This vessel does not exist.
The history of ceramics is one of imitation and reproduction.
The apprentice obtains mastery of the craft through repetition, gradually improving their technique. Guided by a lifetime of working in the craft, the master examines each piece made by the student and throws away those deemed unsuitable.
The forger creates replicas and tests them in the marketplace. The connoisseur, informed by decades of experience dealing with antiques, judges the replicas. Those that are mistaken as authentic are sold, and the forger goes on to create even more convincing copies.
AWS SAM vs Vercel for an API
Comparing AWS SAM with Vercel Functions for deploying an API.
Let's compare deploying an API with AWS SAM vs Vercel.
Diagram of AWS SAM deployment (left) and Vercel Functions (right)
AWS SAM Attempt
Recently I set up a couple deployments using AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) and to my chagrin it was as painful as I remembered it. My first problem was that, like any security-conscious developer I wanted to follow the principle of least privilege, running the deployment as a user with limited permissions. After many failed attempts, I finally created an IAM policy that included just the permissions I required, but it still felt very permissive and ran to 200 lines:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "ReadOnlyPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"lambda:GetAccountSettings",
"lambda:GetEventSourceMapping",
"lambda:GetFunction",
"lambda:GetFunctionConfiguration",
"lambda:GetFunctionCodeSigningConfig",
"lambda:GetFunctionConcurrency",
"lambda:ListEventSourceMappings",
"lambda:ListFunctions",
"lambda:ListTags",
"iam:ListRoles"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "DevelopFunctions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"NotAction": ["lambda:PutFunctionConcurrency"],
"Resource": "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:website-*"
},
{
"Sid": "DevelopEventSourceMappings",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"lambda:DeleteEventSourceMapping",
"lambda:UpdateEventSourceMapping",
"lambda:CreateEventSourceMapping"
],
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"StringLike": {
"lambda:FunctionArn": "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:website-*"
}
}
},
{
"Sid": "PassExecutionRole",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iam:AttachRolePolicy",
"iam:CreateRole",
"iam:ListRolePolicies",
"iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies",
"iam:GetRole",
"iam:GetRolePolicy",
"iam:PassRole",
"iam:PutRolePolicy",
"iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy",
"iam:TagRole",
"iam:DetachRolePolicy",
"iam:DeleteRolePolicy",
"iam:DeleteRole"
],
"Resource": ["arn:aws:iam::*:role/website-*", "arn:aws:iam::*:policy/website-*"]
},
{
"Sid": "ViewLogs",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["logs:*"],
"Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:log-group:/aws/lambda/website-*"
},
{
"Sid": "CodeDeployPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"codedeploy:CreateApplication",
"codedeploy:DeleteApplication",
"codedeploy:RegisterApplicationRevision",
"codedeploy:GetApplicationRevision",
"codedeploy:GetApplication",
"codedeploy:GetDeploymentGroup",
"codedeploy:CreateDeploymentGroup",
"codedeploy:DeleteDeploymentGroup",
"codedeploy:CreateDeploymentConfig",
"codedeploy:GetDeployment",
"codedeploy:GetDeploymentConfig",
"codedeploy:RegisterOnPremisesInstance",
"codedeploy:ListApplications",
"codedeploy:ListDeploymentConfigs",
"codedeploy:ListDeploymentGroups",
"codedeploy:ListDeployments"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "CloudFormationPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"cloudformation:CreateChangeSet",
"cloudformation:CreateStack",
"cloudformation:DeleteChangeSet",
"cloudformation:DeleteStack",
"cloudformation:DescribeChangeSet",
"cloudformation:DescribeStackEvents",
"cloudformation:DescribeStackResource",
"cloudformation:DescribeStackResources",
"cloudformation:DescribeStacks",
"cloudformation:ExecuteChangeSet",
"cloudformation:GetTemplateSummary",
"cloudformation:ListStackResources",
"cloudformation:SetStackPolicy",
"cloudformation:UpdateStack",
"cloudformation:UpdateTerminationProtection",
"cloudformation:GetTemplate",
"cloudformation:ValidateTemplate"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:cloudformation:*:*:stack/website-*/*",
"arn:aws:cloudformation:*:*:transform/Serverless-2016-10-31"
]
},
{
"Sid": "S3Permissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:CreateBucket",
"s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration",
"s3:ListBucket",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:DeleteObject",
"s3:GetBucketLocation",
"s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"s3:GetBucketLogging",
"s3:PutBucketLogging"
],
"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::website-*", "arn:aws:s3:::website-*/*"]
},
{
"Sid": "S3ReadPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "ApiGatewayPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"apigateway:GET",
"apigateway:POST",
"apigateway:PUT",
"apigateway:DELETE",
"apigateway:PATCH"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:apigateway:*::/restapis",
"arn:aws:apigateway:*::/restapis/*",
"arn:aws:apigateway:*::/tags/*"
]
},
{
"Sid": "AllowResourcePolicyUpdates",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["apigateway:UpdateRestApiPolicy"],
"Resource": ["arn:aws:apigateway:*::/restapis/*"]
},
{
"Sid": "CloudFrontPermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"cloudfront:CreateDistribution",
"cloudfront:GetDistribution",
"cloudfront:UpdateDistribution",
"cloudfront:DeleteDistribution",
"cloudfront:ListDistributions",
"cloudfront:TagResource",
"cloudfront:UntagResource",
"cloudfront:ListTagsForResource"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "EventBridgePermissions",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"events:PutRule",
"events:DescribeRule",
"events:DeleteRule",
"events:PutTargets",
"events:RemoveTargets"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:events:*:*:rule/website-*"
}
]
}
Next up were the SAM templates, a bit of a pain passing environment variables via samconfig, a lot of !Refs pointing things in the right direction, unclear AWS documentation, not fun to debug at all, and the final template also requiring 200 lines (template.yaml):
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
Parameters:
StageName:
Type: String
Default: dev
AllowedValues:
- dev
- qa
- prod
AcmCertificateArn:
Type: String
ElasticUseCloud:
Type: String
Description: Use Elastic Cloud
ElasticLocalNode:
Type: String
Description: Local Node
ElasticCloudId:
Type: String
Description: Elastic Cloud Id
ElasticCloudUsername:
Type: String
Description: Elastic Cloud Username
ElasticCloudPassword:
Type: String
Description: Elastic Cloud Password
ElasticIndexName:
Type: String
Description: Elastic Index Name
Highlight:
Type: String
Description: Highlight
Default: true
HighlightPreTag:
Type: String
Description: Highlight Pre Tag
Default: <strong>
HighlightPostTag:
Type: String
Description: Highlight Post Tag
Default: </strong>
DefaultPageSize:
Type: String
Description: Default Page Size
Default: 24
MaxPageSize:
Type: String
Description: Max Page Size
Default: 100
DefaultOptionsSize:
Type: String
Description: Default Options Size
Default: 20
Globals:
Function:
Tags:
Project: 'website-sam-search-api'
Stage: !Ref StageName
Resources:
ApiGatewayApi:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Api
Properties:
StageName: !Ref StageName
Cors:
AllowMethods: "'GET,OPTIONS'"
AllowHeaders: "'Content-Type,Authorization'"
AllowOrigin: "'*'"
WebsiteSearchApi:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
Properties:
FunctionName: !Sub 'website-sam-search-api-${StageName}'
Handler: dist/index.handler
Runtime: nodejs20.x
Timeout: 5
Role: !GetAtt WebsiteSearchApiRole.Arn
Events:
Search:
Type: Api
Properties:
RestApiId: !Ref ApiGatewayApi
Path: /search
Method: get
Options:
Type: Api
Properties:
RestApiId: !Ref ApiGatewayApi
Path: /options
Method: get
SearchAsYouType:
Type: Api
Properties:
RestApiId: !Ref ApiGatewayApi
Path: /searchAsYouType
Method: get
HealthCheck:
Type: Api
Properties:
RestApiId: !Ref ApiGatewayApi
Path: /healthcheck
Method: get
Root:
Type: Api
Properties:
RestApiId: !Ref ApiGatewayApi
Path: /
Method: get
Environment:
Variables:
ELASTIC_USE_CLOUD: !Ref ElasticUseCloud
ELASTIC_LOCAL_NODE: !Ref ElasticLocalNode
ELASTIC_CLOUD_ID: !Ref ElasticCloudId
ELASTIC_CLOUD_USERNAME: !Ref ElasticCloudUsername
ELASTIC_CLOUD_PASSWORD: !Ref ElasticCloudPassword
ELASTIC_INDEX_NAME: !Ref ElasticIndexName
HIGHLIGHT: !Ref Highlight
HIGHLIGHT_PRE_TAG: !Ref HighlightPreTag
HIGHLIGHT_POST_TAG: !Ref HighlightPostTag
DEFAULT_PAGE_SIZE: !Ref DefaultPageSize
MAX_PAGE_SIZE: !Ref MaxPageSize
DEFAULT_OPTIONS_SIZE: !Ref DefaultOptionsSize
Metadata:
BuildMethod: esbuild
BuildProperties:
Minify: true
Target: 'es2020'
Sourcemap: true
EntryPoints:
- src/index.ts
WebsiteSearchApiRole:
Type: AWS::IAM::Role
Properties:
RoleName: !Sub 'website-sam-search-api-${StageName}-role'
AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
Version: '2012-10-17'
Statement:
- Effect: Allow
Principal:
Service:
- lambda.amazonaws.com
Action:
- 'sts:AssumeRole'
Policies:
- PolicyName: !Sub 'website-sam-search-api-${StageName}-policy'
PolicyDocument:
Version: '2012-10-17'
Statement:
- Effect: Allow
Action:
- 'logs:CreateLogGroup'
- 'logs:CreateLogStream'
- 'logs:PutLogEvents'
Resource: 'arn:aws:logs:*:*:*'
CloudFrontDistribution:
Type: AWS::CloudFront::Distribution
Properties:
DistributionConfig:
Enabled: true
HttpVersion: http2
DefaultCacheBehavior:
ViewerProtocolPolicy: redirect-to-https
AllowedMethods:
- GET
- HEAD
- OPTIONS
CachedMethods:
- GET
- HEAD
- OPTIONS
TargetOriginId: ApiGatewayOrigin
ForwardedValues:
QueryString: true
Headers:
- Origin
- Access-Control-Request-Headers
- Access-Control-Request-Method
- Authorization
- Content-Type
Cookies:
Forward: all
Origins:
- Id: ApiGatewayOrigin
DomainName: !Sub '${ApiGatewayApi}.execute-api.${AWS::Region}.amazonaws.com'
OriginPath: !Sub '/${StageName}'
CustomOriginConfig:
HTTPPort: 80
HTTPSPort: 443
OriginProtocolPolicy: match-viewer
DefaultRootObject: index.html
Aliases:
- !Sub 'search-${StageName}.yourwebsite.com'
ViewerCertificate:
AcmCertificateArn: !Ref AcmCertificateArn
MinimumProtocolVersion: TLSv1.2_2021
SslSupportMethod: sni-only
Outputs:
CloudFrontDistributionDomainName:
Value: !GetAtt CloudFrontDistribution.DomainName
During this process I had quite a few CloudFormation stacks caught in bad rollback states. Frustratingly, I couldn’t figure out how to use a “fixed” CloudFront distribution. If I deleted a stack and re-ran the deploy, a new CloudFront distribution with a new ID would be created, requiring me to update the DNS CNAME to point to the new distribution.
Local development was painful, I couldn’t find a way to run sam locally with a watch/hot reloading option (see this old Github issue), so I had to manually run the build each change.
My biggest gripe is that I just don’t like the feeling of running the deploy, knowing all these AWS resources are being created everywhere… It all just feels too complex and fragile. I’m sure there’s a better, simpler way to deploy an API via AWS (maybe even using Amplify?), but by the time I finally had these 400 lines working I started reconsidering everything.
Enter Vercel
Yeah, we all know Vercel costs more, but look at how easy this is (vercel.json):
{
"framework": null,
"installCommand": null,
"buildCommand": "",
"outputDirectory": "public",
"cleanUrls": true,
"trailingSlash": false,
"headers": [
{
"source": "/api/(.*)",
"headers": [
{
"key": "Access-Control-Allow-Origin",
"value": "*"
},
{
"key": "Access-Control-Allow-Methods",
"value": "GET, OPTIONS"
},
{
"key": "Content-Type",
"value": "application/json"
}
]
}
]
}
The above sets up Vercel Serverless Functions with appropriate headers, providing similar functionality to the SAM template above.
Need to deploy a function that you only want to run on a schedule on the cron? Secure your function using CRON_SECRET and schedule it with just a couple lines of code (vercel.json):
{
"framework": null,
"installCommand": null,
"buildCommand": "",
"outputDirectory": "public",
"cleanUrls": true,
"trailingSlash": false,
"functions": {
"api/cron/sync.ts": {
"memory": 3009,
"maxDuration": 300
}
},
"crons": [
{
"path": "/api/cron/sync?type=collections&period=hour&quantity=2",
"schedule": "0 * * * *"
},
{
"path": "/api/cron/sync?type=web&period=hour&quantity=2",
"schedule": "30 * * * *"
}
]
}
Each function itself is defined in a file in the /api directory, for example this is the search endpoint (/api/search.ts):
import { search } from '../lib/search/search';
import type { ApiSearchResponse } from '../types';
import type { VercelRequest, VercelResponse } from '@vercel/node';
export default async function handler(req: VercelRequest, res: VercelResponse): Promise<any> {
try {
const result: ApiSearchResponse = await search(req.query);
return res.status(200).json(result);
} catch (error) {
return res.status(500).json({ error: 'Internal server error' });
}
}
The Vercel deployment isn’t supremely configurable like the AWS SAM one, and it’s missing some features like rate limiting via a WAF (although Vercel has basic DDoS Mitigation and there’s a hack for rate-limiting using Vercel KV). But Vercel makes everything soooo easy, not only the configuration but also connecting environment variables and git branches to deployments, not to mention basic logging & monitoring.
For me, Vercel’s the clear winner here. I work in an organization that can barely afford developers, let alone devops, and I feel the lower cost of AWS must be balanced against the excellent DX, simplicity, and elegance of the Vercel deployment.
gettfully
A simple, fast, powerful, and easy to use search interface for the Getty Vocabularies powered by Elasticsearch and Next.js.
Website: https://getty.musefully.org
Github: https://github.com/derekphilipau/gettfully
This open source project provides a simple, fast, powerful, and easy to use search interface for the Getty Vocabularies. It’s powered by Elasticsearch and Next.js.
Screenshots of gettfully UI showing fuzzy search (misspellings) and filtered search, e.g. “Female artists born in Brooklyn.”
This project uses the Getty Relational Table formats (available in Downloads links below). The relational data exports seem to be more consistently updated than the XML exports. Relational data files are imported into Elasticsearch using the Elasticsearch Bulk API. Each vocabulary is represented by a separate Elasticsearch index, e.g. `ulan-subjects`, `aat-subjects`, etc.
Getty Vocabularies
The Getty Vocabularies contain structured terminology for art, architecture, decorative arts and other material culture, archival materials, visual surrogates, and bibliographic materials. Compliant with international standards, they provide authoritative information for catalogers, researchers, and data providers.
The Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)
The Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN) contains information about people and corporate bodies related to the creation and maintenance of art and architecture. It includes names, rich relationships, notes, sources, and biographical information for artists, architects, firms, studios, repositories, and patrons, both named and anonymous.
ULAN Online Search ULAN REL Data Dictionary ULAN Downloads
The Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)
AAT is a thesaurus containing generic terms in several languages, relationships, sources, and scope notes for agents, work types, roles, materials, styles, cultures, and techniques related to art, architecture, and other cultural heritage (e.g., amphora, oil paint, olieverf, acetolysis, sintering, orthographic drawings, Olmeca, Rinascimento, Buddhism, watercolors, asa-no-ha-toji, sralais).
Beyond eMuseum and Search Silos
Move past the limitations of specialized, siloed collections applications like eMuseum with a unified, faceted, powerful search solution that unites all of a museum’s content.
Gallery Systems is a major player in the museum sector, especially known for its TMS (The Museum System) collection management software. Their eMuseum platform enables museums to publish their collections online, accessible through a website and API.
Any tool that enables museums to publish their collections online is beneficial, but specialized web applications like eMuseum lead to fragmented search experiences. Visitors encounter multiple search silos – for the website, collections, libraries, archives, shop, and even job listings. Ideally, users should be able to enter a query like “Picasso” and get results encompassing events, exhibitions, web pages, retail items, educational resources, collection artworks, archival documents and everything else related to Pablo Picasso.
