William Blair: Fireline, oil

More images from our exhibit of

Romulus Craft, extended to August 20:

Tree Vase, porcelain

Against far off snow mountains

Two crows are flying.

Murakami Kijo

selections from Romulus Craft

dinnerware, above & below.

We have other work available.

Please contact us for images.

U-Su bowls on rectangle plate

William Blair: Abstract Paintings & Drawings

July 13 – August 19, 2007

Iowa Artisans Gallery features abstract paintings and drawings by local artist William Blair, July 13 – August 19. Blair is an orthopedic surgeon associated with Mercy Hospital in Iowa City and has pursued an interest in painting for many years.

Influenced primarily by the Abstract Expressionist of the 1950s and by Existential philosophy, William Blair’s paintings and drawings reflect his interest in the exploration of the non-objective. Both his paintings and drawings are characterized by a constrained accidentalness and an “all-overness” of subdued, earth-toned color.  His techniques often result in random patterning, where the medium either completely fills the canvas or a defined space on the paper.

Blair states, “I think about painting and drawing every day, primarily about form and color.  There are limitless technical variations that can guide the application of paint color onto the canvas.  It can be applied as a single plane or in multiple layers.  The paint can be brushed, scraped, dropped, pushed, splattered, subtracted or transferred.  I’ve experimented with all of these methods to contort the substance of the paint on the canvas.  Applying pigments this way imposes secondary features under the surface of the paint such as line and texture.  During various stages of the painting, I use subtraction techniques to bring the paint to the surface for viewing.  The drawings are a continuation of the layering process but in reverse, using patterns of ink on paint or ink or ink.”

Romulus Craft,

ceramics by Ikuzi Teraki & Jeanne Bisson

at Iowa Artisans Gallery,

extended to August 20, 2007

Sculptural tableaus?  Haiku settings for a mindful experience of food?  An evocation of a transcendent moment in the natural world?  Ikuzi Teraki and Jeanne Bisson combine their lifelong association with Japanese ceramics with a powerful connection to nature. In these production pieces and more sculptural works, the artists reflect their twenty-eight year collaboration known as Romulus Craft.

Ikuzi Teraki grew up in Kyoto, one of Japan’s most famous pottery towns. Although he was trained in his family’s tradition of painting silk kimonos, Teraki was drawn to clay. He graduated from Kyoto Ceramic School and apprenticed for five years with Master Hisashi Tezuka in Kyoto. Studies at Banff School of Fine Art in Banff, Canada brought him to North America. In 1979, he established Romulus Craft with Jeanne Bisson in California. They relocated their studio to Washington, VT in 1986. Bisson grew up on her family’s dairy farm in Vermont. “I thought that I lived on the rim of a bowl that was full of earth,” she recounts. Her early experience manifests itself in the work of Romulus.

Bisson feels that the image in this haiku by

Murakami Kijo relates to their work and life as artists:

Against far off snow mountains

Two crows are flying.

Romulus Craft’s award winning work has exhibited widely both in the United States and Japan and has been featured in over twenty-five publications and books, including “Objects for Use/Handmade by Design,” published in 2001 by Harry Abrams Publishers. Romulus Craft also sells their production line in the most prestigious craft shows in the United States.

Iowa Artisans Gallery was established by artists in 1984 and is open daily. For more information, please contact the Gallery at 319-351-8686.

Elle, porcelain

River Rock , porcelain