mao and monkey

From Jingdezhen, more porcelain monkeys. Katie made the piece on the left, Mike the piece on the right - but you probably knew that already.
Tiny Monkeys, 6" x 5" x 4" each, porcelain and china paint, 2012

back

We are back from China! It turns out that blogger is blocked throughout the country, so I had my brother post a couple photos from my phone. Jingdezhen and The Pottery Workshop were amazing, I can't stop thinking about how to get back as soon as possible. Above is the studio  - one of the last days when all the work started coming out of the kilns. As soon as everything gets unpacked and the dust settles we will post more images. 

Mao

Week one in Jingdezhen China. I couldn't resist...

old technology

Rapid prototyping in Jingdezhen

Jingdezhen

We are heading to Jingdezhen China (the porcelain capitol of the WORLD) next week to spend a month at The Pottery Workshop! We will do our best to post images and works in progress to this blog during our stay.  If there is only radio silence instead - we will be taking a ton of photos and will update upon return... Here goes nothing.

Model Citizens NYC

Images from the Model Citizens show last week in Soho. We rearranged our oval plaques from this exhibition, and made them a little more elaborate and over the top. It seems like every year when design week rolls around it gets us thinking about new work, and we end up showing small experiments that propel us into larger scale installations. Look for more gold leaf and architectural detailing later this summer - as this piece definitely points to where we are heading next. 

The warehouse space in Soho on Mercer Street. Two beautiful giant empty floors. 

printing

Printing tiles at Rookwood Pottery, round 2. From the amazing minds of Terence Hammonds and Guy Michael Davis. A 70's biker couple with a dollar bill backdrop. LOVE IT. Easily the best tile of the day.

lithophanes, round 3

Guy's new lithophane experiments...freshly printed. We have some solid ideas for these monkeys.

Rookwood collaboration

Guy and Terence Hammonds (print maker extraordinaire) checking out glaze options

8"x8" and 14"x14" tiles 

We are collaborating with Rookwood Pottery!! I can't believe it! We are working with artists and designers there, starting to brainstorm new ideas for one off art pieces as well as production work. The images above are from a print collaboration we did with Terence Hammonds today, who has been working at Rookwood for two years, but is also an AMAZING printmaker. What an honor - we are huge fans of his work and style. Fingers crossed that these tiles look as hot as we think they will. 

color

We are currently working on a series of large porcelain wall pieces, that fit with our new backdrops and paper work. Although the porcelain will remain white, there will be plenty of color involved. With pieces of this scale, putting them back into the kiln for numerous firings seems like a death wish.

new panels

New panels in the works, for a couple shows on the docket. We are shifting the color palate just a little - inspired by some of the cut paper work.
Above - l.5 layers screenprinted (out of 6)

blob making

The flower blob is growing...

In the Studio

It sure is getting dense in the studio. All of the walls and tables are covered with finished work, molds, and work in progress. There's a ton to talk about when we get studio visits, and by the way, the last guests presented us with a new and important collaboration. I cannot say anymore but along with our exhibition coming up in Kansas City there are some very interesting projects around the corner.

a lot of starts

While Guy has been busy carving plaster like mad, I have started a new "flower ball" form. (photo from day 3). Although, I am thinking of making a giant flower blob instead, which is harder than I thought it would be initially. This will be getting much bigger.

new work - step one

Step 1. Make a mold.

Guy Michael has been carving away into the long hours of the night, setting up a form for a new body of work. I am constantly amazed at his ability to sculpt a square block of plaster. 

lithophane, round 2

Lithophanes, round 2. The piece on the left is from our first test with CNC milling a lithophane, and it worked like mad. I am currently teaching a special studio on tile making at UC, so I am going to have my students make lithophanes this winter. Piece 2 and 3 (middle and right) are more affordable options - less time in the mill, and a 3D powder print version. I can't wait to see how these look illuminated. (and a giant thank you to Aaron Rucker)

the internet

My holiday break project... To revamp our website - and create a central place online for not only Future Retrieval, but for our personal blogs as well. (see here and here). Coming SOON!