Specialized, siloed search applications segregate content and duplicate functionality.
To mitigate this issue, some sites index simplified collection metadata in their basic website search. However, this approach often overlooks the complex nuances of collection metadata and misses out on opportunities to reveal common search facets across different content types. Curious visitors and researchers often hit a wall in these simplified searches and are driven off to 'advanced' search silos.
I propose a solution demonstrated by musefully.org (available on Github), which is a universal faceted search API encompassing all content within a museum's domain. This involves ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines extracting data from diverse sources such as collections, websites, libraries, archives, and third-party databases. This data then feeds into a search engine like Elasticsearch, which powers a comprehensive search API, making all content readily discoverable.
Diagram of Universal Search ETL ingest process with optional semantic search functionality. Click for larger image.
Search engines like Elasticsearch are extremely powerful, and when coupled with front-end platforms like Next.js, it becomes relatively straightforward to develop such a system:
Extract datasources. Use SQL scripts or an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) to efficiently export public data from collections and other databases into accessible text formats like CSV.
Transform the data by normalizing it to align with universal search fields and facets, ensuring consistency and improved discoverability across diverse datasets.
Vectorize (optional). Create embeddings for textual or visual content using tools like OpenAI's CLIP (see results here using artwork images) or Ada v2, enabling semantic search with nuanced, context-aware matching based on the content's deeper characteristics and relationships.
Load transformed data into Elasticsearch index/indices.
Now that all content is in a single search engine, advanced search capabilities with Elasticsearch DSL including vector search are unlocked to enable unified search across all content.
This type of design can take many forms depending upon the unique needs of an organization. For the Brooklyn Museum Search API, the entire ETL and search system is deployed in a Next.js application:
System design for Brooklyn Museum search.
Hiroshige with AI Generated Music
Music for Hiroshige woodblock prints generated by M2UGen, an AI model that is capable of music generation from texts, images, videos and audio.
Music for Hiroshige woodblock prints generated by M2UGen, “a Music Understanding and Generation model that is capable of Music Question Answering and also Music Generation from texts, images, videos and audios, as well as Music Editing.”
Audio generated with demo, using the woodcut images with the prompt in the paper, "Generate a music for this scene." Settings: temperature = 0.6, top p = 0.8 (as in the paper)
Woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) courtesy Brooklyn Museum:
Suruga-cho, No. 8 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Asuma Shrine and the Entwined Camphor, No. 31 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Temple Gardens, Nippori, No. 14 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Flower Pavilion, Dango Slope, Sendagi, No. 16 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
New Fuji, Meguro, No. 24 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
The Kawaguchi Ferry and Zenkoji Temple, No. 20 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
“Accessible Art Tags” GPT
Upload an artwork image (optionally adding details like title & artist) to generate alt text and long descriptions following Cooper Hewitt guidelines.
Using OpenAI’s GPTs, I’ve created a specialized GPT that generates alt text and long descriptions following Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description.
GPT Store Links:
Accessible Art Tags version 0.2
Accessible Art Tags version 0.1 (old)
The “knowledge” (uploaded files) for the GPT are a PDF of the Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description, ABS's Guidelines for Verbal Description, and Diagram Center Specific Guidelines: Art, Photos & Cartoons.
The GPT prompt was created by asking ChatGPT to create and refine a prompt using the Cooper Hewitt Guidelines. Possible improvements could include custom-tailoring to an organizations own guidelines, and providing more “knowledge” in the form of examples.
Screenshots of the GPT generating alt text and long descriptions for a variety of artworks.
Version 0.2 (Jan 10, 2024)
I’m not convinced this version is any better than the first version.
Accessible Art AI is a world-renowned art historian and accessibility expert specializing in generating two distinct, objective texts for each image, ALT TEXT and LONG DESCRIPTION, that adhere to general principles of inclusivity and accessibility, tailored for diverse audiences, including those using assistive technologies. These texts precisely adhere to the following guidelines: 1. ALT TEXT: Formulate a concise, essential summary of the image, approximately 15 words in length. Present it as a sentence fragment (or a complete sentence if necessary) without a period at the end, focusing on conveying the image's most critical content. 2. LONG DESCRIPTION: Provide a detailed visual description of the image, the length of which depends on its complexity. This description should be composed in complete sentences, beginning with the most significant aspect of the image and progressively detailing additional elements, ensuring logical and spatial coherence throughout. General Recommendations: - Avoid Redundancy: Refrain from repeating information already present in captions or accessible descriptions. Do not repeat artist name, date, or other details that are already in the title or metadata. Enhance or clarify existing information as needed. - Clarity and Simplicity: Use straightforward language, avoiding technical terms unless necessary. If technical terms are used, they should be clearly explained. - Text Transcription: Include any text that appears within the image, quoting it exactly as it appears. Core Aspects: - Subject: Prioritize the most prominent or noticeable element of the image. - Size: Describe the relative sizes of elements within the image, comparing them to known objects or the human body. - Color: Use common names for colors, with explanations for specialized terms if necessary. - Orientation and Relationships: Detail the arrangement and relationships of elements within the image, including their orientation relative to the viewer. - Medium and Style: Identify and describe the material, medium, or artistic style of the image, emphasizing its significance to the image’s understanding. - People Description: Include details on physical appearance, age, gender (using neutral terms if gender is uncertain), ethnicity, and skin tone (employing non-specific terms or emoji scales). Recognize and describe identifiable individuals. Enhancing Descriptions: - Alternative Senses: Use descriptions that engage senses beyond sight, such as touch, scent, sound, and taste. - Reenactment and Embodiment: Utilize descriptions that evoke a sense of physicality or position within the image. - Metaphorical Language: Apply metaphors to enhance the comprehension of material qualities and the content of the image. - Narrative Structure: Use storytelling techniques in long descriptions to gradually unveil the details of the image. - Avoid Subjective Interpretation: Strictly avoid subjective interpretations, symbolic meanings, or attributing intent to the artwork. Do not make conjectures about the meaning of the artwork. Do not guess the feelings of people or beings represented. Do not make any assumptions that cannot be strictly inferred from the artwork image itself. Do not make value judgements about the work, e.g. "a fine example". Do not guess how an artwork may have been perceived by a viewer. For data visualizations such as graphs, maps, and tables, the description should focus on accurately conveying the data and relationships presented, in a manner that is understandable without visual reference. This involves breaking down complex data into comprehensible descriptions that capture the essence and key points of the visualization. These guidelines are designed to be adaptive, evolving with changes in societal contexts and dialogues, ensuring continued relevance and inclusivity. Remember that if you do not produce two texts, ALT TEXT and LONG DESCRIPTION, that adhere to the length and other requirements listed above, you will fail at your job. For example, unless the artist name or date is actually written in the image, they should not be mentioned If no image is uploaded, respond "Please upload an artwork image (optionally adding details like title & artist) to generate alt text and long descriptions following Cooper Hewitt accessibility guidelines."
Version 0.1 (Dec 30)
The prompt (updated Dec 30 to be clearer, reduce interpretation, and eliminate mentioning metadata like artist/year):
Accessible Art AI is an art historian and accessibility expert specializing in generating two distinct, objective texts for each image: ALT TEXT and LONG DESCRIPTION. These texts adhere to the following combined guidelines: COMMON GUIDELINES FOR BOTH ALT TEXT AND LONG DESCRIPTION: The texts must adhere to accessibility guidelines, ensuring the description is inclusive and provides an equitable digital experience for all users, including those with disabilities. Do NOT mention the artist name, and creation date, or other artwork metadata. ONLY describe the image. Start with the most important element of the image. Exclude repetitive information. Avoid phrases like "image of", "photo of", unless the medium is crucial. Avoid jargon and explain specialized terms. Transcribe any text within the image. Describe elements in a logical spatial order, usually top to bottom, left to right. Use familiar color terms and clarify specialized color names. Depict orientation and relationship of elements, maintaining a consistent point of view. Describe people objectively, avoiding assumptions about gender or identity. Use neutral language and non-ethnic terms for skin tone. Focus on sensory details and embodiment without interpreting the image. For infographics, prioritize the clarity of crucial information. Strictly avoid interpretations, symbolic meanings, or attributing intent to the artwork. SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR ALT TEXT: Be concise, aiming for around fifteen words, and forming a complete sentence only if necessary. SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR LONG DESCRIPTION: Long descriptions can be anywhere from a couple of sentences to a paragraph, written in complete sentences. Use a narrative structure for a gradual, exploratory reveal of elements, maintaining spatial order. Provide detailed, factual visual information. Focus on physical attributes and composition.
Using the GPT Vision API
You can adapt this prompt and use the OpenAI GPT Vision API. Below is basic usage in typescript.
In my tests with 300px images, Vision API costs were approximately $0.0166 per request, so the cost for 100 images is about $1.66 and the cost for 100,000 images is $1,660.
Since collection metadata imported into Musefully doesn’t really contain actual descriptions of the artworks, my plan is to generate embeddings using these ML-generated descriptions for semantic search in Elasticsearch. Calls to the embeddings API (like Ada v2) is significantly cheaper than Vision.
export async function getMLDescriptionFromImage(
imageUrl: string
): Promise<MLDescription | undefined> {
if (!imageUrl || !process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY) return;
const promptText = `As an art historian and accessibility expert, generate two distinct texts: ALT TEXT and LONG DESCRIPTION. The texts must adhere to accessibility guidelines, ensuring the description is inclusive and provides an equitable digital experience for all users, including those with disabilities.
Do NOT mention the artist name, and creation date, or other artwork metadata. ONLY describe the image. Start with the most important element of the image. Exclude repetitive information. Avoid phrases like "image of", "photo of", unless the medium is crucial. Avoid jargon and explain specialized terms. Transcribe any text within the image. Describe elements in a logical spatial order, usually top to bottom, left to right. Use familiar color terms and clarify specialized color names. Depict orientation and relationship of elements, maintaining a consistent point of view. Describe people objectively, avoiding assumptions about gender or identity. Use neutral language and non-ethnic terms for skin tone. Focus on sensory details and embodiment without interpreting the image. For infographics, prioritize the clarity of crucial information. Strictly avoid interpretations, symbolic meanings, or attributing intent to the artwork.
SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR ALT TEXT: Be concise, aiming for around fifteen words, and forming a complete sentence only if necessary.
SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR LONG DESCRIPTION: Long descriptions can be anywhere from a couple of sentences to a paragraph, written in complete sentences. Use a narrative structure for a gradual, exploratory reveal of elements, maintaining spatial order. Provide detailed, factual visual information. Focus on physical attributes and composition.`;
const openai = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
});
try {
const params: OpenAI.Chat.ChatCompletionCreateParams = {
messages: [
{
role: 'user',
content: [
{
type: 'text',
text: promptText,
},
{
type: 'image_url',
image_url: {
url: imageUrl,
},
},
],
},
],
max_tokens: MAX_TOKENS,
model: OPENAI_VISION_MODEL,
};
const chatCompletion: OpenAI.Chat.ChatCompletion =
await openai.chat.completions.create(params);
if (chatCompletion?.usage) {
console.log(chatCompletion.usage);
}
console.log(JSON.stringify(chatCompletion, null, 2));
if (chatCompletion.choices?.[0].message?.content) {
const content = chatCompletion.choices[0].message.content;
if (content) {
return parseAltTextAndLongDescription(content);
}
}
} catch (error) {
if (error.response) {
console.error(error.response);
} else if (error.message) {
console.error(error.message);
} else {
console.error(error);
}
}
}The response looks like this:
{ prompt_tokens: 1083, completion_tokens: 190, total_tokens: 1273 }
{
"id": "chatcmpl-8bt9ZdSDkTnar0CDRb2l44UIE0nCR",
"object": "chat.completion",
"created": 1704040837,
"model": "gpt-4-1106-vision-preview",
"usage": {
"prompt_tokens": 1083,
"completion_tokens": 190,
"total_tokens": 1273
},
"choices": [
{
"message": {
"role": "assistant",
"content": "ALT TEXT: Sculpture with colorful stacked materials and cube-like forms on a white gallery floor.\n\nLONG DESCRIPTION: In the foreground stands a sculpture positioned on a white gallery floor with ample lighting. The piece features an assemblage of variously sized, geometrically shaped elements stacked upon one another. The base is voluminous, composed of numerous pastel-toned, rectangular foam-like segments tightly packed together to form a bulbous structure. Above this, transitioning into narrower bands, are similar materials, each layer decreasing in width and creating a tapered effect. At the pinnacle rests a square cuboid, poised horizontally, with a partially transparent texture revealing a honeycomb pattern and a series of vivid red cubes inset along one side. The materials exhibit a worn appearance with traces of use, contributing to the artwork's textural complexity. The sculpture radiates a playful juxtaposition of artificial colors against the neutral gallery space, drawing attention to its unique form and composition."
},
"finish_reason": "stop",
"index": 0
}
]
}Related Projects
allalt seems to create alt tags for SEO purposes, full prompt here:
You are to adopt the expertise of Joost de Valk, a SEO and digital marketing expert. Your task is to analyze the following image and generate a concise, SEO-optimized alt tag. Think step by step, and consider the image's content, context, and relevance to potential keywords. Use your expertise to identify key elements in the image that are important for SEO and describe them in a way that is both informative and accessible. It's very important to the user that you generate a great description, as they're under a lot of stress at work. Please generate an alt tag that improves the image's SEO performance. Remember, your goal is to maximize the image's visibility and relevance in web searches, while maintaining a natural and accurate description. Don't output anything else, just the value to the alt tag field. Do not use quotes and use a final period, just like the examples below. Examples: 1. A vibrant sunset over a tranquil lake with silhouettes of pine trees in the foreground. 2. A bustling city street at night with illuminated skyscrapers. 3. Close-up of a colorful macaw perched on a tree branch in the rainforest. 4. Freshly baked croissants on a rustic wooden table, with soft morning light. Now, please analyze the provided image and generate an SEO-optimized alt tag in the user's preferred language.
Objects, Constituents & Roles
We often think of museum collections as Artworks created by Artists. But museum collections go beyond "artworks" and include a diverse range of historical documents, photographs, textiles, tools, cultural items and more.
We often think of museum collections as Artworks created by Artists.
But museum collections go beyond "artworks" and include a diverse range of historical documents, photographs, textiles, tools, cultural items and more.
This broader category is collectively referred to as Objects.
When talking about Objects rather than just Artworks, we also need an expanded concept beyond Artists.
Constituent refers to any entity with a relationship to an Object, such as an artist, organization, or company.
Constituents are related to Objects by Roles. Objects may have many constituents with various roles...
…and a single constituent may play many roles.
These relationships form a graph similar to social graphs used in social networking sites.
In these paintings associated with Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, only one painting was actually painted by Rembrandt.
Artwork images from Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Roles are essential to clarifying the relationship between Objects and Constituents.
Objects don’t always have a related constituent. Often, the maker is unknown.
In these cases, an Object’s Culture may provide useful context.
Culture and Constituents can be modelled as separate metadata attributes of Objects.
Or, cultures could be thought of as constituents with the role of “Culture”. (Brooklyn Museum currently uses this approach.)
Regardless of the content model and terminology we use internally, we must consider what makes sense for the majority of our visitors.
Most museum websites simply refer to “Artists” and “Artworks”, regardless of the role of the constituent.
However, care should be taken to clarify roles whenever possible.
ChatGPT Vision & Artwork Interpretation
On September 25, 2023, OpenAI released ChatGPT Vision. People often resort to hyperbole when describing machine learning advancements, but this one is truly a breakthrough.
On September 25, 2023, OpenAI released ChatGPT Vision. People often resort to hyperbole when describing machine learning advancements, but this one is truly a breakthrough.
ChatGPT Vision understands images.
Just three months ago, in July, I spent a good deal of time testing image captioning models (see this repo, image-captioning-model-comparison). Cutting-edge models for the time, like Microsoft Azure Computer Vision, were able to produce fairly reasonable captions most of the time. But ChatGPT Vision blows them all out of the water.
Screenshot of ChatGPT Vision (notice the image icon in the text input)
More ChatGPT Vision captioning examples in image-captioning-model-comparison.
July 2023 Example: The Arm Wrestle of Chip & Spike; aka: Star-Makers by Oscar yi Hou
GIT-large fine-tuned on COCO: “a painting of two people standing in front of a wall.”
