Anne Leuck Feldhaus Adventures & Art

...some things I've been working on in clay...

carved this one on my birthday.

april was tough this year.

 
carved this back in january...did i mention our house is for sale?

recent works in clay...

I continue to take Corinne Peterson's "Dreams, Myths & Pillars" class at Lill Street, it's a form of therapy for me - and her class is always filled with the most interesting and genuine souls. The piece at the top is about as close to a pillar as I will probably get, there is a 3rd component that the top 2 pieces will stand on. Photo coming soon, once it's all glazed. The  other 2 pieces, tiles that I carved, the middle glazed with white and the bottom one still wet, with slip that I carved directly on. Love this carving process. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend, it was a sunny day in Chicago with lots of people out and about, and popping into the studio. I worked on commissions, most of the day.

terra cotta..in process

Trucks + Grain + Women

My trucks have finally found utility...I will have several on display at the Women In Grains Show...(a Coast to Coast Perspective) opening this Friday, July 16th at the Woolen Mills Gallery in Reedsburg, WI. This gallery is part of the Worm Farm Institute which is "dedicated to integrating culture and agriculture, an evolving laboratory of the arts and ecology and fertile ground for creative work." The show was curated by fellow artist/friend and notorious CORN LADY, Cathi Bouzide and encompasses the work of 18 women from around the country...there will even be a limited edition Women in Grains Beer microbrewed by Cathi's husband Paul. Should be a fun filled and very interesting evening!

  When invited to participate, I decided to use my trucks. My initial hope was to actually plant grain in the beds of them, this required that I work outside of my comfort level and build bigger rigs. It was challenging but I learned a lot and had new ideas along the way. Time and circumstances prevented my use of live plants so I opted to fill them with grain: corn, oats, rice, rye, buffalo grass and black popcorn. Most of which were brought to me from the farm of artist, Dan Brinkmeier in Mount Carroll. Still wondering why I'm in a show called Women in Grains? Read my statement below...

 

   

artist statement

Trucks started showing up in my work in 2007, shortly after moving to a new neighborhood not far from the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. The sound of the trucks lull me to sleep at night and once the leaves fall, I see the trucks up there on that ribbon of elevated expressway every time I walk out my front door to walk the dogs.

I actually like the sound these trucks make and I have a fascination with their scale and design. Growing up in quiet small town Sparta, Wisconsin, the sounds of the highway lulled me to sleep at night and reminded me that there was a whole other world out there full of people traveling and venturing to other places. I also love road trips, so trucks are a part of my visual landscape which I associate with the freedom and vistas of the open road.

So how do these things tie in with ‘Women in Grains’? I feel a certain grain connection due to my experiences at the Fields Project Artist Residency in rural Oregon, Illinois, not only painting images of the farms and fields, but actually making one of my images into an 11 acre field sculpture. I also consume my fair share of grains and in the end, no matter what I just said: trucks carry grain.

Snicker gets his wings...

 

My dog sculpture of Snicker is complete...came out pretty well with the exception of a hairline crack across the base...oh the joys of working with clay! Luckily there are some great epoxy products out there that may save the day if it decides to split. This piece is about 23" long and 13" high. Follow the link for the story behind this piece.

Growing Trucks...

My goal is to continuously make the next one bigger than the last, until our spring session ends in late May. These will, hopefully, soon be growing things in their beds...stay tuned to see them evolve and for more info about the "Women in Grains Show" in July.

A bigger truck...

Making bigger trucks is harder. Everything suddenly looks very angular and stiff...so after playing around a bit I realized if I make all of my pieces irregular imperfect rectangles and squares then I have a chance at giving the bigger trucks the whimsicality and personality of my small ones. So...stay tuned bigger and happier looking trucks coming soon...in a month or two you'll see where I'm going with all of this...
 
 

Dog flys out of kiln in one piece...

Well Snick made it out of the kiln in one piece! I just glazed him...and the dog below which has been sitting on my shelf since the last session. And I put square wheels on a truck which I forgot to photograph..so stay tuned.  I don't think I mentioned that our Lill Street class is now called "dreams, myths & totems in clay" or is it pillars? Corinne Peterson, our teacher makes very impressive large totems that are in corporate collections and in many public art displays so she is sharing her techniques in the class. I just don't think I could commit to something that big with a material so fragile..and me so careless. But there are other women in the class taking the totem theme and running with it. A few photos are below.

Here's Mary working on a beautiful bird sculpture...(she also has a large totem in the works): Natalie's wonderful wall piece, love the stones and the trees: And Haleh's impressive wall totem...she is much more ambitious than I could ever be with clay.

