Bay Arts - Number Two

Bay Arts First-Timer

I finally made the time to go out to Bay Arts for a figure painting session. The organization is found in Bay Village, Ohio, right across from Huntington Beach. Most of the group I painted with worked at American Greetings for awhile, but unfortunately no longer do. They joked a lot about how Bay Arts is the place where artistic professionals "come to die." Although a bit on the cynical side, I think everyone can understand their sentiments in the current economic situation. I'm glad to get to be around such an extremely talented group of people and will be using the sessions to help me keep my art alive. Look for future posts with my paintings and drawings from Bay Arts sessions.

Cowan Pottery in Rocky River, OH

Not only am I currently employed as a librarian, but I often find myself in libraries outside of work. Right now I have five different library cards in my wallet. The card I most recently acquired is for the Rocky River Public Library. The Rocky River Library is unique in that it doubles as an art museum which showcases the ceramics of Reginald Guy Cowan and other Cleveland artists associated with his pottery company. The museum was established in 1978 when John Brodbeck bestowed over 800 pieces of Cowan pottery to the library. Visiting the museum and seeing some of this collection made me want to learn more about this artist who lived just a few miles east of my current home. Cowan also grew up in Syracuse, NY and went to college at Alfred University, which additionally made me identify with him since I attended school at Syracuse and know Upstate New York well.

As an artist, Cowan's work ranged in style from Arts and Crafts to Art Deco. Aligning with William Morris's call for simplicity in art, Cowan felt that ceramics should rely only upon purity in form and colored glazes for their decorative elements instead of complicated embellishments. Cowan was known for his development of many new glazes such as his Egyptian Blue, Oriental Red, and Clair de Lune. In the beginning of his career, Cowan was recognized for his Italian-style ceramic tiles. Today some of these tiles can still be found in the Cleveland Museum of Art. He also spent years working on ceramics which combined an iridescent glaze with a drip technique which he called "Lakewood Ware" after the town he lived in worked in. Other work that Cowan is especially acknowledged for are his flower and dancing figures.



In addition to his own work, Cowan spent a great deal of his life teaching pupils and developing the professional talents of other artists. One of Cowan's first jobs was to set up Cleveland East Technical School's pottery department. He also was a faculty member at Ohio State University. In addition to his students, some of the most notable artists he worked with professionally include Waylande Gregory and Alexander Blazys.

Cowan's pottery in Rocky River reminded me once again that good art is all around you if you look for it.

Bookend ceramics in the Rocky River Library

For more information go to the Cowan Pottery Museum website.

Japanese Monster Art and the Magical World of Harry Potter

Though not typically brought together in a single thought, Japanese monster art and the frightful and humorous creatures that populate the pages of J.K. Rowling's novels actually have a lot in common. In fact, they may have fallen from the same tree.

In Japan, supernatural creatures variously identified as monsters, spirits, ghosts, demons, phantoms, and specters are all categorized as yōkai. The most famous of yōkai include the Kappa, a frog-like monster associated with water, and the Kitsune, a shape-shifting fox often depicted with multiple tails.

Though these two monsters do not find their way into Rowling's plot, it seems obvious that she must have been familiar with other monsters from Japanese folklore. Everyone that has read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies remembers the giant spider Aragog. It just so happens that a similar gargantuan arachnid, called Tsuchigumo, is a legendary monster in Japan.

Tsuchigumo Zōshi, Kamakura period, 14th century. Tokyo National Museum.

Mary GrandPré - Aragog's Burial

For me, a more striking connection is found between the Japanese bathroom-haunting ghost Toire no Hanako and Rowling's Moaning Myrtle. Both ghosts are young girls dressed in school clothing and neither one is overly dangerous. Most people probably remember Moaning Myrtle's comedic pursuit of Harry Potter in the prefect's bathroom in The Goblet of Fire. Though not something one is excited to encounter, generally it seems that the school girl ghost is harmless. Unlike the spider yōkai mentioned previously, the first recorded appearance of the Toire no Hanako only dates back to the 1950s, so there aren't as historic of images to share. Because most of the images of this ghost today are from horror movies and focus on being extremely frightful and or gruesome, I have decided not to include an image of the ghost on this post, but feel free to google for some.