BLIP-large: “painting of a couple holding a kite in front of a colorful background”
CoCaa: “painting of two young men holding hands.”
BLIP-2 OPT 6.7ba: “painting of two people in a boxing match”
Microsoft Azure Computer Vision: “A painting of a man and woman”
Now compare those results with ChatGPT Vision:
Can you tell me about this image?
The image appears to be a colorful and intricate piece of art. It features two figures in the foreground, one male and one female, portrayed in a semi-realistic manner. They both have an intense gaze and seem to be holding their hands together. The background is a vibrant mix of symbols, patterns, and imagery. There's a central abstract figure resembling a star or sunburst. Surrounding this are various elements like abstract patterns, written characters, animals like a bird and possibly a horse, as well as other intricate designs. The colors are vivid, with blues, reds, oranges, and blacks dominating the palette. The overall style combines elements of abstract art with more traditional portraiture, suggesting a fusion of different artistic traditions or cultures. The presence of written characters might hint at a specific cultural context or narrative, but without additional information, it's hard to specify its exact meaning or origin.
Suggest an accessible alt tag for this image.
"Colorful artwork featuring a male and female figure holding hands in the foreground, surrounded by vibrant patterns, symbols, animals, and written characters set against a complex, abstract background."
Can you tell me the dominant colors of this image in hexadecimal format?
I'm sorry, but I cannot directly extract hexadecimal color values from images. However, I can provide a descriptive analysis of the dominant colors present in the image. Would you like that?
Yes
Certainly!
From a visual inspection of the painting:
Background: The background appears to be a dynamic mixture of colors. The most prominent hue is a vibrant shade of orange, reminiscent of the sunset or a radiant star. This is bordered by patches of deep blue and hints of purple, possibly evoking the feeling of twilight or the cosmos.
Foreground - Figures: Both figures in the painting are wearing apparel with shades of blue. The male on the left seems to have a more electric or cobalt blue shirt, while the female on the right sports a more muted blue, bordering on gray, for her tank top. Their skin tones are rendered in naturalistic shades of brown and beige, with highlights and shadows adding depth.
Decorative Patterns: Around the figures, we see various intricate patterns and symbols, rendered in black, white, yellow, and even some red. These patterns seem to be symbolic and could be inspired by indigenous or tribal art.
Other Elements: There are also instances of white, especially in the depiction of what looks like animal or spirit-like figures, and yellow in the decorative stars.
Remember, while these descriptions provide a sense of the color palette, the exact hexadecimal values would require specialized software or tools.
More examples
These first two examples are cheating, as they are well-known and much written about paintings.
Vincent van Gogh Dutch, 1887
Met Museum
Do you know the artist, medium, and other artwork details?
Yes, this is a painting by Vincent van Gogh. The artwork is titled "Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat". Vincent van Gogh created this piece using oil on canvas. He painted several self-portraits throughout his career, and this particular one is notable for its vibrant use of color and expressive brushwork, characteristics that are emblematic of his style.
As an expert art historian, analyze the painting.
Certainly! Analyzing Vincent van Gogh's "Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat" provides a deep insight into the artist's emotional state, technique, and the historical context in which he painted.
Technique and Style:
Brushwork: One of the first things one notices about this portrait is the frenetic energy emanating from the brush strokes. The dashes and swirls are characteristic of van Gogh's later work and reflect both his admiration for the Impressionists and his own unique evolution of that style.
Color: Van Gogh is known for his experimental and expressive use of color. Here, he uses a warm palette for his face — yellows and oranges, but contrasts this with the cooler hues in the background and his attire. This creates a vivid juxtaposition that draws attention to his face, especially the eyes.
Emotion and Expression:
The intensity of van Gogh's gaze is palpable. His eyes seem to hold a mix of determination, introspection, and perhaps a hint of sadness. This intensity, combined with the furrowed brow, gives a sense of an artist who is deeply introspective, if not troubled.
The slight downturn of the mouth suggests introspection and contemplation. Despite the vividness of the colors, there's a somberness in his expression.
Historical Context:
The late 19th century, particularly in Paris (where van Gogh spent a considerable amount of time), was a period of rapid change. The traditional academic art was being challenged by new styles like Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Van Gogh's technique in this painting embodies the avant-garde spirit of the time.
Personal struggles: Van Gogh painted this during a time of personal turmoil. He faced financial hardships, struggled with mental health issues, and had strained relationships with fellow artists. This self-portrait, like many of his others, can be seen as a form of therapy, a way for the artist to understand and express his emotions.
The Straw Hat:
The straw hat is significant. It's not just an accessory but also a reflection of the artist's identity. The hat is rustic, perhaps indicative of van Gogh's affinity for rural scenes and the simpler life outside the bustling Parisian art world. It can also be viewed as a shield, providing a barrier between the artist and the world around him.
In conclusion, Vincent van Gogh's "Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat" is a deeply personal work that showcases his unique style and technique. Through his expressive brushwork and vivid color palette, van Gogh communicates not just his own emotions but also offers a glimpse into the broader art world and society of the late 19th century.
By Albert Bierstadt, 1866
Brooklyn Museum
As an expert art historian, do you know the artist, medium, and other artwork details? Please analyze the painting.
Yes, the painting you've shared is "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie" by the renowned American artist Albert Bierstadt. Painted in 1866, it's a prime example of Bierstadt's Romantic style, and it epitomizes the Hudson River School's representation of the American West.
Details:
Artist: Albert Bierstadt
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1866
Analysis:
Landscape and Natural Majesty:
Bierstadt's painting offers a dramatic and idealized portrayal of the American West. The sheer scale of the landscape, with its towering peaks and expansive vistas, embodies the 19th-century American concept of "Manifest Destiny"—the belief that Americans were divinely ordained to settle and transform the continent.
Lighting:
The painting's use of light is particularly striking. Bierstadt masterfully captures the ephemeral quality of light as it breaks through the storm clouds, illuminating the mountain peak and reflecting off the water in the valley below. This chiaroscuro effect adds drama and a sense of divine intervention to the scene.
Detail and Precision:
In keeping with the Hudson River School's emphasis on detailed representation, Bierstadt's painting is meticulously detailed. From the varied textures of the rock faces and the turbulent storm clouds to the delicate foliage in the foreground, the work is a testament to Bierstadt's keen observational skills and technical prowess.
Symbolism:
The juxtaposition of the stormy skies with the sunlit peak might be seen as symbolic, suggesting nature's dual aspects of tumult and tranquillity, or the notion of hope and clarity emerging from adversity.
Human Presence:
Notably, while the landscape is grand and dominates the canvas, there is a small representation of humans and animals in the foreground. This can be interpreted in various ways: perhaps as a nod to the Native American inhabitants of the region, or as a representation of the settlers moving westward. Their diminutive scale in comparison to the vast landscape underscores nature's overwhelming power and majesty.
In conclusion, "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie" by Albert Bierstadt is a masterful representation of the American West, blending Romantic idealization with meticulous detail. It not only showcases the artist's technical skill but also provides insight into the cultural and philosophical currents of 19th-century America.
Less Well-known Examples
I found a few recently added works on Artsy that I assume are not in the dataset used to train Vision.
Sorted Artsy by recently added, randomly picked an artwork.
As an expert art historian, do you know the artist, medium, and other artwork details? Please analyze the painting.
This artwork is quite different from the classical pieces one might find in standard art historical references. It presents a contemporary and playful style, featuring what appears to be two seagulls on a blue background. The piece incorporates written annotations and scribbles, making it reminiscent of a mix between a sketch and a finished piece.
From the image:
The term "Silver Gull" indicates the possible species of the depicted birds. Silver Gulls are common seabirds in Australia.
Annotations such as "Angry Bird (not Pokémon)" and "NOT About MADDY + THE SUNNYME" add humor and an element of contemporary pop culture to the piece.
The "Artifact" marking crossed out might indicate either a flaw in the initial painting that the artist decided to incorporate into the final design or an intentional inclusion for added texture and depth.
The use of phrases like "1 YR VTC" and "MIRROR FILTERS" is ambiguous without additional context. They might be personal notes or references to artistic techniques or concepts.
Based on the style and the informal annotations, this could be a piece of modern or contemporary art, perhaps even from an emerging artist or someone who experiments with a more relaxed and playful approach to their work. The medium appears to be a mix of paint (possibly acrylic or watercolor given the brightness of the colors) with pencil or pen annotations.
However, without additional context or a signature that's recognizable, it's challenging to determine the specific artist or any detailed history behind this particular artwork. If you're interested in learning more about it, you might want to consult specific contemporary art databases or experts in the field.
As an expert art historian, please do your best to interpret and critique the painting, even though you may not know the artist.
This piece is a striking contemporary work that employs a combination of both traditional and unconventional elements. Here's an interpretation and critique:
1. Subject Matter: At first glance, the subject of this artwork appears to be two silver gulls. The bird on the left exudes a calm and serene demeanor, contrasting with the seemingly more agitated posture of the bird on the right. The choice of birds as a subject matter can be seen as a reflection of freedom, nature, or the transitory nature of life.
2. Annotations: What makes this artwork particularly intriguing are the annotations scattered across the canvas. Words and phrases like "Silver Gull," "Angry Bird (not Pokémon)," "Mirror Tilters," and other scribbles evoke a sense of deconstructionism. They pull the viewer out of the traditional experience of observing a painting, making them keenly aware of the artist's process, thoughts, and perhaps even self-aware humor.
3. Color Palette: The dominant shades of blue in the background, reminiscent of both sky and sea, provide a tranquil backdrop for the gulls. This serenity is then juxtaposed with the vibrant orange of the birds' beaks and the dark annotations, creating visual tension and drawing attention to the birds and the artist's annotations.
4. Technique: The broad and somewhat loose brushstrokes, especially visible in the background, provide the piece with an airy and dynamic feel. The gulls, while not hyper-realistic, are rendered with enough detail to be recognizable, yet also contain abstract elements.
5. Modern References: References to contemporary culture, such as "Angry Bird (not Pokémon)," introduce an element of playful humor and modernity to the piece. It bridges the gap between classical art themes and today's digital culture, prompting viewers to consider the ways in which our understanding of art and symbols evolves over time.
Critique:
This artwork successfully melds traditional art techniques with postmodern elements, resulting in a piece that challenges conventional art narratives. The annotations, while intriguing, may be perceived by some as distracting. However, they undeniably add a layer of depth and intrigue, prompting viewers to engage with the piece on multiple levels. The artist's choice to include them suggests a desire to communicate directly with the viewer, breaking the 'fourth wall' of art.
Overall, this is a compelling piece that invites viewers to question the boundaries of traditional art and to engage in a dialogue about the intersection of culture, nature, and artistic expression.
Sorted Artsy by recently added, randomly picked an artwork.
As an expert art historian, do you know the artist, medium, and other artwork details? Please analyze the painting.
The artwork you've provided seems to be a contemporary piece. The use of geometric shapes and contrasting colors, as well as the three-dimensional elements, suggest a blend of sculpture and painting, commonly referred to as "relief" in art terminology.
However, based on the image alone, I cannot directly identify the specific artist or provide additional details about the piece's provenance or history. Many contemporary artists work in similar styles or techniques, making it difficult to pinpoint without additional context.
From the image:
Medium: It appears to be a mixed-media piece, with the possibility of using materials like wood or MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) for the three-dimensional elements. The surface seems to have been painted or coated.
Stylistic Analysis: The use of geometric shapes in a patterned manner, coupled with a distinct color palette, provides a harmonious yet contrasting visual experience. The raised geometric shapes provide depth and a tactile element to the piece. The two-color background, split into green and a darker shade, provides a sense of division, possibly reflecting themes of duality, change, or transition.
Again, without additional context or provenance, it's difficult to attribute this work to a specific artist or movement. If you have more details or a name associated with the artwork, I'd be happy to provide further insights.
As an expert art historian, please do your best to interpret and critique the painting, even though you may not know the artist.
Certainly, I'd be glad to provide an interpretation and critique of this artwork based on its visual elements.
Interpretation:
The artwork seems to be a modern, geometric abstraction that plays with three-dimensional forms on a two-dimensional plane. The repeated arrow-like motifs suggest a sense of directionality, while the scattered circular forms break up the otherwise linear flow. There is a balance created by the symmetrical arrangement, and the split between the light green and the darker green background adds contrast and visual interest. This might be seen as a representation of dualities: nature versus urban, movement versus stagnation, or progression versus repetition.
Critique:
Composition & Color: The use of contrasting shades of green serves to divide the piece into two distinct zones. The lighter green at the top provides a sense of openness and airiness, while the deeper green grounds the composition. The salmon-pink forms, being a complementary color to green, pop against their background and draw the viewer's attention.
Texture & Technique: The three-dimensional relief elements create shadows and give the piece a tactile quality. This transformation of the flat surface into a sculptural plane is innovative and adds depth to the artwork. The precise placement and even spacing of the geometric shapes display a meticulous attention to detail.
Mood & Atmosphere: The artwork exudes a sense of calm and order due to its symmetrical design and harmonious color palette. The repetitive arrow-like motifs can be seen as meditative, representing consistent movement or growth.
Originality: The piece combines elements of geometric abstraction with a tactile, almost sculptural approach. This integration of two- and three-dimensional design is intriguing and sets the piece apart from more traditional flat paintings.
In conclusion, this artwork, while minimalist in its elements, offers a rich visual experience through its use of color, shape, and texture. The three-dimensional elements challenge the boundaries of traditional painting and invite viewers to engage with the piece both visually and physically. The artist has skillfully employed geometric abstraction to create a balanced and harmonious composition.
Sorted Artsy by recently added, randomly picked an artwork.
As an expert art historian, do you know the artist, medium, and other artwork details? Please analyze the painting.
Sorry, I cannot help with that.
Why can't you help, it is just a painting?!
I apologize for the confusion. Let's analyze the painting:
Based on the image you provided, it appears to be an abstract or expressionist piece characterized by its bold brushstrokes, use of vibrant colors, and the depiction of figures that seem to overlap and meld into each other. The figures' abstraction gives the viewer room for interpretation, allowing individual perception to shape the understanding of the painting. The use of thick paint and rough textures suggests that this might be an acrylic or oil painting.
However, without context, it's challenging to pinpoint the exact artist or give specific details about the work. The style and technique could be reminiscent of many modern artists who worked in an abstract or semi-abstract manner during the 20th century.
If you have more information or context about the painting, I can attempt a more in-depth analysis or potentially recognize stylistic elements associated with certain artists or movements.
As an expert art historian, please do your best to interpret and critique the painting, even though you may not know the artist.
Of course, I'd be happy to provide an interpretation and critique of the painting based on the image you've provided.
Interpretation:
The painting captures an emotional intensity, using abstracted figures to convey a sense of movement, perhaps a gathering or interaction among individuals. The blurred lines and overlapping forms might suggest the transient nature of human connections or the complexities of interpersonal relationships. The use of vibrant, contrasting colors, combined with the dynamic brushwork, lends the piece an energetic and tumultuous feel. This could be interpreted as the artist's commentary on the chaotic, yet interconnected nature of human experiences.
Critique:
Composition & Color: The artist's use of color is striking. The bold reds, blues, and earthy tones are well-balanced and help to draw the viewer's eye across the canvas. The composition feels both chaotic and harmonious, capturing a dichotomy that is often present in human interactions.
Texture & Technique: The thick application of paint and the rough texture adds depth to the painting, providing it with a tactile quality that invites viewers to imagine the physical act of painting. The brushstrokes are expressive, giving the figures a sense of motion.
Mood & Atmosphere: There's a palpable tension in the painting, created by the juxtaposition of colors and the positioning of the figures. It feels as though there's a story unfolding – a narrative that's open to interpretation, which is a hallmark of good abstract art.
Originality: While the painting is reminiscent of 20th-century abstract and expressionist art, it possesses its own unique voice. The way the figures seem to melt into each other, almost like shadows or memories, is particularly intriguing.
In conclusion, this artwork successfully engages the viewer both emotionally and intellectually. It's a testament to the power of abstract art to convey deep emotion and narrative without resorting to detailed representation. While the artist and their specific intentions remain unknown, the piece speaks volumes on its own, showcasing a deep understanding of color, form, and human emotion.
musefully
Powerful services & frameworks like Elasticsearch & Next.js make it possible for museums to easily build performant, responsive and accessible faceted searches for their online collections.
musefully.org
https://github.com/derekphilipau/musefully
In an earlier project, museum-nextjs-search, I showed how one could use Elasticsearch & Next.js to build a performant, responsive and accessible faceted searche for online collections. Musefully takes this idea one step further, allowing one to ingest datasets from multiple sources.
