Large Ceramic Stools

Building large ceramic stools requires considerable clay, skill and time while they shrink about 15%; drying & firing. Our sons help carry them from the basement to be fired and glazed in a large studio kiln. This pair has been sold to a visiting Naguchi Museum Associate and ships to Michigan.

The glazing/handling is challenging and magnificent 3-D paintings emerge.

 

Bill helped build this kiln for Toshiko Takaezu many years ago and is where he continues to fire and glaze large pieces of his work.

The cost for this size stool is about $4,000 or less for a pair. The lovely pair below went to Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Chipping Away "With Clay"

Bill has made 8 garden seats for the recent kiln firing which is a record number, while chipping at Leif's before dark. Using a commercial chipper, they have been clearing the front yard forest and using wood chips to mulch small trees. Five enormous dead trees will be cut to woodstove length logs and split for next winter's wood. Slowly a view of the house is emerging on it's 3.5 acres.

The studio; hand dug 18" deeper of clay. Hopewell dirt is mostly clay and we feel immersed.

I have planted 44 Ostrich ferns from my house in new back fields here, and bulk grass seed. 

This side yard was a wall of brush covering a collapsed horse barn full of debris with much more strewn all over. 

Ostrich ferns at home engulfing Bill's 5' sculptures now. Below is one in a greenware state.

Wiring And Hanging

We have installed a new Minka Aire Concept II ceiling fan ($150 fbm) and two track lights ($265) once in Leif's vaulted great room. The work took two weekends with all new wiring and dimmers added. This fan is inaudible and echoes the shape of the foyer light.

Some surface wiring was removed and the track lights were wired along with the new fan plus dimmers. The master bedroom also has a new ceiling fan added to it's vaulted ceiling. For now these fans help keep wood stove heat down and in the living spaces.

Mid Century Modern houses had hanging closet doors in their bedrooms at least. Bill has painted the upstairs doors here white which Leif hung with all new hardware. It is hard to paint over wooden parts of an Acorn Deck House like Leif's, but the one above in CT had an addition painted all white inside, which is a striking contrast.

Selling & Staging Ceramics

 Bill has these pieces at 1 Sidney Place, Brooklyn Heights, NY; now on the market for $22.5 million.

Six of Bill's Garden pieces; Seats, Stools and/or Tables, are now staging the renovation of 1 Sidney Place, Brooklyn Heights, NY. Lyndsay Caleo Karol of "The Brooklyn Home Company" has purchased most of the pieces for their largest; elaborate reno to date. Alex & family were able to attend the Open House as they live nearby.

The house was immediately in contract! "This historic townhouse set for second highest Brooklyn sale."

Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within

 Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within

March 20 2024 - July 28 2024

Bill's ceramic mentor, professor at Princeton University for whom he apprenticed two years; introducing us and Bill continuing to fire her kilns and demonstrate coil building for university classes while our sons were small, is now having an astonishing exhibit at the Noguchi Museum featuring about 200 pieces of her art.

Last year, one of Toshiko Takaezu's Moon Pots sold for $541,800.

I remember handwashing the floor rug below when it first came back to the studio.

Bill & I brought back these Guatamalen hammocks in the 70's for Moon Pots to be displayed in.

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum has assembled a major nationally touring retrospective and largest ceramic monograph (Yale University Press) centered on Toshiko Takaezu's life. It is organized by The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum with assistance from the Toshiko Takaezu Foundation and the Takaezu family with works from private and public collections around the country. 

The opening we attended was packed followed by a dinner for over 100 apprentices, artists, friends & family celebrating her consumate artistic lifestyle and ethics which were embraced by all and well ahead of her time. A concurrent dinner featuring her monograph for donors and organizers was also held.

A bronzed bell in the Noguchi Garden Museum. Princeton University has a large one on campus.

All astonishing! This exhibition is outrageously breaking attendance records.

Caryatid Sculptures

Bill has two new "Caryatid" Sculptures fired in a very hot glaze fire which gave them a tinge of warmer; deeper colors. These sculptures add to a series of seven. 

LED Lights

Leif has been switching all of his house lights and most recently old flourescent tube lights to LED lighting. He choose "toggled" 4' & 3' 3000K LED T8 strip lights ordered from Home Depot for $60 total, to cover 24' over 6 sliding glass doors. They are the warmest type and will have walnut board baffles remounted in front. Next will be a dimmer switch added and WAC track lights matching the kitchen, attached to large ceiling beams here.