Just What I Needed, Another Work of Art #2

This ceramic piece is 6 1/2 feet high!

On March 4, 2009, I started the story “Just What I Needed, Another Work of Art” with these words:

“The devil made me do it, but sitting here watching my stock market investments dissolve into the blue, I had been talking about investment grade art (something I can't afford) as a better idea. I ran into an online auction from Ritchie's, their 3rd one ever. For my American friends, Ritchie’s is Sotheby’s partner in Toronto, and the place I have sold some stuff over the years.”

Now here it is April, 2010, Ritchies is gone, the stock market is recovering a bit, and I still am not buying “investment grade art”, but if last nights auction proves anything to me and my wife, I still buying art!

The “Mystery Sculpture”, that I wrote about yesterday, did well at $750. I was called up to the front and explained the story, just as I’d explained it to you. There was a short flurry of activity and the piece was sold.

I bid on a sculptural piece and won, much to the surprise of my wife who was sitting next to me and didn’t think I bought it. Since she looked a bit upset, I bid and won two other (a pair) of pieces she wanted. Now we have to find room for more “stuff”!

Here's what we "got"

COLLEEN O'REILLY, "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue", porcelain, # 6
Colleen O’Reilly has been a ceramic artist for over 30 years. In 1990 she established “Spirited Clay” specializing in colourful porcelain tableware and tile. Over the past several years, as a reflection of her own creative and spiritual quest, Colleen has been creating unique totems and sculptural pieces that now grace the homes and businesses of many collectors. In December 2009 the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada purchased five of her life size totems to use for permanent display at Canadian Diplomatic Missions abroad. This continues the Canadian Government’s support of Colleen’s work as it has in the past with purchases from Brian Mulroney as official gifts to former British Prime Minister John Major and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.



MICHEAL CLOSE, Faces I, Faces II, acrylic, #7
Michael Close was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and received his education at the University of Guelph, Ryerson Polytechnic Institute and Ontario College of Art. As early as the 1970’s Michael has sought the synthesis of both the intellect and the sensual in an attempt to arrive at some universal truth. This is what led him to focus on images of the human face to which we all respond, more or less intensely; some eliciting emotional sensations, others appealing directly to our intellect. Set in flat, non-existent space, these simplified forms whose contours are bold and energized and animated calligraphically by line and colour, fuse into one another in a fiction of shifting points of view. It is the artist’s intention in these works to combine a variety of elements and experiences to serve the conveyance of truth and beauty to his viewers in the spirit of the freedom in which they were created. Michael Close had more than fifteen solo shows in museums around the world. And his works are in the permanent collection of: National Art Gallery and Cultural Centre (Honiara, Soloman Islands); Bitola Museum (Bitola, Macedonia); Prilep Museum, (Prilep, Macedonia); Ohrid Museum (Ohrid Macedonia); Skopje City Museum (Skopje, Macedonia), Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych "Art Stilon", Museum, Poland; National Gallery, (Macedonia).