Happy New Year From the Michael W. Moses Pottery Blog

Wishing Every One

an
Old Fashioned  

Happy New Year
From the
Michael W. Moses
Pottery Blog

Ocean Springs,

Mississippi

Michael W. Moses Ceramic Art Pottery Wishes All A Merry Christmas

Wishing all a very merry Christmas!

The Fantastic Ceramic Art Pottery of Mitchell Grafton of Panama City, FL

Yesterday I was speaking with a friend, John Maeder, owner and photographer at Pistols & Petticoats - The World's Greatest Old-Time Portrait Parlor. Located in uptown Sedona, AZ. John is a pottery collector who owns a number of my works.

John asked if I was familiar with the pottery of Mitchell Grafton of Panama City, FL. I could not place the name, but when I went to his FaceBook page I realized that I had seen some of his work online a few years back and was pretty well impressed by it. Now looking at what he has online at this point in time I am taken aback at how much truly magnificent work he has done over the years. There is image after image of the most delightful and professionally crafted pieces for one to gaze at. I am more than impressed by this man's work!  So much variety and so much quality creates a real feast for the eyes and mind.

For those people who personally know me, they know that I am not usually one to just wontonly give praise to an artist just to be giving praise. I am usually a miser with complements outside of the occasional, "Yea, that's nice". But I must tell you that this work of Mitchell Grafton's is stellar in my highly biased opinion. I am always perjured toward finely designed and executed works of art.

I must place Mitchell Grafton's richly detailed pieces in the same class and league as the works of the Martin Brothers, Jim Rumph,and of course Kris Kuksi. The afore mentioned artists are among those that I consider masters of the fantastic sculptural arts. Mostly artist seek praise. In Mitchell Grafton's case I think praise will be seeking him. I am always awed by genuine ability. Now after all this visual excitement I have to go make pottery!

Happy Thanksgiving from Michael W. Moses Ceramic Art Pottery

Wishing everyone a great Thanksgiving!

More New Ceramic Art Pottery by Michael W. Moses

I've been working to get some new greenware pieces ready to fire and I must say that it looks as if there will be some exciting new works coming out of this group.  I will hopefully have a few new finished pieces to show in the near future also.

New Ceramic Art Pottery by Michael W. Moses

 Well, here along the Gulf Coast as the horrors of long winter days in the 60°F's and 70°F's are occurring,  I am finding myself stuck inside more and more and I guess I will be doing a bit more pottery and probably more frequent posts on this blog.

Michael W. Moses at the 2012 Peter Anderson Festival in Ocean Springs, MS

Goods displayed at the Peter Anderson Festival

This weekend (3-4 Nov 2012) was the annual Peter Anderson Festival here in Ocean Springs. Here along the Gulf Coast when people think of Arts Festivals everyone immediately thinks the Peter Anderson Festival in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. This Sunday morning I spent a bit of time browsing through some the many booths that were set up and was surprised by the pieces that I saw.  There was pottery, wood carvings, jewelry, paintings, sculpture, and the ubiquitous Giclee digital photography prints.  A number of local artists were also represented in the offerings from near and far.

Glass goods at the Peter Anderson Festival

I must say that there were a lot more vendors set up this year and the ranks have swelled to 400 booths. As I walked around from booth to booth I was almost constantly amazed at the quality and quantity of so many of the booths. I have been to many arts and crafts festivals all over the country and a few in other countries and I have seldom seen any that can compare to the goods being sold at the Peter Anderson Festival. In fact, the festival was bursting at the seams. The booths were full and boxes of merchandise were stacked up behind the counter to fill the needs of the buying public.

You can tell that the jury that chose the venders were true Gulf Coast art connoisseurs. It would be difficult to maintain this level of merchandise at the festival with out being privy to the ins and outs of the labyrinthine intricacies of the modern art and crafts world.  There was a fairly good crowd in town shopping today; thousands thronged in over this weekend to look and buy. This sprawling show draws not only local people, but also folks from nearby Gulfport, Biloxi, Wiggins, Van Cleave, and Pascagoula. 

