Pictures about TIME, Lars Erik Holm

Lars Erik Holm is a Swedish artist using overglazed technique during Pişmiş symposium. Clean but not too clean, simple and colourful are his works. He is impressed by the idea of TIME in our life and creating art means for him connection similar to love!

How would you describe your art in general?

I make a lot of pictures about TIME. The history of people is the history of time. If we don`t have any relation to the time, we will always do the same mistakes. I`m interested in history as a knowledge of human being. Also, this fact that you are living and you are slowly approaching death is very impressive.

How can you capture this idea into art?

The general interest in time appears in my art. However, my art is very much just about doing. I paint, and I can`t really explain why I am doing that. I can do something that is very beautiful and then I have to destroy it!

Why?

I don`t know. It didn`t fit for me at the moment. And then I look at something that is very ugly and think, this is OK! There is something behind you that makes this decision. Sometimes you don`t understand what it`s telling you. It is just like havig a connection! My pictures are connected to place, which is some kind of city. There is a city which you will never see but you walk in it every day. Living on different levels.

Do you feel more connected when you create art?

Yes, It is like these images come from somewhere. This thing about art, why you do it, where these pictures come from, this is really strange! I have this strong feeling that I have a conntact with something. I wouldnt say God or something like that, but some sort of a place, some piece of consciousness that is helping me and telling me these things. You just need to be pure,  open-minded. Then you can get contact. But sometimes you don`t get contact and then you get very sorry. It is like talking to somebody you love, and she doesn`t listen! Is is the same with love. It is an act of love. If it works, it is fantastic! If not, it is sad, but you know, tomorrow it will be better!

When did you start with your art?

I think it was from childhood. I did not know how to draw or paint when I was a kid. My grandfather was not really artist but he was painting walls for rich families, entrances. But he had very good colours and I got them when he died. I did my first oil painting when I was five. I planned to be an architect, but I ended up being artist. It was not planned, just happened. Like most of the things in life.

When did you realize that you want to do art for living?

The first time I said these words I was 19 or 20. I was going to my first art school after high school and military. I had the exhibition at the end of art school. One journalist asked me, back then, if I could think of being artist as a profession, and I said, yes, this is my plan. When I said it, I realised that this is my dream! Sometimes it is like you dont choose your destiny, the destiny chooses you. You have a free will that gives you some opportunities and if you open your mind everything will be good. You can just follow the stream.

What are you working on in the symposium?

I want to work quite colourful and simple. I want it clean but not too clean. I am using aready-made tiles, like you use for bathrooms. We work with overglaze porcelain colour and screen printing. I have several friends, artists, at home that dont think of this as a real ceramics.

How does your art disinguish from other artists?

Normally, I work a lot in this enamel technique and it is not that common. I like to experiment as well, but I can`t do it here in symposium. Im just an ordinary hard working artist! There are thousands of hardworking artists all over the world, we are like an army!

How do you like the symposium so far?

I like it very much. It is interesting with so many people. There are people everywhere, so much to do, and it`s a kind of meeting at the same time. It is very well organized, interesting mess! You learn a lot from other artists and students.

You travel a lot, do you like Turkey?

Turkey is one of my favourite countries. I have a dream that later on I will buy a house in some warm place. Sweden is a nice country but winter is too long. In february you hate this country. My dream is being half a year in Sweden and half a year maybe in Turkey.

Do you have some other dreams?

I don`t have so many dreams. This sounds maybe terrible but I think life is really ok. I take every day as it is. Maybe I have some personal dreams but I am quite satisfied! I can feel sorry for my students while Im working as a teacher. When you are 23, 24, 25 you have to make all the important decisions. Should I stay with this girl or a boy for the rest of my life, get children, a job, an education. All these big decisions you have to make at one point of your life and this is really terrible thing! They can give you a lot of headache. I dont have this problem! My children can handle themselves, I am free man to do whatever I want. I think life is wonderful!

Visit Lars here

Give Wali Hawes a Hand!

Wali Hawes is an Indian artist living in London. He has had many exhibitions and has received various awards all round the world. He is bringing you the concept of “hands”.  His art is open to children, students and visitors  that are welcomed to try his terracotta art themselves.

How did you start art?

I used to live near Stoke-on-Trent which is known as a center of ceramic production and I was studying Ceramics Studies at Braintree College, England. I became interested in this kind of art about 30 years ago quite by accident. I was living in the ceramic center, and I bought clay to make presents for Christmas. The people liked what I made, so from that moment I decided to study ceramics at university .Afterwards I began in my own studio. In 1991 I moved to Barcelona and after 10 more years I moved to Japan. In 2009, I moved back to Spain and then I returned to the UK in 2011.

What is your artwork concept for this symposium?

The concept that I use is the “hand”. The hand is a universal symbol, finding something that everybody in the world can understand is very important. The hand is a Symbol of peace, that’s why in England we shake hands. We are saying that we don’t have any weapons. If you are in pain - what is the first thing you do? Your hand will touch it, and I believe that there is something very very important about this. The hand is a symbol of love, passion, and friendship.

Do you have any special plans for this symposium?

This work that I lead here, it is not my work but collective work with kids and students. I just want to bring it together and share the experience with each other. And I don’t want to put all of this stuff in a special place. I want to share them at public places, for example at a bus stop, and it will be nice if everybody who makes the sculpture can recognize theirs and feel proud of themselves.

Have you ever had anyone tell you that you can’t do it? That you can’t be successful?

