Happy New Year/ Cthulhu Ikon by Michael W. Moses Ocean Springs, MS

Happy New Year to all!!!!
I am spending a quiet New Years Eve at home relaxing and playing around online.
I had a fairly good year in 2010, better than many, but worse than others.

  

This is a ceramic icon that I made a few years back. I made a hand sculpted Cthulhu Ikon and painted it and glazed it and then fired it. I then cut a depression into a piece of old wood and then stained it a bright red. I then set the ceramic Cthulhu tile into the wood. This piece is currently in a private collection at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

New Michael W. Moses Ceramic Art Pottery Video by CoastConFan

CoastConFan has created a great new video of my ceramic art pottery. This is all new works from 2010, that showcase some of the many works that I have done this year. I really love the music! it really gives my pieces a real bit of umph!

Still Life At Solstice New Michael W. Moses Photographic Print

This is what I did last night. I arranged a still life with my latest ceramic Cthulhu staff piece and took a few photos of it. I did this image to commemorate our recent solstice and eclipse. This image was taken with my old Olympus C-5060 wide lens digital camera. A great camera that I truly love to use! I digitally processed this image using Photoshop and various Photoshop plug-in applications. All together it took a couple of hours worth of beating and thrashing to get it to the stage that you see now. Signed prints are $24.95 plus $6.95  S&H and are available exclusively through South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, Ms.

This is a close up of my new ceramic Cthulhu staff piece.  It is hand formed and then carved, fine ceramic clay.  It was fired then semi glazed then re-fired.  After which I gave it a final hand painted acrylic finish to give it a lustrous bronzy metallic finish.

 This is what the back of this piece looks like. It has a huge high quality deep cut refractive vintage Rhinestone that catches the light and reflects it in a weird way. This piece of Ceramic art is approximately 9 inches tall without the stand  and 4½ inches across the middle and about 1inch thick.
 When in place on it's stone stand it is 12½ inches tall.  It is also currently available through South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, Ms.

Spirit of Christmas at the Beau Rivage Casino & Resort, Biloxi, MS

I went to the  Beau Rivage Casino & Resort in Biloxi, MS with some friends last night to see the  Spirit of Christmas.  Click on the link and you can see a small video of highlights from the show.
It was a lot of fun and very well done. Kind of like a mini Radio City Music Hall production. Had a great time.
The only thing that really bothered me was when they were singing "O'Holy Night and the guy and girl were ice skating, the guy at the end of the song held the girl above his head and did a rather prolonged crotch shot front and back of the girl.  It somehow just did not seem like the appropriate move for such a song.  It was kind of like a nice flash in the name of Jesus!  I guess I was a bit offended by it, because it just seem more than a bit sacrilegious to me.  On second thought, I guess I should not have been expecting anything spiritually uplifting from a casino.  Other than that, it was a great show.  I loved the "In the Mood" sequance.  "In the Mood" is one of my all  time favorite songs!

Well, I thought I would feature this work of cermanic art today. I call this piece Still Life, Plate with Artifacts.  This is one in a series of pieces that I have made over the years that are designed to represent ancient alien artifacts. I love the idea of what the remains of other worldly civilizations would look like. Just to think about it seems a very exciting thing to me. So it is just so great to be able to bring some of my imagined artifacts to life in all the glory of three dimensions. It is now on display in our shop and retails for $278.

 South Coast Antiques & Gallery.

As an up date, this hole that the town was left by the workers on Government street was left as pictured for two full days after I took this image. It was then covered.  It took that long for the town to bother with it.  As I stated in my blog post on  December 20, 2010,Safety first is always the motto here in Ocean Springs!

1850's Sheffield plate tea caddy missed!

