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Camilla Akraka

March 15, 2013, 10:49 am
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Camilla Akraka

Born 1968 London. Lives and works in Stockholm and Östergötland.
Education

1995-2001 MFA, Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm






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Patrik Andiné

March 15, 2013, 10:59 am
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Patrik Andiné

During several years working with drawing and painting Patrik Andiné has never denied that his main interest lies in depicting and constructing realistic pictures.

The different themes in his paintings are many. The pictures sometimes have so many narrative qualities that they almost seem collected from stills out of fiction films.



His specific hues and his distinctive environments suggest influences from early animated fiction films and at the same time he hesitates at being compared to surrealistic art or psychoanalyzing concepts.

In Patrik Andiné’s work the unspoken is the significant.


Patrik Andiné








Born 1968 in Gothenburg. Lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.





Education



1990 – 95 The Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH), Stockholm

1988 – 90 Hovedskous School of Art, Gothenburg

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Martin Wickström

March 15, 2013, 11:10 am
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Martin Wickström

Born in Finspång, lives and works in Stockholm
Education

1977-81
Gerlesborgsskolan, Stockholm

1982-87
Konsthögskolan, Stockholm








Martin Wickström
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Jan De Vliegher

March 15, 2013, 12:10 pm
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Jan De Vliegher



Jan De Vliegher’s paintings are reminiscent of an Impressionism that uses the object as an alibi for the eruption of highly expressive light studies on the canvas. De Vliegher paints ‘familiar objects’: glass, porcelain plates, marble busts, interior fragments, facades, and so on. But he deconstructs traditional pictorial illusionism which leads to an increasingly higher level of abstraction.



As a painter he seems infatuated with his subjects, which he manages to ‘capture’ in a highly sensual and evocative way. There’s something Baroque about his work, which could also be considered as memories of a romantic world view, in which subjective perceptions are raised to a universal level. His work is hardly a case of ‘superficial’ decorative painting, nor does it aspire to be profound or visionary. The relationship with a ‘real’ reality is maintained, but he chooses to add elements to it or omit them.



Kasteel van Gaasbeek, Belgium














Jan De Vliegher



Born 1964

Lives and works in Bruges
Since 2003 teaching drawing and painting Stedelijke Academie Bruges and Art academy Knokke

Studies

hoger instituut voor beeldende kunsten
Sint-Lucas Gent, 1982-1986
masterdegree in painting (magna cum laude)






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Sara Golish

March 15, 2013, 2:19 pm
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Sara Golish




Sara Golish is an emerging visual artist, born in Windsor, Ontario.

Since putting pencil to paper as a toddler, she knew her passion was to become an Artist. After excelling in the Windsor Center for the Creative Arts during high school, she moved to Toronto in hopes of seeking a more challenging artistic environment at the Ontario College of Art & Design. After completing a 4 year program as a drawing & painting major, she received her Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 2008, acquiring the Eric Freifeld Award for 'proficiency in draughtsmanship.' More recently, she furthered her artistic education in graphic and web design and development at George Brown College.




Sara has also completed extensive work as a decorative painter, which has included designing and painting murals, bas relief, gilding and faux finishes in traditional and contemporary styles. She has worked on high-end residential, corporate and retail interior design projects for Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Sarasota and Barbados. Sara has also sub-contracted work for those such as Brian Gluckstein, Chapman Design Group, Yabu Pushelberg, Douglas Design, Munge Leung, Andrew Ness, and Jay Hodgins, to name a few.

Presently she is based out of Toronto, Ontario, working as a Freelance Artist, who specializes in figurative and portrait drawing and painting. 


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Anna Maria Strzelczyk

March 16, 2013, 2:51 am
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Anna Maria Strzelczyk









"Anna Maria Strzelczyk born in 1949 in Gdańsk, studied at the State Art Academy in Gdańsk at the department of graphical design; graduated as a Master of Art in 1977. Since 1980 specializes in ceramic sculpture (majolica pottery). In 1984 won the Gold Medal of Rotary Club in Faenza. She participated in the International Competition of Ceramic Art in Faenza (1984), in Milano (1985 ) and Vallauris (1988). Her works may be found in the Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the National Museums in Wrocław, Poznań, Łódź and Wałbrzych, as well as in private collections in Poland and abroad. "









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Deanne McKeown

March 16, 2013, 3:05 am
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Deanne McKeown
I was born in Missouri and lived in early childhood in the Pinal Mountains of Central Arizona. The memories of those years made an indelible impression...the cliffs and canyons of Arizona have always formed my sense of "home" and now, the inspiration for my work.

