21C Durham - White Light by Future Retrieval

A few installation images above of "White Light" for 21C Durham. This project is our largest to date, and we are so proud of the final results. We installed 18 porcelain, neon, and cut paper chandeliers above the bar in the Counting House, (21C Durham's in house restaurant) along with 450 balls of die cut paper bunting. Insane.

until we get back to Durham...  a couple more photos found online of The Counting House bar in full swing.

future bonsai

"An Epic Drama of Adventure and Exploration" 

porcelain, neon, wood, and Formica

70" x 48" x 22"

2015

On view at Clay Street Press until early May. 

handmade in china II

We are getting our pieces together for Handmade in China II, which opens this Friday at Clay Street Press in Cincinnati. The lithophane above is our largest to date, and we are messing around with colored neon backgrounds to make the image a little more ominous.

Lamination Proclamation

A new take on the ovals, this time with Formica!

Monkey Flutist

Symmetry and is on the mind in the studio, probably still something about Kubrick and surrealism, plus we are already preparing for the year of the monkey.

patiently waiting

On our bonsais that are currently on the slow boat from China. We just finished up a giant install in Durham NC along with a solo show in Ann Arbor MI, and so the itch begins to start something new. Any day now seven boxes of new work will magically arrive, so until then...

studio

currently in the studio - a minor obsession with gold leaf

new york ceramics fair 2015

Our bonsai sculptures are heading to the New York Ceramics and Glass Fair next week courtesy of Ferrin Contemporary and Made in China: The New Export Ware. We made this work 3 weeks ago (!) in Jingdezhen China, which is totally insane because these pieces have been on the road ever since. This is the beginning of a new line of work with a sci-fi feel, which will become more apparent as we start to flesh out backgrounds and display. 

"Bonsai, From '93 Till #1 and #2"

pvd

We are just arriving home from Jingdezhen China and starting to unpack and process our whirlwind studio experience. Above are a couple of our bonsai trees in the studio fresh from the PVD, shiny enough to make Jeff Koons very proud.

science fiction

Mike carved these sci-fi bonsai by hand to cast in Jingdezhen for the next few weeks. This is the first test batch from the kiln, and I am beyond impressed. We are starting to work on the surface now - adding pattern and color to really push them over the edge.

up next

We are leaving for Jingdezhen China in eight hours, and have big plans to hit the ground running. This semester has been insane, and we have been working non-stop on some of our largest projects to date. For the next three weeks we won't slow down per se, but we will have time to explore and get a little weird in the studio.

GRAND THEFT at The Carnegie

This one is permanent 

                                                 
                                                   
                                                           
                                               

coming soon

Finally starting to catch up with life after the opening of Grand Theft for Fotofocus, almost 2 weeks ago at The Carnegie. We will post images of the final installations very soon. 

unit progress

GMD has been furiously working, building out the units for our FotoFocus installation Grand Theft that opens next Sunday. These boxes will hold our stolen goods, which will sit on pieces of black marble. 8 days left in the count down. Yikes.

progress

We had custom neon fabricated for our Grand Theft lithophanes, and are finally starting to put all the parts together. In the image above Mike is testing how far we can move the porcelain away from the neon to illuminate the entire image.

Units for Grand Theft

                                                       This is how we plan a heist.

This is the scene of the crime.

Grand Theft for Fotofocus

We are currently hard at work on our upcoming exhibition Grand Theft, for the Fotofocus Biennial 2014 next month in Cincinnati. We have been collecting pieces from around the country for the past year, turning our iphone photos into 3-dimensional scans that then are 3D printed. Our installation will be two parts: each object molded and cast in porcelain, and backlit lithophanes of the objects in their original museum context.

shotgun wedding

Studio shot of our installation for Shotgun Wedding, at 1818 Vinton in Omaha NE.

the monolith plan

The next logical step from here. We will post images of the finished project soon, but this is how we get from a to b.

Loot from the National Museum Cardiff

We got the monkey that was printed in Wales for the Immaterial Artifacts show at the National Museum Cardiff.

Our sculpture combined with 3-d scanned objects from the collection printed in plastic.

Here are the links that explain the project.

Immaterial Artifacts

interview with us

bemis studio

One of my favorite images from our Bemis studio - good old #12. We just arrived home today, and already miss everyone like crazy.

www

Finally updated our website  - we were still using iweb, which is a program that Apple discontinued more than 2 years ago. Needless to say, it had to be done. Still working out a few kinks with connecting this blog to the site, but otherwise here it is...

the littlefield

We have been working with a good friend of ours Matt Distel on his newest project, The Littlefield, a craft bourbon bar in Northside, Cincinnati. We designed an interior panel for the second story, are working on some lithophanes for behind the bar, and installed some of our wolf heads around the space. Matt had the brilliant idea to make matching wolf head ice cubes, so here is our inaugural test and drink. Cheers.

second life

"Zuber's Menagerie", iphone installation shot from Mike's install at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft a couple weeks ago. We are part of the show Second Life, curated by Joey Yates, which runs from June 14th - August 31st. Super proud to have our work sandwiched between Damien Hirst and John James Audubon (Mike's hero). 

the beginning

The beginning of our 2001 capsule room of sorts... a combination of ideas over the last year and half that are finally starting to come together. We are working in collaboration with Chris Vorhees, who can pretty much make anything. 

2001

We are currently obsessed with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Big time.

ceramics monthly

Our piece, Gangster's Paradise is featured in Ceramics Monthly this month(!!) The show is a reboot of the original Taming Nature, which debuted at NCECA in March, but is now on view at Red Star through June 28th.

the dinnerware museum

We were invited to make a luncheon snack set for The Dinnerware Museum in Ann Arbor MI earlier this year by one of our favorite people ever, Margaret Carney. Part of the show Three Courses, the luncheon tray was made very popular in the 1940s and 50s, allowing for a civilized snack on your lap. We took a different approach, and filled the snack area with rats, who maybe got to the plate first. 

"Rat Snacks"

9" x 5"

porcelain, transfers, decals

UK

We were Visiting Artists yesterday at the University of Kentucky in Lexington - and had a truly wonderful time. Jonathan McFadden, Assistant Professor in Printmaking invited us out for the day - on a tip from one our graduate students Colin Klimesh. Really feeling the midwest love these days. 

bemis!

In less than two weeks are taking off and heading down to Omaha Nebraska to be Resident Artists at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts with these fine folks above. We are beyond excited, which makes powering through these last two weeks of school a breeze (of sorts).
Can't wait to hang out in here and make new work:

free time

For the last two months, we have been working with Carmel Buckley and Mark Harris on their epic project, Sparrow Come Back Home for the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE. We applied and fired over 300 ceramic decals to 12x12 tiles, mimicking a record cover in porcelain tile. You can read all about the exhibition here, and then run to pandora and type in Mighty Sparrow to see what all the fuss is about.