Our one-and-only Orientation Class of 2022 started in mid May and ended on the 8th of June, when we welcomed 16 brand new members to the Ceramic Arts Club. As usual, Linda Mariano led the class, assisted by numerous other CAC volunteers. What a great group! Then on June 29 we had a marvelous Patio Party with a festive Mexican theme.
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Just last week, on June 14, we had an inspiring demonstration on sculpting hands by Sandy Frank, a visiting Bay Area ceramic artist. It was extremely interesting to see how she formed the piece (of Navajo Wheel, a.k.a. Red Velvet clay) with an interior structure inside of a cylinder that she'd made with a slab. She then added to it with pinched moist clay as it was built upward and spread out into the shape of a larger-than-life hand. The fingers were all hollow, with the help of some wooden chopsticks extending out of each digit. The 45+ members of our club who attended the meeting were quite receptive and appreciative of her skill. Sandy may be able to return to our studio to teach a workshop on figure sculpting at some point, which would be great! Below are some pictures of her in the process of creating her sculpture of a hand. Earlier, at the previous meeting in May, our own Carolyn Guerra demonstrated how she makes her wonderful hand-built pots with sculpted faces. Below are some pictures of finished vases she has made, and then some showing the process she uses to create them.
Since then several other CAC members have been inspired to make their own versions of ceramic planters with faces. We have been back at work & play in our beautiful "NEW" Ceramic Studio for just over a month now, and although it has been challenging (finding new places to put things, learning to navigate our remodeled space, etc.) it has also been quite wonderful. The photos below show a few of the wonderful moments of the last few weeks (including a new set of ceramics that were recently put on display in the Rossmoor Event Center - bottom center photo). The most recent CAC meeting (on April 12, 2022) was held in the Peacock Hall Theater. There we experienced a fascinating program hosted by Linda Mariano titled “Exploring Mixed Media.” Several CAC Members were interviewed by her and asked about their inspirations and processes as they created widely varied mixed-media pieces which included ceramic components.
A display of mixed-media artwork made by CAC members as well as a slide presentation was part of the program - those images are below. The February 2, 2022 issue of The Rossmoor News included an article about Fred Chen, who passed away last month, which is a heart-felt memorial to him - see below. (See the previous post for a link to the video of our tribute to Fred, which was part of our January 2022 online meeting).
Remembering our beloved Fred Chen (who passed away on January 9, 2022). The Ceramic Club’s General Meeting on January 11, 2022 (held on Zoom) featured an informal session in honor of Fred Chen, who had passed away on January 9, 2022. Fred was such an important and well-loved member of our club! Included in this session were several of our members’ reminiscences and slideshows of Fred in our Ceramic Studio, as well as some photos of his wonderful pottery. A few photos of Fred are below. Also there's a video recording of the online memorial available for our members to view on YouTube. (Note: it’s about 31 minutes long.) LINK: https://youtu.be/3JdX3Up-CLo This meeting also featured a wonderful Show & Tell session of all sorts of things made by our members in recent months – and not all of them are ceramic, since our studio is still closed. In addition to pottery and sculpture, there were handmade books, jewelry, and knitted hats & scarves, among other things! See below for some of the pictures. For a more complete version (and to see exactly who created which pieces), check out the video of this session, which is available for our members to view on YouTube – click on the link below. (Note: it’s about 30 minutes long.)
LINK: https://youtu.be/SsbEbEHn8mo Sad News: Lenore Zislin, a longtime (former) member of CAC, passed away last month. Lenore had moved from Rossmoor in 2020, relocating to be near her daughter on the Peninsula. However she stayed in touch with many of her CAC friends and even attended one of our Zoom meetings during the COVID shutdown.
Lenore was a lovely lady, a creative force, and was much beloved by those who knew her. She will be missed! To view her obituary, click here. Below is a photo of Lenore in the Ceramic Studio taken during CAC's Fall Bazaar in 2016. A very special time was had at CAC's CREATIVITY Fair/Rossmoor Fall Bazaar on Saturday November 6th. Since our Ceramic Studio is still closed for renovation, we had to do it all outside, on the Veranda area of the Fireside Room.
Nevertheless, the Ceramic Club took the lemon it was given, squeezed the heck out if it, and made some excellent lemonade - resulting in close to $3600 in sales for the club! And in the process we had a great time being together, working hard, and showcasing the amazing donations provided by our generous and very talented members. What a wonderful group we are all a part of! Here are some photos of the Fair - top left is a group shot of CAC members who had just finished setting it all up, first thing in the morning! Our October 12, 2021 online General Meeting featured CAC member Ellie Lannen’s presentation & slideshow about her experience taking pottery workshops at La Meridiana International School of Ceramics in Tuscany. In case you missed it, a video recording is available for our members to view on YouTube. (Note: it runs about 23 minutes.) Here's the LINK: https://youtu.be/b8nuBui_NDM Below are photos of CAC folks making things together in our beautiful Outdoor Studio - some of us have been meeting to do that every week since July. In fact these Clay Play Dates have been so popular that we’ve decided to continue with them until we can re-open the studio! They are every Sunday afternoon from 1:30 to about 4:30 pm. People can use clay to make anything they like, including beads, little bowls, sculptures, mini totem pieces, etc. You can also work on your own bisqued pieces by painting them with underglaze and/or glazing for raku firing. We generally plan to be in the Outdoor Studio (which has been very nice lately). However Multi Purpose Room # 3 has been reserved for us every Sunday afternoon, in case the weather or the air quality are really bad, so we can always work in there if necessary (of course everyone must wear a mask indoors).
And below are some photos of people working inside that room, when we were having some really hot weather in the summer. Included are images from a mini-workshop on making small totem poles with ceramic pieces, which was a lot of fun. We were in an article on the front page of the Rossmoor News of July 28, 2021 - see below! It's a very good story about our Outdoor Studio, although there are a few discrepancies. The most obvious one is in the caption below the first photo, that says our raku kiln was moved outdoors while our studio is being renovated. Actually it's always been outdoors; however all of the other kilns were moved out and are being stored until the studio reopens (pretty sure that's where the misunderstanding came from).
All in all, we're very pleased with the good PR for our club! The Ceramic Club General Meeting held on July 13 featured CAC member Shoshana Kobrin’s very interesting & inspiring powerpoint presentation describing her journey as a sculptor of the human figure. A video recording is available for our members to view on YouTube. (Note: it runs about 29 minutes.)
LINK: https://youtu.be/XgUHfZGWtng |
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