Photo shoot

It's been a tremendously busy 3 days preparing for my show. Tomorrow I begin to set up the gallery with my pieces, so today and yesterday were devoted to photographing the work. Photo documentation of artwork is necessary and important because it serves as a means to share the work with a broad audience, and it serves as an alternate way of depicting the concepts explored in the work. By working with the photographer, the artist is able to highlight the aspects of the work that are the core meaning of the work. This is especially important in dealing with three dimensional artwork where some views may not be as interesting or evocative as others.

Mike Healy is a good friend and long time professional photographer. He is a meticulous craftsman of the camera and light. This weekend he brought an entire photo studio to my house and turned the front room into a working studio complete with backdrops, lights, diffusers and reflectors. The images he created raw in the camera looked fantastic. I can't wait until he digitally processes the images and selects the best views of each piece.

I was frantically working to complete as many pieces as possible for Mike to shoot and managed to finish 13 pieces. This is the first show since my graduate school days, when the work was not complete when it came out of the kiln. For this show, I had to do a lot of metal work(torch cutting, arc welding) to complete the presentation and to bring the concept to fruition. Remember the concept of this show is that each piece's form creates a particular sound when struck, plucked or moved.

I just finished applying underglaze to three last pieces and put them into the kiln for firing. I think I'm ready.