Gallery Blog

Art Elements is thrilled to announce the opening of our new show - Recollections 

featuring the abstract paintings of artist James Frey. 

Recollections No. 3 by James Frey, 48x48"

Recollections will be open from April 21st - June 18th with an opening reception on the evening of April 29th from 5-7 pm 

A little more about the artist:

James Frey began taking and developing his own photos at the age of 12. Three years later, he had begun working as a newspaper photojournalist and by the age of 16 became, at the time, the youngest recipient to receive an award from the California newspaper association for his work. He continued to work as a photojournalist in order to pay his way through college at the University of California, Berkeley and then later in graduate school at the University of Arizona.

 In his late twenties, Frey turned to painting and developed a passion for abstract expressionist works. His paintings of rich, deep hues and vibrant contrasts create a powerful sense of color, shape and energy. In order to create a greater tactile quality, at times Frey will even incorporate vine cuttings and vineyard soils into a piece.

Recollections No. 6, James Frey, 48x36"

Frey's works are heavily influenced by his other passion, owner and winemaker for Trisaetum Winery. Whether it's the  elements that create exceptional vineyards, or the kinetic energy of crush, Frey's works are clearly inspired by what goes on in the vineyard and in the winery. 

Frey's studio is adjunct to his home on his family's Coast Range vineyard, where he lives with his wife Andrea, son Tristen, and daughter Tatum. His paintings and photography have been published and purchased by collectors and corporations throughout the world. 

you can see the other works from Recollections at: 

http://www.artelementsgallery.com/search?type=product&q=james+frey

Here at Art Elements we are lucky to feature the work of several AMAZING ceramic artists. Many of them practice what has been termed “alternative firing methods.” Essentially, this means that they use something other than a traditional gas or electric kiln (the type of kiln you probably saw if you took ceramics in high school) to fire their pottery and sculptures. For these potters, the firing process is a fundamental step in their art making that has a huge impact on the look of the finished pieces. These methods are often more physically demanding or time consuming that traditional firing practice, but the results they yield are amazing.

Easily the most ancient and time honored of these “alternative” firing methods is called “pit firing.” Practiced as early as 25,000 BCE, most potters think of pit firing as the original method of firing or “baking” clay into its hard finished form. The Greeks and Romans, as well as the ancient peoples of North America practiced pit firing. Basically anywhere that you can find a long-standing ceramic tradition, there is a history of pit firing.

Ancient Aztec Pit-Fired Vessel 

Just as the name suggests, pit firing involves digging a out a pit in the ground (usually 2-2½ ft deep depending on how large your pieces are and how many you are firing), laying your clay pieces in the pit, covering them with combustible material, setting it ablaze and then allowing the fire to slowly burn down over the course of several hours.

Schematic of a pit firing http://www.alexmandli.com/process/pit-firing.html

http://ballclaystudio.com/how-to-pit-fire-pottery-without-a-kiln/

Like baking in the kitchen, in order to fire pottery, the clay must reach a specific temperature in order to vitrify or become hard. Throughout this process the clay becomes porous and soft, like rubber, anything that comes near it will stick to its surface. This also means that the clay will absorb any chemicals or fumes that pass over it during the firing process. This means that in pit firing, the ash and smoke created by whatever you have used to fuel your fire (wood, grass, leaves, even buffalo chips) will have an impact on the final colors and look of the piece. It is the fire itself that creates the color in a pit-fired work.

https://uclagettyprogram.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/pit-firing09-4.jpg

 This means that no two pit fired pieces will ever look exactly the same, and that to some extent the process is rather unpredictable. However, experienced ceramicists can also manipulate the colors of their pit-fired art works by adding other chemical elements to the fire. This can by done by covering the individual pieces  with specific compounds like copper carbonate, or it could be achieved by adding elements to the fire itself. Items like tea bags, banana peels, and animal bones will all create different color affects on a finished piece. A great example of this is evident in Mark Terry’s figurative sculpture entitled “Ariadne” – the bright oranges and greens dusted across the figure were created by this kind of experimentation with different chemicals in the fire. As you can see it can have some pretty amazing results. This allows the potter to play scientist, artist and pyromaniac all at once.

(Mark Terry “Ariadne”)

Once the fire has died, the finished ceramic pieces will have to be left under the ash and debris for several hours to cool. If they are unearthed too quickly the exposure to the cold air outside of the pit will cause them to crack. Once they are ready, the process of digging up the work and cleaning it off reveals all of the color and texture that the fire has left behind. It’s an exciting moment for the artist. Some pit-fired pottery is then waxed or polished to give it a sheen, further drawing out the depth of color created by the ash and soot.

Pit fired pottery has a distinctive look that is easy to identify once you are familiar with the technique.

Blythe Eastman’s pit fired animals provide a textbook example of the pit-fired aesthetic. The smokey grays, browns and blacks leave traces of the smoke and ash that licked across her little animals as the fire burned around them. It gives them a decidedly earthly feel, further associating her animals with nature, organic matter and the natural environment from which they are inspired.

