SEDUCED BY CERAMICS

Charles Krafft, American Artist from Seattle, has used the techniques of the Delft ceramics masters to create stunning porcelain artwork of switchblades, skateboards, and assault rifles. His disasterware series is beautiful fine china commemorating disasters such as the Hindenburg explosion, the sinking of the Andrea Doria, and the bombing of Dresden.


Perhaps his most controversial work involves "Spone," or human bone china--granulated calcified human "cremains" commonly known as mortuary ash -- added to a porcelain "slip" and used in a variety of funerary and commemorative art.

"I've always found the lowbrow fringe of contemporary pop culture infinitely more fertile than the highfalutin academic mainstream -- I prefer the company of criminals, undertakers and blue-haired ladies." - Charles Krafft

An interview in Salon.com can be found here.

MUSEUM DIRECTOR DIES IN SEATTLE JAIL

Strange story. Roxanna Brown, director of the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum at Bangkok University in Thailand, was scheduled to speak in a symposium at the Univeristy of Washington. She was arrested in Seattle on wire-fraud charges for jacking up prices of Asian antiquities. While in police custody, she complained of stomach problems, but no medical help was available. She died in jail at about 2:30 Wednesday morning.
I'm sure we'll learn more about this strange tale. It sounds like a bad movie-of-the-week, and I bet people are scrambling for the rights.

ART a GO GO

Some people can't get enough "art talk." Others would rather do anything else -- including make art. Either way, here's the folks at Art a Go Go chatting about the Seattle Art Museum, Banksy, and a Francis Bacon painting in the trash that sold for almost £1m.
Art a Go Go: