Annette Bellamy had another brilliant show in November. This one was at SLAM, the fine, new Alaska State Library Archive and Museum in Juneau.  The show continues through December.  There are many pieces to admire, but her three big assemblages are both the most dramatic and the most remarkable in concept, design, and execution.  

The centerpiece is Moving Mountains, a suspended collection of pottery rocks hanging from nylon leader, twisting and moving a little in the museum's air currents.   It is tall and wide (12 by 10 feet), and the very solid-appearing rocks collectively occupy a lot of space.  But that is also a key to the assembled group: there is also a lot of space between and enclosed by the rocks.  They are like celestial bodies, as if asteroids were smooth; they are nearly planet-like.   They are finely crafted and finely realized individually and collectively.  

It is easy to underestimate the size of the two biggest pieces. The fish-ski "quilt" is probably 10 feet tall; the highest rocks in Moving Mountains installation is about 11 feet off the floor.

Totally different is The Sea Within Us "quilt" (to the untrained eye, it looks like a quilt from a distance) of fish-skin sewn together.  Different media, different shape (and even different dimensionally, since it is ostensibly two-dimensional, rather than the three dimensions of Moving Mountains).  It is both sculptural and evocative, with individual skins pieced and stitched together and then arranged to form the egg-shaped oval "quilt."  It is big, 10 feet tall, and photographs don't convey its scale.  The skins aren't completely flat; they seem both as firm as pottery fired in the kiln and as fluid as fish.

Completely different again is the pottery assemblage Chords, consisting of three tall columns assembled from raku-fired clay curved rectangular plates.  Collectively organic in appearance at a distance (like a dreamy vision of giant asparagus stalks or dinosaur vertebrae), the individual plates are nicely varied in color, texture, and size.  The variations create both tension and unity.  To the untrained eye, they look intriguingly like the greaves worn on the shins of Greek warriors.  Or, less classically, like the armor worn by slalom racers.

An underlying question has to be how Annette can harness these divergent materials and shapes so novelly and capably.  Most fine artists would be happy and content with somehow achieving even one of the three assemblages, and to master even one form or medium.  It is inspiring (and daunting) to see in a single show the breadth of her work.  The same level of quality and inspiration infuses the big works as well as the smaller (such as these ordered vases).

We had visited her Halibut Cove studio this summer for a private tour, while Annette was putting the show together.  Annette here holds Dip Net, one of the show's stonewear pieces in the Tools display.

The precise scale model for Moving Mountains

The rock pile awaiting shipment

Annette holds the plan for The Sea Within Us (fish-skin and sinew), while explaining Chords to Suzanne. SLAM windows reflect peaks on Douglas Island

Above:  SLAM's facade reflects peaks on Douglas Island. 

Below: Mt. Juneau towers behind SLAM.

For more photos and comments about the studio visit, Annete's SLAM show, SLAM, and nearby Juneau scenes, use this link:   http://www.zenfolio.com/bobeastaughimagery/p1023356912