I love Flat Stanley!
Such a wonderful project for young school children… and the people who are chosen to participate. Flat Stanley comes from a book about a little kid who gets squished flat and then travels the world in a mailed envelope. So when the kids read the book in school, they get to color & cut-out their own Flat Stanley. They then mail their own Flat Stanley to a friend or family member – whose job is to take some pictures of Flat Stanley around town and mail it back to the kid. I got my Flat Stanley from my cousin’s youngest kid up in Minnesota. Christopher is in second grade and chose me to help with his project. Good choice… I’m kind of a classic over-achiever when it comes to projects like this. Surprise, huh?!

So here goes… a rather lengthy blog post about Flat Stanley’s incredible adventures!!!
Of course when he first arrived… he had to go with me for a sunrise bike ride.

That evening, Flat Stanley went in to my pottery studio to check things out. Including one of my tool boxes filled with stamps, and my wheel filled with trimmings!

Of course, while he was there.. he had to go for a ride!!! DIZZY!!!

After the spinning stopped, back at my place, Flat Stanley decided to pose with his favorite – a whimsical teapot by my friend Cory McCrory!!!

That weekend, Flat Stanley went down to Navy Pier for the Shamrock Shuffle Expo. And he got caught up in some vines… and posed with the monster while I signed up for the Monster Dash Half Marathon.

We had wonderful weather for the Shamrock Shuffle. And Stanley was up for the challenge of his first official run. Forty thousand runners converged upon the downtown streets… including my friend Megan who spotted me in the crowd. And what “shamrock event” would be complete without a Leprechaun?!

Lining up at the Starting Line… Stanley and mass of humanity awaiting the start…

Then it was through Downtown Chicago. Past landmarks and plenty of Gatorade!

At the finish, we celebrated with friends… unfortunately, Buckingham Fountain had not been turned on yet. Still a bit too chilly for the famous fountain.

Plenty of “facilities”…

After the run, we decided to go for a walking tour downtown. It’s been such a long, cold Winter. Ans Spring felt liek it was never going to arrive… so the beautiful weather today was a welcome surprise. And we had to take advantage of it.

While walking downtown with Flat Stanley, we stopped to take a photo at the El Stop… and we ran into another Flat friend… Flat Fred from Sweden. Yes, kids around the world are playing with the Flat Stanley Project!

Then it was off to the Art Institute…

And more downtown attractions – like Sears Tower off in the distance.
Yes, I said “Sears”… it will ALWAYS be Sears Tower to me… not Willis Tower.

Then we made it to Millennium Park and decided to hang out at “Cloud Gate” for awhile. Sure, most people refer to it as The Bean… a reflective landmark that is always a great photo op!!!

While at The Bean, we ran into yet another Flat friend.. this time it was Flat Stella from Denmark! Kinda crazy to run into two other Flat Stanley projects in the matter of a few blocks downtown?!

All that walking was making people thirsty… and in need of a little pick-me-up!

Finally home, Flat Stanley was excited to have finished his first 8K run… and exhausted from his walking tour of Downtown Chicago.

The next weekend, Flat Stanley set off with me and my bike to do a tour of Chicago’s museums.

Starting at the Field Museum of Natural History. Complete with a Chicago Blackhawks jersey on the dinosaur standing outside while they are in the play-offs.

Next at the Museum Campus is the John G. Shedd Aquarium…

And the Adler Planetarium…with a crazy cool silver sculpture out front!

Then it was further south down the bike path to the Museum of Science & Industry…

Then headed back north past Navy Pier…

Along the lakefront, there’s this really cool sculpture made of miles & miles of crocheted rope! So of course we had to stop & play.

One last shot of the Chicago Skyline from Olive Park before we pedaled home…

After his travels around Chicago, Flat Stanley was pretty sure that there were other wonderful places to go see. So he hopped on a plane (with my friend Tracy) for a trip through Eastern Europe and the Czech Republic. Admiring all of the wonderful architecture & cathedrals in Prague, Slovenia, Hungary and so many other cool places!

Then it was off to Budapest… and the Blue Danube…

Spending some time for “splashin’ wet fun” in the Turkish Baths!

After Flat Stanley’s whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe, he went back to the place his adventure first started… my pottery studio! He hopped right into the ovals in mid-production.

But then it was off to one more running race (again, with my friend Tracy) down in Champaign, Illinois. After his fun time at the Shamrock Shuffle, he was more than ready to go for another run! Through rural countryside and some crazy Midwest attractions & oddities! Commemorated with another medal at the Finish Line.

Back in Chicago, Flat Stanley decided to go for another bike ride – this time up north to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Traveling through Caldwell Woods & Skokie Lagoons.

On the ride home, we spotted a few deer along the path… Flat Stanley’s brush with wildlife!

To celebrate the end of his adventures with Uncle Gary… we split a wonderful hot fudge turtle sundae with EXTRA homemade hot fudge!!!