(Blythe Eastman, “Rabbit Washing”)

(Blythe Eastman, “Horse”)

Another great example of pit-fired pottery is the work of Linda Workman-Morelli. Her work shows off the almost painterly affect that the fires traces leave behind on the surface of her work. Like Blythe, Linda creates objects that are evocative of the natural world. They make us think of stones, or shells. This is further enforced by the fact that she has polished them, almost like a stone at the bottom of the riverbed. The depth created by this polished look really shows off the natural color of her pit-fired pieces.

(Linda Workman-Morellia, untitled)

While pit firing is just one of many unique and interested alternative firing methods, its long history and rustic technique harkens back to the work of the first ancient potters, in a unique way. The pits that Linda, Blythe and Mark dig out to fire their pieces are no different from those dug by their ceramics ancestors. Both these contemporary artists and their predecessors return their clay pieces back to the earth from which they were created in order to finish and bring them to life. What is amazing to see is how truly modern this practice becomes in the hands of our talented potters.

“Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.” – John Ruskin, 19^th century art critic and theorist

A dense and vibrant wave of painterly poppies presses against the edge of the canvas in Molly Reeves’ painting “On Being,” – they beckon you to step on to the path that cuts through this patch of blossoms and enter into the artist’s world. The eye, obedient to Reeves visual instructions, then follows this winding trail toward the center of the canvas, and into the recesses of the landscape. Red petals melt into yellow field, which in turn roll toward a distant tree line that holds up an effervescent blue and purple sky dotted with cottony clouds.

While the intense reds and oranges of the poppy field in “On Being” overwhelm the eye at first, closer study of the painting reveals a beautifully composed and artfully balanced canvas. The soft cool tones and smooth texture of the skyline balances the heat and intensity of the flowers at the foreground. The result is a landscape painting that is simultaneously energizing and soothing a – a work that excites and calms the eye all at once. The yellows and greens at the midline of the canvas, coupled with the gentle curve of the path as it retreats into the field, create a clear sightline for the eye to follow, leading you on a visual journey through each poetic element that Reeves has selected for this work. Like beats in a song, or stanzas in a sonnet, these separate moments come together to create an over all sense of mood as well as of place, and invite you, the viewer, to join her there.

This is no accident. Nor is it an example the good fortune of finding an excellent subject to paint. Rather, it is evidence of overall Reeves’ approach to her art making. As she eloquently puts it… 

“For me it is all about intention; examples might be: what kind of story do I want to tell, or where do I want to take the viewer. Long before I pick up the brush I am constantly observing different aspects of reality and mining my memory, quite naturally the two become fused. My desire through this reconciliation of observed reality and related memories is to create a two dimensional fiction that authentically tells a deeper and more thoughtful truth.” – Molly Reeves

(Reeves shows off her painting "Water Magic" on a visit that Art Elements owner Loni Parrish and gallery manager Sarah Askin made to her studio) Photo Credit: Sarah Askin

Reeves she makes clear that her landscape paintings reference elements of the natural world, but are in fact constructions – a pastiche of real and imagined (or remembered) imagery that she carefully combines in order to create a final composition. With this approach, she hopes to touch on deeper, perhaps more eternal truths than a simply record of the natural world. Ideas of play, invention and whimsy are all important components of Reeves work, which, although perhaps it is subtle at first, becomes more and more clear the more time you spend with her paintings.

This idea that the artist creates their own reality in order to touch upon inner truths, is drawn from a long standing belief that the arts reveal inner, fundamental truths -- that truth and beauty are inextricably related, and that in creating something truly beautiful, an essential truth is revealed. The belief that recording the truth is more complicated than merely copying what you see in life is fundamental here. This art philosophy, espoused by many of the Romantic painters of the 18^th and 19^th century, is linked to the notion that to see true beauty, either in art or in the natural world has an elevating affect and will literally improve the life of the viewer. For the art theorist John Ruskin (quoted above) beauty was truth, and visa versa. Reeves paintings are a wonderful example of this idea in play.

Another example of this notion of play, invention and whimsy is readily evident in her “Bird with Balls” series, which, along with several of her landscapes will be featured in our forthcoming “Flora and Fauna” show along with ceramic animal sculptor, Blythe Eastman.

“Wise One” is a perfect example of Reeves whimsical approach. The incredibly skilful and naturalistically portrayed bird (as well as the tree branch upon which it sits) are juxtaposed with the fanciful pink and red hues of the sky as well as the “ball” shaped clouds that are aligned in a perfect little row. The symmetry of the clouds, something we never would see in the natural world, is a clear signal to the viewer that we have, once again, entered into Molly’s world.

Reeves intends for these paintings to inspire pure joy for the viewer. While she certainly could have chosen to represent these birds in a more “realistic” setting, as she likely saw them in nature, the choice to reposition them in this imagined setting adds a sense of play to the image that makes it something else entirely. But more than just fun, works like Molly Reeves can teach us something valuable about beauty and truth that can be found no where else in the world. They show us not only the inner truth and beauty of the artist, but hopefully, some inner truths about ourselves.