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).

Overthrown: Clay Without Limits, Part One

I visited the Denver Art Museum on Friday for the special exhibition Marvelous Mud: Clay Around the World. The first exhibit we visited was Overthrown: Clay Without Limits. I was immediately impressed! Outside the doors to enter the exhibit was this piece titled Footing by Nathan Craven:

Yes, that says to walk on it! I was very nervous doing that, it felt wrong. It was also really fun! The pieces fit snugly, but there was a little movement that gave the slightest noise of clay clinking together. I felt like I should step lightly, think airy thoughts. As I was walking very carefully a kid came running at full speed and jumped as high and hard as he could! It was fine. My heart was beating quickly though, again, it felt wrong in a delightful naughty way. 

After entering the exhibit the first thing I saw was a case with many (I think 12) very delicate pieces. All of them raised the question, "How the heck were these made?"  

RELIC HEAP by Cheryl Ann Thomas looked like fabric and it was as thin as paper. The only way I can imagine this being fired was if it was supported by something that burned away. But I still can't figure out how it was transported, how it was even removed from the kiln. I should mention that they were fairly large too- at least a few feet high and wide. 

RELIC HEAP (white) by Cheryl Ann Thomas

RELIC HEAP (black) by Cheryl Ann Thomas

RELIC HEAP (white) and RELIC HEAP (black) by Cheryl Ann Thomas

untitled thumbnail by Benjamin DeMott

The next piece that was very impressive was made by Martha Russo, titled Apoptosis. Her materials included Porcelain, paper clay, glaze materials, pigments, paints, assorted vintage tools, steel, hardware, silicone, LED lights, compact fluorescents, electrical cables, wires and conductors, utility poles, abaca paper, and beeswax. The definition of 'apoptosis' from TheFreeDictionary.com is:

Noun

1.

apoptosis - a type of cell death in which the cell uses specialized cellular machinery to kill itself; a cell suicide mechanism that enables metazoans to control cell number and eliminate cells that threaten the animal's survival

Understanding the definition of apoptosis helped me make sense of this piece. It is LARGE, from floor to ceiling (and the ceilings were very high). I read in The Collective (DAM's blog) that 175 boxes of objects were brought in for this installation! 

Martha Russo is full of vivre. She came to talk at my college and I remember thinking that she was wacky in a very lovable way. She talked about getting membranes and  cow stomachs from the local butcher and using it in her art, laughing about the butcher's reaction. Russo definitely has her own unique vision! 

I'm realizing that this is becoming a looong post and there are still many more pieces from that exhibit that I'd like to share. So I guess that makes this Overthrown: Clay Without Limits, Part One.