Posts under ‘Art’

in 2005, I had a wonderful opportunity to travel to London to stay with a friend for a few days and take in the John Singer Sargent show at the Tate London. While there, I explored London a little bit by traveling on the Tube (the subway) where I saw signs at the entrance [...]

I’ve been interested in sculpture since I was a young boy. I remember collecting pot metal from the door handles of junked cars, melting it in a coffee can over a wood fire, and pouring the molten metal over bunches of dead grasses that I had collected. The results were unique and visually [...]

Touchstone, like most craft schools, holds a weekly auction of student work as a fund-raiser for the school. Every Thursday evening, when classes are in session, there is an auction of student work. Sometimes, the auctions are quite lively and prices soar beyond my reach. Other times, I have been able to [...]

Wednesday afternoon, after we returned from our visit to Thad Mosley’s show at the Mattress Factory, there was little to be heard from the students in the sculpture class – everyone was inspired in their own way. Chips were flying but there wasn’t very much conversation – everyone was too busy to talk. [...]

Tomorrow is long past – sorry about that! I’ve been trying to create a post about Thad Mosley, but I find it hard to do so. How is it possible, in a mere blog post, to capture the essence of such a vital, fascinating artist as Thad? Perhaps the best introduction to [...]

Pete Sternisha, a fellow student, arrived at Touchstone shortly before I did and, since we couldn’t check in yet, we wandered over to the firewood pile, where we had both found treasures in previous years. Pete pointed out a piece of well-seasoned cherry, with a large burl on it, that would become one of [...]

I haven’t posted since April 26th, the longest since I started this blog back in September of last year. The reason is that I’m burned out — I’ve delved so deeply into the “conservative” mind that is so prevalent in the religious right that I’ve started to become tarnished by the narrow-minded, ignorant and [...]

The next day, we had an ambitious agenda: visit Clayspace, where Colleen’s son, Josh, has a studio, eat lunch at 12 Bones, the home cooking place where Obama got takeout, and take in the sculpture show at Reynolds Mountain Park, which was down on the French Broad River last year and where it should have [...]

Touchstone Center for Crafts, near Farmington in the Laurel Highlands about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, PA, was founded in 1972 as the Pioneer Crafts Council. Originally, its focus was to preserve mountain crafts but it has since become a full-fledged crafts school, with classes in painting, ceramics, blacksmithing, glass-blowing, wood sculpture, stone working, [...]