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.  

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".

Shipping Seats Overseas

We are shipping one of Bill's garden seats/table overseas and he has built a box with lauan boards on a pine wood frame, insulated with 2" rigid foam. I am using UPS to air ship it to Norway, making sure it is under 70 lbs. boxed.

This box can be unscrewed and saved (parts are numbered) to be used again.

Cold At The Cape

Bill & I visited Old Farm this week before the blizzard hits the East Coast. We walked the beaches, made soup, ran the woodstove and read books after shoveling our way into the house. Lake Wequaquet, the Cape's second largest lake, is four houses away and now frozen over after weeks of extreme cold. Harvard's Women's Crew team stayed and practiced at Old Farm 25 yrs. ago.

A good book to read is "From the Vikings to Vonnegat; A Cape Cod Reader", while here.

"Leif Ericson, a natural Viking leader with a touch of wanderlust, heard from a fellow sailor, Bjarni Herjulfsson, of new lands far to the west. Setting sail with thirty-five men in the year 1003, Leif followed the directions of his friend and eventually made several landings on these unknown shores. One landing is reported to have been at Great Point on Nantucket, while another was believed to have been at Bass River on Cape Cod." Frederick J. Pohl

Happy Valentine's Day!

All of my Christmas Amaryllis bulbs bloomed for the day.

My valentine Anders, I miss you.

Building Bulkhead Doors

Every month we spend a long weekend at Old Farm usually with a project in mind. Last visit, Bill built another bulkhead door for the original basement opening and it was installed primed before leaving. Fun!

Drove home into a blizzard. What a winter.

Snowstorms

 While heating his house with wood, Leif's first and recent snowstorms, when log piles are key.

We recently took down 7 more big trees here, making several piles and clearing the front yard of trees too close to the house.

Four large Walnut and a Sycamore tree will dry out here with some given to artist woodworkers.

Other piles are dead Ash ready to split and burn.

Leif cooks outside on his vintage Weber all year.

18" of snow the winter we bought Old Farm & gutted the entire upstairs.