This week was an adventure, after coming home from the “Northern Clay Center” I ran into some car problems. I had come across a long wooden board on the interstate and ended up with two punctures in my tires, which resulted into two flat tires. After taking a moment, I was capable of gathering my thoughts and opinions on the “Northern Clay Center!”

The Northern Clay Center is an art gallery and store. The building is full of different types of art that are created from clay. The exhibits that were being viewed this week were Ron Meyere and Patti Warashina. Two different artists that had deep creativity; I was not familiar with these two artist until I adventured my way to “Northern Clay Center.”

As I walked into the building I was greeted by two receptionists and pointed to the correct location. Before one is capable of viewing the exhibit he or she must walk through a room that is a bit cluttered. The room is full of different types of pottery and sculptures that had been made by different artist in the location.

After I had reached the exhibit I was a little over whelmed and maybe a bit frightened. This art I was viewing was not like any other art I have seen. I was over whelmed by the different animals that Ron had painted/glazed onto his work and the three dimensional art Patti had created.

Let me just say as I walked in; I remember telling myself “I have just entered a scary movie scene.”

After standing there in aw, I decided to begin looking at all the different forms of art in this small space.

Ron and Patti’s art were very similar to all the other pieces they had created. Ron had different types of pottery made from clay that had paintings of animals on them. The animals were not soft, cuddly or even comforting but rather scary and intimidating. Not sure if you have ever seen Donny Darko but if you have Ron painted a rabbit on a lot of his works that to me reminded me of the rabbit in Donny Darko. He also used a lot of earthy tones with his works to give more of a realistic look.

My favorite work of art that he created was “10 Drawings in Charcoal,” this was 10 different drawings that he created that had been done in charcoal. The drawings were all different and represented all different things, however; they all had some type of animal painted on them to represent a similarity with each other.
My favorite picture was the last one, which had six or five different fish charcoaled onto a canvas. The fish all had different facial expressions. Ron used line and different colors to get the intensity of the picture. The intensity and lighting of the color gave each fish a different perspective. The form of the art was well balanced and referred to the space and balances each other out very well.

As for one of my least favorites of Ron’s art I would have to pick his “Oval Base,” wooden fired, earth ware, 2009. This was an oval looking bowl that had more of a water pitcher look to it. It was rough and solid, painted on the “Oval Base” was the scary rabbit. This rabbit wasn’t just any kind of rabbit. The rabbit had a mean look to his face as if he was really hungry and was very plain but yet intimidating.

With that said, if you are into freaky looking art that can give you nightmares; I strongly recommend taking a long hard look at this rabbit!

As you continue to walk you are greeted with many three dimensional sculptures done by Patty. Now Patty has had a creative background that I can to some extent relate to. She was born in a small town in Washington. This town did not have much related to art or music. More of a town of imagination, if one is to have limited imagination then he or she will result in major boredom.
In comparison I am from a small farm town of 250 people! This town has no culture and would be described as “A culture dessert,” Patty. With limited entertainment one is to create his or her own, this is where my love for art came into play!

Now back to describing Patty’s art.

Patty’s sculptures’ were very interesting! There had been approximately eight or nine different sculptures in a small area. I believe because all of these sculptures where put into a small room and so closely together it gave the room more of intimidating atmosphere.
All of her sculptures were three dimensional forms, where all the same imagine with a verity of facial expressions, seemed cold and creepy, all related with line and cubism and shared similar traits. I noticed out of all the sculptures they had shared the same colors, black, blue, white and different tones of red. With that said they also all had something going on. The space was used acutely objects were brought into the play to give the sculptures a purpose and to create more of the form. Each sculpture had something to interconnect them whether it was a ball, bird, dog, eggs and or net each piece shared something in common with the other.
I found two of Patty’s pieces to be my favorite, one being a three dimensional piece and the other being a painting.

“Not you again,” three dimensional sculpture, white ware, under glazed 2009. This work of art was a lady who is looking up at a bird that is sitting calm oh her hand. The lady has a content look in her eyes but yet seems a little agitated with her body posture. She is sitting down with one leg on top of the other with one arm down and the other up. The form of this object is extraordinary. The colors that were used were different tones of pink, black and white. The black was used as a base and the other colors were used in a cubic form.

Patty used lines to create the cube look and shape to enclose the space. The colors were used for intensity and texture. This piece was very creative and hard not to look at, gave me a since of emptiness and calmness at the same time.

After viewing her sculptures I was lead into her paintings. I found that her paintings also shared the same character that her sculptures did. Looking at the paintings for an amount of time I was finding myself constantly viewing “Eye of the Storm,” dypoint with stencils, 2007. This piece was a painting that used two colors red and black.

Black was an outline that created the ships that seem to be in a sea battling each other. The red was used for destruction such as fire. What I found very unique with the art was in front of the ships was an outlined girl! This girl was printed in red, had no detail and no texture to it but resulted into a very bold image.

I would define this type of gallery being creepy! If you are looking for something out of the ordinary and unique I highly encourage you to view this gallery not to mention it also contained the “College Bowl.”

The College Bowl is an exhibit that contains different clay images that were created from students in the Minnesota colleges. The work of art that some people come up with and the creativity one persons mind can have will sometime mind boggle an individual.

This galley had some incredible art that was very defined and detailed. I found many pieces here to be very unique but since I do not have all day to go over them I am only going to share two with you! If you would like to view these pieces on your own, please do! The exhibit is free as well as free parking it will only take a few minutes of your day depending how much time you want to spend looking at a piece.

Matthew Bright, MSU Mankato, 2009 Blue Sculpture with Orange, upright made from earth ware. I believe I may have liked this work of art more so because it was from Mankato, MN. I transferred here to St.Paul, MN from MSU, Mankato! I found it very cool to see someone’s art that traveled from where I once was to where I am now!

Matthew’s art was an oddly shaped sculpture. Painted with orange and blue, the blue was the under painting and covered the whole sculpture with orange painted marks that repeated itself throughout the sculpture. On the right hand side it seemed to have an orange light switched painted onto it. I had never witnessed anything like this and I found it kind of cool!

The second piece of art that fell madly in love with was Gary Erickson’s piece. Negative Space Gingko in Red, white earth ware 2009. This was a glazed print that reminded me of stain glass. It was a flower. In the center was a sold yellow flower that seemed to be shaped through leaf like images. In the center of this flower was a black middle that was surrounded by smaller flowers to create the texture and to take up space. Around the whole flower it was smaller yellow and red flowers. This piece was beautiful!

As I have said before you need to visit this place. I am sure everyone has free time on their hands! Art is a way to get involved with different cultures and your own mind. It will help you become more understanding to cultures and more open minded to other people’s different views and ideas!