“Clown verdoyant” (2023). All images © Kaori Kurihara, shared with permission
Elegant petals, scalloped fans, and seed-like textures coat the Kaori Kurihara’s whimsical ceramic sculptures (previously). She incorporates delicate botanical details with eccentric forms, melding realism with fiction. “I try to associate imaginary plants with a more realistic feeling, so I observe more consciously the environment in which they grow,” Kurihara tells Colossal. She also grows different types of plants from seed in order to observe and record details as they grow. “The aim is to create something that looks more alive and closer to life,” she adds.
Kurihara’s work is featured in the forthcoming book Ceramic Artists on Creative Processes, scheduled for release in February from Prestel. Pre-order your copy on Bookshop, and explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
Detail of “Clown verdoyant”
“Collectionneur de silence” (2023)
“En réponse au claire de lune” (2023)
Detail of “En réponse au claire de lune”
“Hug Me Quick” (2023)
Left: Detail of “Collectionneur de silence.” Right: Detail of “Hug Me Quick”
“Danseuse de boîte à musique” (2023)
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Otherworldly Plants Sprout Colorful Stems and Blooms in Kaori Kurihara’s Incredibly Detailed Ceramics appeared first on Colossal.
This article was previously published and is being featured as one of many of our top stories for 2023.
By Agrippina Fadel
Capturing a bird in flight or a predator on the hunt are some of the hardest feats in wildlife photography, yet Parkland photographer Lee Sussman loves those shots the most.
A Parkland Golf and Country Club resident for the past 11 years, Lee grew up in New Jersey and moved to Florida 40 years ago. A former financial advisor, he is now retired, giving him more time to enjoy South Florida nature.
While photography is a relatively new hobby for him, his stunning shots of Florida birds are already winning contests, being recognized by top wildlife photography publications, and even being featured in British newspapers The Sun and The Daily Star.
Lee’s photo of a Red-Tailed Hawk he took in Colorado last spring recently made the front cover of the Highlander magazine, and two of his shots won the Audubon “Florida’s Natural Beauty” photo contest this year. A shot of an Osprey with a fish in its talons took first place, and the photo of three green herons came second.
“It is nice to be recognized,” said Lee. “I see how my work has progressed in the past years, and seeing it in magazines is very cool.”
Photography caught his attention in seventh grade, but he didn’t pursue it seriously until his wife Linda gave him a good camera a few years back.
Lee’s friend, Jim Donnelly, a fellow writer at Talk Media, “showed him the ropes” and taught him how to use the camera and what to look for when taking photos.
He uses both the Canon R6 and the Canon R7 for his photography shoots.
Lee’s subjects are mostly colorful birds and creatures: from songbirds and ibises to alligators and river otters. “I just love the wildlife and the outdoors. I do landscapes too. My wife says I do lousy people, so I got to stick to the animals.” he laughed.
During the winter, Lee photographs wildlife in and around Parkland and often ventures out to Green Cay Wetlands, Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, and Peaceful Waters Sanctuary. Some days, birds come to him: Lee has a bird feeder in the backyard.
The couple, who also own a home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, spends a few months out of a year there, where Lee photographs different animals and birds. Bears and bald eagles soaring over the snow are regulars in his reel.
Still, Lee says Florida is one of the best places in the country to observe and photograph birds. The climate that allows the residents to enjoy the outdoors all year round, the incredible variety of native species, and all the migrating birds create a perfect environment for a curious and patient photographer.
“I love watching the birds and animals in nature. But it is a challenge, too. A lot of the pictures I take are not easy to get. Getting a bird perched on a tree is easy. Catching them in flight, attacking, or eating something is more difficult, and that is what I like most,” Lee said.
A few action shots show native birds as they hunt, which he is particularly proud of. Some examples include a hawk with a snake in its mouth, another, a hawk flying with a rabbit in its talons, and the recent shot of an egret struggling with a field mouse.
“A lot of it is luck and timing and being in the right place at the right moment,” Lee said.
Sometimes he captures animals in a funny or cute moment. His photo of two chipmunks shot in Colorado last summer, where one has its paw on the other’s head, makes it look like a chipmunk is “blessing” his friend. While photographing a bear trying to get into a garbage can, Lee realized the angle made it look like it was taking out the trash – hence another funny shot.
