2. Jeff Reich
Somewhere in the Desert
Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain, Tucson, Arizona
Somewhere in the Desert, 4’ x 5’, a fourteen-plate stoneware wall-piece, was first shown by Cervini Haas Gallery cervinihaas.com, Scottsdale, Arizona, in their 2008 Arizona Artists exhibition. Meanwhile, construction on the new Ritz Carlton at Dove Mountain, Tucson was underway ritzcarltonresorttucson.com. Wendy Haas, owner of Cervini Haas Gallery, worked with the Ritz Carlton team to place this piece in the beautiful new resort north of Tucson in the mountainous setting of Marana.
details, Somewhere in the Desert Somewhere in the Desert
Along with Somewhere in the Desert, the Ritz Carlton also acquired two of Jeff’s boxy wall tiles: Greythorn, 12x15x1.5” and Yucca Field, 11x14x2”. Both are stoneware.
In This Issue
1. Contemporary Forum to visit Indigo Street Pottery
2. Jeff Reich, Somewhere in the Desert, an installation at the new Dove Mountain Ritz Carlton, Tucson, Arizona
3. Farraday Newsome, Promise of the Garden, a commissioned wall-piece for the University Hospitals Group of Cleveland, Ohio
4. The Pin Show, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale AZ
5. Calendar of Upcoming Events
Jeff Reich, Interwoven Fields, 21 x 17 x 17” Farraday Newsome, Agave Bird , Unseen
Drift series, 33 x 18 x 18”
1. The Contemporary Forum of the Phoenix Art Museum to visit Indigo Street Pottery on October 5th, 2009. The Contemporary Forum is a voluntary support organization of Phoenix Art Museum. They have numerous activities that include art lectures, artist studio visits, and art film screenings. In addition, an annual Dinner Art Auction raises money to acquire new art for the museum. New membership is welcomed, and you can learn more about this great group at contemporaryforum.org
4. The Pin Show
Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Farraday Newsome, 2009 Jeff Reich, 2009
Pin with Feathers and Datura Seedpod Thorn Pin
4.5 x 2.5 x .375” 3 x 1.875 x .5”
Cervini Haas Gallery, an online gallery with its home in Scottsdale, Arizona, is currently featuring an exhibition of pins of varied media made by gallery artists. cervinihaas.com
These are other pins that Farraday and Jeff have in that exhibition.
5. Calendar of Upcoming Events
September 21 to October 1: Arizona Designer Craftsmen 49th Juried Exhibition, reception 7-9 pm, Sept. 21, Gallery 100, ASU, Tempe azdesignercraftsmen.org
October 5: Contemporary Forum at Indigo Street Pottery contemporaryforum.org
October 10: 10 x 10, Mesa Contemporary Arts mesaartscenter.com
November 7, 8: Art at Solel, Temple Solel, Paradise Valley templesolel.org
December 5, 6 & 12,13: Holiday Open Studio Sale at Indigo Street Pottery
December 11,12: Gifts from Nature, Audubon Arizona az.audubon.org
February 20: Contemporary Forum Annual Art Auction /Dinner contemporaryforum.org
February 27, 28: 2010 ASU Art Museum Ceramic Research Center Annual Ceramic Studio Tour
3. Farraday Newsome
Promise of the Garden
University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio
I first met Trudy Weisenberger in March of 2009 when she visited our studio during the annual Arizona State University Art Museum’s Ceramic Studio Tour. Trim, handsome, elegantly dressed, she looked to be a friendly arts appreciator moving easily through the array of studios opened briefly that cool, spring weekend across the Phoenix metropolitan area.
She introduced herself as the curator of an art collection displayed and owned by a group of hospitals in the Cleveland, Ohio area, specifically, University Hospitals Health System. The hospital group is building a new Cancer Hospital, and Trudy was on the prowl for new art to enliven its halls. She told me that the University Hospital’s art collection had been featured in the December/January ’09 issue of American Craft (volume 68) and I found it on pages 82-84.
The piece of mine that caught her eye that day was a six-part boxy wall tile array with high relief birds, fruit, leaves and shells. With some concern, though, she asked me to measure its depth. At six inches, it stuck too far out into space. The hospital rules limit wall art to protrude no farther than four inches and mine was si
x. Trudy asked if I could make a similar piece that met their size guidelines, I said yes, and she gave me her card.
The annual ASU Ceramic Studio Tour weekend is long. Good, but long. A lot of wonderful people come through. Old friendships are renewed . People want to meet our guest artists, see how our native wildscaped yard is doing, and to see what we’ve been up to in the studio over the past year.
We also meet lots of new people, including other artists, art students, art collectors, and occasionally, curators like Trudy. By the end of the weekend, there is a pile of business cards that people have given us. Each instance is sharp in the moment, but a bit blurry by the end of the weekend. Trudy’s card was in that pile.
When I wrote to her a week or two or three later, she was very encouraging. She asked me to make a drawing of the proposed piece, and that when her board met she’d run it by them. I sent her a vivid oil pastel drawing of one tile, drawn to scale, and proposed to make six for the project. Each would be 14 x 14 x 4”.
The board met a month or so later and they liked the idea but had some specific feedback. They had reservations about the high relief fruit imagery, concerned that it might upset their sometimes nauseous patients. I was fine with omitting the bananas and plums, but I felt the oranges are strongly associated with my work and I wanted to be able to incorporate them. The board discussed this, and the oranges were okayed.
My original proposal was that the tile background colors alternate between cobalt blue and rich yellow, creating a checkerboard pattern under the garden imagery. The board thought the yellow could be a problem, being such a strong color. When I suggested that all the tiles have a background color of cobalt blue, the project was given the green light.
In the end, the accepted commission is to be six boxy wall tiles to be hung as two rows of three, like the array she saw in our studio. The high relief imagery will be birds, pine cones, flowers, seashells, leaves, and yes, oranges. As a final point of discussion, Trudy asked how I thought the tiles could be secured to the walls. I suggested that I construct them with strong braided hanging wire on the back of each one, and that a bead of silicon be applied to the back perimeter of each tile during installation to keep them from shifting or from being lifted.
So now it is September and the contract has been signed. It is time to clear some working space in the studio (!) and get to work. I ordered the clay and it is here: Laguna’s Hawaiian Red, a cone five red clay. It is a groggy clay and wonderful for hand-building. I will take photos of this project as it progresses in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!
Indigo Street Pottery Newsletter
Welcome to our first new monthly newsletter! It is coming to you at the same time that we are freshly publishing a big remodeling of our website indigostreetpottery.com . We look forward to writing here in the months to come about our studio, arts events, projects, studios of our friends, garden musings, and whatever else strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy it!