I went back to the shop after I had eaten dinner this evening and was Shocked to find a circa 1850's Sheffield plate tea caddy missing!  It had been setting on the top of my role top work desk waiting for us to finish our research and price it.  I knew that it had been sitting there earlier in the
day. But, it was not there!  I called my business partner and ask him if he had placed it somewhere else and he said no.
Well, today I had a bit off an altercation with one of our pickers that was being a pest. Wile we were having words outside the shop a person went into the shop that I did not notice, but one of my friends that was present said to me that a customer had entered the shop. I went in and there was this guy and another young guy and girl.  The guy wanted to examine a great number of sterling items. My friend came in and the guy and girl left immediately. The only thing that I could figure out was that the guy and girl had trespassed into our private work area and took the item off my desk and when my friend came in they had chickened out and left not taking the caddy. I later accidentally found the tea caddy hidden in the back area of the shop.
I guess when my friend came in they were afraid they would be caught so they dropped the caddy in the back area of our shop and fled! This time of year this type of thing happens frequently. It would have been very sad if they had taken the tea caddy, but it would have been way sadder if they had taken either of the two items that were setting beside it, because they were not plate, but very rare sterling items! I can only assume that they were not very knowledgeably about silver and only grabbed the caddy because it was large and cool looking.

Our Merry Christmas Gift From the Town of Ocean Springs!

South Coast Antiques & Gallery was given a special holiday gift from the town of Ocean Springs today!
They took another day of sales away from us by spending most of the day with a heard of workers and other assorted gad a bouts hanging around in front of our shops the week before Christmas. All of this just to plant two live oak trees so as to obscure our shop from view. I had ask town officials not to plant the one on the corner of utopia before Thanksgiving, because
It would block the view of our shop and people would have difficulty seeing weather we were open or not. To be honest I begged pleaded and cursed trying to prevent this. They acted like they were going to work with us.  Today I find out that not only were they going to plant the tree that we did not want planted,, that they were going to show me what was what and plant one right in front of our main window of our shop, directly blocking our OPEN sign that has been there
for years. I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank the mayor of our town, our alderman, The chamber of Commerce, the town botanist, and all the other people (to include the charming, people that have told so many of our out of town customers that we are a second hand shop, a thrift shop, and so forth) that have been involved with forcing this tree upon us. You all know who you are. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
In my less than cared for opinion This tree will for as long as I live here(where I have been so many times told by the community leaders that I count for nothing in this town) represent the pettiness of some of the people of Ocean Springs!

To all our supporters we would like to wish you all an exceptionally Merry Christmas

And to those who think that I am the rudest man in Ocean Springs. I say Bah Hum Bug to You!!!

They blocked the way to utopia from about 10:00am to about 12:00.

They were in front of our shop from about 12:00pm until around 3:00.

This is the view from our shop for most of the afternoon!
Not a single reason for a shop to complain.

This is the tree that they planted just a few feet away from my shop window.
They were nice enough to put a lovely pile of pine straw around it and plant some
delightful clumps of non ornamental grass. This project will really encourage so many passers by to look in awe and say to themselves, Money Well Spent! Ocean Springs! Beauty of this type is truly priceless!

This is part of the Christmas Garden that the town left us with.

This hole may not look to bad in the photograph above,

but it is about a foot and a half deep and is on Government Street, in front of our shop,a main street here in Ocean Springs.

Government Street has a good number of bars and restaurants. As of 10:00PM tonight this hole is still as pictured for any person not paying attention to step into!

Safety first is always the motto here in Ocean Springs!

Precambrian Dragonflies Everywhere!

Here is a picture for everyone that is living in areas where it is cold and covered with snow. I took this photograph at my parents house in Maryland in the spring of 2009.  It was a beautiful warm sunny spring day with lots of butterflies and Precambrian dragonflies everywhere!

I created this print by starting out with a digital image taken with an Olympus C5060 wide lens digital camera.  I then did some touch up work using my wacom tablet and a little Photoshop.  I built this image up using 12 different layers.  Each layer rendering a different feature to give the over all image a feeling of depth
.

Spring and Precambrian dragonflies everywhere!

Alien Annunciation Ikon

Alien Annunciation Ikon
Originally uploaded by M W Moses Pottery

This is a descriptive write up that my business partner did for this piece that is currently on display at South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, MS. THE ANNUNCIATION by Michael William Moses
In this piece Mr. Moses draws upon his background in classical Greek Icon painting and melds it with a (literally) otherworldliness. The ambiguity of structures with possibly natural spires echoes the theme of duality that haunts Mr. Moses. The whole production value of this piece shift from the past to the future through the vector of ikonic imagery: It is painted on a 100-year-old backing board which was gessoed and painted just like old images. Even the suspensor ring is antique. However the subject matter is quite alien and yet familiar at the same time. A being holds two children in its arms and clasps a brooch that has two figures picked out in gold and enamel. Rich Byzantine clothing envelopes the figures like they just stepped out of an alternate history Ravenna mosaic. Rich lapis blues contrast with warm oxblood coverings and a structure that may be the back of a chair or a high filigree collar draws upon a rich history of costume. The bareness of the land is belied by the fecundity of the Madonna like figure. There is a deep sense of history and age to the piece. Yet the pose is immediately understood as one of motherhood, life and rebirth. Mr. Moses complexity reveals itself the longer you go over the themes in this piece.