Lee hopes his photos of local wildlife can help bring nature closer to Parkland residents.
“People always ask me, “Where did you take this picture?” There are so many places in Parkland and around South Florida in a hundred-mile area that have amazing natural habitats,” he said.
Lee enjoys sharing the beauty of nature with others through his photographs.
“A lot of people don’t know about Green Cay or Loxahatchee, where you can see the birds and other wildlife. I like showing people what’s going on in nature around us that might be unseen to them otherwise,” he added.
When asked what the future holds, Lee said he will keep learning and improving his technique, always chasing that perfect shot. He is also working on a professional website.
After taking photos of most of the native wildlife in the area, Lee hopes one day to capture the elusive Florida panther. A huge fan of the Florida Panthers NHL team, that accomplishment would mean a lot to him for more reasons than one.
Send your news to Parkland’s #1 Award-Winning News Source, Parkland Talk. Don’t miss reading Tamarac Talk, Coral Springs Talk, Coconut Creek Talk, and Margate Talk.
How iOS Tools are Redefining iPhone Photography
Apple’s smartphones have continued to revolutionize the world of mobile photography, offering a plethora of camera features and tools. From Portrait Mode to Photographic Styles, the tech giant’s iPhones provide users with a variety of options to capture their perfect shot. However, it’s not just the headline features that are enhancing iPhone photography. There are several other tools and settings embedded in iOS that can significantly improve the composition of your photos.
One of the key tools at your disposal is the Grid tool. Designed to aid in composing shots, this tool applies the rule of thirds by dividing the photo frame into nine equal parts. This composition technique helps guide the viewer’s eye to the most significant elements of a photo, improving the overall aesthetic quality of your shots.
Another tool that iOS offers is the camera level. This tool allows users to capture balanced shots from above or below, eliminating the need for tripods or mounts. Apple separated this tool from the Grid overlay in iOS 17, and it now includes an additional horizontal level for straight-on photos. This ensures your photos are always perfectly balanced, regardless of your shooting angle.
Burst Mode is another feature available for iPhone users. Ideal for capturing action scenes or unexpected events, this mode allows for multiple photos to be taken in rapid succession. This ensures you never miss a crucial moment, providing you with a series of photos to choose your perfect shot from.
For those who love taking selfies, the iPhone’s Camera app has a unique feature. By default, selfies taken with the app automatically flip the image. However, users have the option to modify this behavior, allowing them to capture mirrored selfies instead. Furthermore, for iPhone 11 and later models, there’s the View Outside the Frame setting. This feature reveals what’s outside the photo’s frame when using the wide or telephoto lens. It allows for better alignment of photos and videos, ensuring you capture everything you intend to.
A few months ago, the esteemed German photo printing company WhiteWall introduced new black-and-white specific products into its expansive catalog. I recently tried some of the products with my images and am extremely impressed by the company’s craftsmanship.
Color photography is fantastic, and I do a lot of work in color and have made many color prints using my printers and with the services of local and international printing labs, including WhiteWall. But I love black and white photography, and it has always been my preferred way to capture and edit images.
Back in my days as Reviews Editor at Imaging Resource, I worked with WhiteWall products for multiple reviews, including creating a direct print on wood which I have hanging in my office still, and creating my very own photography book. Sadly, my fellow Americans can no longer order a book through WhiteWall, although the product is still on offer for Europeans.
PetaPixel editor-in-chief Jaron Schneider also reviewed a WhiteWall product back in his Imaging Resource days, too, and the beautiful print he ordered has long been a staple in his office, having made frequent appearances in the early episodes of the PetaPixel Podcast. Blair Bunting, friend of PetaPixel and the photographer behind the incredible photoshoot at the edge of space, recently made a giant 94-inch print with WhiteWall.
All that is to say that I’m no stranger to WhiteWall, and neither are my fellow photographers at PetaPixel and beyond. I have seen what the company can do and know first-hand how great its work is. However, even with years of positive experiences under my belt, when I opened my latest WhiteWall print, a black and white print on the company’s new, specially crafted Ilford baryta paper, I was truly blown away.
There is no way for me to truly show the quality of a print in a written review published online. A digital photo of a print will always miss something important. Much like advertising the latest television on a commercial you see on an old TV, a picture of a print is a substandard facsimile for seeing the print in person. That aside, I’m in love with this print.
