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October 2011 Newsletter

Indigo Street Pottery Newsletter

Welcome to our monthly newsletter! It is part of our website indigostreetpottery.com , which you can browse from this page if you click on the subjects in the header. We write here about our studio, arts events, projects, studios of our friends, garden musings, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Hope you enjoy it!

August 13, 2011: 2011 Annual Art Auction, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado www.andersonranch.org

May of 2012: Jeff Reich and Farraday Newsome, 2-person exhibition, Plinth Gallery, Denver, Colorado http://plinthgallery.com/

1 Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

email: indigostreetpottery@me.com

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April 2014 Newsletter

Archived Newsletters

Indigo Street Pottery Newsletter

In this Issue

1. Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

2. Jeff Reich Retires From Directing Ceramics at the Mesa Arts Center

3. Jeff Reich’s Legacy Gift for the City of Mesa

4.Goodbye Don Reitz

5.Indigo Street Pottery Native Landscape Note

6. Indigo Street Pottery Kitchen Garden

Welcome to our monthly newsletter! It is part of our website indigostreetpottery.com , which you can browse from this page if you click on the subjects in the header. We write here about our studio, arts events, projects, studios of our friends, garden musings, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Hope you enjoy it!

Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

email: indigostreetpottery@me.com

April 2013 - May 2014: Phoenix: A Creative Oasis, group exhibition curated by Ted Decker for phICA (Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art), offices of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton http://phica.org/oasis.php

February 14 - April 13, 2014: 35th Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona http://www.mesaartscenter.com/index.php/museum/upcoming-art-exhibits/35thCraft

April 25, 2014: Association of Professional Landscape Designers touring Indigo Street Pottery’s native wild-scaped yard.

November 2, 2013 – May 4, 2014: Birds, Blooms and Bugs, Sky Harbor Airport Museum, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport Terminals 2, 3, and 4, Phoenix, Arizona http://skyharbor.com/museum/ExhibitionsTerminal2.html

May 2014: Jeff Reich, Nancy Dryfoos Gallery, Kean University Galleries, Kean University, Union, New Jersey http://www.kean.edu/~gallery/

Fall 2014: 50 From 6: Contemporary Ceramic Art From Six Rocky Mountain States, Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah https://www.suu.edu/pva/artgallery/

October 31 - November 2, 2014, SOFA Chicago 2014, Katie Gingass Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois http://www.sofaexpo.com http://www.gingrassgallery.com

May 16 - July 5, 2015: Farraday Newsome, Clay Art Center, Port Chester, New York

http://www.clayartcenter.org/default.asp

Jeff Reich working on his recent large sculpture Interwoven, a legacy gift to the City of Mesa Permanent Art Collection, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum. Jeff gave the City this gift upon his retirement this month as Director of the Ceramics Program, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona.

Goodbye Don Reitz

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Jeff Reich’s Legacy Gift for the City of Mesa

Indigo Street Pottery Native Landscape Note

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Jeff Reich Retires From Directing Ceramics at the Mesa Arts Center

Mesa Arts Center Executive Director Cindy Ornstein speaking about Jeff Reich’s contributions and accomplishments during his years as Director of Ceramics at the Mesa Arts Center. Having earned his full retirement with the City of Mesa after twenty-seven years of service, Jeff will be a full-time studio artist!

Jeff remembering, with some hilarity, a few highlights during his role as Director of Ceramics at the Mesa Arts Center.

Jeff receiving a plaque of service from Rob Schultz, Assistant Arts and Culture Director at the Mesa Arts Center. The plaque was made by the Director of Metal Arts at the Mesa Arts Center, Polly Smith.

Nancy Wolter, Development Director at the Mesa Arts Center, reading a poem she wrote celebrating what Jeff brought to the Mesa Arts Center over his many years of service.

Jeff was given this print by David Manje, Director of Painting and Printmaking at the Mesa Arts Center. The airplane represents Jeff taking off on a new path in life’s journey.

Jeff Reich with Nancy Wolter, Mesa Arts Center Development Director (left) and Gerry Fathauer, former Executive Director of the Mesa Arts Center (middle).

Jesse Armstrong, new Director of Ceramics at the Mesa Arts Center, speaking. Billy Jones, Mesa Arts Center Studio Arts and Education Director, and Jeff Reich standing to the right.

Jeff Reich and Dennis Kavanaugh, Mesa City Council member and longtime supporter of the arts in Mesa.

Many longtime students and friends attended Jeff’s retirement party. The party was held in the courtyard at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum.

Colleagues, friends, and students celebrate Jeff’s contributions to the Mesa Arts Center’s Ceramics Program.

Mingling and conversation at Jeff Reich’s Mesa Arts Center retirement party.

Jeff Reich made a large ceramic sculpture as a legacy gift for the City of Mesa’s Permanent Collection during his last few months as Director of the Ceramics Program at the Mesa Arts Center.

Although Jeff normally makes his own work in our home studio at Indigo Street Pottery, he made and fired this piece at the Mesa Arts Center so students and staff could see and be part of the process.

Jeff in his Mesa Arts Center office glazing the bisqued cube. He used glazes, wax, and glaze sgraffito to develop areas of texture, color, and botanical drawings.

The piece, titled The Insistence of Thorns, being unloaded from one of the Mesa Arts Center’s kilns. It was fired to cone 10 in a reduction atmosphere. Jeff (dark green stripes) assisted by student volunteer Steve Wolf (in white). Jesse Armstrong (orange plaid), new Mesa Arts Center Ceramics Director, in foreground.

The piece came out well! Jeff Reich and student volunteer Steve Wolf ready to carefully wheel it over to the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum on a hydraulic lift, just in time for its unveiling at Jeff’s retirement party later that day.

Jeff’s piece, The Insistence of Thorns, in the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum ready to be lifted and placed on the polished concrete beneath the museum’s stairwell.

Jeff and Steve Wolf lifting Jeff’s piece into place. Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum Preparator Marco Albarran ready to lend a hand.

The Insistence of Thorns final placement in the museum’s stairwell. This nook area has a couch and reading table opposite Jeff’s piece, but not in view here.

Our Guayacan (Guaiacum angustifolium) is once again in bloom. This large, gnarly shrub is native to the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas and Northern Mexico. It has indigo blue-purple flowers, evergreen leaves, lacks thorns, and is a great source of food for the bees. Nice!

Left to right: Kazu Oba, Takashi Nakazato, Ron Berman, Masako Berman, Don Reitz, Jeff Reich, Farraday Newsome

We have lost a great friend and inspiration with the recent passing of a fellow Arizonan, the great ceramist Don Reitz. His heart and spirit were as large as the open sky.

Jeff hosted Don Reitz for workshops at the Mesa Arts Center, with one memorable wood fire in the pouring rain that used wood from an old grapefruit orchard that had been chopped down. Don was his usual enthusiastic self and, incredibly, the resultant ash glaze was a beautiful yellowish hue.

Below is a photo of a wonderful visit we had to Don’s home and studio in 2011 with friends Ron and Masako Berman, along with Mesa Arts Center Ceramics visiting artists Takashi Nakazato and Kazu Oba.

Indigo Street Pottery Kitchen Garden

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Salad days! The spring garden is lush after an uncommonly mild winter with only one freeze in early December. We are knee-deep in winter kale, lettuce, chard, collards, onions, cabbages and herbs. The fruit trees have set baby apples, apricots, plums and peaches. Tomato and eggplant starts are in and already flowering.

It’s time to enjoy perfect weather and a non-stressed garden before the heat of desert summer hits!