More from the Still(ed)Life show

Here are a couple of the 3-D still life's from the installation at the Taft Museum of Art. I thought I should get documentation of the what we have left as some of these pieces are finding new homes including the parrot above leaving the studio to become part of the Cincinnati Art Museum's collection.

BYOB Cincinnati

Our lithophane at BYOB (bring your own beamer) at the CAC in Cincinnati. Our low tech approach to high tech, using a slide projector as a light source... The show was curated by Jordan Tate and Aaron Walker, in conjunction with Is This Thing On, which explores the history and future of video art. More images from the opening below.

Hy-Que Monkey in Captivity @ The Pennsylvania Acadamy of Fine Arts Museum

Here, an install shot from the show HERE, at PAFA. Seeing it all finally put together was a great surprise and relief. The other artists in the show are really impressive and the show is so diverse. We are fortunate enough to be displayed in the main corridor of the museum where there is a ton of traffic. Five oddly grotesque porcelain monkeys are posed within the screen printed backdrop drawn from the Medieval Unicorn Tapestries, specifically The Unicorn in Captivity. Installed much like the Wunderkammer, the monkey is working for us, presenting and chained to curious porcelain painted artifacts that serve as iconographic signifiers to material and process, design, kitsch, labor, and the history of decorative arts.

lithophane, round 1

We are working on turning this image into a lithophane. A lithophane is a thin porcelain plaque that when back lit shows a perfect exacting image, "light in stone". So far we have cheated the process a little, and cnc milled an image into high density foam, rather than carving one from beeswax. I hope this works.

postcard

Less than one week until our show opens in Philly! I can't wait to see the space, install, and then relax and enjoy the city.

We are taking a few Taft busts along as well, to show Alphonso the sites...

Still[ed] Life - installation images

Installation images of our show "Still[ed] Life", at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati Ohio. Our show consists of ten porcelain busts of Alphonso Taft, 3d scanned from the museum's bust of Alphonso Taft, sculpted by Hiram Powers. Each bust is hand china painted with patterns from the museum's collection of paintings, Chinese porcelains, and their amazing Federalist era carpets. Porcelain still lives overflowing with exotic fruits and animals were inspired by the Taft's only recent acquisition, a Balthasar van der Ast painting. A huge thank you goes out to the Taft, the curators, and everyone involved in making this show a possibility.

Photos courtesy of Jordan Tate.

From the Taft's website:

"Inspired by the Taft's permanent collection, Parker and Davis' fanciful and ironic porcelains combine the idealized beauty of historical decorative arts with the realism of the naturalist's eye"

home away from home, away from home

We have a new studio! A lovely warehouse downtown, with a ton of floor space. I can't wait to work somewhere where I can spread out, print and cut paper at a larger scale, and run around in. Sometimes living in the midwest pays off.

very planet of the apes

Things are coming together, and we are in full china painting mode. This is layer only one, but I love how the lapels look like futuristic ape robes...

frames

Here are the frames we cnc milled to hold the prints for our Philly monkey project.  There are five that will have silk our screened graphics inspired by the unicorn tapestries. In the center, a porcelain monkey, mounted on a sconce presenting some curious artifacts on a plate that he will be chained to.

The incredible shrinking monkey

Progress on the PAFA project. Shown here is monkey, mini monkey and mini mini maker bot monkey. All of the digital work is being fabricated, most molds made, and the screen printing is done, but there is still a lot of china painting to do.

working

We have been busy busy in the studio, working towards a show at PAFA this October. We are putting together a large wall piece, consisting of handprinted wallpaper, porcelain monkeys, and a few other finishing touches. A couple shots from our studio - the wallpaper getting close to completion... (with the help of our amazing studio assistant Audrey!)

And our monkey getting ready to be sliced, diced, and molded.

Still[ed] Life

Our show "Still[ed] Life" opens today at the Taft Museum of Art! The Cincinnati Enquirer did a nice write up about the show today, which you can read here. We will be posting pictures of our installation over the next few weeks, but if you are in town definitely go check it out. The show runs from August 5th through October 16th, with an opening reception on September 18th. More details to come...

(Alphonso Taft with chinoiserie patterns from the Taft's collection, 12" x 7" x 5.5", porcelain and china paint)