Although many of my early years were spent in Missouri, it was home I came back to when my husband, Byron, and I moved to Sedona in 1979. Over the years, Byron and I have owned three galleries in Sedona and are presently pursuing our personal careers as artists.

Through the years I have explored a variety of media - painting and printmaking ( my major areas of study at the Kansas City Art Institute), fiber, leaded glass, graphic design and most recently, sculpture. For many years I worked in the field of Medical Illustration, both as director of the Design and Illustration department at the University of Kansas Medical School and as a free lance Illustrator of medical books.

I like
change, hiking and picnics, travel, Native American poetry, reading , collecting children's books, garden railways, planting, but not weeding, building stuff, puns and peppermint ice cream - not necessarily in that order.

I care about
conservation, energy alternatives, responsive government, this generation and the next and the next and the next....

I hope
to sustain a sense of wonder, to see more deeply, to grow old with grace and humor... and maybe even once, to create
something really wonderful.

"None of us perceive the world in exactly the same way. Our oneness lies in a yearning to touch and to understand.  My work is an endeavor to share my thoughts and vision through form and color and relationships, hoping to charge my images with meaning which will reach across the spaces between us.

In looking back over a lifetime of working and exploring, I realize that I have never created art -- art has been, and is now, creating me."


Deanne McKeown / Recent Exhibitons and Awards

2009

Sedona Arts Center Annual Juried Exhibition
   Marilyn Sunderman Creativity Award,  'Desert Sonata, Twittering Mackine"

2008

Sedona Arts Center Annual Juried Exhibition
   First Prize, Sculpture   'Never Pass up a Chance to Play'
   Marilyn Sunderman Creativity Award,  'Never Pass up a Chance to Play'

2007

Sedona Arts Center Annual Juried Exhibition
   First Prize, Sculpture 'Tom, Dick and Mary'
  
Bennington Center for the Arts, American Academy of Women Artists Exhibition
   First Prize, Sculpture  'Tom, Dick and Mary'
   Purchase Award, BCA Private Collection   'Tom, Dick and Mary'

2006

Sedona Arts Center Annual Juried Exhibition 
   Best of Show Award  'Forest Spirits'

Mill Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico,  American Academy of Women Artists Exhibition
   First Prize, Sculpture  'Anticipation'
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Anne-Berte

March 16, 2013, 3:35 am
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Anne-Berte


Worked for and trained by ceramist:

    Carl Olaf Olsen, Sandnes 2001 - 2004

Work as a decorator:

    Gabrielsen Furniture Factory, Stvgr.1997 - 2001
    Stavanger Municipality Project Mohammed Olsen, Stvgr. 1993 - 1994
    Ital Design, Stvgr. 1986 - 1997
    Kim Tvedt as, Stavanger 1984 - 1989

Education:

    Bergeland Upper Secondary School, VgI - VgII  Decorator 1979 - 1981
    Arendal Vocational School,(drawing, painting, designing) 1978 - 1979













"Hello!

Here I am taking a picture of a vase I just finished in my workshop at Lauvstø in the wonderful town of Grimstad, Norway.


I opened the place in 2004, but as you can see in my CV, I've had different jobs before that, mostly in Stavanger, where I took my education as a decorator.


I worked at various shops, stores and institutions, did some painting and interior decorating, designed posters, took care of exhibitions etc.


Before moving to Grimstad, I met the well-known ceramist Carl Olaf Olsen in Sandnes. I started working for him, and he taught me a lot about the art of ceramics. So one thing became more and more clear to me: my future lies in a career in shaping clay into objects of art.


And if you want to find out what I've been doing since I opened my workshop, please take a look at the pictures of some of my products."