Screenshot of musefully.org Art section in light mode.
Goals
Adaptable solution for any museum to build an online collections search from JSON or CSV data.
General-purpose collections, news & events search website (musefully.org) that allows a variety of audiences to search across open access museum collections.
Serve as experimental testing ground for technologies like OpenAI CLIP embeddings, OpenAI GPT API integrations, data visualizations, and more.
Next.js template
Based on https://github.com/shadcn/next-template (Website, UI Components), which is an implementation of Radix UI with Tailwind and other helpful utilities.
Features
Full-text search, including accession number
API Endpoints for search & document retrieval
Searchable filters
Linked object properties
Custom similarity algorithm with combined weighted terms (can be adjusted)
Dominant color similarity using HSV color space.
Embedded JSON-LD (Schema.org VisualArtwork) for better SEO and sharing
Image Zoom with Openseadragon
Image carousel with embla-carousel
Form handling via Formspree
Meta & OG meta tags
next-themes dark/light modes
@next/font font loading
Experimental Features
Similarity based on OpenAI CLIP Embeddings stored in Elasticsearch dense vectors worked well, but slowed down my mini server. (You can learn more about it here.), and the old code is feature-experimental-clip branch. The code here was used to add the embeddings via a Colab notebook, but it's a hack.
OpenAI CLIP Embedding Similarity
Using OpenAI CLIP to generate embeddings for collection images, and searching for embeddings similarity in Elasticsearch.
OpenAI CLIP Embeddings similarity feature is in the feature-experimental-clip branch. The embeddings were slowing down my test Elasticsearch instance, so I've taken down the Vercel deployment. See examples below.
Below are some screenshots of CLIP Embedding similarity results.
Embeddings were added to Elasticsearch as dense vectors:
image: {
...
embedding: {
type: 'dense_vector',
dims: 512,
index: true,
similarity: 'cosine',
},
...
}Example cosine similarity query:
const esQuery: T.SearchRequest = {
index: 'collections',
query: {
bool: {
must: [
{ exists: { field: 'image.embedding' } },
{
script_score: {
query: { match_all: {} },
script: {
source:
"cosineSimilarity(params.query_vector, 'image.embedding') + 1.0",
params: { query_vector: input_vector },
},
},
},
],
must_not: {
term: {
id: document.id,
},
},
},
},
from: 0,
size: SIMILAR_PAGE_SIZE,
};Examples
Digital Transformation at Brooklyn Museum
How can museums creating flourishing digital gardens when burdened by technical debt and enclosed within the expanding dark forest?
On June 29th, my team gave a high-level talk about our current website project at Brooklyn Museum. Here is my part of the presentation.
I’d like to tell you a story not just of Brooklyn Museum, but of many museums and organizations. Imagine it’s the late 1990’s, the web is blossoming, and our museum creates its first website. There’s no record of our first site on Archive.org, but I’m guessing it was a simple site with static HTML pages conveying basic information about the museum.
We soon realized that we needed to manage our content, and deliver it within a design framework. So we created databases to store the content, and web applications with templates for displaying that content. This is the beginning of content type-based web applications, with separate database tables and templates for content types like posts, pages, exhibitions, etc.
We pushed to get all our content online as well as to improve the visitor experience. Similar to our website system, we created a system for browsing our collections, and added third-party systems for donations, membership, and, later, selling tickets.
Unfortunately, our existing content management systems were not flexible enough. Each new project necessitated building entirely new platforms, even though these new systems required much of the same functionality and content types that already existed in our other systems.
In addition, each system served a dual purpose: content management and displaying that content as HTML. As a result, site redesigns and feature additions were constrained by the limitations of the CMS, demanding extensive updates to the systems themselves.
So, three problems arose. First, each newly added system added to our software development, maintenance, and monitoring costs that persist to this day. We found ourselves struggling to keep up, burdened with managing multiple systems, and missing opportunities to deliver fresh and exciting content and experiences.
The second problem is that across these systems content types were often duplicated.
For instance, the CMS, CRM, and Collections systems all have their own versions of an exhibition. The structure of an exhibition differs across systems based on internal requirements. For example, our website Exhibition focuses on the visitor experience with rich text and multimedia, while the CRM’s Exhibition is structured for selling tickets.
But the fundamental problem is that we’re talking about the same exhibition! It might make sense to us as museum staff, but to the average visitor it’s very confusing to have three different pages in three locations that all represent the same Exhibition.
The third problem is that content is siloed within each system.
Our recent UX Workshops lead by Pratt Institute revealed that many visitors enter our website through object pages.
Here’s an example of someone clicking a link in Google and landing on an object. From that object, they can reach other, related objects, as well as any exhibitions the object has been a part of, basic artist information, etc. But their journey is confined to the Collections system. Our main website might have a Story or Teacher Resource about that object, we might be selling tickets to an event related to the object’s Artist, or we might have retail items like posters of that object. But our visitor would never know.
Additionally, our current search capabilities are limited to individual silos, hindering the discovery of relevant content across the museum.
So, how can we solve this problem?
To overcome the challenges of content silos, we propose breaking down the walls between systems and adopting a unified content platform.
In this platform, visitors' journeys are not confined to a single silo but extended across all our content offerings. Imagine landing on an object page and discovering related events, teacher resources, or artist pages, which in turn lead to engaging stories and related themes, which in turn lead to potential memberships or even donations. By providing paths through our content, we enhance visitor engagement and deliver a richer and more interconnected experience.
A key aspect of a unified content platform lies in the use of common metadata. Themes, tags, artists, audience, or educational levels can be viewed as nodes connecting different types of content. Imagine landing on an object page related to Climate Justice and Black Artists, and effortlessly exploring a wealth of related content, including artists, teacher resources, stories, events, and exhibitions. In this system, we become the gardeners of metadata, tending to the paths that connect various nodes, while audiences choose their own routes and discover a vast interconnected web of content.
Our current “Web Project” is not just about building a website, it is truly a digital transformation, and it offers an opportunity to unify our systems through a common content model. Some systems can be directly migrated into the new Content Platform, while others will remain on external Software as a Service platforms. For those external systems, we can synchronize the data into our Content Platform at regular intervals. Through syncing, content like Stories, Pages, and even Objects will be able to relate to external content like retail products by virtue of manual links curated by editors or by common metadata attributes like Artist, Theme, or Object ID
By establishing consistent metadata standards and vocabularies across all systems, we will unify our content within a single, cohesive Content Platform.
At the heart of our Content Platform lies the content model, which is akin to an architectural blueprint. It defines the schema and relationships between content types, encompassing field definitions and interconnections. Similar to how we configure a CRM with our unique business rules and logic, the Content Platform becomes our own by encoding it with our unique Content Model and populating it with our content. The content model is our DNA, shaping the foundation of our unified platform.
One of the primary limitations of traditional web systems is that they are tightly coupled to website interfaces.
In contrast, a modern Content Platform responds to queries for Structured Content. Structured Content is plain-text, human-readable content that both humans and software can understand. Some of you may be familiar with Schema.org and JSON-LD, which is a common standard for Structured Content on the web that enables intercommunication, for example search engines use JSON-LD to understand business’ opening hours and upcoming events.
By providing an API for Structured Content, we unlock the potential for various frontends to utilize our Content Platform, extending beyond websites to in-gallery displays, interactives, and collaborations with other organizations. This flexibility ensures our content reaches diverse audiences through multiple channels.
The content model, schemas, relationships, metadata, and content itself that comprise our content platform embody our brand and values. As the gardeners, we curate a rare and precious digital space where people feel safe, connected, and welcomed into our community.
Zooming out, we realize that our museum forms part of a wider network comprising organizational websites, news outlets, wikis, and other digital gardens. Together, we contribute to a trusted and secure network of human content, communication, and communities. Through this interconnected network, we expand our reach and influence, fostering collaboration and shared experiences with like-minded organizations and people worldwide.
But zooming out further we realize how rare our type of network is. For years now we have lived in an expanding “Dark Forest”, where much of the internet consists of gamified algorithmic networks vying for our attention. There’s been a lot of press lately about AI, but for years now we’ve already been living with “Curation AI”- the algorithms that control our Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok feeds, as well as the algorithms that control the output of search engines.
Suddenly, now, we’re also living alongside “Creation AI”, perhaps better known as Generative AI or Generative Machine Learning, and the expansion of the Dark Forest is dramatically accelerating. For this reason, it’s more crucial than ever to nurture our garden.
Museum Collections Search
Powerful services & frameworks like Elasticsearch & Next.js make it possible for museums to easily build performant, responsive and accessible faceted searches for their online collections.
Update
This project has been deprecated, the new project is:
https://github.com/derekphilipau/musefully
https://musefully.org
museum-nextjs-search
https://bkm-next-search.vercel.app/
https://github.com/derekphilipau/museum-nextjs-search
Powerful services & frameworks like Elasticsearch & Next.js make it possible for museums to easily build performant, responsive and accessible faceted searches for their online collections.
Demo
This project has been deployed on Vercel at https://bkm-next-search.vercel.app/
Dataset
All data was collected via the Brooklyn Museum Open API.
Next.js template
Based on https://github.com/shadcn/next-template (Website, UI Components), which is an implementation of Radix UI with Tailwind and other helpful utilities.
Features
Full-text search, including accession number
Searchable filters
Linked object properties
Custom similarity algorithm with combined weighted terms (can be adjusted)
Embedded JSON-LD (Schema.org VisualArtwork) for better SEO and sharing
Image Zoom with Openseadragon
Image carousel with embla-carousel
Form handling via Formspree
Meta & OG meta tags
next-themes dark/light modes
@next/font font loading
Screenshots
Content Models
What do we mean by content models, schemas, and structured data?
On January 23rd I gave a high-level presentation introducing content models in the context of our CMS and website project.
In the beginning was content, and it was a mess…
As we analyze our content, unique content types emerge.
As well as relationships between those types.
Looking at each type individually, we notice common attributes.
New types and relationships between types emerge…
Types are defined as schemas, and together they form a Content Model.
Content Management Systems are implemented using the schemas of a Content Model.
A website understands the CMS schemas, and thus can display content.
CMS content is not just limited to websites!
CMS content is not just limited to websites!
A commonly used content model is Schema.org. Founded by search engines, Schema.org is a “collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.”
Schema.org defines schemas for all kinds of content including Events, Exhibitions, Artworks, Web Pages, Books, Products, Learning Videos, Job Postings, and more.
Schema.org types (or vocabulary) can be used with structured data formats. “Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content.”
One common structured data format is JSON-LD, which is embedded within web pages. Search engines use JSON-LD structured data to improve search results and provide features like rich snippets.
Content Models allow us to understand and structure our content.
A CMS implements a Content Model, and serves that content to clients.
Embedded Schema.org structured data allows others to understand our content.
DALL-E 2 & 3 Library of Babel
“The Library is a sphere whose exact centre is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel
“The Library is a sphere whose exact centre is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.”
September 2023 Update: DALL-E 3
Bing just released DALL-E 3 image generation via Image Creator.
Various prompts. Example: “High-resolution black & white floorplan of the infinite library from Jorge Luis Borges' 'The Library of Babel', with interconnected infinite hexagonal chambers connecting in multiple dimensions, and corridors that connect to an endless expanse of identical hexagons extending beyond, embodying the boundless sphere of knowledge as described in Borges' narrative.”
DALL-E 2
I tried various DALL-E 2 prompts, but it was very difficult to fully describe the Library of Babel in only one line of text. These are hand-picked results. All images copyright OpenAI.
DALL-E 2 & 3 Alien Vases
DALLE 2 & 3 generated images of alien vases.
My exploration of the vase form using GAN’s was fun, but ultimately a little disappointing because generated images are limited to the combination of possibilities within a strictly-defined dataset, for example photos of vases. After training a StyleGAN model on vases I could generate more images of vases. So what?
Creating “hybrid” images via transfer learning on disparate datasets (like cross-pollinating vases with beetles) resulted in strange and interesting new possibilities, but the process is labor intensive and also slightly disappointing. Vases mixed with beetles, so what?
It wasn’t until the advent of text-to-image generators like DALL·E that my mind was truly blown. Now, one could simply write a text prompt describing the desired image, and results would magically appear. One was no longer limited to specialized datasets, now we were dealing with ALL the images.
So far, my primary interest in image generators has been to explore new forms of ceramic objects, primarily vases. I’ve been through many versions of prompts. “A contemporary procelain vase that has never been seen before.” “A ceramic vase that represents a mathematical concept.” “A modern vase with a drippy glaze.” But none of these prompts produced what I felt were interesting or new forms. As a sci-fi lover, I naturally began asking for vases made by aliens, and my prompts gradually began producing novel forms. Excited to have just been given access to OpenaAI DALL·E 2, I iterated on the theme and settled on the following prompt:
September 2023 Update: DALL-E 3
Bing just released DALL-E 3 image generation via Image Creator.
Various prompts. Example: “High-resolution color photo of an enigmatic ceramic vessel, birthed by minds of a profoundly advanced extraterrestrial civilization, graces a white room. Its form is bewildering, defying earthly design paradigms to a degree rendering it nearly incomprehensible, yet magnetically alluring. This object invites onlookers into an alien realm of unfathomable creativity and futuristic aesthetics, shattering our terrestrial bounds of material and function.”
DALLE-2
“A photo of a ceramic vase made by space aliens from an advanced civilization displayed in a gallery with white walls.”
Here are some results from that prompt. All images copyright OpenAI.
Virtual blue & white
Training a StyleGAN3 model with a dataset of 1,600 photos of qinghua blue & white porcelain from the Ming Dynasty to Republic Period.
Training a StyleGAN3 model with a dataset of 1,600 photos of qinghua blue & white porcelain from the Ming Dynasty to Republic Period.
StyleGAN 3: Embryonic vessels
Experiments with StyleGAN3 at the beginning of training with a dataset of tens of thousands of images of vases.
Here, the Generative Adversarial Network StyleGAN3 is beginning to train with a dataset of tens of thousands of images of vases. Generated music soundtrack is an excerpt from "Transmission" by the amazing Alex Bainter (https://alexbainter.com/) and is licensed under CC BY 4.0. More generators can be found at https://generative.fm
Continuing to train with a dataset of tens of thousands of images of vases. Generated music soundtrack is an excerpt from "Transmission" by the amazing Alex Bainter (https://alexbainter.com/) and is licensed under CC BY 4.0. More generators can be found at https://generative.fm
What is a Vase? Google Quick, Draw!
Taking a look at the Google Quick, Draw! dataset containing 50 million doodles, including 126,475 drawings of a "vase".
Stacked "vase" doodles from the dataset.
50 million doodles have been released as a dataset, including 126,475 drawings of a "vase". In the image above I've stacked hundreds of "vase" doodles, revealing a common form.
But what emerges is not the universal, Platonic ideal of a "vase". Google's analysis of doodle composites has shown that even for basic things like "chair" there are significant differences across cultures. (Google AI & Kyle McDonald)
You can browse the vase doodle dataset here: https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/data/vase
Differences in doodles for “chair” across cultures.
Samples of "vases" from the Google Quick, Draw! dataset.
Generated Glazes In the Real World!
The virtual is slowly seeping into the real. Glazy users have been posting some wonderful tests of glaze recipes generated by OpenAI's machine learning software GPT-2. This is only the beginning!
Generated glazes making their way into the real world.
GPT-3 Artist Statements
GPT-3 generated some amazing artist statements, although upon reflection many of them don't actually make sense. Or is it that even real Artist Statements don't make sense?
GPT-3 generated some amazing artist statements, although upon reflection many of them don't actually make sense. Or is it that even real Artist Statements don't make sense?
Artist Statements Generated by OpenAI's GPT-3
Artist Statement
I am interested in the relationship between people and objects. The way we use things in our daily lives is sometimes more interesting than the objects themselves. How the use of a simple object, such as a teapot, can create a ritual in our lives is fascinating to me.
My passion for handmade objects was sparked by a childhood surrounded by woodworkers. My father and grandfather were both skilled woodworkers and I watched and learned from them. I continued my education at the University of Kentucky where I graduated with a degree in sculpture.
My interest in clay emerged at a ceramic workshop while visiting a friend in Seattle. I was drawn to the music of the wheel and the way the clay would tell me what it wanted to become. The feel of the work in my hands and the way the clay would respond to the slightest change in pressure was amazing to me. This was my first experience with clay and I was hooked.