After Flat Stanley’s adventures, I created a booklet for Christopher with all of these photos and some captions & descriptions. I’m sure most “photo participants” return like one or two photos… but not me! Christopher sure picked the right person to help with his Flat Stanley project. I had a great time doing it. I think Flat Stanley had a wonderful adventure. And I hope you just had fun reading of his exploits!!!
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As a follow-up…
I received this wonderful feedback from Christopher’s teacher…

Christopher just shared his Flat Stanley booklet. It was absolutely amazing!
Please tell Uncle Gary he got an “A+” from the second graders! Thanks.

I found these beautiful paper works today online while surfing Colossal.com. I was first drawn to the beautiful patterns, but was then enthralled when I found out that they were all made out of thin, cut & rolled strips of paper!!! Amazing.

“Rabie” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

“Against The Wind” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

“Derweze” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

According to Colossal.com…
The Sydney, Australia-based artist Gunjan Aylawadi creates intricate, colorful sculptures that appear to resemble woven textiles. However, upon closer observation, her work—inspired by patterns and motifs in Islamic art—are made entirely from curled paper. The process, long and intricate, can cost the artist months on a single artwork. And not just any old paper will do. For example, “Against the Wind” is made from hand-cut strips of paper from old music books, which are then individually hand rolled and assembled. Although complicated, Aylawadi’s reasons for making art are simple: “What I enjoy most about making my work is the experience people have when they look at it,” she says. “They stop for a moment to have a closer look and the moment turns into long minutes of being fascinated by the beauty a simple medium like paper can add to the work in front of their eyes.”

Kind of reminds me of my old high school days… playing with the old paper craft of quilling. Now if only I had Gunjan’s work as inspiration back than, imagine what I could have been doing?!!! A little bit more than this old “sampler” I made many years ago. And no, I haven’t kept it all these years. My Mom found it when they were packing to move and passed it back on to me. Now what to do with it???

 

Interesting… maybe that explains the crazy week ahead…
with another prediction of SNOW?!!!

After a LONG Winter here in Chicago, we are now left with huge,
gaping potholes seemingly on every street!!!

I was so excited today to see that “someone” is creatively doing something about them. So much better than what the City is doing… just leaving a loose pile of asphalt “in, on, around, somewhere near” the holes and hoping that “somehow” it gets packed into the right place. This seems like a MUCH better plan!!!

Click here to see the video with mosaic artist Jim Bachor’s artistic remedy!

Sure, this might take awhile to catch on?… but if every artist “adopted” one pothole and did something equally as special as Jim’s solution, we might make an artistic dent in the pothole problem???

Tonight is the first night of the new pottery session at Lillstreet.
My Beginning Wheelthrowing class is full and I’ve been pondering good pottery pranks for tonight. I was considering the Oreo prank, what with my penchant for Oreos and all. But that’s just plain mean for my unsuspecting newbie students.

Any other good “pottery prank” ideas for tonight’s class???

First off… this is a pretty darn impressive plate.
Second… I love the swirling, spinning, ever-changing patterns in the colored slip.
Third… looks like my Beginner’s will get a new slip demo next class session!!!

Click here to watch the beautiful demo video.
And seriously, the music soundtrack to the video is pretty incredible too.
It makes the whole process “sound” like so much fun too!!!

As seen on (and borrowed from) www.ThisIsColossal.com…
As a person who’s spent more than a few hours at the seat of a potter’s wheel I can attest to the strangely soothing act of doodling around with wet clay sludge (called slip) before or after throwing a pot. As fun as it is, it’s still somewhat surprising to see the act elevated to this level of artistry by “Michael Gardner” who blurs the line between performance and visual art as he creates pattern after pattern on an empty wheel. FYI: the artist’s name is a Google translation from Russian via YouTube, if anyone have more concrete details on the performer/artist, send it over.

Today was our NCECA personal field trip. My friend Nancy Jana-Kent and I played hooky and went up for one day of the NCECA Conference. She’s the biking friend I’ve known for years, and suggested that we both take our first pottery class at Lillstreet many years ago. So it’s all her fault that I’m so addicted now… anyway…

We arrived in Milwaukee this morning after a rainy & gloomy drive. We registered in the lobby of the Wisconsin Center and then head off to see stuff. We didn’t really know where to go, what to see, what to do. We didn’t really do our homework beforehand. So Nancy & I were just winging it… ready to see a little bit of everything!

We started by dropping of my two cups for the Annual Cup Show. The actual sale event is not until Friday morning, but the tables were already filling up with mugs. I wish I could be there Friday morning to see how many mugs there end up being for the fundraising sale.

We then went into some of the smaller galleries. Each conference room had been transformed into a small gallery space. Our favorite was the gallery showcasing the work from the Archie Bray Foundation. Headlined by Steven Young Lee… who is one of the current “hot potters” in all ceramic world. He’s in all the magazines. He’s all the rage. He’s the hot ticket these days. He’s been making these beautiful, traditional Asian blue & white porcelain vessels… with one really big flaw! Okay, maybe it’s just me… but I don’t get it. I’m sure there is some very hoity-toity, symbolic artistic meaning behind them… but I would rather having the stunning vessel BEFORE the “accident” happened. Either way, even though I don’t “get it”, I can still admire the technical craftsmanship that goes into them.

