Overthrown: Clay Without Limits, Part Three

On Friday I went to the Denver Art Museum's special exhibit Marvelous Mud: Clay Around the World. This is Part Three of my highlights from the exhibition Overthrown: Clay Without Limits

This piece is titled Mast Year by Mia Mulvey. At first sight it was sweet and cute, then upon closer examination and seeing the birds and butterflies tied to the tree with cable ties it became quite a bit darker!

I LOVED this piece! I couldn't find the definite marker for it, but I believe is by Del Harrow, titled Copper Fade. This piece was allowed to be touched, which I always enjoy! Maybe it's the tactile part of me that helped me become an artist in the first place. 

And finally, a piece by the beloved Jeanne Quinn. She never stops impressing me! This piece is called You Are The Palace, You Are The Forest

That concludes my highlights of the exhibit Overthrown: Clay Without Limits. There were many more pieces in the show that were amazing... I highly recommend visiting the Denver Art Museum to see it for yourself! 

Overthrown: Clay Without Limits, Part Two

On Friday I went to the Denver Art Museum's special exhibit Marvelous Mud: Clay Around the World. This is Part Two of my highlights from the exhibition Overthrown: Clay Without Limits. 

Mille-Fleur made by Kim Dickey was the next impressive piece. It was breathtaking with the size, the beauty, and the amount of work that went into it. I should have stood in front of it to give you a sense of how large this was! I can't even guess, everything is out of proportion at the museum, but maybe 8 feet high and 14 feet long. The front and the back were covered with handmade flower shapes that were about an inch and a half square. It reminded me of French impressionists.

Tucked away in a little back room (that we almost missed) was a very interesting installation. This area was darkened, so the lights shining inside of the pieces illuminated the room. It was titled Itinerant Edens: Hermetic Garden by Walter McConnell. More than 5,500 pounds of moist clay were inside 3 plastic enclosures. The first one was the largest and had the most clay. There were a lot of flower forms and organic shapes piled on top of each other, creating a sort of environment.  You could see mold forming on some parts of the clay, striations of color and layers, it really showed some properties of clay that some people might not consider if they hadn't worked with it.

Again, to try and understand the meaning of this piece I had to look up some vocab!

From Wikipedia: An itinerant is a person who travels from place to place with no fixed home. The term comes from the late 16th century: from late Latin itinerant(travelling), from the verb itinerari, from Latin iter, itiner (journey, road).

Denver Art Museum-Marvelous Mud

Footing, Nathan Craven, 2011

On Friday I went to the Denver Art Museum for the special exhibit: Marvelous Mud, Clay Around the World. It was amazing! I already have plans to go back next Saturday (the museum is free on the first Saturday of every month, FYI for those of you that live in the Denver area!). I left feeling very inspired. Because there was so much to see, and because there is so much that I want to share, I'm going to break this up into parts. I will highlight my favorites from the exhibitions that I was able to see:

 Overthrown: Clay Without Limits

Artists push the boundaries of clay to create large-scale installations that respond to the museum's dynamic architecture.

Marajo: Ancient Ceramics from the Mouth of the Amazon

Delve into the elaborately decorated earthenware ceramics from the people who occupied the Brazilian island of Marajó from A.D. 400-1300.


Focus: Earth & Fire
There's more to Marvelous Mud than ceramics. Celebrate the myriad artistic responses to nature and its elements, including mountains, earthquakes, volcanoes, and forest fires.