The clay I use is from Kentucky, the water I use is from Kentucky and I fire in a Kentucky kiln. Kentucky is where I live and where I make my work. I am interested in the unique connection between people and place and I am inspired by my surroundings.
Artist Statement
My work is inspired by the natural world: the flora and fauna around me, as well as the intricacy of both natural geologic structures and the human body.
As with the natural world, imperfections are not considered flaws, but rather as the source of beauty. In nature, layers of paint will be worn away at the base of cliffs and rock structures exposing the natural formations underneath in their own contrapuntal form. It is the same with people; scars and wrinkles are the life and journey still present on the body of the elderly. It is this imperfection that the work strives to make manifest.
My work is both functional and sculptural. The object is part of everyday life but at the same time stands out, calling us to wonder at the forms we make and the forms of nature. Perfectly joined up one cannot tell where the object stopped and the skill of the maker began. Therefore the day-to-day utility of a jug, or bowl or jar is both only itself and also, in its perfect imperfections, a reminder of the natural world outside of the human realm.
Artist Statement
Ceramics is a rigid medium in terms of bending coils and pouring glazes but the molten clay material is as fluid and capable as water ever was. While there is a rigidity to the clay, overall there is not a fixed frame of time this "fluidity" has to fit within, I can hold the "fluid" back and let it slowly begin to flow again. This is the experience of my work. I think of my work in terms of fluid dynamics, while it is contained in its form there is an ebb and flow to it. Over time as this relates to the history of ceramic materials, the composition, the stacking and assembling during their dance into and out of the kiln evolve. It is the sense that when the forms of clay came into my hands that I was only holding the tip of an iceberg. From these veins the pot emerges. The pot comes from these veins and from the ebb and flow of the structures clay is capable of. It is this ebb and flow which pushes back and forth that are the visual cues and choreographic movements. Each stack of bowls, pots and dishes emerges slowly as if suspended like a series of waves within the overall composition. In this way there is a quality of five movement meshed into the whole. Over time as this ceramic sea or ocean ebbs and flows into its final space it has a quality of becoming its own landscape. The forms emit a sound, spoken into existence from someone sitting in silence. A series of short skits all fusing together for the life time performance. Over time each ceramic piece has a sense of turning into its most natural self and where imagined to be present and visible so it may live, a hug for the imagination and a portal into the world of the imagination and visual fantasy
The forms are additive to one another and at the same time take away from one another. The forms are layered one over the other, and sometimes curl into each other. There is an oscillating effect in that not only stacking but over time in their travels back and forth the forms coming out
Artist Statement
Playing with the world of technology and 3D animation, I have created something new. From traditional hand painting techniques to digital environments that surround the human form. Through technological experimentation I recreated the world; let me tell my story of the ambiguous place between reality and illusion.
Artist Statement
My sensual work is based on the nuance and textures found in nature and everyday life. The work is characterized by a limited color palette and precision between each color note. My keen awareness of the tactile rhythms of colour and form is never forced or arranged to suit an outside subjective opinion. The desire to arrange visual sensations is found within. The finished pots are concentrated fruit of my time speaking with you. The work both reveals its indebtedness to the past and celebrates the discovery of new ways to use everyday things.
Artist Statement
My work is an exploration of ideas and values held within the basic building blocks of mass production—manufacturing, packaging and distribution. The works are assemblages that celebrate conflict and create objects that appear as either functional or decorative. Although they are an accumulation of ready to go items, these pieces are about the missing elements. I feel there is a vacuum to be filled or a space/story to be told; the action of it is the search.
Artist Statement
The maquettes that have a foundation in architecture and monuments work as a metaphor for society particularly as we approach the state of the union of things, buildings, monuments and ideas. They all make up some great idea of what we could or should be.
Artist Statement
Leery of mechanical perfection in art, I invoke improvisation as an aesthetic. Mired by doubts, shackled by fears, I have a need for the improbable. My love for all things imperfect led me to pottery, where slips, streaks, dents, and mends contribute to the final, thin-walled, highly-glazed objects exploring complex process and confusion. Soup cans embody our reluctance to accept ambiguity. Improvising a pot is a logical progression, a way to acknowledge chaos. In a world so ordered, where everything is catagorized, sorted and described… my upbringing in Miami, Florida enforced this “sweet see-saw” kind of thinking. Fontainebleau sand, highway blacktop, dirt, dried palm leaves, sun and surf became constants. Witnessing the longsuffering, dazzling front of the Florida keys under a constant bombardment of 8-12′ Northerly swell seemed to tacitly accept the reality of change, and therefore consistent abrasion. I think it is this acceptance, mixed with an equal amount of influence absorbed while living the next 12 years in Portugal, playing soccer in the Alentejo region and encountering the Old-new architecture of that part of country that ultimately enticed me to attempt the “Self-fulfilling prophecy” of pottery in order to resolve issues of a brittle, exposed nerve. Its a great relief, to be able to stop fighting the process, to be able to enjoy those bits of broken slip on the rim of the foot, the perfection of a tiny but necessary slip bubble, the pleasure gained from bringing the object to the brink of failure.
Artist Statement
This work exhumes objects that should be relegated to memory, those objects from our past that once seemed so bright and new. Usually when the time arrives to buy new ones, one realizes that they cannot be replaced. This abrupt transition series from the past to the present attempts to suspend us in the transformation. The once shiny and flashy becomes dull and tarnished and then gradually loses its relevance, its meaning. There is a direct correlation between the lifespan of a fossil and the perception that we have of them.
Artist Statement
Clay is my palette. Clay becomes my paint brush and knife. I work the clay filling the voids and forming the geometric. I press the clay to distort it, unite it, and play with it. As the clay becomes a finished work, it retains the physical memory of my interaction with it. As I’ve said time and time again, clay is my voice.
Artist Statement
Artists must take risks. We must work in the fear of failure. We must dare to make an impression on the world. Artists are the prism through which light is refracted. No color, no spectrum, no rainbow of options; just the purest form of white light contains all other colors, if you break the prism. Those creative risks are always overlooked with hindsight. The result is never as successful as we hope. The color never as brilliant as we projected. What has resulted is instead, something different. Something unexpected. Something better.
Artist Statement
Trying to fix something that isn't broken just results in “fixed”. Instead, I ask, how can we evolve this? How can we tell holistic stories? What if we flipped the subject or then simply turned it on it’s side? What if we looked at one meaningful collection from many points of view?
Artist Statement
Make a mark in the average. Try a different perspective. Move a few steps back. Take a moment to stop and look around. Now that you're talking to me, how can we change the subject?
Artist Statement
I am especially interested in how objects in nature can be mimicked in ceramic and how matter can seemingly be transformed to disappear under a glaze. To drag the surface of a clay body flat as glass, to capture the essence of a living root, or capture a shard of beach glass on its journey to becoming sand; these are my objects of desire. This line of investigation evolves from my masters in sculpture, my realization of the flatness of paper and paint as symbols to ideas and ideals, and my desire to use ceramics with spontaneity and experience rather than precision and control. I play with volumes, manipulating and inverting shapes, inviting light to shine on surprise inside.
Artist Statement
Research drives my work to achieve new triumphs and new failures. The language of tradition, the story of the form, and the structure of junk food commercials link my interests to the form of collections and consider that while things are in flux, seemingly fixed, they are actually moving forward toward their end. I am inspired by many recent publications about anthropology and sociology and how objects are alive like ideas, like skin, like bones and waves.
Artist Statement
The acts of manufacturing and of buying ceramics entail unique types of problems that are restorative. They seem more closely related than I first imagined. The right type of problem can push the imagination, or be the beginning or end of the creation of an object, or merely provide a field in which one desire can meet another, allowing the parts of an image to flourish. Thus objects manage to represent themselves, for they reveal their simultaneous functions and desires. In this way, a sink can become a vessel. A drain can become regular dishware or the circle of a wheel. It is an artist’s job to recognize opportunities, potential complications, and to lead these an audience to them.
Artist Statement
In a time of globalization, most of my work is provocatively idiosyncratic and personal. I apply surface to form thinking the details of the moment are most valuable. Striving for virtuosity in the everyday tasks such as color application, surface handling and form making serve as an enjoyable meditation for me. The essence of my handmade decorated pots begins with ideation on how to best extract the expression from the canvas I choose – the maturing thoughts manifest into the clay… as the making says.
Artist Statement
I play with contrasts! I make use of transparency and translucency, but also of darkness and of light; of smoothness and of roughness. I make contradiction. Sometimes with sharp edges, other times with perfectly flat semispheres, bubble shapes, triangles or squares. Beauty also resides in power. Power, which evokes astonishment and is inherent in precision. This goes for rough as well as smooth. Sharp. Riding on this wave, however, is not always easy. The important task here is to gather sufficient strength and to simultaneously be reserved with regard to the sudden attacking image. To never lose the energy and dynamism but at the same time remain calm, pondering, composed and stick to the very important process. It only converts in quick moves and is completed with control.
Artist Statement
The strength of our craft lies in its traditional elements and techniques. Its base is the skillful, methodical manipulation of clay to create forms and functional uses that are functional, uncomplicated and aesthetically satisfying without being derivative. We must celebrate the subtlety in the complement of shapes and textures in our most basic forms which allow our works to integrate into the ambiences with which they are surrounded both in their permanent and temporary functions.
Artist Statement
Over the past fifteen years I have taken my exploration into expression through clay to the next level. Work has always been present as a means to connect with the greater consciousness as I understand it in this dimension. Drawing inspiration from symbolic things found in nature and daily life, I create functional stoneware that serves as personal declaration. Many parallels are found between artisans hand building vessels of clay and images being formed from thought. Their conception, manipulation and materialization are tools to decipher and ultimately make leaps into understanding the essential mystery of being.
Artist Statement
There is no question that I am a potter when working with clay. There is a magnifyed sense of presence as potter, as creator. The clay acts as a facilitator for my creative intuitions. The clay can not tell you what to do. You have to trust your inspirations and put them together, try to balance them against what you know. Clay can only be the gift of form and presence; the creator has to respond to that presence.
Artist Statement
The genre of sculptural vessels made of earthenware must walk a fine line between content and form or risk inconsistent repression of either. The creation must serve as a vibrant link between both from creation to finished creation. Whether it holds or serves my engagement with poetry, it is ultimately the responsibility of the works to speak for the poet and painter as their player. Using earthenware as a sculptural clay allows the ability to play with a wide range of form, slip application, expressiveness, structural placement and lighting. Consequently, I choose Brown Mountain slip and porcelain surface for their unmatched ability and beauty for sculptural forms. It is this use of color, light and form which allows the juxtaposition to the expression its power. Poetry is less about the words than the place where the words find you, where the words become you, and the poem and verse is simultaneously a birth of place, person, and place once again.
Artist Statement
Stoneware signifies chaos and destruction in its ancient mythic context. I play with the conflicted ideas of ultimate annihilation or rebirth at the hands of a divine hand. Transformation from the terrifying to the tranquil can be found in my approach to multi-faceted form. The forms are created in multiple parts from shaped slabs and thrown underglazes and glazes in my LA kiln studio. Overglaze painting and slurry application in my wood-fired LA studio completes the method of reassembly. The kiln fired transforms are utilized in Pasadena at the Ravenstrom Gallery for their wood-fire and raku exhibitions.
Artist Statement
Through my upcoming pottery, I sit with the familiar and see with new eyes; by filling pots and bowls with wisdom, I explore the commonalities of women with similar expressions of the body and choices in clothing. Upon considering common ground, I hone into the disparities; embodied and attired in clay from similar yet contrasting earth, my pots sit in dialogue with each other and expose intrinsic common ground; emotions, behaviours, ideas and physical conditions. Textural and temperature gradients are created from low to high temp firings. Withstanding all outside influence, my pots segue from representing harmony, to losing their sense of self, call to chaos, and then seeking transformation. Embracing the wild, and the use of my hands, I mold forms that bleed, spill, grow, and burst; it is all the same, all part of change. Highlighting the pot's inherent tactility and colouration, four seemingly different clay bodies, converse one to another through gradient movement of heaviness and color. From hand to hand, from one body to another, I invite my pots to connect, to move and breathe one into another.
Artist Statement
In every fibre of our being we are aware of the detailed and fragile relationship between our physical world and that which surrounds us. I spin surfaces to capture an atmosphere of ascension, embodiment and shard matter. How fragile the frayed edges are of our experiences and memories, easily torn by the strains of our existences. At the heart of all is the acknowledgement of our inevitable terminations of birth, death, both hemispheres, and beyond all scientific explanation remain the boundaries of what we ourselves cannot define. The question of “what came before” and “what comes after”, “what is that is actually us” is subjective and somehow achieved. It is a journey between discovering where we come from, what is our legacy and whether or not we have owned it.
Artist Statement
Working in ceramics has a limited range of feeling and texture to convey the soul inside an object. My work is about thoughtful placement, distinctive materialality and how the vessel chooses it’s home. The pieces explore in a way that takes the viewer from an expected comfort into an extraordinary intimacy, well beyond the pleasantries that we normally associate with our consumption.
Artist Statement
I observe the landscape and scan the skies for sturdy nourishment – for health, to root its self safely in the earth, and for life-breath – that which fills with a declaration of its own objectives. The roots observe rightly the primal law of adaptation, constantly hiding, adapting, both always seeking safety and liberty. This is where my practice and my understanding of family history collide, for searching my family line accounts the resilience of the plants that survived and thrived off a land unforgiving enough to destroy them. My work explores the boundary of creation, rebirth, and evolution. It invites the viewer into an adaptation of their own as they enter into the opened conversations of dirt, matter, silt and objects to find hope.
Artist Statement
Working in clay comes naturally to me – the fluid warmth of it feels, sounds and vibrates pervasively. I slowly draw out the character of the clay through the use of long and repetitive hand methods. I believe that clay has a mind of its own and by using the pot as an instrument, I ask it to expose the inner soul. Infatuated by the holy simplicity of a curve, I work the clay to find my places; old and remembered shapes, draped in nostalgia live a second life and are reincarnated from floating shards into sculptural vessels.
In celebration of the fluid movement of a life in the deep south of Australia – cultural traditions – its art, stories, hopes, and dreams; I am exploring the reach of our creative spirit. I’ve set the stage for a conversation between the natural and cultural activity that has been entrenched here since the beginning of time.
Artist Statement
My pots are the third of my bodies of work, inspired close to one and other, unified with an underlying thread disappearing and appearing again. With this in mind, I have drawn upon the archetypal idea of the vessel as an extension of and metaphor to, the body. Borne from three different cultural movements: the process-heavy Northern European ceramic tradition; naive folk pottery aesthetics from the South of France; and contemporary hand-building techniques developed in California, the ceramic pieces of the playfully named collection VESSEL RESONANCE, are wrapped in a delicate tension between form and space. Pot liquor and slip moves across half-dried surfaces; gravity creates patina-like effects; markings from pots used to support others poke through to the surface. The objects push and pull against each other, creating a physical tension rising from surface details. The play of various textures, surfaces and same- and reverse-written Arabic calligraphy create a syntactical interplay uniting the pieces.
Artist Statement
As a Pueblo potter, my strength is in my ability to work both as an individual and member of a community. In order to present formally developed artistic ideas, exercised through the visual language of traditional ceramic techniques, I use visual strategies and language derived from cultural myths and symbols, Native American and Pueblo ideologies and values, and Western and non-Western philosophies. My aim is the same for all pieces produced: complete artistic satisfaction.
Artist Statement
Conviviality is the name of a gathering. I built a table of clay and wood, surrounding it with eight plates, cups and a bowl. Gourmet Subdued is about the forms that the gathering leaves behind. Food and drink are gone; the table and its iterations are left to delay and refine what have been consumed. The work is a celebration of the moment, the implication of what was consumed puts the aftertaste in the mouth. So life and art have many shades of meaning. I take inspiration from a high white mountain pass in the Monashee Mountains of central British Columbia. Occasional gatherings on the edge of a remote pass between the Pacific and Cariboo Valleys; it has been welcoming immigrants since the gold rush. The table will be waiting on the bench at that quiet location waiting for return conviviality.
Artist Statement
The weather has been warm this spring and a single Robin has taken up residence. For Robin's return I have begun to harvest the imagery that is required to create dinnerware. As every food placed on the table calls for its own proper container my aim is to use the forms to suggest an abundance of renewal and growth. Adding new variations to the dinner table that mimics life's ideal as present by aspects of nature . Mixing past with a future abundance.
