Its been tough to find a lot of studio time during that last few months.  In addition to my usual responsibilities at school, I've also recently taken over as the BFA Coordinator AND the Barr Gallery Director.  Needless to say, the futile attempt to find a work/life balance has reared its ugly head again.  So, much of the progress in the studio during the Fall has been in my research, as I've devoted considerable time to investigating the techniques and tools needed for 3D printing.  That research culminated in a grant application for a Summer Faculty Fellowship from my school (IU Southeast) to learn to scan and print objects and at the end of the Fall 2011 semester, I was awarded the Summer Research Fellowship as well as a Grant-In-Aid for Research to purchase a small 3D printer – the Makerbot Replicator.  I should have the printer in my studio by the Summer and I'm thrilled to be able to pursue that line of research for my work! 

During this semester, I also had my work on a banner for the first time (the middle image on the banner).  This was for a show I was in at the Carnegie Center for Art and History here in New Albany, Indiana.  … 

Hope all is well!

Brian

Hi everyone, thanks for checking out my website and this studio update.  Its been a REALLY busy summer so far.  I taught the first summer session and my second summer session is almost finished.  If you've been keeping up with my Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/bharperstudio), you might have heard a little bit about the IUS Police surveillance of the kiln area .. funny, they don't seem to share my sense of humor about new kilns popping up outside!  In any event, its been busy on every front.  My show at LOT Louisville came down a few weeks ago and, for now, all of the work was removed and packed away in storage.  That work was a very new direction for me, so now that the show is down, I'm excited to see where that direction leads. 

Just as the show was coming down, my work was published in the July 2011 issue of Pure I Uncut I Candy, a Louisville Art Browser magazine:

For the second summer session, I'm teaching a new class I proposed at IU Southeast called "Topics in Studio Ceramics".  The topics will be rotating throughout the years, but for this one, I'm having the students focus on outdoor low fire atmospheric firing methods (raku, saggar, etc).  We started the session by building three new kilns, a saggar kiln, a raku kiln, and a small wood fired kiln that can be used for raku as well as for high temp firings.  Here's a picture of one of my students, Jay Whitman, firing the wood kiln …

Building a handful of new kilns at school was a little choppy at first (turns out  there are a lot of people at the University that want to "approve" that .. who knew?!) but, we are moving along in the right direction now.  Now that those kilns are built and things are rolling along with students firing them, I'm planning on getting more studio time in the upcoming weeks.  Especially considering the second summer session is about to come to a close and things might start to resemble some sense of normalcy soon.

Also, the Visions in Clay show in Stockton, CA opens soon, so check out the website for that ..  http://www.deltacollege.edu/div/finearts/dept/dca/gallery/exhibit1/index.html  There's some good people in the show and a big congratulations to my friend, Dylan Beck, who won Best in Show.  Awesome work!  It's always good to show with good people.

That's it for now.  Thanks again for checking out my site, stay tuned for more updates.

Brian

Hey everyone, I just found out that my work was accepted into the Visions in Clay 2011 exhibition at the San Joaquin Delta College Center for the Arts in Stockton, California.  I'm not sure when the opening is yet, but if you are in the area, stayed tuned for an update when I receive more information. 

 

I've just added a new section to this website to show images from some of the projects I've been lucky enough to be a part of throughout the years.  So far, I've added pages for the Gulf Coast Kiln walk project, the St. Pete Clay Company kiln, the Flagstaff kiln, and Don Bendel's walking mural.  There are some more, so stay tuned for when I have the time to get more posted.  Anyway, check out the new pages from here

Here's an image from the Gulf Coast Kiln Walk project …

Thanks again for checking out my work.

Brian Harper

Now the LOT show is up and the opening is in the books, I needed a fresh take on my studio, so I did a complete scramble of everything in there.  After the dust settled, I re-arranged everything and threw a bunch of stuff out so I can start anew.  Here's an image of the scramble:

and one of the post-scramble redesign:

 

I'll be back at it with some more work shortly, so stay tuned!

brian

Tonight is the night! 

An exhibition of my new artwork opens tonight at the Land of Tomorrow (LOT) Gallery at 7pm (until about 10pm).  The gallery is located in the St. Francis building at 233 W. Broadway in Louisville, right on the corner of S. 3rd and W. Broadway.  The exhibition will be up until June 30th.

Exhibitions also at LOT for this opening are Brent Green's, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, Ebony Patterson, and A Failed Entertainment: Selections from the Filmography of James O. Incandenza, and exhibition curated by Sam Ekwurtzel

Stop by if you have a minute!

Brian

 

 

Well, its been awhile between blog updates .. I suppose it's ONLY been a year, but it seems like its been longer.  In any event, I originally set this blog up to post studio updates, new developments with my work, upcoming shows, etc.  Around the same time I set this up, I also set up my Facebook studio page and I quickly noticed that I found myself posting my updates there instead of here.  In those cases, I appreciated how Facebook was connected to the people that might be interested in my work, so updating there seemed more direct.  So, now I find myself wondering how I could synthesize all of these channels of communication into one area, a conglomeration of web portals for my work and my professional life all linked together so as not to be so haphazard.  And, obviously, I am still searching for a way to tackle that problem. Anyway, I've been working feverishly through spring break in preparation for my upcoming show at LOT Louisville.  Things are moving, still a long way to go …

  and ..

Thanks for checking out my work!  

Brian Harper  

Just found this studio pic from the summer …

I now have Facebook studio page … become a fan if you want to stay up to date on what's happening in my studio world!  www.facebook.com/brianharperstudio

Spread the word if you know of anyone that might be interested ….

Brian

Hello all. 

This week I've been making working at the Logan Clay Products factory in Logan, OH with a group of 11 other artists.  This factory makes a clay sewer pipe and flue liners in a huge variety of shapes and sizes.  The factory (built in 1890) is really an incredible place to work ….

one of the drying rooms ….

the workers are making more pipes right next to where we are working ….

 

right now they are only firing the beehive kilns outside, but there is a beautiful old tunnel kiln inside one of the buildings…..

and here I am working on some work.  in this photo, I'm sanding the inside of this piece with sandpaper duct taped to the end of a stick.  these are ultimately going to be horizontal pieces and after the firing I will continue to work on the surface with stains, sanding, cutting, etc.

stay tuned for more updates….

brian