Art Craft Nature

Megan Bogonovich’s Exuberant Ceramic Sculptures Find Joy in Coexistence

Protruding in a meandering fashion like tree branches or the sprawling overgrowth of flowering vines, the flamboyant botanical sculptures that sprout from Megan Bogonovich’s Norwich studio capture the wondrous moments of when “bucolic tips over into batty.”

Her workspace is tucked in a wooded area, leaving Bogonovich constantly surrounded by lush landscapes. “When I look around my neighborhood this time of year,” she says, “nature seems so verdant and powerful. I think the fragility of the material and the quantity of sculptures have mirrored the natural world in the way that plants are abundant, but vulnerable and highly pluckable.”

Bogonovich’s sculptures (previously) embody the delicate relationship between humans and the environment. Fascinated by nature’s ability to adapt to human presence, she sculpts cylindrical structures that twist and turn in different directions, perhaps implying the irregularity of the landscapes that her superempirical organisms might thrive in. Spiky and bumpy textures cover vibrant surfaces, emphasizing the idiosyncrasies of repetition and pattern that are so prevalent in organic forms.

Though each sculpture exists “in the realm of exuberance and glee,” she adds, “I know people see a sinister undercurrent, and that is definitely true of the work.” In a world so apprehensive toward shifting climates, invasive species, and future existence altogether, the artist’s ceramic iterations offer a feeling of bountiful pleasure.

Bogonovich just finished a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and you can find more work on her Instagram and website.

 

 

Art Craft

Kirsty Elson Transforms Driftwood and Detritus into Whimsical Animal Sculptures

For Kirsty Elson, a sliver of driftwood or a scrap of metal is more than just a piece of detritus or trash. She sees a sleepy goat in some old nails and hunks of worn timber or a docile and curious donkey from rusty rods and brush bristles.

Elson has long been attracted to found objects, giving old elements new life. She previously focused on creating small cottages and seaside scenes, but recently she has shifted her attention to expressive, whimsical animals, which perch on pegs, roll on wheels, or warm themselves with little scarves. “I’m thoroughly enjoying this new path, as I can be even more playful and inject some humour into my work,” the artist says, “which I think is a nice distraction in these troubled times.”

Find more on Elson’s Etsy shop, and follow her on Instagram for updates.

 

Art History Science

One Scientist Painstakingly Establishes a Chronology for More than 100 Surviving Prints of ‘The Great Wave’ by Hokusai

Capucine Korenberg, a scientist at The British Museum, is a big fan of ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, who lived during the Edo period in Japan. Hokusai is best known for a series of woodblock prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes his iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”

Often referred to simply as “The Great Wave,” the work spawned thousands of editions—some estimates put the total output at more than 8,000—until the blocks wore out and could no longer be used. When the piece was made in 1831, people could purchase a print at a price point Korenberg compares to a “double helping of soba noodles.”

In a video, Korenberg describes how scientific analysis of the three editions in The British Museum’s collection drew her closer to the 19th-century masterpiece. She commenced a search for all existing copies to try to establish a chronology based on the specific characteristics of each impression. At the time of filming, there were 111 known versions, and a further two have been uncovered since.

 

How does one begin to sort through the chronology of a print? The blocks now long gone, Korenberg relied on tiny details in the images themselves, such as the quality or completeness of linear elements, plus the quality of color or alignment of different layers. She could begin to narrow down the states, which refers to impressions made when a key block—the first block to be carved that contains the outline of the composition—is added, removed, or altered.

Scholar Roger Keyes had researched the subject before 2007 and based his findings on the archival material available, often relying on low-resolution, black-and-white Polaroid photos. He initially devised a theory that “The Great Wave” included 21 states, characterized by breaks in the cartouche, signature, Mount Fuji, the boats, or the wave itself.

Through a painstaking compare-and-contrast process using the original pieces from the museum’s collection and additional high-resolution photos supplied by institutions around the world, Korenberg narrowed down the number of woodblock wear states to eight.  She also employed ultraviolet and infrared technologies to get a closer look at the coloration and how, over time, certain elements faded due to fugitive pigments. Her next challenge is to find out what the print looked like when it was newly pressed and pristine.

You can dig further into Korenberg’s research in her report, and you might also enjoy checking out Jason Kottke’s look at the evolution of “The Great Wave.”

 

Nature Photography

The Milky Way Photographer of the Year Contest Celebrates the Dazzling Band of Light in Our Skies

Whether seen from the craggy mountain landscapes of New Zealand or the vast, arid expanses of the Atacama Desert, the Milky Way is a brilliant band of light that glitters in the night sky above every spot on Earth. A photo contest devoted to our galaxy celebrates the diverse, dazzling appearances of the star-studded system from around the globe.

Now in its 7th year, the Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition by Capture the Atlas showcases 25 spectacular images chosen from more than 5,000 entries. Included are Lorenzo Ranieri’s shot of the galaxy shooting across the sky like a kaleidoscopic arch that frames a mass of rocks, along with a photo by Tom Rae taken in New Zealand’s Mount Cook National Park. As the Milky Way bursts upward like a celestial flare in the sky, twinkling stars are reflected in the lake below, connecting Earth and the cosmos.