...with wings

As I drove to clay class Monday night I decided this dog was asking for wings but being the neurotic artist, I worried it would hasten the departure of sixteen year old Izzy...then thought even if it does, maybe this means I'll be giving her permission to go, in case she's just been sticking around for me. (I know...welcome to the emotional crazy world of my mind and heart!)Then Wednesday my Mom sent me an email regarding the previous post commenting that the dog looked like Snicker...her beloved big yellow lab that passed away over the summer...and I realized right away it was Snicker and not Izzy and how appropriate those wings were...and that's the reason everyone who saw the sculpture called it a 'he' including me. So this is Snick. My Christmas gift to her and Bill is a portrait of him that I have yet to create but I gave them some drawings as a preview of my ideas: Snick was not the only family dog to go last year, Willie my brother's dog (who I'm also working on a portrait of) and 2 dogs that belong to my Mom's stepchildren's families Pretty Boy and Nimush the 3 legged dog. That's a lot of new doggie angels frolicking in heaven...and many broken hearts they left behind. Mom, a hospice social worker, has been on me for awhile to design pet loss sympathy cards, and/or a book. Perhaps we will pen one together, but not while my Izzerloo is still wagging her tail on this earth...and I'm happy to say she has been doing pretty darn well these past few months and doesn't look to be taking on wings any time soon.

My wonderful Mom with Snicker, the 'Patron Saint of Stick Chewing' last spring.

Tall dog...

 

My most recent work at Lill Street...Hope this pup is still intact when I unwrap it tomorrow. I have been known to be a little too careless when it comes to clay appendages, but as my wise classmate, Haleh, commented "it really is about the process not the end product".

Bisque Fix

Some of my recent clay creations at Lill Street, the face container broke into several pieces during firing...I forgot to leave a hole for the air to escape (I tend not to listen very well during technical teaching moments). My wonderful teacher Corinne saved the day by lending me her Bisque Fix, amazing stuff...you can actually 'glue' it back together and refire with glaze. I kept calling it Bisquick by mistake and that made me hungry, my Mom used to make great strawberry shortcake with it when I was a kid - I think I have to go buy some!

This is my longest truck to date...I'm getting much better at constructing them.

My shelf at Lill Street - lots of glazing to be done and only 2 weeks of class left and a trip to Kansas City in between. May have to wait until next fall.

Elongated Load...

In the midst of all the craziness preparing my new studio space, I still have Monday class class. I have not been super productive the last few weeks so was glad to make this truck the other night...this is the longest one so far..still need to add some wheels and might do lattice or ribs of clay across the cargo area or leave it open...a straw holder..what would you put in it?
 

Clay update...

This is going to be a container. I will cut the ball footed piece in half and attach the piece on the right to the lid and then do more carving and embellishing to the bottom. Kind of a freaky clown guy.

This is my class mate Haleh making a very ambitious clay column/stool for her garden. I would never have the patience or skill to pull this kind of thing off! It's fun to watch come together, she will carve on the surface and add glazes. I'll try to post some updated photos as it becomes embellished.

And lastly...this crazy scary lady emerged a few weeks ago. I was in a lousy mood that day (which does not happen to me all that often) and I couldn't quite pin point the reason. I walked into class and jokingly asked if there were horns coming out of my head...and then I made this. And I felt better. Clay is very therapeutic!

Sugar & Mr.Cream Underglazed...

Clay class started up again on the 5th. Decided I had better finish this sugar & creamer up before I got too involved in something new so I underglazed them on monday...their faces are straw yellow and should be much more saturated once they are fired, the lighter colors on the hat and handle are chartreuse and again should be more saturated and look more green after firing.

will need to put a clear coat inside of each so they are sugar/cream ready.
 

Rear View:

Forgot to share photos of our fall class wrap up...this was our last night critique and pot luck, we had a pretty fabulous spread for such a small group!

Glaze Experiments...

I'm always trying to use glaze like acrylic paint, this is silly of course and the colors often end up a disappointment to me...so tonight I made 2 test tiles and tried to play with the underglaze and experiment. If these retain the look I want after firing I will go ahead and use the same treatment on my Sugar & Mr.Cream below..

I'm liking the rough sketchy feel of these tiles...

Sugar & Mr. Cream

Freshly Fired!

Here are some fun new pieces that were waiting for me when I got to Lill Street Art Center for my clay class tonight, all intact with the exception of some loose wheels I forgot to glaze for the truck...

 

Perro de clay    Terra Cotta with Glaze #9!

"Cee-ment Truck"     Terra Cotta with Undgerglazes

And I'm happy to report I made a new 2 piece sculpture this evening...a sugar bowl!  So perhaps I'll make a companion creamer next week...stay tuned.
 

Glazed Trucks...

