Superfluous Fowl: Exhibition Documentation

I'm so excited to finally share the final product of all of my efforts lately.  I am so thrilled with how the installation went and it has been so fun sharing it with friends, family, and the community.  The amazing Frank Myers photographed the show, all of the following image credits to go him!  I was really bad and didn't take any pictures during the opening, which was last night, other than of my table of food!  If I manage to pull some pics together from friends I'll share those soon. 

All of the works are ceramic and made my me! 

Superfluous Installation

I can't believe it, but as of 4 hours ago my first solo show opened to the public.  I spent Labor Day weekend hanging Superfluous Fowl at the Carrack in downtown Durham.  In the beginning it looked like this:

And then I did A LOT of measuring and hammering and measuring and moving things around and measuring...

 

There is so much more to the show than these little snippets but I had a super awesome local photographer record the show so I'll be sharing those images with you soon.  Also stay tuned, my opening is this Friday so I'll be sharing my baking adventures (chocolate meringues, lavender meringues, profiteroles, french lime cake, tarts....) and photos of the opening!  Fingers crossed it doesn't rain and we have a blast popping champagne (or Prosecco to be more accurate) and cream puffs all night!

Anna Wallace Ceramics on Instagram

Ok, I gave in.  I got an instagram account.  While I still think it has got to be the least user friendly app ever... I still don't completely understand how to navigate my way around it... or let's be honest, exactly what hashtagging is.  I must accept that I am not of this digital age and these things will never make complete sense to me, but I'm TRYING.

So follow my instagram if you like, it will be mostly in-progressness from my studio with a little bit of french patisseries and my chiweenie Olive of course.  The next month I'll be mostly using my insta to post the progress of putting together my solo show, which opens in a month, WHICH IS CRAZY.  But yay, all good stuff.

Superfluous Fowl: The Postcard

It's getting really, real, if you know what I mean.  Today I got the posters and postcards printed for my show.  As you can see my show is open to the public September 2nd, which is SO SOON.  It feels a little crazy that I have my materials printed and I'm still working in wet clay... opps.  Yes it's true, I still have several pieces to finish making, not to mention a couple glaze firings and pinning down and finishing all the pedestals I'll be needing.  So there is much more to come and I'll try (try!) to post more regularly so you can follow along with the process.  

PS.  Any graphic designers out there no judgements or giggles about my postcard design, I make things  with my hands, not with a computer!  I'm sure I broke all kind of typography and formatting rules, but I  did it myself, and I like it.

Tremont, Cleveland

I just returned from a quick three day trip up to Cleveland.  It was much too fast and made me re-miss Cleveland but I had such a nice time.  I stayed a such a lovely airbnb house and explored the Tremont neighborhood, which I never really got a chance to do while I lived in Cleveland Heights.  

 

And on that note, PLEASE don't forget to check out the Indigogo fund for the amazing midwest magazine Driftless.  There are only a few days left and we really want to completely fund this project!

Driftless Magazine

HEY.  I am SO excited to post about this project that I got involved with a few months back.  I lived in Cleveland for over 4 years while I went to school at the Cleveland Institute of Art and I really fell in love with the midwest.  It's in my blood you see, as both my parents grew up in Michigan.  So when I saw that the wonderfully Miss Shelly from Vegetarian Ventures was putting together a magazine all about the midwest I jumped at the opportunity to be a part of it.  And so I wrote a guide to the Cleveland gallery scene and I am honored to have that article represented in the first issue of Driftless.

But Driftless needs your help!  Please check out their indigogo page so that we can raise the funds for the first printing of this amazing new publication.

Looks beautiful right!? I can't wait to see the final product.

Progress/Process

Hey all.  I wanted to share with you some of my process in creating my ceramic sculptures.  

But first I wanted to update you on my studio progress.  Check it out!  I can hardly believe how dark, dirty, and gross (I know I keep saying this) this studio was when I first began tackling it.  Now it is a bright, mostly clean, mostly uncluttered space.  There is still much that I plan to do.  We want to paint the styrofoam and the peg boards that aren't already white and most likely add some more shelving or storage.  But most importantly, I have my kilns hooked up and I've just finished my first bisque and I have my first glaze firing up as I type!  

So on to process.  Currently I've been making these three dimensional letters that will eventually spell out stuff at my upcoming show (September!!).  The first step is that I build the letters from slabs (using templates I made ahead of time) and let them get bone dry.

 Then I take little ink drawings I've done from many sources.  These are from photographs I took while in Paris last September.  

And I etch the drawings into the surface of the letters.

 Then I fill in the grooves with black slip.  It doesn't matter how messy I am in this step.

The final step is to scrape away the top layer of clay and slip surrounding the drawings.  This only leaves the slip that ended up in the grooves! 

Ta-da!  Cool drawing-on-clay technique.