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Heck Yes Craft
Heck Yes Craft
Is it spring fever? I can't stop looking at Kari Radasch's luscious new glaze-fired terra cotta work, with its bright - but not too bold - colors, clean designs, and cheerful iron-transfer decals. I smiled to read in her artist's statement that, along with many other sources of inspiration (design objects, textiles, mosaics, to name a few), she says her pots and surface are "rooted in the garden" - it makes beautiful, organic sense.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. ...
Heck Yes Craft
There's magic in boxes and frames, those defined spaces that seem to say "just this and nothing more." In the right hands, they can transform the everyday into the exquisite - just look at Andrea Haffner's amazing wall hangings. In her pigmented resin compositions, natural objects become extraordinary still life subjects. The light catches the resin from both sides, giving each piece a rich, almost-living glow.
Did I mention that Haffner also makes jewelry in this style? The visual part of my brain nearly short-circuited at the Baltimore ACC show this past spring: Her resin pendants - ...
Heck Yes Craft
Andrew Gilliatt's latest body of work makes me want to scream, in that "I scream for ice cream" kind of way. I don't really scream for ice cream, but never mind that. When I look at his tumblers, cereal bowls, mugs, and platters - elegant, iterative forms, yet each one unique in its imaginative combination of colored slip, glazes, resist patterns, and decals - I'm transported back to the ice cream shop in the town where I grew up, face and hands pressed against the glass case of my monitor, mesmerized by all the sweet options.
I dare you to ...
Heck Yes Craft
I love Ann Weber's ginormous forms and the fact that she makes them with, uh, cardboard she scavenges. The artist, who's got a show on at CAFAM, makes mostly groupings of biomorphic forms to convey ideas about relationships. The cool thing we discovered, as we were putting together a story about Weber for our August/September issue, is that she's increasingly moving beyond the usual cardboard hues of white and brown. It's harder to find trash cardboard in color, of course. Weber says she almost wrecked her car swerving to get to a green tequila box by the roadside. See ...
Heck Yes Craft
I've long been fascinated by Annabeth Rosen's bulbous ceramic work, with its parts piled up like so many gourds or buoys or (pardon the expression) intestines. But recently, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery shared some images of Rosen's work in progress in her studio, and with a new understanding of the scale involved, I'm more amazed. See also: Rosen's Waver installation in the Denver Art Museum's current exhibition, "Overthrown: Clay Without Limits."
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every ...
Heck Yes Craft
I risk being struck by lightning when I do, but I like to say the problem with earth tones is that the Earth is the wrong color. If you were the Big Craftsman in the Sky, would you pick the tans and browns and muddy greens that dominate nature? Wouldn't you rather live in a Candyland of violet and red, puce and chartreuse?
Her exuberant palette is just one reason I love the work of Arline Fisch. Her work is reminiscent of sea life (appropriately for someone named Fisch), but with atypically luscious colors. Fisch has long been acclaimed for the ...
Heck Yes Craft
Ashley Vick's line of handmade metal jewelry is named after her great-grandmother, Filomena DeMarco--a nod to history and heritage also reflected in her work. Vick creates statement pieces that feel like a modern-day version of the heirloom jewels you might dream of inheriting from a relative or finding tucked away in the attic of an old house. The patina of her oxidized sterling silver and bronze rings, necklaces, and earrings gives them the feel of having been lovingly worn for years, and their various textures remind me of feathers and rocks, carefully collected and saved. See more in ...
Heck Yes Craft
Ayumi Horie's new match strikers are so cute I think my head might explode. They're everything I like about her work - the hand-and-tool marked earthenware, the simple drawings, the bits and spots of color - all wrapped up into a compact, unusual object.
Watch one in action (if you're reading this on our homepage, click through on the headline to see the video - you don't want to miss it):
Horie, by the way, is one of the co-organizers of Handmade for Japan, an online auction (which took place March ...
Heck Yes Craft
It's show time! As I write this, I'm sitting in a room with a view of the people flooding in for the opening day of the ACC Show in San Francisco at Fort Mason Center. And as soon as I'm done, I'm going to head down to the show floor myself. Among my first stops? Booth 406, where Birgit Kupke-Peyla has set up shop.
Everything about Kupke-Peyla's jewelry gets a huge "heck yes" from me. I love her creative use of texture and pattern, lending depth to her gold and sterling designs. Her pieces have presence, oomph, ...
