Members Tour Of PUAM

One of Toshiko Takaezu's "Star Series" sculptures is featured in Princeton University Art Museum's "Dialogues in Clay", her current "Welcoming Gallery" exhibit.   Photo credit: Tom Grotta, 1998

Toshiko Takaezu taught and founded the Visual Arts Department at Princeton University, teaching 25 years here. She continued working with apprentices in her Quakertown, NJ studio until passing in 2011. Her work was shown in the Venice Biennale 2020, as one of the 20th century's greatest abstract artists. She was given an honorary doctorate at PU, 1996.  

Many Star Gazer sculptures at the Noguchi Museum "Worlds Within" exhibit 2024. 

Other related works visited...

 Josiah McElheny "A Twilight Labyrinth". Handblown glass vessels in a mirrored box 2019.

Roberto Lugo "The Man Who Carried the Ice Box on his Back up the Mountain" 2023, glazed stoneware.

Attributed to the Darius Painter, Classical Period (ca. 340-330 BCE), southern Italy, red figure ceramic.

Installing Garden Sculptures

Bill has installed many of his tree like sculptures at the Takaezu Studio now, all together.

He has also poured ridged foam bases for two most colorful Caryatid sculptures while attaching them to wooden bases.

Upside down to paint the wooden base which will get covered with surrounding mulch.

Nick Cave At Princeton University Art Museum

 Night & day photos. The entry mosaic mural messages are: "Welcome", "Enjoy yourself", "Have courage", "The King sees all", and "Hope to see you again".

This week, Nick Cave, the grandiose Chicago visual artist; sculptor, painter, and performer, spoke at Princeton University about his recent large scale  installation for it's new art museum - demonstrating his recent penchant and color theories further explored in a sublime scale exterior mural on a purely asthetic and natural new srtructure. He explained the layered process, materials, challenges, inspiration and messages he gives visitors greeted by "Let me kindly introduce myself. They call me MC Prince Brighton" upon arrival. 

Elements: bases are wooden; made from large Elm and other compromised trees removed here, ceramic tiles of epic amounts and poured symbolic metal icons. Bravo, bravo Nick Cave. Below: "Soundsuit, 2013" owned by PUAM, & Nick Cave's Sound Suits & performances (click here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpNcmh3rxko.

"Soundsuit, 2013" is mixed media of crochet blanket, doilies, sequins, & mannequin; one of over a hundred made. This "Orientation Gallery" on the second floor is next to glass picture windows revealing the artist's entrance exterior mosaic.

Upon meeting Nick Cave in the museum Grand Hall, he immediately told Bill he liked his jacket (he wore reunion jacket PU Class '75). What an endorsement from the King of costuming.

New Track Lighting

Leif's Deck house has all wooden ceilings, so updating the lighting has been on the surface of beams or ceiling boards with track lighting mostly. He is now adding dimmers.

Spots in his kitchen & studio, Old Farm's kitchen and Christian's library...

Leif's newest track heads are color adjustable as well as dimmable.

Princeton University Art Museum & Willem de Kooning

Princeton University's "Black Friday" by Willem de Kooning 1945 & inspiration for an extraordinary exhibit and panel discussions on his emerging Abstract Expressionism post WWII. The Breakthrough Years, 1945-50, 3/15 - 7/26/26

Bill and I previewed this exhibit of 18 collected works from over 12 museums and collections, highlighting de Kooning's avant-garde debut at the Egan Gallery in NY 1948, an examination of abstraction and figuration. The two panel discussions held in the new museum's auditorium explored collecting the artworks and writing about them. 

Borrowed from MoMA'S collection.

"Ganesvoordt Street", 1949.

Princeton University Art Museum has been named one of TIME's "The World's Greatest Places of 2026". Admission to the museum is free. Click on above copy to enlarge & read.

In the following years, de Kooning painted a highly valued series of six "Woman" paintings; "Woman III" painted in 1953 was bought by Steven Cohen for $137.5 million in 2006.

Tall Sculptures Etc.

The recent Takaezu kiln firing had five of Bill's sculptural pieces in it. Two tall sculptures, two garden seats and a stool.

Bill's collection of tall sculptures here, laid down while snowstorms blanketed them.

Modern Coat Hooks

 I have updated our side door coat hooks which need to hold bulky coats in constant use. Restoration Hardware has the largest, most modern designs I found, and now on sale.

The "Colliers Double Hook".