Anne-Berte
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Annadan

March 16, 2013, 6:33 am
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Joan Carew

March 16, 2013, 5:37 pm
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Joan Carew


"There is a force within me that compels me to work in Clay.  I don’t know where it comes from or what direction it will point me in.  All I know is that I must be creating something to be at ease with “me”.  I am restless when I am not working in clay. There is a feeling of need, a desire to do something and I can usually assuage that feeling, that desire with total immersion in my art.  I want to create things that lie dormant inside of me.   I want to show people what I am about; that I have something to say.  My figures are starting to tell that story;  The story of ME.

I start out with the rolling of a slab or the squishing of a coil.  My inner voice tells me how large or small I will be working.  I work quickly as if I will run out of time and will not be able to complete my creation.  I need to see it take form and I forsake everything else until it is done.  I have a preformed idea of what the finished piece will look like; the marks, the joins, the seams, the glazing.  I talk to the piece and it talks to me.

I have been obsessive of late on the textures that complete the piece; how it will stand on its own and what will be its supporting structure.  It is important that whatever it stands on completes the story of the piece.  Every aspect is vital to the piece; each mark, each layered glaze and underglaze has a different meaning to me.   I want the pieces to look as if they have emerged from the earth, leaping to their birth from the soil.  Thus, the crusty look to the bottoms of their being.  As I get higher into the piece I mute the glazes so they look more natural and recently I have been using mostly underglazes to emphasize this.

My current work is about people as interpreted through my figures.  It began when my grandchildren started spouting words of wisdom, too clever to be forgotten.  So the pieces are a narrative of sorts, humorous, deep, inane and cherished.  I love to introduce found pieces of junk and nature into the finished piece.  They take on a new perspective when joined with the clay, speaking about what they could have been. Birds are an important imagery to me.  They represent the freedom I have within me, my creative soul. They are usually on my shoulders speaking to me in soft voices, urging me on.  When people see my work I would like for them to feel the lightness of my spirit, the peace that comes from within me and the joy I have in living."










Education
Good Counsel College
1970 · White Plains (Nova Iorque)
Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Metro Campus
MFA Education · San Juan







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Cart Before the Horse - Dylan and Jo

March 17, 2013, 2:29 am
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Dylan & Jo - Cart Before the Horse


We are Dylan & Jo. We're husband-and-wife team, a mom-and-dad business, a two-person company of artists. We make the kind of art we like, then we open our doors to you. All of our creations are made one at a time. We make them with our own hands, since these are the only hands we have. We call ourselves Cart Before The Horse because we're always getting ahead of ourselves.










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Etsy


















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Claire Dupray

March 17, 2013, 3:24 am
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AMAZING !...





Claire Dupray Guèze





Parcours

    Après des études au Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique de Paris, une formation parallèle en peinture et céramique, quelques années dans le  théâtre et le cinéma, Claire quitte ce métier pour se consacrer exclusivement à la sculpture.
    Participe à divers expositions collectives et personnelles (Paris, Toulouse, Dordogne...)
    Elle anime actuellement un atelier de céramique à Carbone (31) depuis 1992
    2006 Galerie Auprès de mon Art
    2006 Galerie Art Try Toulouse
    2006 Galerie Artis Factum Bordeaux
    2007 Galerie Marcar'Art Albi
    2007 Festival de St Béat. 
    2008 Galerie Auprès de mon Art
    2008 Montauban
    2009 Le Regard Seysses
    2009 Festival de St Béat.
    2009 Médiathèque de Graulhet













Claire Dupray 

 Je réalise des oeuvres en grès, porcelaine, bois, fer, corde etc...le plus souvent rehaussées  d'un décor polychrome.

Ma recherche porte sur l'harmonisation - à travers ces matériaux hétéroclites - des éléments multiples qui nous composent (minéraux, végétaux, animaux) pour parvenir à exprimer quelque chose du mystère immanent de l'être...























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Giovanni Casadei

March 17, 2013, 8:50 am
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Giovanni Casadei



Biography
I was born and raised in Rome, Italy. Since the age of 4, I have been exposed to art, thanks to my Uncle Roberto, who religiously picked me up every Sunday morning to bring me to a museum to contemplate art. At the age of 14, I bought my first oil painting set with my savings and painted on my own for the next eight years.

