Is it possible to be in love while somewhat terrified? Yes, yes it is. This is the beautifully made, sweet ‘n creepy work of Canadian ceramicist Susannah Montague. Butterflies, bones, and babies … I scoured her site looking for the stories behind these gorgeous / scary pieces, but I believe she’s left it up to our imaginations. At this stage all I really know is that I want to ride around in a row boat with a pink beluga.

ps. I do know why Susannah creates these lovely “blastocysts” though…  “This [work] is about my twins as five day old embryos. The day they got transferred into me.”

Beautiful.

A self-described “maker of unusual things” … um, yep! Cute meets creepy as little ceramic faces are housed inside felted creatures / mushrooms. This is the whimsical and weird work of UK based artist Lizzie Pearce. I’d love to pick a favorite, but that feels totally impossible. Clearly I need all of them. Happy September!

ps. Some of her work is available in her shop.

Oooooh, “Shibori Bubbles”. This gorgeous ceramic series, from 2016, is the work of Martha Rieger, a Brazilian-Israeli ceramic artist and sculptor, working in Tel Aviv and in Jingdezhen, China.

“In a project from 2016, Martha Rieger created sculptures, shaped as a bubble meeting a horizontal surface, in that fragile moment before snapping. Adventurously crafted by using traditional Chinese techniques and contemporary innovation, the bubble sculptures are hand-painted by Rieger in the Japanese Shibori style, known in its western versions of Tie-Dye or Batik. By using sponges, fishing nets and duct tape, Rieger created an overall illusionistic pattern, transforming each bubble into a world of its own.

Under Rieger’s hands, the intangible short-living bubble, a perfect existence that suddenly breaks, is transformed into an entire universe that lures the viewer to its frozen beauty, encapsulating a potential of longevity, movement and the ability to grasp an existence that seemed impossible.

The manufacturing of the sculptures was a collaboration between Rieger and He Yongjun Lio and Wei Tong’s workshop in Jingdezhen, China.”

Some of Martha’s beautiful work will be shown at The New York Ceramics & Glass Fair in January 2018 (18th – 21st). Pop that in your calendar now!

She had me at ‘porcelain pineapple’. French ceramicist Françoise Joris makes delicate, fantastical objects that are clearly inspired by nature… and fruit (of her imagination AND pineapples) :

“My approach is free and detached from contingencies; It is the fruit of my imagination. 

The completion of a piece gives birth to the design of the next creating a network of invisible but strong links, which continuously fuels my artistic approach and guides my explorations.

So much remains to be said and done with porcelain, a primary and yet so noble material.”

Lovely.

Oh my circles! Colors bleeding into each other while contained in perfect circles. This is the work of Paris based painter Eleni Pratsi. I love her work – oil and acrylic on canvas – and I love her reasons for obsessing over circles just as much:

“… Beyond doubt, the circle plays a favourable role in my paintings. Treating the circular form as if it were the unique letter of my plastic alphabet is based on a personal choice and backed up by a childhood memory: when asked by my instructor, at the age of eleven, as I took my first art lesson to draw a circle, this turned out to be perfect, to Eliza’s taste. Consciously or unconsciously I recall her overflowing enthusiasm but also my feeling so proud for having traced a circle, my first circle, a perfect circle. With this childhood experience recorded undoubtedly in my subconscious, ten years later I initiated a series of artistic studies through which I’ve been pursuing, ever since, the perfect circle.”

Mission accomplished. Happy Friday.

{via Saatchi Art}

Old bars of soap and overly-used sponges … that are porcelain! Gasp! This is the magically mundane work of Australian artist Honor Freeman, and these are her words:

“Noticing and quietly commemorating the smaller moments that are a constant rhythm of the everyday continues to be a preoccupation in my work. I seek to make visible the relationship between us and the objects we use, the gestures, mundane activities and humble objects, like small markers silently measuring the hours and marking the days. Thoughts of preserving, measuring and marking time’s passing occupy the work during the making. There is a correlation between actions and gestures used when engaging with objects and those used during the process of making that informs the work.”

