On a recent visit to San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, I happened upon the most cooling, calming work of art I'd ever seen: three lit cabinets full of tiny, crashing celadon waves. We might not get a real summer here in San Francisco, but if you're suffering through a heat wave, these frozen waves are for you..
Bae Young-Whan is an artist from Seoul, and his work is currently featured in the Asian Art Museum's Phantoms Of Asia exhibit. He has a dark and peaceful little room to himself, with an artist's cabinet of waves on each of the walls, and Terra Incognita-Theta- an amazing oak mountainscape- in the center. I was ready to move into that room, it was all just so perfect.
His work also made me want to run home and start pinching little waves out of clay, but without access to a kiln, I knew I'd never have my own ocean's worth of waves. But it would be so fun to make a-wave-a-day! Any ideas on how to do something like this with minimal equipment? Or perhaps those paint-a-pot places would fire your tiny pieces for you? I think this would be especially fun to do with kids, a soothing, low-key activity to do together while you talk or don't talk.
Oh, and wouldn't Bae Young-Whan's waves go perfectly with Marianne Nielsen's mountains?
(Images: 1.-3. Tess Wilson 3. PKM Gallery)
10 No-Fail Decor Tricks & Tips for Small Spaces
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shaw's Original Fir...
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
God, these are delicious. The creamy color, the malleable look.
Yes, I thought they were a frozen treat to eat on a day like this.
Not a fan. They look like what happens when a kid or adult beginner gets a wad of soft clay -- they squish it and lumpy ridges form. If the clay was porcelain and they were fired, this is almost what you'd have. No resemblance to water in my mind. Sorry.
Beautiful. I might have to pin them.
I think I made this when I stepped on my nephews' playdoh the other day. Maybe more detail, on a larger scale would look nicer. I do like the color, but from the angle and size of the photo it just looks like little lumps of clay that were molded too thin and started to crimp over in the kiln.
It works because yes, a few would look stupid. The long, appropriately lit display case is also why it works. This is also one of those artworks where some will wrongly say 'I could do that'. Nuh uh.
Nice.
Modern art like this makes me wonder. Because if I unveiled something like this, it would go over like a lead balloon. Yet someone somewhere does it and someone else decides that it is "art." I just don't get it.