A lot of time, for example when I make “Horno Volador” that’s Spanish for “Flying Kiln”. (You can search on youtube for what “Horno Volador” is.) You don’t know how many times people who have no idea and no experience are telling me that it’s dangerous! I’ve had firemen join me and if they’re doing that… but then some bureaucrats bring out their papers and say it’s too dangerous! I have this all the time, health and safety issues, it’s rubbish!

Visit him on: www.walihaves.com , frameworks@aol.es

Playful Rodney Harris

Rodney Harris is an English artist who works mainly on site specific Public Artwork. In particular, he explores the relationships between people, places, ideas and aspirations.

Could you introduce your artwork, what’s the idea behind it?

What it is, it’s a brick relief, it’s a low relief sculpture of an armchair and some wall paper, so it’s like the inside of a building but you know, because it’s made in bricks it’s gonna go outside.

So is it going to be displayed in a park or something?

Yeah, hopefully it’s going to be in the  Municipality  Headquarters, here in the town. So it will just go up against a wall, so it’s almost like a kind of illusion of light of an interior.

What inspires you to make this kind of art?

Urm, well I’m playing with bricks really, you know, it’s as simple as that. Bricks are a building material and its flat and so really I’m just playing with it. Where I’m from, I’m from Bristol and there’s a lot of clay in Bristol. When I was a student I wanted my work to have some kind of social role, not just like having it sitting on a shelf or in a gallery, I wanted it to be in society. I was introduced to brick clay because it’s so common locally and the way that children, when they go to the beach, play with sand – really I’m just playing with the clay that’s beneath the ground where I live and like here, there’s a lot of clay so it seems like the most - like somebody that lives in the woods makes things out of wood.

So are you enjoying the symposium?

Yeah, I mean because it’s the first day I’m sort of reserving judgement. You never really know until a few days have gone but there are lots of students and everyone seems happy to be working. They’re doing what I ask them to do and I’m happy because I’ve got a nice apartment, I’ve been given an apartment for two weeks, I’m getting paid and I got a free flight, I’m getting good dinner, I mean, I’ve gotta be happy, haven’t I?

Haha yes, do you think these events are useful for other artists?

 Maybe, I think it’s probably more useful for the students actually because the artists that are here are most likely demonstrating skills not really breaking new ground – you do that in your own studio when you’re on your own and you’ve got time. The thing about Symposiums is that you don’t really have any time, especially a terracotta symposium where you have to make something within a week so that there’s time for it to be dried and then fired and built so I don’t think it makes any difference to other artists, actually.

So what’s it like working with the students?

It’s good, yeah, I mean I don’t speak any Turkish but fortunately some people do speak English so yeah it’s good. I mean it’s very different here then it is in England because there are very few ceramic students in England now, so all the ceramic courses have shut and it’s kind of quiet, it’s not very vocational working in ceramics.

Last question, what are your plans for the future?

I’m going to build a building. I currently work in a studio building, with other artists and my plan is to use my skills to make a building but a building as a piece of sculpture so it will be like I am playing with a building. So that’s my plan for the future, to sell my house and to make a building which is a piece of sculpture in itself even though I can then work in it. It will be a functional building but it will be sort of a feature. And I don’t know, maybe other people can come and work there but I don’t know.

For more information on Rodney Harris go here

Or here

Intervıew wıth Mariann Bán

Marıann Báns work is based on functionality and small art craft products.  From whistles to urnes. She gets easily bored by mass production and is not used to crowds or big audience.  Marann Bán is a Hungarian artist leading The Sound of Clay Workshop in Budapest.  You can fınd her durıng next two weeks in Eskisehir!

What led you to Start with art?

When you are young, you want to run away very much from family background. Art was one way to do that. My father just asked me: can you make a living out of it, and I said, I think so! But there is no artistic background in my family. Only my husband comes from a very artistic family but I only met him afterwards.

Did you start straight away with ceramics?

I actually started in puppet theatre, long time ago.  And then I started with ceramics. Imagine I stick with it. I am so boring!

Not at all, you are professional now! How does your art distinguish from other artists?

I always try to stick to functional things. My art has to do something! Like containers, whistles, musical instruments, rattles,  birdfeeders.  I make small scaled works, I have never tried big sculptures. The touch and a personnal contact with the art piece is very important for me.

What are you going to create during the Symposium?
I am going to create these mesopotamian tablets. I will put quotations of George Orwell from the 1984 book, which ıs very ımportant to me. I dont want to go deep into it, but in Hungary the recent situation is just like it. And it is the second time in my life that Orwell becomes true. Orwell is like a prophecy. It was the number one reason why İ learnt english - the book was forbidden in Hungary (*during communism). It is not the solution for the country if people run away.

How do you like symposium so far?

It is very very nice. I had a few students from Turkey, from Ankara. I was even invated there last year. It is always very pleasant memories.

Pdf magazine version

Visit Mariann on her blog here or get her book!

 

The Opening Ceremony

The 6th Internationsl Eskişehir Terracotta Symposium was officially open on the 10th of  September  2012 at 18:00 by Eskişehir's City Major; Ahmat Ataç. We heard a speech from the major, as well as several artists and our EVS spokes person, Francesca. Hundreds of people attended and a concert by local musicians playing traditional Turkish music followed the official beginning. Organisers, artists and volunteers were also hosted at a cocktail party with buffet of tasty Turkish food.

The symposium will last untill the 23rd of September 2012.

For the true experience of the intercultural art event full of terracotta workshops, visit us at the former factory in Eskışehır! Also, for more up to date information, like us on Facebook

Calls of the Mosque in Eskişehir

Five times a day a mosque calls for prayers. Eskişehirs everyday life cycle is enchanting!

Gül!