Portuguese Wood-Fired Clay Oven, Harrison McIntosh, Microcosmos

Clay Share -Tuesday
Building a Portuguese Wood-Fired Oven

We are intrigued by the way the men in this Portuguese clay factory manipulate the clay to construct their clay ovens.

Potters Pick - Thursday

Harrison McIntosh

Harrsion McIntosh, In the Collection of the Alfred Museum, Bowl, h: 3-3/4”, Corsaw Collection.

When I was an undergrad at Alfred University, this bowl, made by Harrison McIntosh was on display on its own pedestal under a vitrine.  This bowl is beautiful and mysterious to me. The glaze soft, and the design a complex circle composition of inside/outside color play. I am enamored by the way the color on the inside reflected the halo color around the dots on the outside. This is a small intimate bowl, one that you can cradle in the palm of your hands.

Through the years, since my first introduction to this bowl, I have often thought of it and would see the bowl printed in a couple of Alfred's newsletters. I was reacquainted with it while touring the collections at the The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art this past summer when we were at Alfred. It was like being reunited with an old buddy of mine.

Born in 1914, Harrison McIntosh celebrated his 100th birthday this year with a special exhibit at the American Museum of Ceramics Art.  Watch a short interview of Harrison and his wife as they visit with some of the pots in his solo exhibition at the AMOCA museum.  Harrison McIntosh says,  "he makes work to please himself, what he finds beautiful. Every piece he made was the best that he could do."

Harrison McIntosh

Playing Off the Instrument

Microcosmos

The 1996 French documentary, Microcosmos, was filmed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou  covering an insect's world in a 24 hour day from dawn to dawn.  The tag-line was "Jurassic Park in your own backyard". Written in The "Wondrous Truth" of Microcosmos, by Billy Budd Vermillion, he describes this film as a "poetic" documentary.

While scanning the internet about Microcosmos we found a document of class notes called A Non-Entomologist's Guide to "Microcosmos", by Marina Caillaud and Bryan Danforth- Department of Entomology at Cornell University. This paper gives a blow by blow of the insects that appear in the documentary.

There were two promo introductions for the film to choose. I love the one showing the early morning rain storm.  There is nothing like droplets of rain hanging off an insect's exoskeleton. The other Microcosmos footage has an amazing visual of a bee buzzing through the air.

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Potters Pick - Thursday, 

Playing off the Instrument - Sunday 

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