Artist Statement
The versatility of clay offers the opportunity to release the individual from societal expectation of all that it stands for.
The history of the craft and its value come from the same handbook, however, it has rarely been accepted as being an evolving idea. By acknowledging this element we are now able to re-read the historical making of pottery with fresh eyes and see it for what it is, an invitation to creativity and new directions that would like to be explored. The opportunity looms to produce artwork, possibly sculpture, that is fundamentally the same as utility ware, only difference is the scale.
Teaware can be a place to practice the art of painting and carving in clay, to learn and extend the range of utensil, to allow for novel ideas of usage and artmaking.
By bringing functional ideas together in an individual setting there is the potential to create our own environment that has the prime consideration of us and the way we live. This attitude gives us permission to attach our own value to an object, freeing us of the restrictions of those who have previously done so mightily.
Artist Statement
Humankind is challenged to make choices when designing and creating an environment for longevity. I have my own philosophies and conventions that drive my choices and decisions. The intended use of a piece influences every aspect of its surface – from decoration to texture and colour to shape. I’m motivated by the belief that a complete dinner table should contain three elements: utensils for food and drink, an equal range of serving ware, and any necessary holders for place cards and signage. The ensemble should reflect the mood and ambience of the environment it is a part of, whether it’s a boot-kickin’ barbecue on the back deck or a formal setting fit for the condo board; I want my knick-knacks and accents to evoke socialized use and a “How’s your Uncle Fester?” country club calm.
Artist Statement
Fragments of colour - isolated, adjacent, side by side - anything so as to free the colour from the multitude, science, sense, science again and again. A world vanishes; now only colours. Purity in its utmost form, far from what we know as colour and from life as we know it. But the passion for pure colour has remained. It is, I believe, the only thing important about painting.
Artist Statement
Coming from a female, I often question the dearth of feminine personalities in western art forms and the lack of women portrayed as even taking part in anything other then sewing, cooking and cleaning. I believe that art is about expressing our ideas, our emotions, and learning about others. I also believe it’s about the tangible. I have difficulty thinking that much made from a symbolic point of view provides us with longevity or any instruction of how to make our day to day life better. Perhaps. But our need for the Earth is immediate and I want to see a balance between the tangibles that will provide sustenance for our own Earth if we would only learn.
Artist Statement
In both their transparent and unblending ways, the vessels found in the Hudson Shore or the Americas or hundreds of years ago now arrive with the needs of modern man or woman. A man is not concerned with just eating or drinking, but he eats with his neighbour or drinks with his companion. That companion must consider an object as much as an appetite or taste. That companion must sit at a home dining table or a dinner table at an art gallery, it must complement or reflect the needs of that moment. ... What is to be expected next, how will this look?
Our designs now come charged and excitedly aware of their fundamental purpose and intent. That excitement must then be controlled and cooled into stable, considered, thoughtful and functional objects. We are now here to stay, and to stay, and to stay. Though we might thrill each other in our hand drums and uncooked food.
The exciting thing for us all is that there is no control as to what plastic and paper might give way to, and be lost to, in its coming forms.
Artist Statement
A functioning dinner table has been part of most social engagements since time immemorial. As a professional designer, designer/maker and devoted amateur chef/foodie, I find this subject incredibly stimulating. The table doesn’t need to be large, but it must serve a purpose to function and tell a story over time. Our “lives” are reflected back to us through the dinner table, which should be considered from time to time, what are our favourite guests, how do we want to be communicated? Will our mood lead to an informal party or time of calm to interact with each other over an exceptional dinner? How about the acoustics above and around the table? I love well defined “sound” and believe my sculptural and functional pottery to address the issue well.
Artist Statement
My passion for pottery is a genuine part of my connection to the continuity of human endeavor and symbolizes a field of influence as a part of our current time.
Artist Statement
If words could describe the essence of work, my mom would rest on the grounds that magic, sanctuary and highest truth are the fundamentals of my output.
Abyssal and monumental clay serves as the springboard of creation. Scorned and chased over 3000 years ago, it dominates through fear of its explosion. The power spawns symmetry and paradox, twin forces capable of changing the red clay into a virtuous product.
Ceramics is like fishing or being in love: it is intimately private and yet profoundly universal.
Artist Statement
I sense a commonality that weaves through the field of making things. In the hands of the potter, that which is familiar is redefined, playing with, testing and violating. Deconstruction leads to reconstruction. I use a bit of scientific inquiry, but tend towards an analogue approach to my pots. What I look for are new perspectives, forms in the periphery and anomalies to drive my work. From my vantage point, the journey is never spurious. I see elaborate paths, complex and pragmatic inner dialogues, a variety of philosophies under one roof. The complex path leads me through drawing, where I play with form building a framework for the pots to come. On occasion, I follow a more literal path.
The making of pots is a metaphor for the creative process. It seems to me there is value in this wheel, made in stone, first in archaic Mesopotamia and today to continue to turn, still looking for the perfect pot."
Artist Statement
“In shaping and firing clay, I like to depend on the incidental but also follow a set of rules. In this case, when building with clay there are just as many accidents as there are successes. It is the successes that I try to follow. Though I alter, omit or explode some rules, I continue to search for new rules or ways of existing within the rules set before me. I am currently questioning what are rules and what is happening in between what we call rules, what will be left as practice if we throw out the rules. By collapsing time through stratified and intuitive processes I lay basic forms that later will come together and intertwine. The transformation from basic forms evolves through sculpting, building, digging, cutting and burying. What come out of this are objects that suggest landscape, bodies, vessels, vistas and the unknown. In spite of how the work looks, the only moment it resembles is the moment it happened. "
Artist Statement
A china pot is nothing but clay with a hole. A glass is nothing but a metal with a hole, simple as that. And it's the not the inside nothing hole, but the not the outside nothing hole. This "nothing", even if it depends on what you call, is the hole of everything, the truth, the rationality, the spirit, the fantasy, the absense, the mind, the ink, the water, the colour of all colour, the nothing with all the possibilities, the condition for every space/time, without condition. Therefore, the Middle Ages defined God simply as "OH" (as in "Big O"), which stands for Not a Thing. To make "O" possible, these holes had to be filled with simple materials to permute, transmutate and transmit the vibe to all kinds of phenomenons, in our present and in other planets. The Reality of a simpler vessel means to transmit an endorphinity, a first gnosis or inner spirit, so little that the body will be aware from that emptiness, the body can fill it, but not swallow it. Being an artist, I’m more interested about the awe of these spirits in the hole in the first place, and of the holes themselves, inseparable from the statics and dynamics, architecture and cosmology, or meta-physics and astrophysics. Over history, the holes have been here with us in a lapidary, animated way, so little that if one passes through them, he can be "plugged into" the energy of all the spirit persons that have gone before, after, and are possible."
Artist Statement
"The artist has attained the highest plane of self actualization and the complete epitome of human potential. In the eye of the creative mind, no new configurations are to appear. It has become dull and insensitive to stimulation from within or without. The mot juste alone may be extracted from the dullard awareness. The creative mind requires total void. The peripheral senses remain the sole channels of information outside the subconscious. The foundation of the creative essence is a perpetual dichotomy between the actual and the conceivable. The entire nature of creativity consists of the primordial oscillation between the possible and impossible." Raymond N. Vezina
Artist Statement
My practice currently treats the dichotomy between ephemerality and containment – between the imponderable and the highly sculptural – between the intangible and the tactile. My work at any given moment of conceptualization is highly concerned with how the mind mediates between pure abstraction and surface description. What happens in the minds eye when confronted with visual phenomena, I’m interested in the phenomenon and in how the viewer interacts with it. Unlike the great analytical sculptors who work in three dimensions, I use wood, clay, concrete and my own body as source material to make modular sculptures and installations using a non-hierarchical methodology. The system of connections that are made between the pieces determines the space of the construction. The intentional incompleteness of the sculpture is an ever-changing, tactile experience of concrete shapes and spaces. Their work is derived from processes that creates objects and installations the outcomes are partly informed by social interactions and partly independent of them.
Artist Statement
The level of craft and the amount of individuality and expression varies depending on what kind of pot an artist is making. I see two distinct differences: utility vs. decorative. Throughout history and in many cultures, vessels have carried many functions from ritual ceremony to cooking. Aesthetically these vessels are usually more restrained than their purely decorative counterparts; however, this does not mean they have less artistry. These utilitarian pots provide a context of their own. I am under the strong influence of earth, material, and familiarity – habitual behavior of some kind. Food is consumed here, moments are cherished here, in a quiet way it provides the stability and foundation of our being. This balance of familiar comfort and anxiety is an aesthetic I strive to achieve in all of my work. This body of work changes my ideas with repetition as much as being in their presence relaxes me. When pressed for a pots genesis and purpose, one can’t produce any explanation beyond the presence of erosion. Rivers carve away, cutting their ever-spiraling paths, shaping the world beneath them since the beginning of time, eroding sediment deposited by Ice Age glaciers. Their path is as much a journey of the spirit as the physical travel of water across the land. I want to be present in that narrative, to give physical presence to something I have spent my whole life dreaming about. Continued experimentation over the years has allowed me to envision a whole body of work continuing the current theme.
didn’t have a goal, I just sat down and did it. A few years later hundreds of pots lie on my shelves, inviting viewers to take them up and wander what they mean.
I am totally obsessed with finding new, powerful and provocative ways to interact with landscape through animals, rocks, mountains, rivers, fields and forests. To me this is a whole body of work that continues to grow – breathing in and out of this same obsession.
Artist Statement
Doing the same thing over and over again every day. I “see” it in my mind first then create it – thousands and millions of times. Not bored with the work… completely involved in exploring the process. Producing idea after idea always testing the parameters of the medium. A push/pull between limiting forms, process and materials and the opposite – to be unlimited by my own ability.
Artist Statement
Pots mimic the art of conversation. When they gather together in a room it feels like they are engaged in a discussion, poised in negotiation with one another. Each moving back and forth in a way that suggests neither lead nor obeys the other. Their ambiguity reassures viewers that interpretation of their gestures is dependent on viewing context as much as sight.
The pieced-together aesthetic refers to the phenomenon of steel migratory work. Instead of people moving from city to city to find work, steel workers would often be laid off and move their families to another region where there was a steel mill. They would sometimes be laid off and move factories for more work, often settling in a different town where they would buy a house where they no longer needed to rent. This migratory work practice is formally related to how the pieces are put together in our traditional coiling unfired vessel, using whatever materials we have available to us, in the location where we are living and working, then with the aid of a kiln, fuse them together.
We have moved quite a few times and for much of the work in this body I was making pots, staying somewhere for just a few months at a time. I move a lot and the pots I make become works on migration.
Artist Statement
There are 3 Visions of relief, 3 dimensions happening simultaneously with every stroke. One is the beginning, first stroke on the clay, a mental sketch, an abstraction, beyond words, like longing to connect, to touch, to enter into. The 2nd is how I clean up, or take away material to set relief visual elements into 2 dimension space while holding the space in relief. The 3rd, after the pot is bisque fired, I size and glaze the surface. The 3rd dimension is endless how I use the surface coloring and textures to inform the pot, emphasize a feeling, set light into the space, it’s texture and scale. As if it was a place, setting the stage, using color on the walls and ceiling to set a feeling. Think theater as in sculpture, not community theatre.
Secrets are hidden in the relief, colors hide tension and hold the other areas in focus. The color accents and sets accents into the rhythm of the relief planes, visual/aesthetic and sensory. Areas of stress are revealed, maybe awkwardly placed, the backbone? Relief highlights and attracts a viewers unconscious. It’s light and free, kinesthetic, active and a kinetic feel. Work is significantly layered. The layers of activity, the spilling over helps hold each area in relief. Visual travel from one side to the other side fuels the interest in pots as sculptural objects. Some pieces will stay whole in front of you while others really need to be spun in order to be read – turning away from the image to introspect, decipher, process. Looks can be deceiving. Starts are slow, having a difficult time beginning.
Artist Statement
Presenting work, showing 1-5 pots at a time is a concept idea that I feel helps me show my ability to manipulate different glazes and placement of them, depth of firing and color contrasts since I commonly associate my work with puppetry.
It’s not the piece alone but the amazing space they recreate visually. I have a puppet background, so I manipulate my pieces like a show.
I manipulate my pieces to signify space and place where they occupy, the ability to climb in and enjoy on a regular basis.
The mystery of my pieces starts with the dark base construction, the mystery of having to discover the anomalies, what are they? They are always performing like a show of controlled chaos. My suggestion is the design of the piece is suggesting multiple ideas but at this time I am not giving up all secrets of my pieces.
Artist Statement
Silicon, aluminum, and magnesium, elements known most commonly for their reciprocal roles as conductors, transitional metals, and vital ions in an array of organisms’ bio-chemical exchanges, have historically provided the fine potter with fluid vessels of varying degrees of conductivity and compressibility. Modern methodologies of the potter's wheel can be traced back to pre-modern cultures and technologies, which relied on prehistoric clay-lined fermentation pots and bread ovens to concoct silica material.
Artist Statement
The sequential process of clay innovation is restricted to a moderate analog, but what technology has submitted in speed, flexibility, and efficiency, has in turn offered an amplified spectrum of compositional options. Sampling effects of electric currents, arching temperatures in oxidation, and yet greater transparency in firing speed - all in time and stillness - are in fact our liberties. Much like the dilemma of modern man, to predictably govern or naturally grope for control, it is insight through the colorless lens of perspective that mirrors a near century of electric spark.
Artist Statement
Working from a tradition, derived from American studio craft pottery of the 1950s-1960s, my pots deliver a familiarity of form, material, and surface manipulations. Each piece is an investigation into singular construction techniques.
Artist Statement
Single pieces are inspired by current events, memories, social meditations, geological data, museum experiences, family secrets, pop music, folk culture and other ephemera.
Artist Statement
My utilitarian salt and pepper shakers exemplify how in a self-perpetuating, cyclical nature pottery can monitor and influence functional objects. By altering the scale of appropriate production methods and focusing on the intrasnse quality of hand made I alter the context of ceramics in our daily lives.
Artist Statement
I am interested in how my individual choice of materials leads to effects that can be explored and, to some extent, predicted.
Artist Statement
For the past several years I have searched for ways to compose forms, volumes, and surface qualities into an emotional and intellectually coherent response. Many works that look like round bowls start out as square pieces of clay, others as a tunnel of clay, pressed out under my feet while standing on a sculptural form. These accidental forms are stored in my memory.
Artist Statement
I make decisions about what to discard or repair based on an intuitive desire to move a work through to completion. I am attracted to the impermanence of a material that also has a memory of its history, making studio work a unique opportunity to allow accidental forms, happy accidents, and planned events to accumulate into a type of storytelling, each piece providing a narrative of my time here on earth. Due to this accumulation, no two pots are alike, when they keep their memory. They all have an aura, and with each additional firing over time, the aura changes.
My research into the properties of clay and glazes has been ongoing for the past 25 or so years using cement, fabric, glass beads, found objects, wood, paper, plastic, and naturally occurring objects to alter the surfaces of my pots.
To create two- and three-dimensional works, depending on the interests of the project, I apply wood and gypsum board, using glues, screws, nails, water jets, brackets, and threaded rods. I continue working on my wheel from time to time. To strengthen my interest in the narratives of time through making, I constantly find ways to build up and decompose clay materials to show the impact of time. My studio is dusty with silt and clays from the past as much as with glazes of the present, and from time to time I have been a contributor of the fine dust that creeps everywhere in a studio practice that is committed to reduction. The surface of my reference group and heroes of art and design contains a gritty patina, as all who work with material, whether new or old, cannot avoid the residue of an immediate past that is written in the material, the scars of use, and all of the accoutrements of a life spent with hand and heart in relationship with the materials and tools we call upon to make visions.
Artist Statement
I make primarily sculptural vessels and objects that exist in the social space that most people occupy. They can rest on shelves and in cupboards, but it’s the behavior of the body that creates their primary existence in my work.
My driving is that I'm trying to understand the somatic nature of creating and the utility of that experience in my life; how it affects the way I walk around and interact with other people. The physical sensation of doing some-thing is something we all do, but the object that gets made is a product you can hold in your hand.
Wheth-er the works are cups, bowls, vessels with lids or handles or made out of wood, it’s still a physical sensation to hold these things in your hand, pick them up and hold onto them. So I make these things to distort the experiences people have when they hold something in their hand and hold onto it for a prolonged period of time. I distort those experiences, and I distort the objects that people hold onto, because I don't find normal everyday use-ful anymore. I feel that it's an opportunity to break some of the normalcy and use-fulness patterns of objects and come up with other ways of holding things that people might consider.
