From February 13 to 18, 2012, Honolulu will host over thirty artists from around the world. Opening and closing events will be held at Loft in Space, with the production of art being done all over the streets of Kaka’ako. During Pow Wow, the community is encouraged to interact with visiting artists in a creative environment.

POW WOW IS A GATHERING OF CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS THAT ENGAGES WITH THE BROADER COMMUNITY IN THE PROCESS AND CREATION OF ART.

From February 13 to 18, 2012, Honolulu will host over thirty artists from around the world. Opening and closing events will be held at Loft in Space, with the production of art being done all over the streets of Kaka’ako. During Pow Wow, the community is encouraged to interact with visiting artists in a creative environment.

I am honored and excited to be participating in this amazing event, with amazing artists, organizers and sponsors.  I will be working, live, on a 300 lb sculpture, which will exist only for the week of Pow Wow.

posted 9 days ago by Kim Ronemus

Recently I ventured down to Jones Street (in Greenwich Village) to tour through Greenwich House. The director, Adam Welch, met us inside the brick building that immediately made me want to throw on my third grade smock and get creative. He gave us the history of the institution he now directs and, where he still clearly has his fingers in a lot of pots. Even while “on tour”, Adam was plastered with questions from students in every studio, seeking to gain insight from his vast knowledge on clay and its properties.

Greenwich House is the result of the settlement house “movement” popular at the turn of the century to provide a sort of community center in poorer (mostly immigrant) neighborhoods in Manhattan. Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch founded Greenwich House in 1902 upon her return from studying in Berlin. Simkhovitch was known as a social reformer of her day, championing women’s suffrage as well as being a member of the Women’s Trade Union League. Greenwich House thrived in the early 1900’s as an active woodworking school, a music school, and hosting theater and pottery workshops. Today Greenwich House remains a proud sponsor of the free expression of art in the community and can boast an impressive list of artists who have passed through its doors including Jackson Pollack, who, according to Welch, dabbled in pottery for a summer before he began famously dribbling with a paint brush.

A wall of lockers greets you as you enter Greenwich House

And there’s a wall of glaze and all the possible variations

The potters’ “guild”… a gritty, glorious contrast to the ladies who lunch

Fantastic studio space

I stalked this woman because she looked so interesting and I loved her outfit…here she is rolling out her clay on the third floor studio

We continued our tour of Greenwich House…I like this setup with the wheel and the tractor seat

I turned the corner and …wait! How did she beat us down to the first floor? Now she’s painting one of her pieces to get it ready for the kiln. She asked me what the pictures were for. I told her The New York Times. She laughed and went back to her painting, “I’ve already been in The New York Times“, she said

One of the kilns filled with finished work

Loved these guys

This is the where they actually “make” the clay. And, I learned, not only are there corridors full of glaze possibilities, there are a lot of varieties of clay which all react differently to heat.

Tools of the trade

Examples of the work done at Greenwich House when it was a woodworking shop in the early 1900’s

An installation in Greenwich House’s gallery space by artist Michael Fujita

A close-up of his work

And another…. incredible amount of detail to his work

Our tour took us to the basement of Greenwich House where we met Derek Weisberg, a Bay Area native, and one of the House’s new Studio Technicians

A finished Weisberg

Derek’s inspiration board

Here’s a shot of another Studio Technician’s desk …clearly he needs a course in anger management… actually Adam told us that he was preparing for a mosaic workshop

I spotted these tiles and thought, “I would really like to do this”… I asked Adam what the process was.. I think he said you xerox an image onto the clay.. and then I remembered, I’d have to pick the right variety of clay and then choose the glaze and the temperature, etc. … I left with a huge appreciation for Adam Welch and the artists at Greenwich House

Original content on Kims Blog: http://kimronemusdesign.com/blog/fired-up

Derek Weisberg’s NYC studio

January 30, 2012 in ARTIST STUDIO VISITS

A lot of my community efforts in the Oakland scene were inspired by this guy – artist Derek Weisberg. As cofounder of Boontling (one of the original Art Murmur galleries), Derek – then 21, now 27 – imagined a hang out spot and a network of creative types in an atmosphere that was casual and the opposite of what most people think of as the snooty gallery scene. It worked, it caught fire, the rest is history. Derek moved to New York last year and we miss him a lot. For those who know and love his sculpture, rest assured that he pushes on with his stylized figuratism, pushing his unique emotional renderings in a new yet strikingly consistent direction. I visited him and snapped a few pics of his new work, here displayed with discreet permission, he likes to play it close to the hip.

http://oaklandsweetart.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/derek-weisbergs-nyc-studio/