Moaning Myrtle and Harry in The Goblet of Fire

Whether or not J.K. Rowling got her ideas from Japanese art and folklore, it is interesting and almost comforting to see that very different cultures can hold similar beliefs. In both Japan and England, it seems that the claustrophobia of being in a bathroom stall has triggered each culture to make up a story accounting for the feeling of unease one might have when alone in the W.C.

Cincinnati Museum

My family visiting the Museum around Halloween years ago when we were all young

Art Always Makes A Good Christmas Present

This year having an artistic background helped me with a couple of my Christmas presents. My new twin nieces, Lydia and Awen Robinson, are celebrating their first Christmas tomorrow morning. For their gift I got them a treasury of Jan Brett's Christmas stories and made them a bookplate using Illustrator. The Mitten has always been my favorite Christmas-time story and I wanted to share it with the two girls even though they won't be able to read it themselves or even hold the book without ripping the pages for years to come. The twins are the newest edition to my sister's family. This will be the first time Laura, my oldest sister and the twins' mother, won't be home for Christmas.



I also used three of the several thousand pictures I took during my year abroad to make some wall art for my second oldest sister who just moved into a new apartment. The pictures include a gated home and a shop front in Strasbourg, France, and the Rye cemetery in England. Hopefully everyone enjoys their presents. Have a very merry Christmas!

The Mazza Museum - Findlay, Ohio

For the last two months it seems like what I identify as my home address is constantly changing. One week when I get my hopes up that I'll get a job in southern Ohio my address on resumés suddenly switches from my current residence in Westlake, OH (near Cleveland) to my hometown of Piqua, OH. And the next week when I realize my chances of making my life work out in a city like Cleveland are much more likely than those in my tiny hometown the swap occurs again. This swapping has not only been mental, but has also involved quite a few trips up and down I-75 for interviews and to see my family. Truth be told, I'm not certain that either city is where I'll end up, but they're all I have for now.

I recently decided to liven up one of these jaunts down I-75 with a short stop along the way in Findlay to see a museum and visit a friend. Often I assume that opportunities for culture and art in Ohio only exist in the three big cities that all begin with the letter "C" (Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland), but I discovered during this short stop that many of the smaller cities have a lot to offer as well. The Mazza Museum of International Art from Picture Books in Findlay, Ohio proved this to me. The museum itself is only a single room with three different viewing areas and a small seating area for class groups, but the walls are filled with art and information. For each piece of artwork on the wall there is an accompanying binder on the artist and his or her life and works. Often the picture book the work is taken from is also included on the ledge beneath the piece. The museum was founded in 1982. Some of the first pieces to be acquired by the museum were by Jack Ezra Keats (an illustration from Apt. 3) and Steven Kellogg. Today the museum houses artwork from the 19th century to present day, including artists like Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane. In fact, the museum holds so many pieces that it is constantly changing which pieces are on view to the public. I am looking forward to stopping in again at the museum to see a whole different set of illustrations the next time I visit. To visit the museum website click here. (Though the museum has a website, it provides very little information. I think this could be part of the reason very few people even know that it exists).

Directly below are some pictures of pieces I saw while visiting the museum.

Walter Crane

Kay Nielsen

Jessie Wilcox Smith
Steven Kellogg - Mike Fink

Lynne Cherry - The Great Kapok Tree

Sheilah Beckett

Of these images, my favorite is the one by Sheilah Beckett. Although I would like to say otherwise, I actually was not aware of her art or her name before seeing the piece above in the Mazza Museum. I love the way she has designed out her artwork with shapes and color. Beckett is known for illustrating Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and many more. Though not found in the museum, I especially like one of her illustrations from The Twelve Dancing Princesses (1954) included below.




Clare Beaton is another artist whose work I first found in the museum. She is a British artist that sews all of her creations from fabric. Click here for her website.

Finally another artist whose work I really enjoyed was David Wisniewski. His books reminded me a lot of Ivan Bilibin's illustrations of Russian fairy tales. Wisniewski has won a Caldecott medal in 1997 for his book Golem. He also wrote and illustrated Elfwyn's Saga, Rain Player, Wave of the Sea Wolf, and Sundiata: Lion King of Mali. He led a very interesting life that included making his living as a clown for the Ringling Brothers for two seasons. He unfortunately died in 2002.