school.") When I picked up my tiles after the 3 month show I was told that the piece had beed censored (it wasn't the first time that it's happened at City Hall) for several reasons. Foremost because the new Mayor, Michael Nutter, was hot to drop Philly's number one spot on the gun homocides chart, and he didn't want City Hall to exhibit an image of a black man holding a gun. Which leads to another reason I was told it was censored: the judges didn't realise I was white. They had assumed upon jurying it that I was black. The first reason that I was told though upon these revelations was that there was a police dinner/convention thing happening the evening after it was taken out of the display case. Interestingly, several people have told me they thought the gold hand the gangster is shaking behind his back was the police. I prefer to think it is "the Man," an interpretation of a former professor.

What I think this teapot means:

The gangsta image/lifestyle, so popularized by the media is now being controlled. I don't think it has always been, like when B.I.G., NWA, Tupac, etc. started it, but the record companies and perhaps government-sponseored organizations now are controlling it. The handle of this teapot is a remote controller plugged into the gangsta's head. The gangsta shakes a gold hand behind his back, making a deal: get rich and play the puppet. Promote super-materialism. Get them CEO's richer. Don't save your money to rise above your poverty. It is a form population contol.
Conspiracy theory? Maybe, but my gut thinks not, especially when you consider facts like the FBI promoted and participated in violent racism in the South. There's a pattern here.

The Christ of Reconciliation

2008-02-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Above photo by Lawrence Irvine

The Christ of Reconciliation
2006/2007
Stoneware
44 x 21 x 33 in.

When I first saw a Spanish Colonial artifact of Christ depicted with the Sacred Heart, it immediately conjured parallels to Aztec human sacrifice.

Later, I learned that the Sacred Heart was made an icon for specific veneration by the Catholic Church in the 17^th century. This movement was led by missionaries to Mesoamerica who realized that the heart held a significance for the aboriginal people they were seeking to convert. The Sacred Heart icon became an image that was simultaneously revered by Spanish Catholics in Europe and Mesoamericans who saw in it a connection to sacrifices made to the Aztec god of resurrection, Quetzalcoatl.

This icon is a tool used to explain a synthesis of divine concepts in visual terms; Christ is a man, yet omnipresent, sacrificing Himself for the sake of the viewer standing before Him. Christ is holding an obsidian knife, traditionally used by Aztec priests to cut the hearts out of sacrificial victims. The wound creates a window into the cosmos created within Him. This space pierced by light simultaneously represents the fundamental significance of the Messiah’s resurrection in Christianity and the cyclical rebirth of the universe in Aztec cosmology. The wounds of the crucifixion are present upon Christ’s body as he performs this action to reconcile the foreign idea of Himself within a new cultural context.

Had a communion between these two cultures, resulting in icons like this, been allowed by the workshops producing religious art in Colonial Mesoamerica, it might have converted the aboriginal leap to faith into a leap of faith.

In the Christ of Reconciliation, one can see the icon of the Sacred Heart split into its two primal counterparts to reborn in a new symbol made flesh.

(Edited by David Spolum)

The Skatesword

2008-02-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Skatesword
2007
Steel, Griptape, Trucks, wheels, bearings, bolts
4 x 7.5 x 24 in.

Hood Cups

2008-02-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hood Cups
2007
3.5 x 8 x 3.5 in.
Stoneware, Underglaze, Oxide

Loadedware: GI Joe

2008-02-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Loadedware: GI Joe
2007
Stoneware, oxide, glaze
10 x 35 x 35 in.

Throughout the history of the United States there have been perceived threats to our way of life, to which we have traditionally responded with military fervor.

This tradition is translated here into a teapot of GI Joe, the “Real American Hero”—defender of the free world and contributing sculptor of my childhood perception of the Armed Forces.

In Joe’s hands rests a Colt M1911 “.45 auto,” which in its clip, holds 7 rounds, one for each figurehead in this history lesson:

Sitting Bull
Adolf Hitler
Emperor Hirohito
Ho Chi Minh
Joseph Stalin
Saddam Hussein
Osama Bin Laden

To pour the tea you put the gun to their head.

The handle on the back of Joe is the means to control him; it is his orders. The controller of the teapot assumes the role of the American government in this tea ceremony.

While pouring tea into some of the cups reaffirms the presumption of good that is the American narrative, it is in taking the whole set out of the cupboard that exposes the shroud protecting our presumption.

Loadedware: Manifest Destiny

2008-02-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Loadedware: Manifest Destiny
Oxide on Stoneware
12 x 12.5 x 8 in.
2007

Loadedware: Blackwater

2008-02-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Loadedware: Blackwater
2007
installation view: 10 x 16 x 20 in.
Stoneware, Glaze, Oxide

Fatman Giving Birth

2008-02-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

Fatman Giving Birth
2007
steel, aluminum
18 x 13 x 13 in.