From 1978 to 1980, I studied at Scuola Libera del Nudo (Free School for Drawing and Painting sponsored by the Academy of Fine Art of Rome) under the instruction of the Armenian artist, Alfonso Avanessian.

From 1980 to 1981, I was enrolled at the Academy of Fine Art in Rome, then from 1981 to 1983, studied further under Alfonso Avanessian, during which I experimented with drawing, oil pastels, dry pastels tempera, watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings. It was a very productive, creative, and formative period for me as an artist.

On December 1, 1983, I arrived in Philadelphia. At the age of 27, I started the biggest adventure of my life — to be an artist. I worked as a house painter by day and as an artist by night. In 1988, I enrolled in a four year certificate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I began to take classes with Seymour Remenick, who became my mentor and friend for the last ten years of his life. 

Seymour gave me the support to make my own mistakes and learn from them. His love for art, painting, and human beings was contagious. This love is an integral part of my vision as an artist. He reinforced my belief to follow my heart and what I love in life.


Since 1997, I have been teaching painting at various art centers in the Philadelphia area. I enjoy teaching and sharing my knowledge and experiences from my studio and as an en plein air painter with my students. I have found teaching to be inspiring, challenging, and creative.

My approach to painting is to communicate to the viewer my love for life and human beings, through the expression of my feelings, emotions, and passions that are inspired by the visual world around me. I like to capture with the medium of painting a moment that exists in me and that is inspired by light, colors, and the visual abstractions that nature offers us in every moment in our life. I have been showing and selling my work in Philadelphia and other major cities for the last twenty years.
















General History
  Born in Rome, Italy
1983-Present Resident in Philadelphia
1997-Present U.S. citizen

Education
1975 Graduated high school — Rome, Italy. Specialized in chemistry
1978-80 Scuola Libera del Nudo (free School for Drawing) — Rome, Italy
1980-81 Academy of Fine Arts — Rome, Italy
1981-83 Scuola Libera del Nudo — Rome, Italy
1986-87 Fleisher Art Memorial (painting) — Philadelphia, PA
1988-92 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts — Philadelphia, PA. Certificate in Painting

Grants
2011 Fleisher Art Memorial — Hazell Faculty Fellowship — Philadephia, PA
2006 Fleisher Art Memorial — Hazell Faculty 

Fellowship — Philadephia, PA
1998 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation — Montreal, Canada

Prizes
2006 Art of the State: Pennsylvania 2006. Honorable Mention for Paintings
2006 109th Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art: Berthe M. Goldberg Award

1992 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts:
  The Philadelphia Mayor's Award
  Morris Blackburn Landscape Prize, Special notice
  Philadelphia Watercolor Club Award
1991 Lucille Sorgenti Scholarship
  The Thouron Prize
  The Charles Tappan Prize
  The Morris Blackburn Landscape Prize
  The Henry Scheidt Memorial Travel Scholarship
1990 Mabel Wilson Woodrow Memorial Award
  The Edna Pennypacker Stausfer Memorial Prize
1988 The Frances D. Bergman Memorial: Special notice for outstanding achievement at PAFA



Experience
2011 Painting Instructor — The Certosa Studio Program
2005-Present Painting Instructor — Fleischer Art Memorial
1999-Present Painting Instructor — Wayne Art Center
1997-2000 Painting Instructor — Main Line Art Center
1997-2000  Landscape Painting Instructor — Manayunk Art Center
1994 Slide Show & Talk — Narberth Art Group
1985 Assistant mural painter with Dennis Aufiery — Philadelphia Zoo









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Spring Hofeldt

March 17, 2013, 9:33 am
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Spring Hofeldt


"My work captures the quirks of life and makes light of the situations humans encounter."
















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David Adickes

March 17, 2013, 10:52 am
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“David Adickes looms large in the art world-- and for no small reason. His gigantic statues of historical figures have become tourist attractions from South Dakota to Virginia to his home state of Texas”.










