SOFA Chicago 2015

Sculptural Objects and Functional Art. Many said this was a good years. I saw a lot of red dots (indicating sold). People I know there were happy because they were selling.

The unconscious theme this year was creepy baby dolls and baby doll heads, which is to say, Death. For the longest time in the western word, at least prior to the now 100-year-old anomaly, the thing that babies did most of all was to die. You had to make a lot of babies to get just a few to breeding age. Not surprising, then, that, like clowns, babies are associated with Death. I took very few pictures of the baby doll sculptures. Didn't see a need to. And, of course, no pictures of glass, which is the usual same ol' same ol' with SOFA. Not enough wood, ceramics, metal, textiles. Way too much fucking glass.

Thomas R Riley galleries had some nice stuff, including several pieces by my friend Philip Soosloff.

Here is a nice wood sculpture, a collaboration between Graeme Priddle and Melissa Engler called Incubus Triptych:

I forget the gallery, but I liked this piece by Andrew Hayes of book paper folded around and encased by steel.

This wood piece, titled "Rural Route 1" was by Randy Reid.

At first I like this cast glass and found steel piece by Paul J. Nelson, but now I'm not so crazy about it.

Svenja John of Germany made these fun little objects out of polycarbonate foil.

I've always like mosaics. Jun Kaneko had two big heads with mosaics. These heads were about three tall.

They had a lot of flat work this time out. Maybe there wasn't enough sculpture to fill the hall. I liked these two paintings by Bill Sala, entitled "Bindlestiff", and "A Fool And His Money".

Susan Saladino did some fun clay pieces that looked like paper mache.

 This is the only glass I took a picture of. Blown glass Spray paint cans.

I took this picture, which did not turn out so well, as one of the clay students is interested in crystalline glazes. This glaze is called Sea Foam Green. The piece is entitled "Bottle" by Hideaki Miyamura.

Abmeyer + Wood had a lot of good clay. They showed some fun semi-creepy baby doll sculptures by ceramics artist Calvin Ma, entitled "Softie" and "Reaching".

 Patti Warashina is an established ceramics artist. This one, titled "Tied Up in Red Tape", was stashed in the back.

Christopher David White made this ceramic piece, entitled "All Mine". It's hard to see, but the arm ends in a mine shaft entrance.

Can't remember which gallery, but they had a lot of nice delicate wood bowl form pieces.