Touring new Art Building at Eckerd College

My son, Tai Rogers, graduated from Eckerd College in 2001.  He has stayed in touch with Brian Ransom, who heads the ceramics department there...so we visited Brian.  First we met him at his home.

This is a harp...and no, it has nothing to do with his mouth, though the top is positioned so that it looks like it!

Brian is a talented musician as well as makes these beautiful instruments! The tub/base (sound board) is made of clay, with a skin strung across it.

Then Brian toured us around the new art building...

What a building...smoke stacks from kilns

The kiln room

Brian describes moving the kiln to this new studio...

Clay studio - glazing area

Clay Studio

The clay studio

Brian describes the sculpture studio

A campus on the water, lots of trees.

The chapel...

The printmaking room

A small exhibit in one of the galleries.

A wall listing of those who helped pay for this building.

Great shading of south facing windows...you stil have light, and the view, without the glare.

Looking out the art room windows

Tai and Arthur Skinner.

Drawing classroom

The "prop room" with great things for doing still life drawings/paintings.

Two art professors ironing out some details of plans...

2001 ceramics project

Not my Senior Project at Eckerd College, but my son Tai Rogers.

A tree of clay, having been pressed into limbs and trunk of an actual tree.  Then a kind of building or city sitting on top of it, with film negatives in all the windows.  I don't know what their subjects were, because you couldn't actually see them from the perimeter of the tree with bark mulch around.  And the bright overhead light kind of took away from the chance to have lighted windows become part of the sculpture.

But of course this is a critique in hind-sight.  At the time I remember Tai working with his friend and fellow aspiring Eckerd clay program graduate, Shu, to get their gallery arranged.  It seemed pretty frantic, even for any procrastinating artsy people.  Different things just wouldn't work, and had to be left as conceptual.

Yet he graduated, went on to do many things, including residencies, and a "post-bach" year at U of Colorado, Boulder, and now has his MBA in Ceramics from Indiana U, and is teaching ceramics at DePauw University.  Here's his web site, http://tairogers.com/

Today's Quote:

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.

Vaclav Havel

Featured potter: Brian Ransom

My son, Tai Rogers, studied with Brian Ransom, the professor of Visual Arts, ceramics department at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL, and musician using his own creations.  And thus Tai began his own ceramics journey when he graduated in 2001.

Brian Ransom

Brian just posted on Face Book and Tai shared it, so I'm sharing it with you..

"Hey all of you crazy facebookers, my big news is that I've packed up an sent my show to W. Hollywood LA! One week from tonight, February 28th at 6:00 PM I open my new show of figurative whistling vessels at Couturier Gallery. you can check out the details on my site: briancransom.com here's a piece I'll be showing.

Anthropomorph & Muses Gallery Opening, Feb. 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015 - 19:00 to Saturday, April 11, 2015 - 19:00

 

Cave Whistling water vessel 2

And this summer at Penland School of Crafts Brian will teach a class from

Sunday, June 9, 2013 - 09:30 to Friday, June 21, 2013 - 16:00

Creating Musical Instruments and Sound Sculptures 

Students in this class will make and tune a variety of ceramic musical instruments and sound-producing sculptures. The class will cover many of the handbuilding, throwing, and assembling techniques I use to make my own sounding sculptures and musical instruments. We will cover clay bodies, firing techniques (particularly vapor firing) and the formal and informal sculptural processes used in creating sounding ceramics.

Brian Ransom, professor of visual art at Eckerd College (FL); National Endowment for the Arts and Fulbright-Hays fellowships; musical compositions used in film soundtracks and ballet scores; exhibitions: Baltimore Clayworks, Mint Museum (NC), The Clay Studio (Philadelphia).

The guys and pots

NCECA is happening this week way out in Seattle.  My youngest son is probably there, as he has been to most whenever he can.

This shot is of my oldest and youngest sons last year at a show during NCECA in Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL.  I went to the various galleries, not to NCECA itself...was on my usual shoestring budget.  Having relatives in the Tampa area helped my expenses!

The guys are playing (or trying to play) an instrument built of clay by Brian Ransom, on display where he teaches at Eckerd College, also the alma mater of my youngest son.  I loved that they look like they're a couple of really intense guys mouth to mouth.  Good old camera angle.

So it's another turn of our blue marble around the sun.  Many changes have happened in this year, some more fortunate than others.  My thoughts today continue on the vein of, do what you love today, you don't know how many more days you have.  But be sure whatever you do is something you really want to be doing, don't compromise too much.

SO I'm going over to walk around a lake and check out the birds and blossoms.