David Adickes' career as a painter and more recently  as a sculptor, spans many years. After receiving a bachelors degree in math/physics, Adickes went to France and studied  from 1948 to 1950 with modern French master Fernand Leger.  He returned to Houston and began a painting career which  led to dozens of one-man shows in the U.S. and France.  Several museums and hundreds of corporate and private collectors own his work.

In  the 50's he traveled extensively, circling the globe,  painting in Tahiti, Japan, Spain and living six years  in France. In 1983, Adickes was commissioned to make  his first monumental sculpture in Downtown Houston, "Virtuoso" at  the Lyric Center, then in 1994 he completed the 76  foot figure of Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas.

In 1996  he began a seven year project, building two Presidents  Parks, one near Mt. Rushmore in SD, August  2003, and the other at Williamsburg, VA, March 2004.  Each Park contains 18' to 20' tall busts of all the  U.S. presidents. Since December 2003 Adickes has resumed  painting  full time and is currently very productive. His subjects,  as always, are groups of figures, landscapes, and still  lifes. His signature figures, dubbed "the Adickes  men" by biographer A. Cantey were later described  as "stunning canvases that are painted with virtuosity  that is compelling" by author James A. Michener  in his monograph/critique "Adickes" 1968,  published in Barcelona.

In 2005 he began producing Giclee Fine Art Prints of selected paintings, which he continues to do.  He lives and paints in Houston.




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Tamae Frame

March 17, 2013, 4:05 pm
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Statement

My work symbolizes the subject as a vehicle to convey the hidden part of our psyche and the feminine spirituality. I depict female spiritual bodies in the bold-headed nude figures, which have been pruned of the trappings of their earthly existence. My intention is to use the figures as fodder for delivering the women’s state of mind by subtly stretching, twisting or relaxing the body-lines for expressing their tension, struggle, or calmness.
I also create mystical figures in which their body-parts are connected with other organisms and creatures: they are the expressions of mysterious inner dimensions of female consciousness.

I use mid-fire stoneware clay for its strength and stone-like appearance, and this material has opened the door to the creation of my sculpture in an intuitive way. While shaping a subject, its plasticity allows my hands to have a dialogue with the material which gives me time to tap into my subconscious, and the result is a piece that has emerged from deep within myself.

I often draw my inspirations for color and texture from the ancient Asian art, particularly Japanese Buddhist art and Indian Hindu art. I am fascinated by those ancient surfaces, which had been affected by time. For example, an Indian Hindu stone temple inspired the surface of my “Embodiment of the Lotus flower” series and the main color of the “Blooming of the Feminine Consciousness” was influenced by a 12th Century Japanese wooden Buddhist statue. It is my attempt to infuse timelessness into my work.
Most of my pieces are fired at stoneware temperatures with matte color glazes and pigments, and occasionally I use paint on a maturely fired piece in accordance with a particular effect that I want to create.







Japanese-born, Tamae studied many different arts such as calligraphy, drawing, painting, and jewelry design in her youth and later worked as a fashion jewelry designer in Tokyo, Japan. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1992 and began working as a full time studio jewelry artist whose focus was on producing one-of-a-kind jewelry. Her experience in creating art jewelry increased over the years, and eventually she was inspired to make figurative jewelry and it was well received in the craft market.
She exhibited in numerous invitational and juried gallery exhibitions and her work had been sold in a number of galleries across the country. She also participated in national juried shows such as The American Craft Show, as well as regional juried art fairs. She has received awards for Best Artist in the jewelry category on a few different occasions.
Tamae had been enjoying working as a jewelry artist, but at one night in 2004, a memory of the art project in the middle school when she sculpted a face of her class mate has risen up in her consciousness–suddenly, she recalled the touch of soft clay. Tamae felt a new creative urge to express her inner feelings in the form of figurative sculpture using malleable material than metals. Soon she pursued her new passion; she begun taking clay-sculpting workshops and classes at the local college and felt certain that clay was the best material in which to create her new art.
After spending several years perfecting her art in ceramics, she transformed herself into a ceramic sculptor. Her figurative sculptures have been shown in gallery shows and juried exhibitions, and recently her work was featured in the book called “Contemporary Sculptors – 84 International Artists”.