Regarding perro de clay...in the fall/winter and spring months I take Corinne Peterson's "Dreams, Myths & Stories" class at Lill Street Art Center. We just started up again last week and that's were I made the dog (which has not been fired yet). This class keeps me creatively balanced and, just as important, socialized! You may not know that my art training at UW Madison was in sculpture....(hmmm...suddenly I see future blog posts, it might fun to share some of that early work here). I did not start painting until after graduating and moving to Chicago in the early 90's...oops off topic..back to the clay. Below are the pre-fired glazed trucks from last spring...and below that fired...(note to self NO GLOSS next time. I liked them much better matte):

 

Kind of cute from behind. See them bisqued, you can see more of my clay work on my flickr page.

This is Haleh, one of my serial* classmates, with all her beautiful test tiles. (*there are a few of us that keep repeating the class over and over...)

perro de clay

My Fleet of Trucks and a Bus!

Amazingly, the trucks are all close to the same scale even though I made them independent of one another. The bus below is another story...it's way bigger than the trucks - of course it will shrink a bit when it goes through the bisque firing. It's a strange bus, I had 3 different images in my head and I kind of morphed them altogether in the clay.

Now I have lots of glazing to do...that's the hard part! It's not like painting with acrylics. Many coats are needed to get the saturation that I like and even then the underglazes can do strange things in the kiln. Stay tuned!

Cougar brings Helicopters...

On Monday night as I pedaled my bike up to the Lill Street Art Center I noticed 2 helicopters hovering stationary over the same spot in Roscoe Village for quite awhile. Had no idea what was going on but thought, hmm...maybe I'll make a helicopter tonight! Once I got to class Natalie...(shown below with her big round carved platter ..detailing her recent 4 month trip to Asia) told us that the police had warned her to go home (she was out walking her dogs) because there was a cougar loose in the neighborhood. We found out the next day that they did find the big kitty and sadly, they shot him. So this is my attempt at the copter...I'm showing it upside down because that's how I had to build it...it's very fisher price, we'll see if it's still intact and made it through the week drying. Added upright photo above 5.27.08.

Shad with his cool turtle and our wonderful teacher Corinne Peterson. This is the Dreams, Myths and Stories Class that I have been taking off & on over the last 14+ years...where has the time gone?!
This is Haleh busy carving and a close up of her fish inspired piece....

And Corinne's earthy hand carved see pods:

and Jennifer wasn't there, but that's our wonderful little class this session, and here's an example of her amazing work:

Truck of the week...

This is my "container" truck...I decided to try for a functional piece. We'll see
how the lid works once it's dry. You can see more photos on my flickr site.

Trucks & Planes

   


I clicked a few photos of trucks that I'm working on at Lill Street. Sadly an hour before I took the wet clay photo I lost a cab from another truck, lopped right off onto the floor into many  pieces. Very frustrating...you just have to let go when it comes to clay. It's fragile and unpredictable but also really therapeutic and so much fun to play around with. This white truck is actually underglaze on bisqued (that means fired once) terra cotta ..it was bright orange before I slopped on the white.I do this so when I add the color I can get brighter hues.  It is going to be a milk truck..to go with the egg truck. The first one is my crazy version of a cement truck..that was my Monday night.

And I got my plane back last week. I included strategically placed holes, the plan is to thread wire through and hang it from the ceiling. I also made clouds but they still need to be glazed.

 

More Clay...meet Art

Last night ...was clay class at Lill Street. This is Eva May with her newest creation: ART...she made the head and torso from porcelain and then being the exquisite hat maker that she is...she made him a hat and added several other cool art related embellishments...oh..and she also made his wire rim glasses.

The photo of the terra cotta piece is one that I am working on...not sure exactly what it's all about yet. Yes there is a beak on the standing figure...I broke part of it off later in the evening so now it looks like a beaky nose. (Hmmm, wonder if this is the chicken responsible for the egg truck?) We sure have a great time on Monday nights, good interesting people and conversation with very diverse things being created all around us. I'll try to add photos of what some of the other people in class are doing next week.

My Egg Truck

So I made this cute little truck out of terra cotta at Lill Street, building it was the fun part. Then comes the not so fun part: Glazing it...always a frustration for me - working with glaze is nothing like paint. To get the color saturated you have to put many coats of white to cover the orange clay and then many coats of the actual color that you want...and you are still not guaranteed full coverage. Last year I coined the phrase..."let go and let glaze" I'm still trying to embrace it.

So why an egg truck you ask? Well as I layered on all the white glaze I was having conversations with the other people working at my table and they asked what my truck was carrying...I had no idea and was not sure what direction I would take outside of having that great purple cab. The next thing I glazed were the tires, and I thought they looked like sunny side up fried eggs...so voila...an egg truck. Check out each side and the bottom...I titled it "eggzactly".