Dori DeCamillis

Last weekend we attended this exhibit in the adorable town of Watkinsville, GA. My husband, Scott, was getting ideas for a similar clay market to be held in conjunction with next year's Alabama Clay Conference, which he is hosting in Birmingham in February, 2012. 9 th  Annual Perspectives: Georgia Pottery Invitational Aug. 27- Sept.14, 2011 OCAF Art Center & Rocket Hall Perspectives is a pottery collector’s paradise with an extensive selection of hand-made functional pottery with over 5,000 pots to choose from. Each of the 50 Georgia potters had on display and sale an average of 100 pots in the Rocket Hall Sales Gallery. Two significant pottery exhibitions in the OCAF Art Center building were also open. The Main Gallery had on display an exhibit of 150 pots; two pots by each of the fifty potters and one pot from each of their private collections. In the Members Gallery there was a display of pottery by Jose Luis Yamunaque and Kate Tremel.

These are Lynn Whipple's Ninnies. Lynn is a dear friend from my outdoor art festival days.  Her work is playful, precious, slightly irreverent. I am lucky enough to have a small collection of them. Check out Lynn's website. Check out Lynn's blog.

Mark Ryden. Read his bio below. Blending themes of pop culture with techniques reminiscent of the old masters, Mark Ryden has created a singular style that blurs the traditional boundaries between high and low art. His work first garnered attention in the 1990s when he ushered in a new genre of painting, "Pop Surrealism", dragging a host of followers in his wake. Ryden has trumped the initial surrealist strategies by choosing subject matter loaded with cultural connotation. Ryden’s vocabulary ranges from cryptic to cute, treading a fine line between nostalgic cliché and disturbing archetype. Seduced by his infinitely detailed and meticulously glazed surfaces, the viewer is confronted with the juxtaposition of the childhood innocence and the mysterious recesses of the soul. A subtle disquiet inhabits his paintings; the work is achingly beautiful as it hints at darker psychic stuff beneath the surface of cultural kitsch. In Ryden's world cherubic girls rub elbows wit...

Birmingham, Alabama is home to a small graffiti controversy involving a lovely statement on an overpass. "You are Beautiful" was scrawled above the freeway, and a local newsperson wrote a commentary commending the vandals for their positive outlook. The news guy, John Archibald, sort of suggested we all started painting You are Beautiful on everything to start a new Birmingham motto. My afternoon kids' class took the long sidewalk by Red Dot Gallery in Homewood and wrote and decorated our version of You are Beautiful.  We obviously had great fun, and passersby were amazingly enthusiastic. The message stayed there for almost a week, and definitely beautified the neighborhood,  if only for a while. 

No, I didn't rob a convenience store. I'll be on Birmingham's Fox 6 News at 6 tonight. Fred Hunter has done a feature about my art, focusing on my exhibit at the Mobile Museum of Art.   The piece will air tonight, a couple more times this weekend, and then will be available on the Fox 6 website after that.

What an interesting social experiment...seeing people we knew as children after decades. I think everyone looked remarkable well-preserved. I had an amazingly good time. Our class numbered 90 when we graduated...27 came to the reunion.