vase – Tales of Creative Compassion

Angela Mellor

I like seeing artists who take a medium and do something entirely new to it. I like that about Bestebee Romero and her carved tires, I like that about Rebeca Mojica and her chainmaille, and I like it about Angela Mellor and her work with the translucency of bone china. Mellor first caught my eye with this piece.

I love this for the elegant melding of complexity and simplicity. I love how intimate it feels, like I’m seeing through the china to a different and more beautiful identity.

However, that piece is not the greatest representation of Mellor’s work, since she works mainly with light effects through bone china, which is also amazing. Here is a piece like that.

Jim and Connie Grant

There was a period there where I was looking at a lot of vases. A lot. Of vases. I don’t know why, but the form just caught my eye and I couldn’t see enough of them. I got over this eventually, but this piece by Jim and Connie Grant just stuck with me.

I keep searching it out so I can look at it just a little longer. I love the innovation of combining blown glass with copper wire sculpture. The form of vases like this always do make me think of a woman’s naked hip, and I think the copper wire really brings that imagery out with it’s skirt or necklace-like shape. In any case, I love it, and you could love it too. All of the Grants’ work is really great, and you can check out their artwork on the Celestial Art Glass website.

Nancy Ross

I don’t care how weird I sound, this vase is sexy. That’s right, sexy. You look at it and tell me you don’t feel that in a place where you really shouldn’t feel anything while looking at a vase.

This amazing piece is from a series called “Growth” by the lovely potter, Nancy Ross. Although I immediately felt that this was a strangely sexual vase, I feel completely vindicated in my response after learning from this article by Laura Parsons that this whole series was inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. If anyone can make flowers sexy, it’s Gerogia O’Keeffe. If only because of my initial response, I believe that Ross has beautifully captured the spirit of O’Keeffe’s paintings in a completely new medium.