Lovely.

Ahhh, yes… it’s hard to tell where her dreamy paintings end and her organic ceramics begin. This is the beautifully bizarre work of Stockholm based artist Emma Larsson. Here is a little bit about her found via her agency, Wood Society of the Arts:

Having previously worked with mostly oil and acrylic, Emma has recently devolved into her own expressive abstract watercolours. She also sculpts ceramics, where the characteristic figures are lifted from the paper to adopt new living forms.

They certainly are! ♥

Do I even need to say anything? I mean really, that girl holding an alligator kinda says it all, no? This is the ethereal work of French artist Clémentine de Chabaneix. Here are her words about this weird and wonderful work:

…I work with epoxy resin or ceramic, iron and sometimes wood. I often sculpt young ‘Burtonian’ girls, kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, teenagers, romantic, a bit gothic. My work is about leaving childhood, metamorphose, struggle… 

Nailed it. Happy Friday.

{found via Club Sensible’s Instagram feed}

Ah, the lovely drawings and ceramic work of Brazil based sisters, Nadiuska and Priscila Furtado. They started this collaborative project under the name Uinverso, and this is why:

“As the name means inverted , it is also related to the  universe in physical existence and in the perspective that each species is a universe inserted in another.”

Beautiful. {You can find their work – originals, prints, ceramics, pins – in their shop}

Imagine if you will, a little girl growing up in a kibbutz in Israel who now travels the world – her suitcase filled with tiny hammers and shards of colorful ceramics. Well, no need to imagine because I’ve got her on the podcast! Yep, today I’m talking to Israeli artist Zemer Peled … from the big island of Hawaii. She’s there working on a commission for a private collector, before she jets off to France for a residency in Limoges. Sigh. Alrighty, you can listen right up there underneath that beautiful spiky thing, or you can subscribe on iTunes.

First up, Zemer in action. Hammers, shards, goggles… because, safety first:

🔨Just another day at the studio 🔨

A post shared by Zemer Peled (@zemerpeled) on Nov 10, 2015 at 5:59am PST

Isn’t that video meditative? But sharp! Ok, next… these are Zemer’s flowers that I wrote about a couple of years ago. You’ll notice they start in blue and white, thanks to her interest in Japanese ceramics, and then slowly evolve into some crazy shapes and exotic color combos:

I mean, come on! GORGEOUS! The detail is astounding, and her patience is awe-inspiring. Well we’re not done yet… the evolution continued from there! Her flowers started growing and twisting, and some might even say, they began to dance:

Truly amazing. So. Many. Shards.

Next, her colors! She did start with blue and white as I mentioned above, but much like her colorful personality, Zemer’s work is now filled with a rainbow of beautifully broken bits:

Ahhhh, and yes, those are the flower photos she took while in Hawaii. I see many future pieces & palettes that will be inspired by those beauties! {ps. about half way through the images above you’ll see the floral piece she was working on in Hawaii… partly hidden behind some perfectly coordinated local flora.}

Zemer’s work is beautiful, but let’s not forget THE DANGER. I asked if she ever cuts herself. Her response.. ‘Oh, all the time! :

Bleeding fingers and giant kilns… be safe Zemer, be safe {you have to be healthy when you marry your mystery Canadian!} Thanks so much to Zemer for talking to me instead of going to the beach, and thanks as always to Saatchi Art for supporting the episode. Now, next week is the last week in Art For Your Ear’s Season 1, but I’ve got a fun plan for the summer until September when Season 2 starts. I’ll give you all of the details next week! Thanks for listening, there will be more art for your ear next weekend.

Other links:

1. Royal College of Art, London
2. Archie Bray Foundation, Montana
3. Bernardaud, Limoges France
4. Amanda Smith episode
5. Banff Centre, Canada