I’m undoubtedly biased. After all, I chose to print an image that I really like. But because I care about this photo, I’m probably a harsher critic. I’ve printed this photo on multiple papers using various printers, and I’ve never been wholly satisfied with how it came out. I’ve tossed a couple of my worst attempts straight in the trash.
When WhiteWall told PetaPixel about its new paper and promised that it would deliver “strong contrasts” and had a new photo paper crafted exclusively for black and white photography, the gears in my head started turning. Could I finally bring this tricky monochrome landscape shot to life in a way that made me proud to hang it on my wall?
Nobody can explain the printing process better than WhiteWall itself:
The special developing process at the WhiteWall photo lab turns your artistic black-and-white photographs into high-end baryta prints. First, the cutting-edge laser exposes your image onto the photo paper. This is followed by traditional silver halide developing, fixing, and washing. Although the final wet phase precludes millimeter-exact formats, the baryta paper offers so much more: a highly-sensitive panchromatic emulsion, which enhances the picture quality of black-and-white photos to the highest degree — even when they originate from digital image files, meaning you can benefit from the latest photo editing options! At the end of the development process, the chemicals are washed for a particularly long time.
The way it was described to me over Zoom was basically like the laser — or LightJet — printer exposes the photographic paper. It’s almost like my photo, or anyone else’s image, for that matter, is exposed again, but this time on paper instead of an image sensor.
All these fancy terms and sophisticated processes result in gorgeous, beautiful print quality. Having made many inkjet prints over the years, something looks noticeably different about a LightJet print.
WhiteWall has also added some other new black-and-white specific products to its repertoire, including bringing UltraHD sharpening to monochrome printing processes. This digital sharpening can bring out a bit of extra detail in images while not adding much by way of visible noise. In some cases, it’s a great option. In other instances, photos may not need the additional sharpening.
At this point, a person could reasonably ask, “Why should I even print my photos anyway? I’ve got a website and an Instagram profile. That’s the best way to view my work.” And to a certain extent, there is something nice about viewing photos on big, bright, vivid displays.
There’s also something different about a print by how it is illuminated. When viewing a photo on a screen, it is illuminated from behind. A print, on the other hand, is illuminated indirectly from the front. This may seem like a slight difference, although anyone who has tried to dial in the perfect print using their computer display to softproof knows all too well how different it is to view a photo on display versus a print.
Beyond that, there is something special about having a real print in your hands. Touching your work is different than just looking at it on a computer or phone.
In the case of this image, I feel happy whenever I look at it. If it was tucked away on a hard drive or in a Lightroom catalog, I’d only see it on occasion, and I’d never have cause to really look at it. Viewing this print, or any other, remind me of the experience of capturing the photo. While I do enjoy the resulting images and am sometimes really happy with how a photograph came together, what matters most to me is the process. It is what I most fondly remember.
For this photo, when I look at the print, I recall a really pleasant morning of landscape photography in Stonington, Maine, with my dad in nearly-perfect winter conditions that are exceptionally rare along the rugged Maine coast. It’s a memory I’m very glad to remember each day when I see the print.
For any photographer who has yet to print their work, I highly recommend it. It is fun and extremely satisfying. And if you’ve got black-and-white photos to print, WhiteWall is an excellent place to go. The company genuinely respects black-and-white photography, and its extremely impressive monochrome-oriented offerings reflect that.
Porsche’s rich legacy of automobile design conspired with premium paint and wallcoverings brand Backdrop in a limited-edition palette of jewel-toned hues that paid homage to the iconic sports cars on their 75th anniversary. The partnership brought Porsche’s historic palette, by way of Backdrop formulations, into the realm of home interiors for the first time allowing enthusiasts to infuse their living spaces with vibrancy and spirit.
SCP presented an exhibition of new, large-scale ceramic works by Dutch designer Floris Wubben during this year’s London Craft Week to showcase a series that fuses function with sculpture. His work, often inspired by nature, is made using bespoke, low-tech machines forged from proprietary designs. Thanks to these innovations, he’s been able to stretch his abilities and talent further to expand his collection into the realms of lighting, mirrors, and furniture. It was the perfect partnership between a producer and dealer of high-quality contemporary furnishings with an innovative creator.
