
Welcome to Urban Mud-An Art Gallery and Studios with Ceramic Classes art gallery and ceramic studios
A Contemporary Gallery and Artist run Studio with Ceramic Classes in Denver, Colorado art gallery art gallery and ceramic studios
A Contemporary Gallery and Artist run Studio with Ceramic Classes in Denver, Colorado art gallery art gallery and ceramic studios
Urban Mud Gallery is proud to present:
Urban Mud is proud to present:
Martha Daniels with
"The Pleasure of surface in uncertain times"
Opening reception:
Friday July 24th from 6-9pm
Show runs through September.
Gallery hours are: by appointment, Please call Mary at 720-271-9601
530 Santa Fe Dr. Denver CO 80204
We are socially distancing and wearing masks
________________________________________________________________________ art gallery ceramic classes art gallery and ceramic studios
George and I drove Martha's work back from Desert Hot Springs California.
Great stay with friends the trip through desert and snowy mountains, was beautiful and scary.
Martha's show is scheduled to open Friday July 24th from 6-9pm
Detail Large Open Vessel from Title: Ribs and guts.
Hand-built, fired, glazed, painted, lacquered clay.
Made From individual hollow, irregular clay tubes that were curved and then fired.
Tubes were made by forming clay around a broom handle, then sliding it off.
After bisque firing, individual pieces were glazed fired with maiolica base glaze.
Then assembled with epoxy into the vessel form. It was then painted with acrylics and coated with clear lacquer. Cone 04 clay and glaze. Completed 2019
Open studio hours vary so please call with questions concerning classes.
THE PLEASURES OF SURFACE IN UNSETTLED TIMES
During these times of racial and other inequalities, injustice, economic hardship for many, and plague, the severe problems that underlie the United State have been exposed clearly.
As an artist, my work is not politically motivated.
I will never create a Guernica or a Banksy-like mural.
But I can speak out and give a portion of proceeds from this exhibition
to help assist those who are fighting for effective change.
In my work, I try to include and express the greater qualities of the human experience,
so that we do not forget our vision.
My contribution to the arts is to create beauty, solace, and emotional enrichment.
Transformative beauty in its various forms is sometimes difficult,
but it adds dimension to life.
The medium of ceramic sculpture, which I have pursued for over 40 years,
has allowed me an endless vista to explore these qualities.
Surface, form, content, and innovative structure developed over time.
I have added auto-body lacquers, with interference paint and films and other media,
to the expressive repertoire of the ceramic surface.
Glaze may now be underlying, but it has been transformed into something else that
still seems to work upon the ceramic surface.
This surface gives the eye and the mind play, and suggests something that transcends the object.
The art in this exhibition has been selected from a body of work created by me over a number of years. It represents some of the various approaches and experiments that I pursued and continue to pursue. My website, martha-daniels-ceramic-art.com, also shows
larger-scale and other work.
I hope you will enjoy the show and that it leads you to reflect upon the qualities and actions that connect us all in our humanity.
Thank you.
Martha Daniels
Kelly Joined Urban Mud last August
2020.
Kelly is about to retire from a long career with the government.
And is ramping up his art career. He has been working with clay for over 20 years, but now is ready to take it to the next level. So in joining Urban Mud he is doing just that.
We are lucky to have his gentle nature, creative talents, sense of humor, and all around nice guy to have in the studio..
Kelly's Artist statement:
Kelly Cole's Artist statement:
Every day, someone, somewhere on the planet opens the door of their kiln to see what the firing has produced. They have worked to get pottery and ceramic art formed, trimmed, decorated and glazed to put into a very hot reaction chamber. Then they cross their fingers and start heating up their kilns. There are no two ways about it- if you want to make pottery you better be brave.
I use frits to make the glazes and stains you see here. Frit is a white powder made of finely ground industrial glass. It is bad to breathe this powder. It is bad to get it on your hands and then wipe your face. You need to be brave to even mess with this stuff. Do not worry. All the frit in this show has been melted into a solid glass inside a high temperature kiln that has bonded to the surfaces you see. You can touch them if you want to. I bought fifty pounds of frit at a garage sale of a ceramic art program that was closing. I went in on a Sunday afternnon an hour before the sale ended and they had these bags of frit with $20 price tags on them and I offered them $5 a bag. I left with a bunch of frit. I figure anything bought at a garage sale counts as a found object.
I’ve read a lot of books. That’s a lot of time spent sitting still, learning things while I’m at rest. That’s how I learned that frit needed to be handled carefully.
Now I’m 65. And I’ll retire from my day job soon. I have been an artist for about 25 years now. And I have always had to have that day job. Now I’m at the threshold of trying to make art objects to sell for some income. Will that work? Well I’m going to find out. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have to get another job. If you’re reading this then you are at a show with some of my art in it. Please know that I am ready to sell everything here. That means you can buy some art from a live Denver artist. And you can get a great price on it. Everything on display here was made in the studio at Urban Mud.
I’d be ungrateful if I didn’t thank the people who taught me so much. They include Janey Skeer and Jeff Wenzel at the Denver Art Students League and Maureen Maker, my spouse who fought cancer for 22 years of the 28 years we were together (RIP). Maureen was an art teacher and she opened the doors of the art world for me. I miss her deeply. The art here reflects that.
And I want Mary Mackey to know that I am grateful for her Urban Mud studio experience and her willingness to take a chance on me.
Thursday-Saturday 12noon-5pm or by appointment.
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