Wall Plug-ins Booth

Wall Plug-in display

The Peter Anderson Festival has become rather crowded and parking a bit dear and it wouldn't be amiss, in my opinion, to branch out and have a fine arts and high crafts only festival, let's say limited to 60 booths, so people don't have to struggle so hard to see the stars of the Gulf Coast. 


I will say that there were some people who's works and or personalities really shined above the crowd.  First I  will say that Charles Smith was set up and what more can I say than his work was breath taking in it's perfection, as always.  I truly admire and respect  this man and his exceptional work. It is always a delight for me to see his work.

Charles Smith Pottery

More Charles Smith Pottery

Yvonne Brown, Potter
 from Gulfport, MS

Secondly  I meet a young lady from Gulfport, whom I think may be a potter to keep an eye on.  Her name is Yvonne Brown and her work embraces some of the best qualities of Gulf Coast modern traditional(made post 1960, along the Coast) pottery, but still has a solid fresh  look about it that shows a special talent. It was a pleasure conversing with her and her family.

Yvonne Brown's  Pottery

Thirdly I met Dainna Yum-Bucher of SuzYum Designs, she does classic bead work jewelry that has a lush rich historical feel. Her jewels seem as if they are directly taken from Ali Baba's treasure cave or an exotic Mughal Harem.  She uses sophisticated nuances of color and style to give her pieces a aura, that is almost magical.
 
Well, This years Peter Anderson is over and I guess everyone will be getting over it all this week and then starting the processes for getting next years even bigger and better one started!

"The Pollinator" Sculpture by Michael W. Moses SOLD

As I sometimes tell people.  I love doing pottery and I love doing bead work and sometimes I just get a bit excited and do both at the same time. This is one of those occasions where I do both pottery and bead work to create the effect that I desire. 

I have been using clay as a creative medium for well over thirty years now and I have been doing bead work for as long as I can remember. By the time I was a teenager I was doing small bead work things on my bell bottom jeans dragonflies and such.  So doing a piece like this that is half pottery and half bead work is not a very unusual thing for me to do.

The hand modeled pottery base  has a solid three dimensional sculpted in the round form, that gives this piece a sense of weight and reality that I really like. The bead work portion has a light weight airiness that gives this work a delightfully alienness that blends to form a truly impressive work of art in my opinion. I call this work  "The Pollinator" and if you look closely you can see why I have chosen this name. The little floater is created out of little tiny mini seed beads and is firmly anchored in place, but looks as if he is just floating or swimming on by after having fulfilled his natural duty in his niche in an alien ecosystem.

 The bead work is all created on wire in the traditional French Beaded Flower technique to make a shimmering delicate presentation that will be both eye catching and sturdy enough to last for a very long time if just a little care is taken.

The hand crafted pottery base is about 6 inches across the bottom at the widest and is approximately 6 inches tall.  The over all height of this piece is 19 inches tall with the bead work in place.

I spent more than a small amount of time planning and setting things in place to get this work completed.  Some of the beads I used have been in my stock of glass beads for well over 35 years and were being saved for something special and I assure you that this was the something special that they were waiting for.  The bead work on this piece trembles with the slightest movement or breeze!  as I look at it setting in my kitchen, it just shimmers and shines as it every so often slightly moves in the warm evening air coming through my windows.

What "The Pollinator" looks like in my kitchen

This piece is now in a private collection in Ocean Springs, MS

Metropolitan Museum of Art Gives a Generous Gift of Free Art eBooks to Everyone!