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Kyoko Tokumaru

March 18, 2013, 3:00 am
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Kyoko Tokumaru


963 born in Tokyo, Japan
1992 MFA from Tama Art University Graduated School (Major ：Ceramic)
Competition and Prize
1990 19th Choza Prize Grand prize
1992 Mino International Ceramic Art Festival
2000 Izushi Porcelain Competition Bronze prize

"I create my work with accumulation of a lot of texture of porcelain.
My work’s purpose is inviting the audience to their introspection by the power of growth and ambiguity that my pieces represent.

















I have been attracted to the power of excess of decollation art, mainly in Asia.
In those expressions, every detail has meaning and was put with consideration, but too many of details make chaos of disharmony.
Then the audiences sense only strong and odd power of whole of it.
When the audiences wonder what that power was, they have to go down deeply into their inner using the sense they got as the clue and finally they can find something they surly need at that time.
That is the trip and its destination which the audiences and those arts work together.


Actually the way I make my pieces is just the trip going down deeply into myself, too.
After I get rough plan and theme, I make shape improvisationaly with conversations through I and the shape getting growing.
Often the pieces have taken shapes which I never expect through that process.
Though those shapes are exactly I really need under my self consciousness and real theme through the conversation we － I, shape growing and the slab of porcelain　－ had.


By appreciating my work, I want to the audiences have a trip like those, tripping longing after mine, tripping different course from mine or tripping farther than mine and find something they need or just enjoy the process of their inner trip.
That is the goal of my work."


Kyoko Tokumaru


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Roxanne Swentzel

March 18, 2013, 3:51 am
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Roxanne Swentzel

Roxanne Swentzell (born 1962, Taos, New Mexico) is a renowned Santa Clara Pueblo ceramic sculptor sculptor from Santa Clara Pueblo. Swentzell is known for her rounded figures of indigenous people, primarily women. Her mother, Rina Swentzell is a noted Native Americana artist and scholar.

Roxanne Swentzell loved art from an early age. As a child, Swentzell struggled with a speech impediment that prevented her from communicating. Unable to articulate her emotions through words she began to make miniature figures in clay to convey her feelings. The sculptures she created as a means to express herself to others continues to be her primary artistic medium to date.

While still in high school, Swentzell attended the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1979, the young artist left home for the Portland Museum Art School Art School because of its emphasis on the human figure. At the Portland Museum Art School she progressively grew unhappy. After one year in Portland, the homesick Swentzell returned to Santa Clara Pueblo. Back in her native soil she began to build her family and home while her creativity flourished.

Swentzell’s clay sculptures have moved and delighted audiences around the world. Her artistic endeavors have won awards Swentzell numerous awardssince her early twenties.

Swentzell’s first display of her work was at the annual Indian Market in Santa Fe in 1984; two years later she won a total of eight awards for her sculpture and pottery at the same event. In 1994, Swentzell also won the Market’s Creative Excellence in Sculpture award. Swentzell’s work has a contemporary twist while still being grounded in her Native American history with reflects a deep respect for the earth, family, and tradition. Her sculptures have showcased at the White House in Washington, D.C. and in galleries and museums worldwide. Some of her permanent installations are at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Cartier in Paris, the Santa Fe Convention Center, and the Museum of Wellington in New Zealand.














Early Life

Roxanne Swentzell was born on December 9th 1962 in Taos, New Mexico, a Pueblo located in a tributary valley off the Rio Grande. Her parents Ralph and Rina Swentzell nurtured and facilitated Swentzell’s interest in art early on in her life. Her father was a philosophy professor of German descent at St. John’s College. Her mother, Rina Swentzell, is a distinguished activist, scholar, and architect who came from a Santa Clara Pueblo family of artists. Roxanne’s uncle, Tito Naranjo, is a scholar and artist. Michael Naranjo, another uncle, is a well-recognized sculptor who was blinded in the Vietnam War. Two of Swentzell’s aunts, Jody Folwell and Nora Naranjo-Morse, are admired potters in the art community.