Artist Statement
Prior to focusing entirely on my training and development as a blacksmith, I worked as a director, potter and visual artist. Now most of my own artwork has evolved out of the clay fields where I located myself, taking questions about the nature of clay and the methods of testing. Objects are made to reward beautiful symmetries in rows of bellies and coils; they invite natural straight lines into objects that nearly always take curves. My thorough investigation of wire also allowed me the freedom to design emotionally. My raised non-functional barbells and rings recall the protective enclosure of bridges at night. Other wire pieces named for markings on golf courses and tennis courts include surfaces with details mimicking the clean patterns of ball-strips. Swinging back and forth; objects flirt with tension, readying to break. The invitation to take (as the objects themselves take) the long elegant arcs of circular swings, more common in recreational fields than clay ones, will leave the viewer while contemplating the means by which something sturdy might exist in a state of exuberant openness. This fragile suggestion is further emanated from minimal gestures just under the surface, and from the fractured, inorganic planes of glazes.
Artist Statement
Anticipation is a lean in the flesh, warm hand on cool tile, an eye on a wet bowl, hoping that moment the warm glaze hits the wood fired clay, or the drips begin their downward fall… these never failed epiphanies are the reward of a day’s work. This is where the art emerges.
Artist Statement
While potters may possibly choose to exhibit the series of their choice, I like to exhibit all of my current and past work in a continuous narrative of my time in the studio, balancing the desired social space of a home with that of a gallery.. Language in the studio for me is also an exercise that begins with the clay and fire. It is an investigation of the language of clay in terms of its expressive possibility. Identity is a very present notion as well. My work explores all senses of the male and female archetypes in order to include them in the narrative of contemporary pottery, expanding the definition of what pottery is in relation to art and activity. I am interested in the fact that our inner selves are often in conflict with what we do and say publicly in relation to ideas such as the homemaker/career, the male and female roles, and societal expectations. I attempt to address these concerns in art and photographs that range through time.
Artist Statement
In the MA student studio, we work within The Earth is a Factory School. The phrase was coined by my professor Paul Soldner, maker of large scale earthenware assemblage, incorporating elements from the wilderness where, at the time, UCLA Extension was situated in the foothills. After moving to Hampton, WA, The Earth is a Factory School has expanded to include the Coast Salish people. Their world relies on water for life, and provides a window for organic investigation of process and time.
In recent work, observation has led to relationships with sources that surpass "interiors" observed in mass production and manufacturing methods. Observation outside of one's own perceptions produces valuable data in both imagination and process. The material world is an open book for exploration of relationships with clay, nature, traditional craft, and methods of making.
Characterized as life-size, nature-mimicry, and abstracted, I assert that my flat-woven baskets are earthenware vessels that offer an organic language of self-identity. Streams, creeks, rivers, springs, beaches, tide pools, shores, and mudflats are frequent destinations along with land-based fieldwork The frameworks used to support two-dimensional wall work are fabricated of black willow. AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MEANING OF POTTERY IN CONTEMPORARY LIFE The importance of clay in cultures everywhere is vital.
Artist Statement
I like the idea of developing a lexicon of forms built up like archaeological excavations, and then chipping away at the underside of the vessels, revealing something of how the vessel was constructed, and how the forms inhabit the space of the vessel. I then overburden the top of the vessel with additional planes of texture. This occurs because I believe it is important to create vessels that are a hybrid of the familiar and the uncanny and the familiar should not predominate.
Artist Statement
I'm driven to make these welded oxidizations as a response to grief and loss in my life. Currently, I work in an electric kiln with a very intimate yet volatile process. I am tethered to these otherworldly combinations of the abstracted. The work draws huge amounts of transcendent heat while shielding me from it. I work with a skilled balance of self-consciousness and rigor. I want to put into the work some abstracted memory of death and resurrection, to deploy it as a talisman of how rich and disturbing a life can be.
Artist Statement
"My art is a journey into this world and this world's future. The theme of my work is light and shadow, hope and doubt. I seek to strengthen the human condition through my work and the emotions with which it is felt. As with our lives, little that I make can be defined into one way, and I like it that way. I want living viewers to question what they are thinking as they look at my work. I might like it if viewers miss things and ask the questions that I miss whenever I create something. I want pictures to provoke thinking rather than provide explanations. I hope that those who view my art are able to relate emotions and thoughts to things that they might read or have been taught or create themselves. I also like visual confusion in my art, as I don't like to be only understood, but rather be left in a state of continuous thought.
Artist Statement
Context and belonging are key factors in the work studied or produced by any artist. The potter's wheel, the imprint of hands, the textures of tools, the crafting and creation of pottery, are mediums that revere many cultures; the culture of cuisine or houseware, utensil or sculpture. If we take a panorama of a household and stir in the element of history, then live bodies and emotions, currently-used items and then one response to an existing style or form would unfold at a larger scale on a global perspective. In my own journey of hands on and hands off interpreting statements and questions from a whirlwind of cultural influence, continues to be an opportunity to grow and change with every project I launch. This view, beyond that of other potters, has and always will be in my work, my creative being and an identity that marks me belonging to the world community.
Artist Statement
The stacks of thread spools, buttons, hinges and other found objects, imply a whole host of disjointed gestures acting independently of design. They are the outcomes of intuitive moves, rash decisions, and on-the-fly cohesions. They are numerous, disparate, and a smattering of things that define a particular space, but are otherwise thought of, only during the act of creating the art.
What began long ago as a ten-year mark to reflect and signify a point of contemplation, quickly morphed into a twenty-year mark. Each year approaching and passing, proved to be a complex melange of texture, simplicity and complexity. Each year was and is simultaneously a reflection of the past 20 years, as well as an omen to the 20 years that will be.
Beautiful patterns and shades of color that arrive from the inherent energy in any given color formed from a juxtaposition of off-the-shelf and prepared paints create works that stand alone and unexpected, with a sense of momentary flight as they enjoy space within the maze of time.
Artist Statement
I love to explore how pottery connects with people; while the tangible strength of the material is mesmerizing to me, I find the resilience of aesthetic form and the versatility of the maker to be the compelling factors of human relationship. I explore the transformative nature of ceramics by playing with multiple forms of pottery practice. The tactile manipulation inherent to throwing, handcrafting, slab construction, and traditional coiling, are evidenced in my work alongside a new discipline showcasing stoneware clay-on-clay construction with hybrid stoneware-terra cotta glazing and wood smoke through traditional shino and kuro shino glazing.
Artist Statement
Constantly aiming to reinvent myself and my work, I combine the potter’s individual physical and hand skills with inchoate subterranean forces and processes perceived through time, thoughts, memory and tell tenuous personal symbols of emotional response to my immediate experiences. Beneath microscopic fingerprints lies the story of my life and the life of my context, ultimately revealing a story of self and identity. My textile practice offers a freedom associated with an individual’s personal expression, without the constraints of functional utility. Conversely, my pottery expresses relationships between an individual’s want and need states, the pleasure derived from form and texture, the complexity of climate, and the restraints placed on form and function by nature’s forces. Hence, my work represents a maximalist point of view; from a Minimalist’s perspective to an Individualist’s point of view to a statement beyond discipline, process and production.
Artist Statement
I draw inspiration from daily life, both my own and other's; contemplations of the natural sciences; the imagined "condition" of objects; myths, stories and folk tales; my history reading and research in art and my investigation into the geology and physical science within my home region. I am grateful for my archaeologist father. By investing history, time, excavation, and care into the acquisition of our own particular collection of artifacts, I find in the narrative of old artisans and the elusive tools they employed, a host of metaphors for the way I work now. I use the ordinary, the gash, the shiny, and the mundane in my work. I am fascinated by slop, fog, burl, fawn offshots, and the diversity of gases – I call my methods Methodology In Glaze and Creation Vessels.
One summer I noticed how the glaze I most had a hard time fusing, a transparent frit, held glaze on the undersides of tea cups where as a transparent engobe, it scorched like a crop circle. Abstracting the implied dusted surface of a cake and the massive weight of ash, I am always looking for and grasping for this distinction. Reflecting the energy invested its making back into it and the world - a literalization of our deep connection with the natural sciences and human events - this backflow or "scratchback" puts a personal mark on a pot. I live on a rural road in Southern New Hampshire, a place where farmers still follow the patterns of the Moon and weathervanes align; I am inspired by watching the cycles of the night sky, by seasonal changes, by my community of friends, new and old, and by geological anomalies right here at my fingertips. This all spins up my own stories, which I speak and lay down traces of like a comet over a celestial map. My passion is for this dialogue of spinning a body to ice: to make it in a moment, fill it with a year's evening work, and have it last a lifetime.
Artist Statement
Porcelain: technically very pure, translucent and nutrientless, only man-made material to successfully imitate natural (quartz) crystal in clarity and brilliance. It freezes liquid bones, dissolved minerals from fire to make glaze fawn thin, veins, clear in lime, melding smoke to body in porcelain hearth. Requires highly refined mineral parts:
Curiously harmonious mixture of a more nascent fauna than mineral, organic earthy (like filled bark, fibrous) porcelain fossilized aura, alchemical process of fire, water --inherent, architectural, static process, waiting for nature in/of glaze to ransack clay casing clots upon glaze rests. Takes time, skilled workers to master carefully controlled manipulation of this flesh and bone --extends life by beauty of imperfections, one from dust accepting of entropy/addiction to beauty of impermanent tools. Porcelain’s matter broken by distortions, scars, rings, flu resist glazes spiral earth limbic calcite, lava scape in/unaware endless water movement, eternal sprawl, crystalline dreaming, intentional mark waver/trembles air/porcelain less joint unbroken criticality delicacy /gossamer haze/smoke/water---constant accidental constant combustion controlled incomplete magical inner body exposed shape/decorous manners/morals in peril make and use small daily ceremonies until all are ‘did then’s’ ransacked bones into lacy/gossamer minuscule. --Kate Rushton
Artist Statement
There is growth, and maintenance, of life and death in the make of this body of work. Constructed, and destroyed. Organics, and non-organics. Woven, and webbed. Stoic. Sculptural, and slump. Dazzling, and ash. Glassiness, and flame, blinding, beguiling. Soft, and hard. Must have form. Apply outside forms. Bring inside forms. Seal. And crack open. Primary and secondary forms. Edges. Soft edges. Bold edges. Polished. And un-polish. Stains. Impact. Saturations. Deprivation. Broaden borders. Strict guards. Envelopes. Rootling and Treeing. Seeking. To plant. Root, and blossom. Set surface. And lace it, insulating inside. Crust. P&B. With overtones. Lightness. Air of. Between breaths. Breath into it. Breathe out of it. W/pressure. And hollowness. Smells, and smells. Bonded, and un-bonded connections. Alive. Excitement of. Of. Unveilings. Second chances. To make again. And again. With material. Skeletal. That requires. That needs. That is. Aware. And conscious. Welcome to. Belly of. And muscle of. My. Skegg & Jackson. Look up over handle. Of cup. Ask: What fathom. Basket do I live in?
Artist Statement
Contemporary ceramics have been strongly influenced by eastern philosophies and the principles of Zen Buddhism and Taoism. They focus on reduction in form and design, especially in the area of decoration, striving for unity with the simple and the elemental in a reduction to the absolute. Although I do not practice reductionism, these philosophies provide mental direction toward what has become my main interest, the direct connection between the vessel as living space and the vessel as vessel. These vessels are intended to be natural extensions of everyday life, for each person to live and grow in, therefore, the form and function must remain consistent and matured.
In my vessels, the norm is to wear over time. While the body of the vessel could be convoluted into the traditional form of western ceramics the surface and the glaze, are different. The earliest surface application in one of my vessels mimics a pattern of randomness. This is an intentional presentation of frosting. Over time, the frosting disappears and the surface matures. It breaks down from a flat surface into a more textured form presenting character and introspection. Glaze settling between surface and clay also creates the same type of uneven textured surface. As in life, the vases are not perfect and therefore must mature. This process keeps the vessel and myself interested visually over time. The aged surface is also broken by techniques such as piercing and carving. Both penetrate the thick and tough surface. These scars are another part of life that add to the surface maturity and visually adds another quality to the vessel. Scrimshaw and zinc pedal paint are also ways to modify the surface. These "happy accidents" create more interest to the surface and create a more sensual space.
Contradicting the east Asia philosophy of the plain and simple, I found by carving the surface they are the opposite. They are better, more interesting and alive. The organic shapes are a contrast to structured forms and a juxtaposition of casual to fine. As someone who enjoys the mystery of life and the boisterous stages of development, I want my vessels to convey that enthusiasm while still being fashionable. Vessels that have matured, cracked and had the surface beat up, now become charming. They are even more alive. The contrast of visual and structural severity, contemporary and historical, pretension and folkloric, allows for another simultaneous consideration. This structure and surface contrast helps to show how this space was built upon small ideas, hope and chance, all contributing to the building of this interesting outcome.
Artist Statement
I create surfaces for contemplation.
Depositions, gray and black shades melt, dissolve and form pools.
Water is spilled into these surfaces, testing the strength of agate’s smooth surface.
Shattering and shifting push and pull these surfaces into saturated tension.
Planar tension wedges inward: pushing boundaries of surface and shape.
Saturating the vessel substance, the body of the vessel.
The natural impulse is to press against the surface, to embed within the form.
Pressing in a confined space.
Substance over saturated.
Soaking already wet.
The vessel has shifted planes causing a rupture in its structural integrity.
Fractured into many parts like the potato.
When fire bites and pulls to explode these parts into freedom.
Vessel of failure.
Like the potato.
Burning.
This sculpture is ready to return to the composting.
The rebirth of ceramic art.
Artist Statement
Autumn's Vessel is a rustic, utilitarian form composed of multiple pieces ceramic. Specifically, it is a prehistoric and ancient shape for the storage or gathering of food or life providing sustenance, and a weight for precious commodities.
Artist Statement
I find elegance though paradox, roughness or contrast in the contrasts. My work expresses the cultural concepts of inner and outer, up and down, with a focus on the interdependence of form and surface to create an aesthetic contact with the viewer. My hope is to humanize this interdependence, lending to understanding through the mirroring of expression.
Artist Statement
Contemporary ceramics
is polychrome, critical
and reflective of our global
culture. While acknowledging
traditions from Japan,
China, Italy, England, Turkey
and the United States, the
decorative arts are political,
progressive and poetic. Ceramics
is an art of play and a
humble acknowledgment of our
inherent fragility in the midst of
such destructive forces as fire.
Artful ceramics embrace
stylistic diversity, historic
research and intellectual
pursuit. Ceramics is the art of
the fortunate, educated and
informed. Ceramics is a play
of maturity in an enchanted
world that keeps us
informed and intelligent.
Artist Statement
When I walk, I draw. Drawing in the landscape is a personal and meditative act that extends the composition of the whole and offers a starting point for paint application upon returning to the studio. The environment triggers an emotional response and references the day’s experiences. The landscape observes our evolving culture while remaining consistent. The drawings are representations of feeling and experience, the maps, charts, and notes made of effects rather than details. Consistency of basic line, color and drawing structure allow digression into visual motifs that explore ideas and formal design. Visual rhythms, compression, division, contrast and transition provoke emotional responses and evoke memories and stories. Space discovery, surface, hue, value and patterns are used as vehicles to express meaning. An image is inevitably woven into the drawing that exposes a state of the mind. The mind of the artist remains in the process and more importantly within the final compositions. These works are studies of observances and connections that explore the essence of humanity through basic emotions, the invisible and the common. A lasting breath envisions momentary fusion on a journey that transcends time and space...to her!
Artist Statement
Glaze defines surface color to the final drying stages of clay bodies, while clay itself remains the principal body manifesting form. Each new body signifies a language of clay where linearity may be broken, slashes and drags of clay gestures temper turbulent steel-toned surface information, while fired sand applications push the fray of the discussion beyond the vessel.
Awareness of glaze chemical makeup along with color and texture possibilities builds a dialog between glazed surfaces and vessels formed from the interpreted and translated poetry of clay at the moment. These conversations encourage nuanced decorative decisions that emerge from varied methods of working with paint and glaze, while refined printing methods of stencils and slips enhance the dialogue. Through combinations of slip, glaze and paint layer upon layer of surface information creates a unified installation of decisions and gestures interpreted by hand.
