Author: La Mano

The work of Bob Pesce is on display in the front window and the gallery this month.

Bob Pesce is a display designer and native New Yorker who mastered the use of a potter’s wheel at age fourteen and hasn’t stopped yet.  His undergraduate work at Pratt Institute and the art department  at Brooklyn College has led to exhibitions of his pottery and wood sculpture at both institutions as well as a co-op gallery in Brooklyn.

His current series of ceramic pieces center on a fascination with the continuity of the cosmos as seen in the small everyday object . (Think the marbles at the end of “Men in Black”).  Organic and sensuous, his pieces evoke whirlpools and flowers among other things.  Think of yourself enveloped in a swirling mass of comforting energy and you’ll be right at home with his work.

Professional work includes the Holiday Décor Installations at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the residence of the Vice President (Al Gore), the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, as well as twenty  rooms (each room themed in a different fairy tale) at the Lyndhurst Castle  in Tarrytown.  His work has been published in the book, The Heart of Christmas, as well as the Village Voice, Victorian Homes, The Journal News, Westchester Magazine, and numerous trade magazines and is the basis for the book A Fairy Tale Christmas (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, NYC, a subsidiary of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.).

Bob's work will also be featured at the TOJ Gallery booth at The Modern Show: October 16-18, 2009, 7 W 34th Street at Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Melissa Green is the current Potter of the Month. Her work, pictured below, will be featured in the front window at the studio for all of July.

Artist's Statement

In addition to a fulfilling career in NYC banking and real estate, I began to study pottery in 1995, as a student with Anke Bosse at Ceramix studio in Manhattan. In 1998, along with several talented partners, I founded La Mano Pottery in Chelsea, NYC, and took part in growing that business into the successful and thriving gallery and teaching studio that it is today.

Although I no longer have an ownership interest in La Mano, I continue to work there as a studio potter. I also started the after-school pottery program for IS 89 middle school students, and worked closely with that group from post 9/11 pottery workshops through 2005.

I love playing with color and texture in clay. I focus on functional pottery, and have never concentrated on one particular style. I prefer to let each piece speak in its own voice, reflecting a feeling, mood, or attitude. My work ranges from carved pieces to altered jars and bowls to hand-sculpted ware, and I work both on and off the wheel.

Melissa E. Green -- Greenwareceramics.com

Doug Rochelle is the new Potter of the Month. His work will be featured in the front window for all of May.

 

Age: 43

Location: Long Island City

Occupation: General Manager 7A Café, East Village

Favorite Glaze: All or none

Current Book: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Best Recent Movie: Stranger Than Paradise

What inspires me? I like to learn new things, see and have life experiences. After which, I go to the studio, work on a sculpture and think about what I’ve watched, done, read, and listened to. Since I visit the studio right after my shift, I also think the sculptures reflect what I call “the madness and the mayhem” of working a New York City graveyard shift where fights, barf, homeless and drunks cyclone the edge. Occasionally after an unusually hectic night at the café I talk to myself as I draw, dig and scrape away at the sculpture.

Where does the imagery come from? I was thirteen. Much time was spent after school on the phone with my girlfriend. She talked about her celebrity crushes, her favorite teacher’s hairy legs and the cutest Kansas City Royal ballplayer (George Brett). While holding the phone I doodled all over the Yellow Pages. From these doodles, figures and heads emerged. In and out of college I did try all the other isms of art; Abstract Expressionism, Impressionism, Fauvism, and Surrealism but I was always drawn back to the doodle figure/head. I like sculpting heads. They are made of abstract shapes yet easily recognizable.

Why have I chosen to work in clay? In 1985 I took a ceramics course at Johnson County Community College. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t get into it. The clay did not call my name. However, in 1997 working on my B.F.A., I was making lithographs based on busts of Caesar and other ancient Greek and Roman emperors. I realized I would soon run out of images to copy. My solution was to make my own sculptures so I could continue the series of lithographs. Someday I would like to do more lithographs. Until then I make sculptures. My dream is to have a show with the sculptures in the middle of a gallery surrounded by the lithographs made from drawings of the sculptures.

Last, did you choose or were you chosen to create art? Initially I thought “I am going to be an artist!” was my choice. I have come to realize that art/creation is a force of nature. You can try to control it but eventually there is going to be a flood, an earthquake or volcanic eruption. I think the subject matter and media I use flows with nature.

Nic DeStefano is the April Potter of the Month.

Age:  34

Location:  Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Occupation:  Visual production//ceramics teacher

Favorite Glaze: Brady's Black

My interest with ceramics started in college where my main focus was on sculpture.  Clay was the medium I found most engaging and I chose ceramics as the concentration of my BS in Studio Art.  My work touches on a few disciplines but also crosses a range of ideas.  Generally my work retains a minimalist quality while exploring basic sculptural elements like shapes, textures and forms and is all hand built for the most part.

The vessels on the left in the picture are part of a series I've been working on for a while.  The basic form is a shape that I've found myself drawn to and one that I have repeated quite a bit in exploring texture and color variation.

The series of body parts is a conceptual work in progress.  Though quite sculptural the work was inspired by the idea that images of war are perversely 'sanitized for our protection'.  That more and more over the years the media has censored graphic images of death and destruction due to armed combat.  And the result of this sanitization is a reverse desensitization of sorts; where the everyday citizen makes no personal connection to media reports of deaths by war because they are not seeing the image of someone just like them blown to bits by a bomb.  My main argument for this concept is the events surrounding a war like Vietnam, where the everyday citizen was subject to, by far, the most disturbingly explicit images of war(while the war was happening) and in turn had what is most likely the largest mobilization of war protest by the American public.

The black "martini pitcher" set was something I made in response to a great show La Mano recently held called Pots That Pour: Teapots and Pitchers.  I had a lot of fun hand building the set and enjoyed creating the MOD elements that are part of the pieces.
The last image is of two pieces in a series of ultra-thin dish type vessels I've been making.  They are definitely more of a fun but delicate accessory type piece that can be used to hold anything from jewelry to a beautiful succulent or just as purely aesthetic decoration.

For just about a year and a half I've had the privilege of teaching a hand building class at La Mano.  I was excited at the opportunity and have enjoyed a very different experience in helping others bring to fruition their clay ideas as opposed to working on my own endeavors.  At the same time the single most appealing and challenging aspect I find with working in clay is the fact that the clay is the stuff of pure imagination.  One literally has the capacity to create almost anything they can conjure up in their head.  The challenge is sorting through those ideas and having the patience and drive to commit to making the work and the many trials that come along with refining your idea.  So helping my students flesh out their ideas and showing them the techniques they need to accomplish what they want is very rewarding.

Most of all I am grateful and blessed to be part of the warm and welcoming community of unique and amazing individuals that call La Mano home.  It's a special breed of people who find their way to clay (or is it the clay that finds them?), and to share the cathartic experience of making art, sharing life, and just plain having fun with folks I consider my family in clay.

Nic's work is on display through the month of April at La Mano in the store front window.