Windows of Opportunity

Last 7 days of the Celebration of Fine Art 2010 here in Scottsdale!  Beautiful weather and still more beautiful artwork!

This year has been remarkable and we've had great sales, so some things that you may have looked at are gone, BUT we have some great work we'd love you to see - Syed has almost sold out of his little single window pieces, but has about 6 left.

I have 2 Japanese boxes left, and one large Japanese piece in soft, matte colors.  We'd love to see you so come in and say hello.

New Collection of Japanese Inspired Work

Just finished a large work inspired by Japanese Ukiyoe woodblock prints.  Subtle and sophisticated colors in rich earth tones accented by spots of deep corals.  Forgot my camera at the show yesterday, but I'll get a pic posted tomorrow.  It looks fabulous beside another piece which sits in an old glass and wood display case which has the feel of country Japanese architecture.

HOME AT LAST!!!

It was just too depressing to report on our 2nd breakdown on the way home, so I didn't. Till now. After getting "fixed" in Tucumcari we were only on the road for a day when we broke down with the SAME problem, in Joplin, MO. It was Friday, so no one to do to work till Monday. But, having gotten on the NPR Car Guys site, Syed found us a great mechanic and we were on our way by Tuesday afternoon last week. Expensive trip, especially since we had to transfer everything from the van and trailer to a U-Haul to get home.

But, we arrived to gorgeous NC weather, a hip new restaurant in town, and a Saturday full of fun local events, including our own Salisbury's Got Talent! Great, great, great to be home! Check out www.EastSquareArtWorks.com to see what we're up to in our building!

New Home for Geisha Pot

A great ending to this year's show at the Celebration of Fine Art - the collaboration between myself and Joe Woodford, the Geisha pot pictured in previous posts, has found an elegant new home in Scottsdale. It is the first of a body of work to come at next year's show.

The Geisha Pot

Here is the finished collaborative piece by myself and Joe Woodford.

Raku ceramic

Approx. 42" high

$11,500.

WOW! Here's the process...

The next step, after carving, is applying color or glazes...

Coming out of the kiln - red hot! That's Joe with his fire gear on.

Joe lifting the pot out of the kiln. Look at the red hot interior!

3 pics of Joe spraying a chemical solution onto the glazed pot, changing the oatmeal color to a dramatic bronze-gold. The black "splatters" turn deep reds at the pot cools.

The reduction of oxygen process - Joe places 55 gallon drum over the hot pot which has been placed in a sandy pit. Then he packs the bottom with newspapers, which ignite, then shovels sand to shut off all air to the inside of the drum.

Removing the drum - will the result be what we hoped for? And here she comes! Beautiful!

Inspecting the finished Geisha.

Admiring...

Firing Tonight

Tonight's the night! Joe will be firing the Geisha pot....keeping our fingers crossed, but excited to see how it comes out.

Two weeks left!

YIKES! Only two weeks left at the Celebration of Fine Art this year. I can't believe how fast the time has gone, and we are all still creating NEW pieces - what an amazing group of artists gather for this show! I was out for a few days with the flu and while I was gone my show neighbor and friend, Ken Newman, sold his beautiful wood carving of a Pheasant. If you can see this before it gets shipped, it will linger in your memory. And painter Linda Koch has new pieces hanging. Linda's work is so beautifully imagined and painted that it brings a whole new expression to the terms organic, abstract and botanical. It is the perfect crossover work for those seeking something less representational and yet organic and natural. She is the best colorist I know! I'll post some pics of all this tonight.

Today, back in good health, I'll be glazing the Geisha pot. Come on in and visit!

Collaboration on Geisha Pot

Carving the design in while keeping the rest of the pot from drying out, and Joe pushing areas of the head, hands and obi out for dimension.


Pinning the design onto the wet clay, getting ready to scribe the outlines on.

http://www.celebrateart.com
http://www.josephwoodford.com
http://www.whitneypeckman.com

Geisha Pot

The Woodford-Peckman collaboration continues. The Geisha pot is almost ready for its first (bisque) firing! Thursday's the day. Working in clay is a lot different than carving on gourds....I had to work much faster before the clay got too dry. Joe kept telling me to be careful to spritz the pot so it wouldn't crack. I spritzed away, carving and spritzing, spritzing and carving. YIKES! The clay began to cave in! Joe came over. NO MORE SPRITZING, WHITNEY!

Only three weeks left in the show! It's going quickly and if you haven't stopped by, don't miss it! Come on Thursday and see the firing.

http://www.celebrateart.com/
http://www.josephwoodford.com/

Collaboration at the Celebration

Been down with a cold for a couple of days - back up and at it now. Just in time to start working on a collaborative project with fellow Celebration of Fine Art artist, Joe Woodford http://www.josephwoodford.com/. Joe is a potter. Dramatic and huge raku pots are his signature. We both have a love of things Oriental, Japanese in particular. So Joe threw a huge vessel and today I'll be working on incising a Geisha to fill the side and wrap around the sides and back. This is a completely new venture for both of us - I've never worked on pottery and Joe has never done figurative, detailed work. I'll get some pics up tonight, so keep watching.



On another subject, problems with my website and presumably this blog as well, have continued over the past couple of weeks. Most of you are finding me ok, but some are still getting only my old site. Once again, we're working on it, and hopefully in the next couple of days it will all be resolved. You can help me by emailing me if you are getting strange results when putting http://www.whitneypeckman.com/ in the address line, or when googling me. My old site has my name in script, while the new site name is in typeface and has a scrolling center image. Thanks for helping!