Studio Open House

Takaezu Studio Spring Open House

Saturday June 15^th, 2024     1-6PM

1177 Croton Road, Flemington, NJ 08822

Show and Sale Featuring work by Toshiko’s former Students and Apprentices and Current Studio Artists

And Pizza by the Swampy Vale Portable Pizza Oven

The Naguchi Museum in Queens, NYC, Toshiko Takaezu: 

"Worlds Within". Open until July 28th.

"The Noguchi retrospective — which will travel to the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Mich; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Chazen Museum of Art, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and the Honolulu Museum of Art." NYT

May Mowing & More

This rainy May it has been a challenge to mow more than once a week. Leif's lawn has tripled in size and Christian has seven acres mostly manicured for mowing...

at home I am powerwashing, planting, fertilizing flowers...

and parading. Painting is next!

Princeton Reunions

This year as Bill comes closer to marketing a new drug eluting heart balloon while earnestly producing his ceramic artwork, we appreciate recognition and the degrees he received here. This reunion we will help plan next year's 50th! 

 

FIRED UP: Bill Baumbach '75 *87 took his first ceramics course at Princeton with Toshiko Takeazu while working toward his undergraduate degree in biochemistry. Before beginning his graduate studies in molecular biology, he spent a year as Takaezu's apprentice. Baumbach has pursued science in parallel with art ever since. "To me, the thought processes used in science and art are very much alike," he says. "Experimentation, creativity, and technical excellence are driving forces in both areas." PAW Magazine; photo Riccardo Barros.

 As newly inducted members, we attended the "Society of the Claw" Ice Cream Social in Chancellor Green Library. This building was the original university library in 1873.

Cheers to Bill and our great Class jacket fabric...

and Princeton University!

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."