About Us
The chess set is a collaboration of a subset of students in the summer session of 2007 at Venice Adult Ceramic Class. The group has been loosely together for many years and comraderie ebbs and flows here.
It came to happen when Elaine Roark, our teacher was proposing we do 10 minute modeling sessions to create figurative works. Inspired to participate, I hopped up on a table striking a defiant pose for 10 minutes. Dana Eli made a quick sketch in clay and gave it to me later while I was trying to sketch the next pose which I believe was Michael Anderson in a very Rodin's "Thinker" type pose.
Later, I would place a stand beneath Dana's figure, refine it a bit as it dried and glaze it in 2 shades of black. She would become the dark queen.
Ellen Levy was in class and I asked her if she could come to class the next night and she said "No, I can't make it, that's my husband Bob's (Raku Bob) chess night so someone needs to stay home with our daughter".
Chess night, figurative work, hmm, the idea occurred to me 'How about an oversize chess set with these figurative sketches???' We got excited about it and I set to work creating a sheet to sign up for the individual pieces. The only requirements: that the pieces be dark or light; that pawns be three inches tall,rooks, bishops and knights five inches, and for the majestic Kings and Queens six inches. The figures also had to fit easily within the four inch squares. We got a lot of variation and that is where the artistic quality of some structure and some open-endedness really paid off.
Surprisingly, people kept shifting in and out of the project and it took until mid fall to finish. When we were two rooks short of completion, Kitching Ambrosia came in and took on the last pieces and put them through to completion in record time.
We had a debut in class where I got to play chess with Bob Dietz (Raku Bob) which illuminated the game further for me. Each time I see it played I am picking up more information on the game. For the seasoned player, the challenges are: recognizing the standard pieces in these artistic forms and the adjusting to the heft variations and handling the pieces which are somewhat fragile being made out of clay.
The collaborative effort of our group of Venice ceramic artists lends a lot of character to the set.
Since the debut game in class, I hosted an afternoon match in my garden with players and scotch and tea and now the chess set has had an afternoon reception at Seidman Gallery with excellent players. The set wants to participate in more events.
Any ideas?
Joyce Lieberman
Jimm and I took a Saturday morning class with Mick in Santa Monica at http://lachessclub.com/
He has tournaments with young children and it is a very informative session.