Michael W Moses on Don Herron's Blog, "Down the Mean Streets"

A friend of mine asked me to photograph a tableau of H. P. Lovecraft associated books with some Cthulhu figures from his collection.  We set up the photo shoot and added in some additional props to fill the image out.  In this case we used a ceramic art pottery staff piece and a Cthulhu, hand painted Delft inspired ceramic box. that I had previously made and featured on this blog.

I was very impressed when one of the digital photos I made was featured on Don Herron's blog, "Down the Mean Streets" on 13 November 2015.  Viewing my image on Mr. Herron's blog got me thinking of not just pottery, but the task of making images of my pottery.  I process almost all of my images using an older version of Photoshop and a few plugins.  Over the years, I have worked a few tricks on my own with image manipulation.

I found myself grabbing together a few interesting props and setting up my lights and the next thing I knew a hundred or so images later I ended up with an image that I liked.  Below are a few of the variations that I came up with in just a couple of hours of playing around with the image.  I call this still life "The Arcane Collector's Cabinet".

The vase is hand-painted of my own design and I found it was ambiguous enough to jump genres from cryptozoological, over to Film Noir, and even to Weird Fiction of the 20s and 30s.  Sometimes being a little vague works best.  Enjoy the variations of mood of these photos taken from a single frame and digitally reworked.

I would like to thank my friend Tex for submitting the image to Don Herron's blog, "Down the Mean Streets" and I would also like to thank Mr. Herron for featuring my image on his blog and linking to my pottery site!

Blue White Delft Style Georgian Cthulhu Reliquary Trinket Box by Michael W. Moses Ocean Springs, MS

"The Georgian Illustrated Box"

This piece is named "The Georgian Illustrated Box" and I used a commercially made blank bisqueware ceramic box and painted it in a blue and white style that is reminiscent of the tastes for the 18th and 19th century blue and white ceramics. There was a passion for all things mourning, and the romanticized memorial in nature, during the Georgian era, 1714 to 1830. 

I have mixed these design elements with those of the Asian influences on European and American ceramic-wares and then added a few more elements that do not generally belong to this piece if it were original. I then gave it all a brisk shake, mixed it a few times and ended up with the designs mentioned to achieve an eclectic effect.  This spin has made it totally my own original expression of antique blue and white ceramic art work. It is an "homage" to this neo classic style so to speak.

Circa 1820's 30's English Blue and White Transfer Ware

I have tried to create a box that is a stand-alone work of art that appears to be nothing more than a beautiful hand painted piece that might sit in some delicate grandmother's finely appointed front parlor. This innocuous trinket box might sit for a very long time on a dainty étagère, maybe for years without anyone even touching it. You just do not touch things in the formal parlor.

  A Georgian Era Mourning Image

The first thing that you will notice is that the lid has an idealized almost pastoral scene, That has a number of almost Chinese or Japanese elements, but then you will see the stately willow and the funereal urn and then the peculiarly formed pseudo-obelisk discreetly on the side. This vignette is a thinly disguised memento mori similar in mode to nothing less than Georgian era mourning Jewelry

The outside of box is an archaic style wall of individual stones of an unknown age and with a number of cryptic images that can only add to the final tale that this piece has to tell.

But with closer inspection, you might start to observe that many of the stylistic details are not standard to what you would expect to see on a piece such as this. If you look closely, you will see a number of interesting things on the painted into the details on the box. Then, once you lift the lid off, you will see inside a mysterious garden of not quite wholesome looking flowers. These plants surround an oddly laid out geometric detail that contains what appears to be an ancient long forgotten language.

Then, when you turn the lid over, you will see on the inside what makes this piece so different for your everyday drawing room nick-knack that sets in other brightly lit everyday homes. An image of Cthulhu longingly, and eternally hungering for human life force to reinvigorate his very being, staring at you with his ice cold yellow (at least in our spectrum of light) eyes!  This delicately detailed image is almost hidden inside the lid.  Who looks at the inside of the lid of a box?  Not most I would think.

This lavishly painted container is a perfect reliquary for whatever curious artifact that you may have that needs a truly special pyx to house it appropriately.

For a little more oomph, turn the box over and you will see that a happy little winged spider creature with the wings closed tight is painted on the bottom, as a cartouche.

Image of a Greenware Art Pottery Figurine of Cthulhu by Michael W. Moses

Today's post is a greenware work in progress. I usually do not show a lot of my works when they are in the greenware stage. Being just unfired clay, pieces at this stage are so fragile that it is just not worth making a permanent record of the piece. This one however just was begging for some photographs. It seemed so photogenic that I just had to take a couple of shots of it. Here is one of those shots. This image of a ceramic art pottery figurine of Cthulhu features a detail of a Victorian era leaded glass window as a background. This image was enhanced with a bit of sepia tone added with Photoshop. Once this piece is fired and painted I will post further images.