CERAMICS MONTHLY | november 2005

UPFRONT
Barbara Hashimoto

“How Comes it to be Furnished?,” the first of a two-part solo exhibition of works by Los Angeles artist Barbara Hashimoto, was on display through October 15 at Xiem Gallery in Pasadena, California. The retrospective exhibition focused on the development and influences of Hashimoto’s ceramic-based bookwork, and included pieces never before exhibited in the U.S. The second part, “Return to Tabulae Rasae,” which includes Hashimoto’s new ceramic and mixed-media work is on view at Xiem through November 26.

“110 Pages," 2002 | 35 inches in length | low-fired clay, book, encaustic, maple box

For the piece “110 Pages’” which appears in the retrospective exhibition, Hashimoto ripped pages from the binding of a paperback edition of Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that Ends Well.” Each page was then lined with clay and fired to Cone 04. Some pages contain the mirror-image of the transferred text, while others have been painted with encaustic. The pages are filed in an open-ended maple box, a reference to the presentation of valued Japanese ceramic ware.