Potter's Marks

Emily Murphy's blog post "A Potter's Mark" is interesting in several ways. First, those potters have it so easy! Just press a stamp into the wet clay and your maker's mark becomes an indelible part of their work.

But Emily goes on to say that one magazine is showing the marks of the potters they feature, and that the Potters Council is creating an archive.

Wouldn't it be a good idea for woodturning organizations and publishers to do the same?




Technorati Tags: pottery, woodturning, marks

The Creativity Portal

The Creativity Portal™ is a great website to check out if you feel the need to boost your creativity. The site describes itself as "an imagination-inducing sanctuary for artists, writers, crafters, and creativity enthusiasts."

The site is chock full of articles on the topic of creativity. Its one fault is that it is difficult at first to find your way around this huge site, the large selection of articles are overwhelming and there is nowhere obvious to begin. I hope that this small selection of articles will help you find something that might make your woodturning more creative, and encourage you to explore the Creativity Portal in more depth.

• How to Be Creative shows how paying attention to the world around you can lead to great ideas.
• Max your Creativity is about the benefits of being wild, wacky and experimental.
• Being Creative and Self-critical shows how to stop perfectionism getting in the way of creativity.
• Getting Unstuck: 9 Ways to Escape from Creativity-Halting Goo
• Turn Your Creative Spark into a Flame in 10 Simple Ways
• It’s Not What You Create, It’s That You Create looks at why we might think we are not very creative.

And if that is not enough they have a series of articles about Learning from Leonardo da Vinci.




Technorati Tags: creativity, art, woodturning,

Art in Motion

Art in Motion is the name of an exhibition just opened at the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia, and features the work of German woodturner Siegfried Schreiber.

"Schreiber combines minimalism with an understated elegance that moves and rocks with the lightest touch." (WTC)

While most woodturners approach bowl design with some stability in mind, Siegfried takes a different attitude to what a bowl should be. They are most definitely not designed to sit inertly on a table and hold things, and it is no surprise that his website is divided in to sections for Kinetic Objects, Sensual Sculptures and Meditation Objects. Some beautiful ideas are shown there, and like his work, the website is wonderfully minimalist though I would have liked to see a video clip of some of the kinetic works. Do take a look - it might lead your own woodturning in new directions. Leave a comment and tell us what you think of these works.


Tags: Siegfried Schreiber, woodturning, Philadelphia, art, kinetic, meditative, minimalism

WOODTURNING NEWS: Liam Flynn

The first ever bursary from the Crafts Council of Ireland has been won by a woodturner, Liam Flynn. The purpose of the bursary is to release recipients from their usual commitments so they can invest in the creative development of their craft.

You can see some of Liam's work on his website.

Read the full article in the Limerick Post: Top honour for Limerick woodturner

Who influences your work?

Luann Udell made an interesting observation on her blog today titled 'Influence'.

She makes the point that 2-D artists will often declare that they work in the style of a well known artist. Craft workers seldom do this.

It made me wonder why this is so.

Could it be that more artists have had a formal arts education and have been exposed to thinking in depth about their work and have practiced analysing and talking or writing about it?

Or could it be that the art world is better developed, and is written about by art critics and art historians? This must give artists a strong incentive to declare their influences before the critics do so.

Perhaps if crafts publications paid as much attention to concepts and design as they do to technique, things might be different.