A beautiful collection of wall pillows – with incredible dotted & drawn details by Giselle Hicks. Each individual pieces is pretty spectacular… but put them together into a “puffy quilt” and it’s even better!!!

Not a lot of purely practical & functional pottery in the gallery spaces. So I was really drawn to Paul Donnelly‘s beautiful set. Nicely thrown, beautifully assembled & glazed. But the coolest part was the unique wooden trivet-tray that all of the pieces rested on… and if you picked them up, the foot of each cup fit into a carved recess in the tray! Brilliant!!!

We also saw this great “set of ladles”… sorry, forgot the artist’s name?… but it brought up the conversation about how neither Nancy or I have ever made clay spoons?! And that we both think we should try it.

Okay, so by now you might know that I kind of have a “thing” for roadkill. So many bike rides have taken us so many over the years. So I loved this “ceramic roadkill” by Beth Cavener. Now I’m not really sure that that was her intention… but that’s what I read into it. And I loved it… all that was missing was the “smell of death.”

While in the “Grounded In Wisconsin” Gallery, I saw this really cool wall piece by Marta Matray. I loved the “pillow” volume, the texture and the beautiful flashing colors.

As we were leaving the small gallery spaces, we ran into another Lillstreet potter Marian Castro-Palanyk, who joined Nancy & I for the day. As we headed upstairs for the Resource Hall Expo, we turned a corner and practically ran into Aaron Nelson & Steven Lee. Two former teachers of mine from the old Lillstreet days. And now each of them have become “pretty big deals” in the ceramic world. I took wheelthrowing class & my first glaze chemistry class with Aaron. He is currently the artistic director at Medalta in Alberta, Canada. While Steve is the resident artistic director for the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. Both “big wigs” in the clay world… always a bit surprised that they even remember me?!!!

As we entered the Resource Hall, I was kind of surprised to see a couple pottery galleries actually selling pottery. I kind of expected to see pottery in “galleries”… and not for sale?! Pleasant surprise, huh?… cha-ching $$$.

Always fun to see… Artstream Nomadic Gallery! A wonderful diversion & creative re-use of an old silver Airstream trailer. The entire unit has been converted & transformed onto a traveling ceramics gallery! Alleghany Meadows was the mastermind for this brilliant concept… and he makes pretty amazing work too!

So we continued through Resource Hall and saw a LOT of booths selling tools, glazes, books, clay, wheels, kilns… and did I mention tools?! We did a lot of shopping, bought lots of tools, and ran into a bunch of friends along the way. It was great to see so many familiar faces… Glynnis Lessing, Delores Fortuna, Amanda Syler, Dave Trost, Dustin Yager, Steve Lee again… and so many other familiar faces hovering around the Lillstreet Art Center booth.

We shopped and made it though about half of the Expo, when we broke for lunch. Incredible nachos across the street.. and then back for more shopping. More tools. More fun.

One little surprise along the way was when we stepped into the Coyote Glazes trade show booth. Lots of colors. Lots of glaze swatches. Still visually overwhelmed. But very pleased to see a mug there that I recognized!!!

Scott Reed from Symmetrical Pottery in Florida makes these awesome “sheet metal” mugs! And there one was glazed in Coyote “Root Beer” glaze. I’ve only “met” Scott online through blogs & Facebook. I’ve seen his work & techniques change & grow very quickly… and continue to see a LOT of pictures of his pots on Facebook. This was the first time I had the pleasure of seeing one of his mugs in person!!! Click here to see more work from Symmetrical Pottery on their Facebook page.

At one point in the Expo, I stopped off at the Medalta booth to say “hi” to Aaron again but he wasn’t there. Ironically though, they’re doing a Call For Entries for a “Spoon Show”… and didn’t we just say that Nancy, Marian & I were all going to tackle making spoons?! Coincidence?… I don’t think so!

We continued to work our way around the Expo. So many things to see. So many people to talk to. It gets very overwhelming very quickly. I’m sure it’s not so bad if you’re there for the full, multi-day conference. We were there for one day today, and determined to squeeze it all in. And I think we did a really good job!!!

As we were getting ready to leave the convention center, we were headed towards the escalator when I though I heard my name?!… Turns out it was my good friend & ceramic artist Cory McCrory! I was so glad to see her there… and a little sad that we were on our way home, and not staying to play longer!!! But we were exhausted… wallets spent… and ready to head home to re-live & admire our purchases!!!

 

So not only do they MOVE, LEARN & EAT…
they also made a great little movie that is visually stunning.
Mesmerizing as is quickly passes by. The visuals are stunning. Enjoy.
MIRRORLAPSE.

Click here for another mesmerizing short film by Rick Mereki – MIRRORLAPSE.

I want this guy’s life.
I just found these videos online and was instantly mesmerized.
Such a simple concept. Such a wonderful adventure. Such beautiful videos.

Three guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage. All to turn three ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food into three beautiful and hopefully compelling short films by Rick Mereki.

Click here for the short film “Move.”

Click here for the short film “Learn.”

Click here for the short film “Eat.”

Pretty impressive, huh?! Now don’t you want to walk around the world too???