Michael W. Moses Pottery, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Vangelis music

Michael W. Moses my Hawk Bill Vase

This is my new Hawk Bill Vase.  I started out with a lump of clay and hand formed it into the desired shape. Once I had the shape I let it dry very slowly over a period of two weeks.  Once dry, it was fired. Once fired it was at the bisque stage, as shown in Image 1.  I then very carefully hand painted it using under glaze pigments as shown in image 2.  Once it was painted.I then paint on the glaze coating and it is fired once more. Image 3 and 4 shows the final finished vase. I have this vase on display at South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, MS.  The Hawk Bill Vase is priced at $ 175.

Image 1 Bisque Ware Vase

 

Image 2 Under Glaze Painted

Image 4 Final Fired Finished Piece

 

Image 3 Final Fired Finished Piece

Red Blue Star Fish Plate by Michael W. Moses in Ocean Springs MS

This is my latest starfish plate that is currently on display at South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, MS. I have created a number of starfish plates and platters over the last few years.  Each one is a totally unique hand sculpted and hand painted work of ceramic art, as all my pieces are.  This one features a glossy blue and green ground with a matte red starfish that has a multitude of individually applied shiny little dots. This plate measures approximately 10 inches across. This plate retails for $225.

Red Blue Star Fish Plate by M W Moses

 

Red Blue Star Fish Plate by M W Moses

Red Blue Star Fish Plate by M W Moses Detail

Mourning Tea Cup by Michael W. Moses at South Coast Antiques & Gallery

A while back there was a lady in the shop and she was looking at my ceramic art pottery and she said to me, "you've misspelled the word mourning."  I explained to her that it was not misspelled.  It was meant to be mourning, because I had made this piece so that one could hold it in their hands and look at it and remember that whatever it was that they were mourning in their life that beauty would return to their life.  The woman started to cry and I  ask her why and she said to me that her husband had passed away a month before.  She said that she wished she had the money to buy this little cup and I explained to her that she did not need to buy the cup that just seeing it and having held it was all that was really necessary.  She thanked me and gave me a hug and told me that she thought my tea cup had helped her and that she would never forget about it.  I may be silly, but this makes me feel that maybe there was a higher inspiration for my creating this piece.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mourning Tea Cup by Michael W. Moses

Mourning Tea Cup by Michael W. Moses

 Here are three new ceramic art pottery pices that I have recently finished and installed at South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Ocean Springs, MS.

 

Flower Infestation Vase

Eye of the Storm Plate

This one is still unnamed

I took a break from the pottery last Saturday night. I was a guest at the Biloxi Yacht Club which is, I believe the fourth oldest yacht club in the U.S.
The yacht club had their annual Christmas Boat Parade. It was really
something to see. There were about one hundred boats and each one
passed by the boat house all decked out with outrageous displays of lights. It was really something to see. We all had a great time and a few drinks.  

Biloxi Yacht Club

New Ceramic Art Pottery by Michael W. Moses

This is my first post on this new blog.  I'm Michael W, Moses, an artist and antique dealer living in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  Myself and my business Partner William Murphy have a shop that we call South Coast Antiques & Gallery at 1013 Government Street.

Here are some images that show a few of my newer pieces of ceramic art. These pieces are available through South Coast Antiques & Gallery in Oceans Springs, MS.

This is a blue pod vase called "Pod 323"

This is what I call "My Forbidden Fruits of Love Vase.
This spider is a little black enameled metal one that I permanently
attached after the final firing.  It is also set with five glowing
vintage rhinestones.

 

 

 

 

This is a small bowl that is titled "EEEEWWW! Save Us From the Oil!"

The poor little star fish has found a nasty spot of oil!