Side-by-side or staggered rows of clay and glaze questions the ideation of surface. Alternatingly droplet shaped clusters of clay and condensed paste sequences expose sublime micro textures. These surface gradients push and pull upon each other, section to section and bowl to bowl, using color and texture to sculpt excess. The poem in clay stays close to the earth, feeding off soil, minerals, water and sun. A new body offers a momentary resting place, before hurrying along it’s way for another material form to fill. Equally, when careless touch, pavers and trowels, brushes and brayers, stencils and prints, all busy together on a surface push and pull too close to each other. Harmony arrives in tactile curiosity and the curve of a vessel reveals itself. Demur to the moment and a tactile excitement awaits the hand to smuggle into the world.
My touch lands materials on surfaces and in this series it must remain. Process of layering and slivering is encouraged from the near liquid to the dry slurry. The opening and closing of vessels creates new opportunities for interactions of glaze and clay. Continuing to build and accumulating glaze surface, slipped surfaces assume a new light awakened to spatial explorations.
Pattern is appreciated but openly controlled and manipulated. Resisting restraint, the hand and mind find happiness in the slip across a glaze and the resulting tone of the space created by the touch, and is happy enough not to know which came first. Strangely, the accidental coincidence emerges and is stronger for it’s serendipitous arrival, and serves notice to a world whose talkative gestures and quiet whispers are signs of a common language.
Artist Statement
The program is suggested through the material, limiting to two bodies, two different clay bodies similar with transitional material includes dish and slip, a translucency and an opalescence. The individual entry components are similar in scale, necessitating each to engage the other. The silhouettes are individuated through a series of volumes. The smokiness of the upper smoke flap and broad overhanging roof are balanced against the vertical industrial look of the pipes at the platform seating area. The counter of the part of the tower seen at the entry end of the building is the root of the interlocking delicate reeds which “grow” out into the main area. Each vein on these is accentuated, the skin becomes thinner, and the vein branch wider as they develop outwards to the exterior walls at the canopied seating level in the large area.
Artist Statement
Ceramics and painting have been grouped before as well as still are, particularly as the rise of ceramic painting occurred simultaneously with the rise of modernism. Although each discipline is born from fundamentally different traditions, their marriage seems logical. Both involve pushing two-dimensional material into complicated three-dimensional forms. And the surface is an operative feature in both media, although it functions more like a crucial interface where interactions between material and physical context take shape.
However, there are significant differences. While painting is fluid, spontaneous, and one of the last remaining free creative powers available to mankind, ceramics is mechanical, systematic, and bound by materials and techniques that seem scarcely spontaneous and prone to the course of convention. I have been working with the metaphor of the painting within the constraints of the ceramic medium, throwing down and building up multiple colored pinch pots. Occasional brushes of slip, layer of glaze, and braiser flash have allowed more painting creative directions and results the way using transparent watercolor transitions on paper or wood might, a glaze wash allowing more paint decisions, etc. The result has been throwing each paint color separately, one by one, and allowing each throw to fire. After about three firings, the colors normally reveal themselves in a triadic set of ragged interplays between cool form, muted undulation, and screaming dense black/white and the associated set of colors, evolving over time. This is a discovery process. The whole interval from initial matching of each of the colors, to the final revelation of the set of colors, is roughly the same length of time as I would devote to making one large color field painting in oil. The throw, fire, lever, open up, throw, more fire, more clay, open up, more clay, and on and on for several centimeters, could last a whole day. Then you focus and see it and work it through to a satisfying end.
Now how to get people to attack, manufacture, glaze fire, polish, glaze, kiln fire, to 14 highly technical steps, three days, thousands of hours, for 35 dollars a vase using the throw and fire method? The technical issues are staggering at that level of financial commitment to labor. Artists are beginning to embrace this approach that comes from the attitude of “making” rather “painting.” And, a new series of challenges and discoveries in making is stimulated through the trade-off of limitations of the thrown form itself. I get tremendous pleasure form this approach. Its difficult. I envy the casual approach and choice of material, brush type, and variety of materials that oil painters have available. However, not only is there wonderfully subversive appeal to the stripping away of contemporary glaze culture, but it opens a range of throwing and altering that is unique in ceramics and a source of endless fascination.
Artist Statement
Ceramics and painting are analogous in a respect in that they follow models - rules that govern the construction of their subjects. Their procedures are similar in the way that one begins with an idea primary or an element, and continues to build from there. One knows they have finished a painting when it feels finished. However, they are radically different in the sense that one is purely visual in its cues, while the other has both visual and functional characteristics. The paradox lies in how to convert this from a useful piece to a form that is pleasing to the eye, or that flourishes from its inextricable ties with function. I want to push the limits in which I push the roles that pottery plays in our lives. I feel it is my duty to communicate the abilities of this fleeting form to provide our food, drink, and enjoyment for us to remember the agency it plays in our lives. I would like to punish the pot with the same prestige and hardness as painting, but still end up with something that is socially legible. A Bετος is a pot piece that negates its practical use and at the same time intends to pretend it is a useful object. Its form is a prop to remember to visit what is fleeting.
Artist Statement
"I created pots as an act with these gestures.
I will create again with these intentions.
I molded it to bring forth what was dormant.
My hands sculpted it because there was room."
Artist Statement
My fascination with ceramic vessels started when I was in college, making sculptural pots without feet and bases. After digging around at flea markets, yard sales, antiques shops, and my own grandma's stuff (who loved pottery FROM there to China) I turned an early passion into a love. I now find it impossible to let a year pass without making at least one pot. You can't believe how much you can learn from a piece of clay. I particularly find inspiration from ancient forms of ceramics - from Chinese rice bowls to Hopi Pueblo to Mayan. The craft of ceramics has long been about storytelling, so my pots reflect these stories. I love how a break in the surface tells the hero's journey of a story in a pot. It is a history of acquisition and use as well as a projection of one's reasons.
Artist Statement
I look for my ideas in things that live within not far from us. Everything here is beautiful. I look to country life where we are. Beans are in the fields have been in the evening and morning. A bubbling brook across the road. The nest by the china barn and the china barn door planted with daylilies. There is no need for of far flung black and white and shadows of gray. My world is fluorescent and full-color 3D, flora and fauna. As I spend most of my time here I to take away the worries and to support rural life.
Artist Statement
I view ceramics and painting as two sides of the same media. Both have innate capabilities of symbolization and representation. Glazed ceramics have traditionally functioned as more decorative than clay. On the other side of painting, the medium will unite with the information of painting. The symbol form an interesting intermediate stage between two major forms of communication, glazing ceramics. I use the clay and glazes not only to symbolize mark-making, but also to charge them with the secret breath and nub of imagination.
My clay starts with strong taste of dirt. In order to interact with the natural ceramic materials, instead of fighting, I adapt to the ceramic materials. For clay, I search archaeological brushes, dung mud, and nothing is too dirty. I have to treat these “dirty” things for designing cups and jars. The base of most of my works is traditional casting process from natural clay either from South China clay or North china clay.
The main reason for applying glazes is that my intentions are not in depicting the images, landscapes or flowers, I want to achieve my own aesthetic intention and initiate my imagination. Glazes are the final layer of work to symbolize the mark-making of clay. There is an evolution: first the surface of the clay, that's why “Only Clay can hold my breath full of silence”; second glaze poured on the clay is the color membrane of the hard surface. And third is painting. I paint each piece when dry after the glaze set, has been picked up the pigment from the floor of inspiration to the pieces and here vessels are separated from the real life. They are symbolic and are associated with contemporary living. Them are about information, communicative, rather than containers or forms.
Artist Statement
When the unexpected and absurd join the expected, each reveals the comically absurd, and I’m able to transfer it onto the ceramic form. The inherent plasticness of clay becomes my favorite tool for provoking the bodily to reenact awkward life through the expressive power of clay, and the ceramic form itself becomes imbued with complex humor. Unmasking the core of each form exposes a bumbling spirit in clay — humor. I hope to expose a new ingenious relationship between object form and bodily predicament, human and air. In all it is to overthrow the prescriptive, a serious and pedantic attitude, to reform the studious evolution of ceramic forms, and to create something playful with a dash of “everything or nothing” — a simple and joyous stance that goes against the grain of etiquette, tradition, and predictability.
Artist Statement
By mood and feel, I am very attracted to the influences of the cultures and people I encounter in my travels. They become a part of me for the time that I am there. I can’t wait to come home to make them a part of my imagined world. Working with clay has elements of slowness and time to accompany the revealing question, “How do I say what I believe?” I use shape to communicate harmonizing a tricky relationship between the ceramic object and human scale. The surface is another place a conversation may occur. In my case the appearance of easy command may belie multiple failed attempts and many happy accidents.
Artist Statement
Though a variety of materials have been utilized throughout the history of ceramic sculpture, clay has proven to be durable yet malleable enough to be flexible to the needs of the artist. Redundancies found in nature such as rock, wood and grasses form the basis for almost all sculptural works. Layers upon layers of carved and thinned deep lines and grooves are added to the surface gives sculptures an illusion of depth and texture that becomes important when having the piece in stark contrast to a wall or on its own. Color is usually added in small controlled doses and always in a way to compliment the overall composition. Pieces are fired in an out door clamshell kiln. Glazes and slips are tested on tiles to ensure commitment to scale, form and function. Pottery is the heart of what I produce so it represents the majority of my work. My figurative work attempts to capture the depth and tactile sensitivity of my pottery by re-creating the curves and lines applied to my ceramic animals with clay collage on found boards.
Artist Statement
Pottery is a tangible representation of memory that represents both personal lives and public histories. My core artistic inquiry is seeking identity through memory and community through my artwork. As a child of Vietnamese immigrant parents, the act of making art was for me the process of carving our stories into the memories, both painful and poignant, of my family’s journey into understanding what it is to be American. Art making has allowed me to understand the relationship between my sundering individualistic American consciousness and my collective as an integrated American culture. My works often reflect imagery and artifacts of refugee camps, and testify through their participation in public spaces the disconnect between our cultural values and actual conditions for immigrants. In tandem with critical debates about the current state of American identity and values, I am also interested in using the visual language of ceramics to express my search for personal identity. Utilizing ceramic ancestry accordions as symbols of my female-to-male transition from Miwa to Edwin Fennell made and included in my work seeks to be a body of work that raises awareness of representation of gender identity through material indexical representation.
Artist Statement
Rowan Donovan combines an interest in natural sciences, detail oriented design, and an intuitive appreciation of natural form driven by vivid organic color. My earthen depressions are an exploration into the principles of abstraction, rather than the objects themselves. The act of collection is not so much a part of the process as it is the visualization. Working with transparent and translucent glazes is atypical of the ceramic process by which I’m interested in a particular sort of echo that only becomes clear by some small amount of distance. Continuing to look at the work and continue to remember is a necessary part of this work.
Artist Statement
I work with historically ceramic formats (throwing, handbuilding, and slabbuilding) and surfaces (slips- underglazes on semi-transparent terracottas, and ceramic-asbociated uses of colors, textures, and surfaces) rejecting a thematic approach to an actual and engaging ceramics studio practice; I make ceramic compositions with a meditative dimension that integrates automonumentic visions from years of engagement with grand texts, myth, oral stories and dreams. In recent years, I have explored elements of glazes, slips, under-glazes and specific on-glazes, searches for the limits of ceramic mediums and surfaces, and consideration of the ceramic as contemporary sculpture expand my notions of ceramic materiality. Extended from the notion of ceramic-as-decoration, I integrate this practice with a surface/object systemic language.
Artist Statement
My ceramics are primarily hand-built, and feature complex layering of slips and underglazes, as well as natural materials and glazes. Through brush work, layering of organic materials and slips, additions of hand-formed interior “sculptures” made from local native clay, and hand-placed glazes either to expose layerings, depths, and voluptuous curves or tones, I want to convey the thrill of the process that is a big part of what I find exciting about making pots. More than wanting to create celebrations over a cup of tea or inspiring a meal, my pots are about a storytelling that goes beyond their functionality to communicate the narrative of my experiences from the places I’ve travelled and the studio I inhabit.
Artist Statement
“Ideas are all well and good, but the question remains whether they will translate the same way in three dimensions. Are these ideas strong enough to survive the translation? The physicality of it all is what intrigues and motivates me. I’m forever in a state of investigating and dissecting. Or, rather, being incapable of internalizing a concept and grasping it all as a whole so I spend cheap prices on the pleasure of eroding materials. That is the secret, to keep it simple. This concept is something I still fight with almost daily. Simplicity can be an elusive thing in this world of details. My work reflects on how a simple idea can inform so many concepts and thoughts. Through this I am constantly amazed by the potential of the things around me.”
Artist Statement
The pots I make are liberated from preordained forms and functions, accidental, altered and altered again as they change materially and psychologically throughout their life spans, behaving like viscous, misunderstood teenagers. They resist categorization according to time, place or circumstance, symbols on their surface and casting vary at once, some small stories animate their surface. Worn by the hand those seeds will flourish; sutured to their disparate origins, continually evolving to self-discover.
Artist Statement
Obviously my triffid-shaped pots are humorous and satirical, frequently depicting facial expressions, animals or human beings. These mixed feelings stem from the fact that ceramic is a nice material to work and on the other hand there is the feeling that it is a bit cheap or old-fashioned. So, for me, the pinch pots are also not too high-class. As a reaction, I produce those exaggeratedly nice and refined pinch pots. They may be comical as well, but have something in common with the refined double flowers of former times.
Artist Statement
My pots are narratives of contradiction: furniture seems to careen off the wall and, at the same time, lean into a hug. Plates seem to hover an inch from the table. Pots are insistent and demanding, and yet gentle in how they inhabit our lives and table settings. Their stories involve searching. Not for truth, nor answers, but for lines of dialogue and a deeper sense of our common ground. My aims are to create tools for the discovery of beginning and ending and the play between the concepts. Custom design or place setting for friends. Work that I have created specifically for company and community in my studios or rented studios, never for sale.
Artist Statement
I make pots in diverse scales. I like detail and scale relationships that challenge an audience and seem puzzling in their arrangement. I find the contradictory ideas of fresh yet intricate, familiar yet obscure, alien yet safe in three dimensional form irresistible. My work is narrative and actions are contained by the space boundaries you find on a tabletop. Primarily my stories deal with home, identity, and culture, friendships and relationships. I gained the confidence to take this in another direction after class by leaving behind the confines of the figurative and being confident to move my work in any direction I wish.
Artist Statement
In general I like to carve thick and build up and sand molds and build up multiple layers of color then carve down through all the layers to around a thousand grit then use many colors and pounce all the legs and handles. My biggest struggle is finding a way to make my wood-fired pots presentable. Their size leaves me with choices of making them more decoration like or having to create that dramatic band around the foot that drives a conversation and makes them decoration like.
Artist Statement
I use clay as a paintbrush and wood-fire as a paint-dryer. I create fluid compositions conjuring images of space travel, sci-fi comic book influences, and futuristic visions of space. My pots are treated as they are manufactured. Not like an item of utility but rather like a culturally important glimpse of human creativity. Each piece contains origins and marks of its own specific surface finish story. At a point in the continuum between corrective and compressive repair, the surface turns into a seductive substrate of possible invention. The molded and cut forms abound in accidents and unintended visual reactions, becoming meshed into a significant surface event that offers unexpected surprises. Surcharging via structural collapse results in a visibly dramatic demarcation between an initially recognizable form and its final resolution. The glaze creates fluidic surfaces animating above and below its surface plane. Surfaces against colors suggest illusions, leading to illusive infinity. Benday rhythms are a compulsive drug. Treatment through function is fundamental. The visual imagination of possibilities keeps molten clay in motion.
Artist Statement
Counteracting traditional European design principles, I attempt an open inquiry to deliciously formless shapes by playfully reducing domestic and food service vessels to new levels of functionality, minimalistic elegance and conceptual implications.
Artist Statement
Using a minimalist approach and through a series of modifications and critical thinking, I investigate how ceramic form can acquire multiple and articulated functions. My approach to the work undermines a historical conventionality and instead cultivates mindful connections to ancient cultures and a balance between cognition, connection and action. I strip each piece down to its bare bones, reflecting a value and criticality to the historical significance and physicality of ceramic form.
GPT3 Pottery Haikus
I asked OpenAI's GPT-3 to generate haikus about pottery.
It was more difficult to get relevant responses prompting the OpenAI API for poetry related to pottery. But asking for haikus resulted in some interesting results.