The DeYoung Museum is bustling with action as the public gets to see the "Dutch Mona Lisa" in person-- Vermeer's masterpiece. The lovely exhibit: Girl With The Pearl Earring- Masters of Dutch painting from the Mauritshuis is there through early June. It is always amazing to see a very iconic image in person for the first time- it is usually smaller than you imagine, but still as mesmerizing.
I got to sneak a peek when I delivered a big order to the store yesterday-
Lots of new work there -large bowls, small bowls, small and large plates, mini ones too..
so well worth a trip to the DeYoung Museum..
every so often, I like to do a photo shoot of my own- not linked to a magazine or blog, but just to do one that reflects new work, or a mood or a vibe that I am trying to capture at a given time in my work.
A couple of weeks ago, I engaged the terrific photographer Marshall Gordon to come to the house and shoot some new work.
Of course, I had to displace my parakeet Kiki-who lives on the dining room table due to her myriad of disabilities. I set the big round wooden industrial table in the dining room with lots of new plates on a flax tablecloth- hoping to evoke the organic, but contemporary, more stark look of recent work.
I was commissioned to do some very simple and saturated black and white pieces for a client in Los Angeles who has a very modern home, but wanted to have some handmade plates to add some warmth.
Doing these set me into a direction of modern, stark contemporary but still rustic and textured..complex..
I have also been fixated on spirals--always have since I first saw the spirals the Anasazi used in the southwest thousands of years ago to record time and seasons. And then, in my daily runs out at the beach- I take a side route at ocean beach, known as the "chute" that in addition to remarkable graffiti along the way, has these plazas of swirls in the concrete that always engage me-
I started creating plates with these swirls- with different colors and anchored by an object that I would also always see- a branch formation on the beach, a rock, a person sitting, standing.
here are some of the shots--
there are more too--objects in boxes that I will save for next..
