2012 Bryant Street Festival

On Sunday, June 3, I will once again be setting up a little table on Bryant Street in Highland Park (Pittsburgh, PA) for the 2012 Bryant Street Festival. The small street festival is in conjunction with the annual Highland Park Yard Sale, which is a spectacle to behold.

This year should be better than ever, with new restaurants now open on Bryant Street such as Teppanyaki Kyoto, who will hopefully be offering some interesting and delicious snack items. I'm sure the ladies at the Smiling Banana Leaf will be selling amazing Thai food, as well.

So come out and say hello if you're in the neighborhood.

(Now it's time for me to make some coffee mugs... I always obsess over the things I want to make at this time of the year, namely tea bowls. Then when this event comes up, I mainly have are Asian-style tea cups and the few coffee mugs that I bring sell out in the first hour.)

A few more recent pieces...

I've posted a few more images of new work to my Flickr photostream. Go have a look see and let me know what you think.

Dragons

This pair of soda-fired ceramic dragons guard my personal shelf in the studio's staff closet. I'm really fortunate to have a space amongst such talented artists: Amanda, Dave, Josh, Dacey, Junji, Carly and of course, Bill Strickland.

The dragon project was actually my introduction to ceramics. I went to a local middle school with Jamie Matthews to help teach this project to a group of kids. Jamie is the master dragon maker, I'm just a hack. I've helped him teach more than 100 kids the dragon project, but this past year Jamie got a regular teaching job in the suburbs. So I've been tasked with keeping the project going.

One thing I love about teaching art is creating examples for the kids. I recently made a new dragon using white stoneware clay. Our normal clay body is brown, which is strong but not ideal for bright glazes. Our porcelain is a beautiful bright white, but too brittle for dragons. White stoneware is a nice happy medium.

I used the paint sprayer like an airbrush (or spray can if you're into graffiti) to give the dragon some cool fades that would really appeal to inner-city kids. Of course they'll have to do their blending with ordinary paint brushes, but it's entirely possible.

If you're an art teacher, I highly recommend the dragon project. It's well-structured and relatively simple, but keeps kids active and engaged for a long period of time. It encourages a high-degree of creativity and self-expression. Kids often make unbelievably cool dragons, reflecting their personality or representing something highly imaginative.