Amazon’s new Midtown Manhattan office – nicknamed Hank – occupied the defunct Lord & Taylor building following a years-long renovation and restoration after being designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee in 2007. That history was an impetus for Amazon’s “Project Hank” to honor its roots while providing a comfortable, collaborative workspace for its more than 2,000 employees. The brand commissioned art consulting firm IndieWalls and two talented local textile artisans – William Storms and Brit Kleinman – to create larger-than-life art installations that became focal pieces within the refreshed space.
Working within the “Colour Vibes” theme, Tekla Evelina Severin transformed a 250-square-meter (almost 2,700 square feet) empty space for the FORMEX interior fair. The project parameters included exhibition design, curation, and styling a series of rooms. Taking cues from a labyrinth, hide-and-seek, and the Rubik’s cube, Dimensions of Colour composes multiple spaces in zigzag formation to facilitate changes in perspective according to view. New framed vignettes appear, as do ever-changing color palettes, making the space feel like it’s volleying between the natural and surreal.
Embrace the passage of time and jump into 2024 with a calendar that sparks joy. It’s never too late to invest in good design so take a look at 20 modern calendars that will help kick 2024 with some graphic flare.
Pittsburgh-based spatial artist and designer Brian Peters investigated the overlapping realms of art, architecture, and fabrication in his Dyadic Series, a collection of limited-edition 3D-printed ceramic sculptures that are demonstrative of being woven without the hallmarks typical of additive printing. This multidisciplinary approach exercises an ethos that believes the future art of making is an integration of digital coding that can help articulate artisan craft distilled through contemporary aesthetics.
Until recently, textiles have been overlooked as a serious medium or material of expression and relegated to craft. Movements like feminism and postmodernism have been slowly moving the needle leading up to current experimentation. Sheila Hicks and Tanya Aguiñiga’s immersive installations continue that shift, contextualizing their work as contemporary fine art. Threadwork: Women Redefining Fiber Arts includes 17 female-identifying textile artists for a collective body of work that includes mixed media tapestries, handwoven art objects, and tactile wall hangings.
What could only be described as the graphic artists new year, Pantone announced Peach Fuzz as Color of the Year 2024 with calendars coming to a close. This global authority determined that the warm and welcoming, velvety shade somewhere between pink and orange will provide some much needed respite from the din of 2023.
Artist Daniel Arsham subverts the mundane to make unsuspecting objects the subject of his artwork. Ashram’s affinity for the Porsche 930 Turbo made him an ideal collaborator for Mattel’s Hot Wheels Future Legends collectibles where the duo launched a capsule collection typical of his dilapidated, white sculptural aesthetic.
Legendary design brand Herman Miller opened up their vault to reissue some of their most iconic archival prints having given design enthusiasts access to eight archival originals by Alexander Girard. Releases included some of his more recognizable designs, like Bouquet, Palace, Double Heart, and Eyes.
Check out the rest of Design Milk’s end of the year coverage here!
Lance Cardinal is a First Nations, 2-Spirit artist, designer, and television personality from the Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 territory. He’s known for his work on the new Indigenous jersey logo for the Edmonton Oilers hockey team.
Lance says he started making miniatures as a child, ” I remember constructing a working replica of a midway I love to go to in the summertime out of construction paper, glue and tape. I was just six years old and this was one of the only ways I could escape from my troubled and sometimes traumatizing childhood into a world of magic, imagination, and fun.”
Although Lance moved to Vancouver in his 20s to work as a set designer, he later returned home to his reserve near Edmonton to teach kids art. He considers his APTN children’s art show, Indigenous Art Adventures somewhat of an Indigenous Mr. Rogers, complete with puppets. “I love creating work that allows people to also feel good times, positivity, magic.”
He often focuses on TV or movie sets or pop culture references. He’s most proud of a replica house he made of the 2017 movie IT.
For Season 3 of Best in Miniature, he wanted to design an Indigenous tipi. “I approach my work with a cultural lens, celebrating First Nations, Métis and Inuit culture within my design choices,” he says, “my rooms tell a story visually, they create a mood and atmosphere as if I was creating a set for a stage or film. I try to use a lot of natural materials from Mother Earth, and I use my Cree ideals in decision-making as well.”
Watch the video above to take a look inside.
“I am here to represent my people, to show that Indigenous people can be successful, we can be creative, and we can be winners, not in spite of who we are, but because of it.”
Watch Best in Miniature on CBC Gem.