Heck Yes Craft
Boris Bally's sophisticated reinvention of reclaimed street signs and found objects will rattle your mind. Bally transforms traffic signs into everything from entirely modern furniture to sleek jewelry and home decor items -- and even flatware! My favorite piece is a necklace created with 100 handgun triggers from Pittsburgh's "Goods for Guns" program. It's Bally's spin on the talismanic charms of aboriginal cultures, and he says, "this urban 'mojo' protects the wearer from the gun violence so prevalent in today's culture."
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts ...
Heck Yes Craft
Chandra Stubbs combines hand-thrown and extruded porcelain forms with needle-felted merino wool to create these enchanting works for the wall. I love how the clay, reserved and sleek, plays against the joyful, fuzzy fiber. They send my brain tumbling with thoughts of speech bubbles and kaleidoscopes, as if each piece were a secret portal into a conversation happening in color.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more. ...
Heck Yes Craft
If you ask Clyde Wynia about his sculptures, he'll tell you that he didn't make them. Being an amateur paleontologist, he came across these extinct creatures from the Iron Age in the swamps around his house, and discovered that many of them were killed and harvested for their parts. Thankfully he's carefully excavated these creatures and keeps them on display at Jurustic Park.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday ...
Heck Yes Craft
From sculptural coat racks to sleek and colorful benches, Daniel Michalik creates thoroughly modern furniture with oft-underused materials. Michalik's latest pursuit is exploring the use of cork, from which he's fashioned contemporary plates and bowls that are washable and safe for serving. He notes: "With this new work I have tried to explore the deep potential of this wonderfully tactile material, making it do things that only it can do." And that amounts to some some pretty lovely forms. Check out more of Michalik's work.
Captions and photos courtesy of Daniel ...
Heck Yes Craft
David Hentzel, head of Build LLC's custom cabinet shop, makes high-end furniture under the SPD moniker. He works in a very modern style and uses a lot of wood veneer. The simple lines and shapes leave the beauty of the wood to speak for itself, showing the influence of one of his mentors, the venerable Sam Maloof. You can view more of his furniture on Etsy.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with ...
Heck Yes Craft
How often do you find traditional and fantastical in the same furniture maker? David Lunin is a traditional craftsman of the highest order who also riffs on tradition in the style of Salvador Dali or Tim Burton. See more here.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more. ...
Heck Yes Craft
Dennis Elliott is well-known in the wood art world. He's been woodworking and turning since 1972, and he has been devoted to his craft full-time since retiring from Foreigner (yes, that Foreigner - he is their original drummer). His work often reflects the brazen, rock and roll attitude of his youth, with rough edges and asymmetry. He's currently in an exhibit at the Grand Hand Gallery and part of an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (both coinciding with the ...
Heck Yes Craft
Donna Veverka has a monumental task at hand. Literally. She distills magnificent structures and transforms them into sleek, powerful forms to be worn. The former sculptor began her Architectural Ring series as she transitioned back to making jewelry in 2005, and all of her pieces exude her sense of architectural flair. So where does she get her inspiration?
"I have always been interested in history and archeology," Veverka says. "When I travel, buildings and archeological sites are on top of my list. For me, it is one place that we can directly interact with the past. Architecture surrounds the ...
Heck Yes Craft
Sometimes a shelf is just a shelf. Other times, it's a gloriously gritty celebration of the American Rust Belt. Such is the work of Doug Meyer, a metal artist who makes furniture out of cast-off wheelchairs, shopping carts, and other scrap. See more here.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more.
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Heck Yes Craft
I was immediately drawn to the work of Eric Boos. It's fun, colorful, and looks like candy (and who doesn't love candy?). The aptly titled "Almost Edible Ceramics" are even functional if you want them to be. They seem like the dishes Willy Wonka might use if Peewee Herman was coming for dinner.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more. ...
Heck Yes Craft
Jackie Abrams and Josh Bernbaum's joint show, opening today at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, is called "Dialogue" - and how lucky for the rest of us, that we get to visually eavesdrop on their spectacular artistic conversation.
Bernbaum works in glass, Abrams in basketry. Their collaboration took root a couple of years ago, when, in return for a gift of handmade tumblers, Abrams made Bernbaum a basket, her interpretation of the traditional cathead form. The basket's pattern and coloration intrigued Bernbaum, who decided to make a glass interpretation of it. He gave his piece to ...
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