Hello all,

I have some new hand-made ceramics to show you. Recently unloaded a wood-fired kiln up in Cold Spring, NY. Did a little photo shoot last weekend and will share those images soon. Everything will be available for purchase at my ETSY store and also in person this summer at the Brooklyn Flea.

Ceramic sculptor, Tony Moore, fires his two-chambered kiln four times a year. The first chamber is called the ”Anagama” and the second the ”Noborigama.” The kiln burns 3.5 cords of wood over 4 days and takes 12 days to cool. The resulting pots are mind numbingly delicious.

In Moore’s own words:
” I wood-fire my works to give a natural wood ash patina and fire color to their forms. In orchestrating and running a kiln for a community of ceramic artists and potters there is a comaradery and exchange of information which brings a collective dynamism to the whole process. One’s labor and insights are exchanged for the good of one’s art and the kiln. ”

Shown above we see Tony Moore stoking the kiln and  the pyrometric cone packs (BEFORE and AFTER ).

Pyrometric cones are calibrated to bend then melt at different temperatures so these packs are placed throughout the kiln so Tony can carefully monitor conditions. If parts of the kiln are underfired the glazes won’t melt properly; if overtfired the glazes can run and pots can collapse. Firing a kiln correctly is an exacting art and a poetic science.

Stay tuned!
-Tonky

Well,

Twenty years later The Simpsons are still at it. I had a lot of fun watching The Treehouse of Horrors XX this Sunday. Link to thorough review.

Every skit was a hoot, but my favorite “Don’t Have a Cow Mankind” featured a tainted Krusty Burgers made from cows exclusively fed with ground beef. They show a hilarious diagram illustrating a ground up cow fed to another cow. <BARF>

So, everyone that tries the new burger turns to a zombie and what ensues is a slapstick horror film spoof. Homer becomes a zombie and craves brains but the family decides not to kill him and commands him to behave. He begrudgingly complies Homer zombie style. AHHHAHAHA

Bart eats a burger and stays human. Everyone is cured when they eat from a giant cauldron of soup “the chosen one” Bart bathes in.

I acknowledge these “screen grabs” are a little low tech. They remind of the photos a young autistic boy would bring in for developing at the photo lab I worked at in high school. Every roll contained pictures of the television screen and in most cases the show ALF.

Anyhow, I wanted to show this cool bit of text that flash for only a second before the Zombie segment.
“Don’t Have a Cow Mankind” . Seriously! Everyone just chill out.

-Tonky

My Fellow Americans ( and international friends !  )

I wanted to see our President Barack H. Obama as a marble bust in the style of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. So I created this piece of Barack Obama Art using two colors of vinyl (ice blue and black) and applied them to an easy-to-hang grey metal panel (durable powder coating). It measures 18″W  by  25″H.

I’ve decided to make this a very small edition of 20.
Priced to sell at $200. Get yours early!

-Tonky

Greetings,

Almost to the weekend my friends.

For those of you in and around NYC, I cordially invite you to pay a visit to my booth at the Brooklyn Flea’s Pop-Up-Winter-Market. The Brooklyn Flea is my old friend Eric Demby’s brain baby and he was nice enough to give a little Tonky Designs shoutout at on his Brownstore Blog HERE. There should be a bunch of other cool design wares and also a booth curated by CoolHunting.com.

I’ll have a solid selection of Tonky Wall Stickers for sale below my online prices ($2-$60), as well as Tonky Octopus T-shirts ($20) and original artworks ($25-$300)

The temperature should be up in the mid 50s and there will be yummy food a supplied by vendors at the event – so come say hello already.

I’ll be at
81 Front St, Brooklyn. See GOOGLE MAP here
March 14-15 (sat & sun), 2009 | 11AM-6PM

Take the F train to York Street -or- Take the A train to High Street
-or- better yet bike yourself there.

-Tonky