As a young child Swentzell began to experiment with clay, creating tiny figures to convey her feelings. Roxanne found it exceedingly difficult to communicate through speech because of a speech impediment. The desperate need to express her feelings provoked her to collect scraps of clay from her mother, a potter, to create figures to illustrate her feelings. When she was in first grade, Swentzell molded a small clay school desk with sad, weeping little girl slouched in it. The sculpture was meant to explain her unhappiness at school to her mother. Sculpting became Swentzell’s primary means of communication: an emotional outlet and safe haven to express her feelings. Swentzell’s teachers were amazed by her clay figures and took a special interest in developing her talents as a young sculptor.

The descendant of a long line of the talented potters of the Santa Clara Pueblo, Swentzell was no stranger to the traditional methods of pottery making. She grew up watching her mother make pots in the traditional Pueblo technique of hand-coiling and learned from an early age how to dig, mix and process her own clay.


Education

The initial difficulties that Swentzell encountered in grade school continued throughout her formal education. Discontented, Swentzell exhausted every art opportunity at her high school. In 1978, Swentzell’s parents enrolled her in the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. It was here that Swentzell gave her first art show in the school’s museum. Following her two years at IAIA, Swentzell attended Portland’s Museum Art School in 1980. However, Swentzell soon grew homesick after one year of study. Swentzell’s homesickness stemmed from her growing dissatisfaction and disillusionment with Portland’s art scene. She found that artists in Portland separated art from their everyday lives and their art did not thus reflect what surrounded them. This was especially disheartening to Swentzell, as her art had always been inspired by her own life experiences.

While Swentzell’s formal education ended with her departure from The Portland Museum Art School, Swentzell does not consider that the end of her education. Swentzell has said that “Everyday is an amazing new book, a test in every discipline, a chance to advance myself, and great times on the playground.” This philosophy is reflected in her decision to home school her two children. Of this experience, Swentzell has commented that raising and home schooling her children was an education for her as well.


Personal life

Swentzell’s ability to balance her family obligations and art has resulted in a dual prosperity for her family and her artistic endeavors. Swentzell’s children, Rose Bean Simpson and Porter Swentzell, followed in the family tradition of making art. Rose Bean Simpson is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and is an up-and-coming mixed media artist and singer. Porter Swentzell is a performer of traditional ceremonial dances and a singer. Swentzell home-schooled both her children and the children of several neighbors. Remembering how much trouble she had in school, Swentzell was happy to have provided a nurturing education for her own children and others.

Furthermore, Swentzell’s deep relationship with nature has given birth to an oasis of trees and gardens in the high desert landscape of Santa Clara Pueblo that she calls home. Swentzell lives in a solar powered adobe house that she built herself. Here, she partakes in the pueblos ceremonial dances and feast.

In addition to her art, Swentzell farms her own land to provide self-sustenance. Swentzell is the Co-Founder and President of the nonprofit Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute created in 1987 at the Santa Clara Pueblo. Flowering Tree is an organization that is based on the theory of ecological design which seeks to build sustainable human living and agriculture. The Institute provides lessons on different techniques and methods for healthy living. Some classes taught at the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute include: how to farm, how to farm in a high desert climate with low water use, how to take care of animals, adobe construction, and solar energy. Swentzell’s work with Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute reflects her dedication to nurturing the Earth and sustaining its resources. To further her work with the Institute, and to her own personal philosophy, Swentzell looks to her Native American ancestors as examples of preservers and protectors of the earth. Her concerns extend not only to preserving the earth,but to preserving the traditional Native American approach of conservation.
Work

Swentzell demonstrates her remarkable and versatile talent in her diverse collection of work. Her sculptures are emotional portrayals of her own personal experiences. Though deeply personal, her art is also intensely rooted in her Santa Clara Pueblos traditions. The subjects of her work are predominantly female and focus on issues such as gender roles, identity, politics, family, and the past.

Like in traditional Pueblo pottery, Swentzell crafts her clay figures from coils of clay. Swentzell, however, differs from other Pueblo potters who dig, sift, clean, and process their own clay by choosing to use store bought clay. Swentzell has stated that she is not overly concerned that her clay is store bought, as clay, no matter where it comes from, comes from the earth.

Once Swentzell has her clay, she squeezes the clay into thick coils and then joins the coils together to build the walls of her figure. During the two to four day process of coiling, Swentzell keeps the clay moist. and uses a knife or stone to smooth over the ridges of the coils. While Swentzell’s figures are hollow, the toes and fingers of each figure is solid. Swentzell leaves vacant space at the core of her figures in order to reduce the chance the figure will explode in the burner while baking. The final figure Swentzell produces is often painted and can include painted details of eyes, hair or clothing on the figure.

Swentzell’s Santa Clara heritage can especially be seen in her Clown figures. A clown, or Kosha in the Pueblo belief, is a sacred being that often teaches through its actions. Swenztell’s Despairing Clown figure is a comment on the loss of one’s identity. The sculpture itself is a clown who looks down sadly as he peels of his stripes and seeks to convey the struggle of finding oneself again. Emergence of the Clowns (1989), symbolizes the surfacing of the Pueblo people into this world. Three of the figures in Emergence are partial human forms which progressively lead to concluding figure who is complete. Each partial form is meant to capture the emotion of amazement, knowledge, and awe. The stages of ascendancy in Emergence, shown in each figure’s development, further accentuates the Pueblo’s collective journey upward.

Pinup (2000) and In Crisis (1999) address what Swentzell’s believes to be the unrealistic physical expectations placed by popular culture on young women and the resulting struggle by women with self-image and identity. In Pinup, the Native American woman’s unemotional face is painted white, like that of a Geisha. The figure covers her nude form behind a headless poster of a thin,bikini-wearing model (similar to the graphic posters of Playboy pin-ups from the late 1970s by Patrick Nagel). The figure struggles to fit into societie’s preconceived image for her, hiding behind the mask of an unobtainable picture, both in color and shape. The burden of the “perfect” body and face weighs heavily on the figure, that the figure is reduced to a slouched, defeated posture; the figure’s fingers and toes are unadorned by make-up and the poster, and expose the figure’s genuine beautiful nature.

Swentzell’s In Crisis, seeks to explore the media’s influence on beauty and identity. The figure in this piece is conscious of the effect the media and pop culture is having on her. The figure struggles to fight off these projected ideals of beauty and identity by clawing her own hand. Yet, the figure’s own brightly painted red fingernails symbolize the danger the media poses to her.

Swentzell’s likens her artwork to a personal journal that is shared with all who are interested. Swentzell continues to sculpt her story as it unfolds and her art represents the path that Swentzell has crafted for herself: one that is led by her emotions, experiences, and creation of art.


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Paola Grizi

March 18, 2013, 4:35 am
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Paola Grizi



"An artist gifted with great sensitivity,
who is able to combine the classic
with hints of modern invention...
has exuberance, originality
and expressive quality".

(Prof. Michael Musone
La Pergola Arte, Florence)








Paola Grizi è cresciuta in una famiglia dove l’arte è tradizione. Ha coltivato questa passione parallelamente ad altri percorsi di studio e di lavoro (laurea in Lettere, giornalismo).
Nel 2009 ha vinto a Firenze il Premio speciale della critica (al Premio internazionale La Pergola Arte), espone permanentemente a Venezia presso la Galleria Giudecca 795 e tiene corsi di scultura nel suo laboratorio di Roma (www.argilladream.com). Allieva del maestro Salvatore Rizzuti, docente di scultura presso l’Accademia delle Belle Arti di Palermo, ha approfondito  sotto la sua guida, la figurazione tradizionale, ed ha acquisito nuovi strumenti volti a indirizzare l'esperienza verso forme di stilizzazione simbolica.








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Vincent Maillard

March 18, 2013, 7:12 am
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Vincent Maillard


Vincent Maillard was born in Paris in 1957. He lives and works in Genova, Italy.
His sculptures are displayed in several permanent exhibitions around Italy.

Vincent Maillard è nato a Parigi nel 1957. Vive e lavora a Genova.
Le sue sculture sono esposte permanentemente in varie città italiane.











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