Find more of the winning images on the contest website.

 

Design History

A Remarkable Typeface Resurfaces from the Thames After Being Dumped in the River More Than a Century Ago

In 18th- and 19th-century London, the term mudlark was coined to describe someone who scavenged river banks for valuable items. Today, metal detectors aid in the continuing pastime—which now requires a permit—and every once in a while, a modern-day mudlark dredges up a striking discovery. Ten years ago, for type enthusiast Robert Green, a once-in-a-lifetime find emerged from the Thames.

Rewinding to the early 2000s, Green was in art school and became fascinated by Doves Type. The more he studied it, the more entranced he became by its idiosyncratic characteristics and the creators’ devotion to “pure” design. He began to meticulously digitize the font family.

The origins of Doves can be traced to T.J. Cobden-Sanderson—who has been credited with coining the term “arts and crafts”—and Emery Walker, who founded Doves Press together in Hammersmith in 1900. “For a typeface, they returned to Renaissance Italian books, but with the intention, however, of producing a set of letters that looked lighter on the page than their sources,” says a statement from the Emery Walker Trust. “The aesthetic vision was largely Cobden–Sanderson’s, who believed in ‘The Book Beautiful.’ Exteriors were stark white vellum with gold spine lettering; inside there were no illustrations.”

 

By 1909, the pair’s business partnership formally dissolved, but Doves Press continued without Walker’s participation. In a short film produced by the BBC in 2015, Green describes the breakdown as a result of “pragmatism versus obsession.” Walker was a practical-minded printer and Cobden-Sanderson, a perfectionist.

In March 1917, Cobden-Sanderson declared publicly that Doves Press was closed, and its type had been “dedicated & consecrated” to the River Thames. “Nobody actually quite got it,” Green says. “And Cobden-Sanderson writes a letter to the solicitor saying, ‘No, I wasn’t talking figuratively. The type is gone.'” He didn’t want Walker to have access—or anyone else, for that matter.

Remarkably, Cobden-Sanderson recorded in his journals the exact date and location that he dumped the type into the water, which took him 170 trips to discard in its entirety. With each load weighing around 15 to 20 pounds, that’s a lot of metal. For 98 years, the type remained on the riverbed, much of it washed away over the decades or sunken into the silt as the tidal flow continually rose and fell.

 

In 2014, Green traced Cobden-Sanderson’s steps and began to poke around beneath the bridge to see if, by chance, any pieces remained. Miraculously, within a few minutes, a single letter “v” appeared among the pebbles. Then, a couple more. He knew he was on to something, so he contacted the Port of London Authority to enlist scuba divers and some buckets and sieves.

Among the search team was Jason Sandy, an architect and member of the Society of Thames Mudlarks, who found 12 pieces and donated them to Emery Walker’s House, a beautiful example of Arts and Crafts architecture maintained by the trust as a private museum. He also co-curated the current exhibition, Mudlarking: Unearthing London’s Past, a highlight of which is a complete alphabet of Doves Type, shown for the first time as a whole.

When the search concluded, Green and the team recovered a total of 151 sorts, or individual pieces of type, out of a possible 500,000. Green has a hunch that, deep down, Cobden-Sanderson didn’t want the type to disappear into ultimate obscurity, or he wouldn’t have detailed exactly where he had thrown it. And while the group recovered only a tiny fraction of the overall set, the find connected enthusiasts to a precise moment in history and allowed Green to further fine-tune his digitized version.

Mudlarking: Unearthing London’s Past continues through May 30.

 

Art Craft Design

Salvaged Scraps of Wood Nest Together in Richard Haining’s Elegant Curved Vessels

In the late aughts, Richard Haining began salvaging leftover wood. While working for a set design company, he realized that the sizable waste generated was also an untapped opportunity for his personal projects. “What I did not have in the way of disposable income, I did have in the way of access to tons of scrap materials,” he says. “I couldn’t afford purchasing new materials to create the ideas I had in my head, but I could take smaller scraps and use those as building blocks.”

Armed with quarter-inch hunks of plywood pulled from the dumpster, Haining realized the first vessel in his ongoing STACKED series. The Brooklyn-based artist shapes each curvy form by gluing together each rung piece by piece, which lets him adjust the wall thickness and final profile as he works. “Imagine coil pottery…or an analog version of 3-D printing,” he adds, likening the process to ceramics. Once the shape is complete, he uses an angle grinder and various hand tools—but not a lathe—to smooth the surface and allow the individual grains to shine through.

Whether a tall amphora with a skinny neck and handles or a squat, bulbous vase, the works highlight the wood’s unique textures and colors arranged in intuitively laid patterns. And, using scraps also means that Haining’s sculptures bear the marks of past wear. “Water and mineral stains, contrasting heartwood and sapwood, knots, century-old nail and beetle holes, these ‘defects’ are part of that lumber’s history, a fingerprint of time since passed,” he says.

In addition to the vessels, the STACKED series extends to furniture, lamps, chandeliers, mirrors, and other functional designs. Haining often has several projects in the works, and you can follow the latest on Instagram.