Mark Hewitt Pottery Summer Kiln Opening this weekend

WHEN:
Saturday, Sept 4, 9am - 5pm
and
Sunday, September 5, noon - 5pm

Internationally recognized studio potter Mark Hewitt has fired the Salt Kiln for the 79th time, and the pots came out beautifully. A new glaze variation using the Chapel Hill grit fired to a soft, shiny gray, and the salt glaze is perfect. Mark also made a series of elegant new vases, inspired by classical Greek vases, but using Southern folk pottery glaze treatments.

DIRECTIONS at:
www.hewittpottery.com
or by calling
(919) 542-2371

Contact: Carol Hewitt
919-656-8889
carol@hewittpottery.com

Organic Forrestry: Recent paintings and sculpture by Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD -- PAF Gallery, NC Arts Incubator, Siler City NC -- Opening June18th

New visions inhabit the mind of Dr. Forrest Greenslade. His organic sculptures and paintings, derived from a life-long love of nature and mythology, have a new look and feel. Greenslade’s work is highly stylized, bounding on cartoonish. His paintings are sculptural, built up with inches of thick acrylics and modeling paste to the point that they nearly jump off the canvas. His sculptures are enhanced with innovative coatings and patinas producing color, texture and an illusion of movement.

“I want people to experience motion and emotion in my art,” Greenslade asserts, “so my faces are seldom symmetrical and my figures just can’t stand still.” Greenslade’s use of materials is eclectic. “Because of my scientific training, I tend to be experimental in my choice of media,” he explains. “I use metal, concrete, clay, acrylics, wood, found-objects – whatever tells the best story.”

Best known for his whimsical animal sculptures and paintings, his new series presents an excursion into the mind of a much more serious artist. Greenslade’s highly stylized, sculptural treescapes are created in modeling paste and tarnished metals on canvas. They depict remembrances of special woodland places. Forrest Greenslade, educated as a molecular biologist, spent his working life as a scientist and organizational executive. Serious business has now been replaced by ventures into creative, playful expression. He creates art that feels to many as rather naïve, even childlike. Playing, it seems, is what Forrest does best. Whether his creativity leads to whimsical sculptures, or takes him on a journey to a “Petrified Forrest”, his work shares common threads. It displays the delight and playfulness of creating art, his unique scientific experimentation of materials and Greenslade’s life-long love of nature.
Leslie Palmer, Friends of the Pittsboro Memorial Library

Forrest’s paintings using modeling paste and tarnished metal coatings are a little reminiscent of Van Gogh in their sculptural surfaces and use of light.”
Philip Ashe, Director of the Central Carolina Community College Sculpture Program

Greenslade the scientist, in his dotage, has discovered his creative self. He doesn’t over intellectualize about his work, “Sometimes a duck is just a duck.”

“After a lifetime of serious business, it’s nice to let the little boy out,” he smiles.

“It’s more fun that any old guy deserves.

Forrest Greenslade is a member of the Chatham Artists Guild, and opens his studio and garden the first two weekends each December during the Chatham Studio Tour.

At the heart of a flourishing community of artist studios, galleries and eateries, The PAF Gallery, at the NC Arts Incubator, is centrally located at 223 N. Chatham Avenue in the Historic Downtown District of Siler City, a short drive from the Triangle or Triad.

Caption: Petrified Forrest Autumn's Glow, a relief painting by Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD

Northwood HS Senior’s Metal Project on Display at CCCC Gallery

At the next 3rd Friday Art Walk in Siler City on May 21st, high school senior John Norwood will display his Senior Project metal table at the Central Carolina Community College Gallery. Pottery and Sculpture Program Director Phillip Ashe says, “This is a good example of how our program in metal and ceramic sculpture provides employment and life enrichment skills to our area’s communities.” “One of the students in our program, Forrest Greenslade, is active in passing his knowledge and skills on to younger students as a mentor,” he adds. “We are delighted to have his current student’s work on display in our May exhibit.”

Norwood, like every graduating senior in Chatham County was confronted by a requirement to complete a rather daunting project. He had to produce a product, write a research paper, assemble a portfolio, and give a brief talk about his work. Norwood has a strong desire to work with metal, and got a good start designing and constructing a forge from a garbage can, some scrap metal and an electric hair dryer. His dad supported and guided him with this stage of his project.

Then, Chatham County Together, a mentoring organization intimately involved with the Senior Project program, teamed John up with artist Forrest Greenslade. John thought that he might make some sort of weapon using his forge. He has an interest in the military. In fact, right after graduation in June, he will be off to Oklahoma for Army basic training. For their first step, Forrest took John to the studio of Tamera Mulanix, a renowned Chatham metal sculptor. Mulanix and Greenslade are both members of the Chatham Artists guild, the organization that produces the Chatham Studio tour each December. Tamera showed John the variety of artworks that she creates in her well equipped studio. Inspiration struck when John saw some of her elegant metal tables. He decided to design and produce a table to leave for his parents when he goes on to his military career. Tamera let John scavenge in her scrap pile, where he selected a metal round disc and an old saw blade.

In Forrest’s studio, John polished up his welding skills that he first learned at Northwood. Then he welded the metal disc and saw blade together to for the table top. Back in his yard, he then used his forge to bend three pieces of reclaimed rebar into the table’s legs. The final assembly was done in the Greenslade studio. Finally, back in the Mulanix studio, the John learned to apply Tamera signature finish to the Table.

“I am really impressed with John’s product,” notes Greenslade. “It has the esthetic of the late 19th century industrial period – masculine and functional.” I really like the way it came out, stresses Norwood – I’m proud of it. Mulanix says, “It was a pleasure to work with John. I hope he can continue on in his artistic endeavors. He is talented.”

While doing research for his paper, Norwood learned that blacksmithing, was once the major approach for industrial production, but as metal working techniques such as welding and casting developed, the smithy became relegated to produce artwork and decorative items. “How ironic that John, whose first thought was to use his forge to smith a weapon, decided to create such an elegant and decorative table,” Greenslade smiles.

Uncle Nick's World

My wife's uncle, Nicholas Herrnkind, was a remarkable man. He never graduated from high school, yet he grew to head the pay role department of a major American corporation in New York City. On the way, he struggled through the great depression, unemployment and the loss of a young child. Throughout his entire life Uncle Nick drew and painted in whatever spare time he had. As a financial watch dog, Nick was a man of precision. He was equally exact with his art. His style was photo-realistic. In the era of Abstract Expressionism centered in the New York City area, Nick's work was out of sync. His sketches and paintings, mostly rustic landscapes, remained housed and much loved by Nick's friends and family. He died in December, 1970.

In 2010, My wife's sister Diane was downsizing for a move. In the process, she uncovered a bunch of Uncle Nick's old unused canvases. In the pile, was an unfinished painting of an old farm house and barn, a winter scene. Nobody knows when he started the work, or why he never completed it. Diane gave me the canvases, including the unfinished piece, for me to use. At first, I just planned to paint over his incipient oil painting -- but I couldn't. Something in the detail and feeling in those two buildings demanded preservation.

I decided to attempt to frame Uncle Nick's precise images within one of my stylized and rustic relief paintings, using modeling paste and tarnished metals. I started by repairing a gash in the background sky. Nick had started to sketch in a tree to the left of the barn, so I developed my component of the painting there. On the right side of the farm house, the canvas had been damaged. I covered that space with an additional tree. In the for ground, Nick had penciled in some details. I didn't attempt to develop them. Rather, I just piled up snow and ice to further strand the little farm in winter's grasp -- focusing the eye on my glimpse into Uncle Nick's world.