 Over the weekend I was enjoying an in-depth browse through, looking at some of the ancient sculptural, ceramic, pottery and other remarkable art pieces being sold by Christie's Auction house of London.  The particular auction took place on 26 April 2012.  I was shocked by how high some of the realized prices were and even more surprised by how many lots just did not make minimum.  I was a bit disappointed that as good a quality as these piece were that I could not see more detail on some of the items. I had gone on a Google quest for larger images, when I stumbled upon this art blog, "Nord on Art".  A very informative and knowledgeable blog where there were larger images of a number of the great items from the afore said auction.  I stared reading back the posts on the "Nord on Art" blog and came across this "Free – Download more than 300 Met Museum catalogs" and much to my dismay, indeed there are 368 Metropolitan Museum of art books beautifully digitized and offered to the public for free.  What a beautiful and kind gesture for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to make!  One can either read and enjoy these lavishly informative books on line or download them for your home eLibrary in PDF format!  Now I have to say, how cool is that!  Also, almost all of these books are out of print and many are difficult to obtain in the original printed editions. This collection has books for almost every interest. Here are just a few of the many exciting titles that are available:

Blue and White: Early Japanese Export Ware
Lerner, Martin
(1978)

Dangerous Liaisons:
Fashion and Furniture
in the Eighteenth Century
Koda, Harold, and
Andrew Bolton,
with an introduction
by Mimi Hellman
(2006

European Terracottas from the
Arthur M. Sackler Collections
Draper, James David
(1981)

Firearms from the Collections
of the Prince of Liechtenstein
Pyhrr, Stuart W.
(1985) 

The Robert Lehman Collection.
Vol. 11, Glass
Lanmon, Dwight P.,
with David B. Whitehouse
(1993)

Wordrobe
Martin, Richard
(1997)

China Trade Porcelain: Patterns of Exchange
Le Corbeiller, Clare
(1974)

Turkish Miniature Paintings and Manuscripts
from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd
Binney, Edwin
(1973)

I will take this opportunity to thank the Metropolitan Museum of Art four this magnificent gift to the world of art. This is and will continue be, a boon to artists, scholars, educators, and collectors for many a year to come.

Please note. All copyright for images and information is held by respective copyright owners and is solely for non commercial use. So please do not misuse their generosity.  Thank you.

Kutani Coral Artifact Ceramic Art Pottery Sculpture by Michael W. Moses

Here are a few images of me working on one of my latest pieces. This piece is called, Kutani Coral Artifact. This is (for my work) a large piece. It measures about 13 inches tall.

Here I am at my work table listening to music with my headphones on.  I  was listening to

Woods of Ypres and Old Crow Medicine Show at the time.

At this point the work had been sculpted, slowly dried, and fired to a bisque state.   I have just started to do the underglaze painting.



This is what the piece looked like after it had been completely painted, overglazed and fired. I added a number of  inset vintage glass rhinestones and a beadwork yellow sea anemone to give it just a tiny bit more pizzazz!.

A view of the back.  The front is all smooth and glassy, while the back has a rough almost rusted iron feeling.

This work of ceramic art pottery is a one of a kind item that will surely be a stand out piece in any setting that it may be placed.

Ikons, Icons, Ex Voto, Tamata by Michael W. Moses

I have to tell you that I have not been getting much done in the way of pottery the last few weeks or blog posts.  I have been doing everything but pottery.  I have been working on a prop piece pseudo ikon of Cthulhu that will be used in some still life faux artifact art photographs.

Santa Sofia

I have been putting some of my vintage 1990's art ikons on Etsy to sell, and I have been doing a bit of stuff for South Coast Antiques. Mainly preping stuff for sell, researching, and tagging items. We have picked up a number of great items.  As I was saying I have been doing everything but pottery.  Maybe this week I will be able to get a few pieces painted.

As for my ikons I have been doing them for many years.  I did my first one which was a 1/12 inch scale miniature dollhouse sized one,  when I was 13. It has two doors and a small drawer with a silver handle.  I still have it somewhere.  I used to love doing miniatures.  I created everything that one could imagine. Even a small collection of fired miniature pottery I made back in the early 1980's.

Billy the Kid

Our Darling Girl

I recently came across some images that I took of a few years back of my ikons that I created in the mid 1990's.  I was living in Northern New Mexico at the time in a small town called Regina.  Regina was a magical place that filled my senses with art and creativity.  I loved it there but there was just no way for me to make a real living there so after a number of years there I had to give up and head back East and do an old fashioned job.  Well, I want go into that right now for fear that that might take a bit of the artistic integrity away from this blog.

Key to the Kingdom

My icons are entirely hand made. I very carefully choose the wood. Preferring aged and weathered and antique wood that I could either use as is or that I could manipulate to give the wood a bit more of an aged or appropriate look.  I then hand cut the wood using only hand tools and hand sanded and rubbed the wood to a beautiful finish.

My metal covers were usually made of sheet aluminum and in some cases sterling silver.  I preferred the sterling, but it just got to cost prohibitive over the years and ended up with my working in mainly the aluminum.  Which is good because it does not tarnish like silver. It stays about the same.

Saint Joan

Some of my Icons had nothing more that a small print underneath, some antique tin type photographs, and some I did detailed painting.

Many of them are further embellished with glass beads, real pearls, real stones, faux stones, translucent enamel paints, and of course gold leaf.

My subject matter has been everything from images of nameless unknown Saints to street kids.  Many of these Ikons are not really Icons in the traditional sense. Some might even be considered ex voto or tamata.  For the most part I just consider them art.

Defender of the Faith

The images posted here are images of ones that I sold back in the 1990's.  I did not think about taking photographs of these pieces until I had sold a fairly large number of them.  So I really do not have many images of my ikons.

Our Lady of Sorrow

Alien Orange Canopic Art Pottery Jar by Michael W. Moses

Alien Orange Canopic Jar by Michael W. Moses

I thought I would showcase one of my newest pieces of ceramic art pottery for you today.  I call this one my Alien Orange Canopic Jar. 

I found this great old heavy Italian marble jar that was probably made in the 1960's or 70's and the moment I saw it I knew that it would end up with me making a top that would bring out the beauty of this solidly made stone jar.

I purposely wanted something that was a bit different and kinda Chthonian looking, a vessel that would have an alien otherworldly air to it.  I have literally created a small hand modeled sculpture and used the white marble jar as a display stand.

The interior can hold an ancient love note, a small special objet d'art, or even a dozen or so Brasher Doubloons. It's all up to you. 

The vivid orange coloring makes this piece not only stand out, but stand out and yell to be noticed.
This is the type of thing that will be the center focal point of any room that one places it in.

Alien Orange Canopic Jar by Michael W. Moses

The Ceramic Art Pottery of Michael W. Moses Now Available Exclusivly on the Gulf Coast at Antiques Plus in D'Iberville,MS

Michael W Moses Pottery at Antiques Plus D'Iberville,MS.

 My pottery finally has a new home here on the Gulf Coast. Earlier this week we did an installation of my ceramic art pottery at Antiques Plus in D'Iberville, Ms.
My friend Joan Skinner who has been a strong supporter and collector of my pottery for many years now, who owns Antiques Plus has after much debate and deliberation provided me a large customized case to securely display my pottery. I will be using Antiques Plus as my base of operations and point of contact for my pottery sales here on the gulf coast. I will continue to show my new works on this blog and sell online as well as through Etsy.

Michael W Moses Pottery at Antiques Plus D'Iberville,MS.

 Being at Antiques Plus will allow you to stop in and inspect my ceramic art pottery in an up close and personal way. I know it sounds corny, but this is pottery that must be experienced in person to see all the detail and textures that make my pottery so touchably unique. My pottery is never done justice by any mere 2D photography that you may see online. If you are in the area stop in at Antiques Plus and experience my ceramic art pottery first hand. Antiques Plus is located at 10340 D'Iberville Blvd Ste D,D'Iberville MS. phone(228) 396-2005. The hours are Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

Michael W Moses Ceramic Art Pottery at Antiques Plus D'Iberville,MS.

Michael W Moses Pottery at Antiques Plus D'Iberville.

Michael W Moses Art Pottery at Antiques Plus D'Iberville,MS.