30 Pieces of Poignant and Uncensored Art by U.S. Veterans of War.

above: Autobiography (02) by Maurice Costello

In honor of Veteran's Day, I wanted to share with you some very personal and intimate art pieces from the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. The National Veterans Art Museum inspires greater understanding of the real impact of war with a focus on Vietnam. The museum collects, preserves and exhibits art inspired by combat and created by veterans. The pieces express their experiences through photography, sculpture, paintings, drawings and mixed media.

Please note: The work in this museum- and shown here- was made by veterans of war and the depictions of their experience is poignant and uncensored.

Good Morning PTSD by Christopher Arendt:

Real Life Souvenirs by Jay Burnham-Kidwell:

Towers (1) by Victoria Bryers:

Exiles on Main Street by Elgin Carver:

Title Unknown by Ronald Doc Cook:

58,000 Plus by John Dell:

Angel In The Desert by Marcus Eriksen:

(un)clothed and in her right mind by Iris Feliciano:

Aftermath by Michael Gottschalk:

Orphan III by Bill Hackwell:

In the Jar of Mars by Michael Helbing:

Where the Publisher Meets the Writer by Jay Burton Hellwege:

Tourist Photographs from Iraq - This is How I Wanted to See Myself by Aaron Hughes:

Fascinating Vietnam by William Hoin:

Memory of a Conflict by Louis Janetta:

Blown Away by Richard Lindsay:

Seventeen Months, Twenty-Nine Days by Grady C. Myers:

Early Out by Scott Neistadt:

Morphene, Anyone by Neal Pollack:

Mending by Scott Rogers:

The Wall by Michael Rumery:

Anguish by Bruce A. Sommer:

Together Separately by Anthony Stetina:

They Also Serve (POW) by Gary Tillery:

Prayer Boots by John Turner:

Head by Gregory Van Maanen:

Diptych Self Portrait by Kimo Williams:

This is How You Died by Richard Yohnka:

Punji Trap Wound by Bernie Zawiki:

Autobiography Installation by Maurice Costello:

The above pieces only represent a few of the works within the museum. You can view the online collection here.

God Bless all the brave men and women who give of themselves for the rest of us and this country. Thank You.

all images courtesy of the NVAM Collection Online website © 2012 - National Veterans Art Museum

Cute Characters Die An Ugly Death In The Compelling Crochet Sculptures of Patricia Waller.

We often think of knit or crocheted objects made with yarn, cotton and wool as cozy, comforting, even grandma-esque. But the works of artist Patricia Waller will most certainly shift that paradigm.

Remembering Eva Zeisel 1906-2012. Her Life and Her Work.

The world lost a legend on December 30th when Eva Zeisel died at the age of 105. In honor of her passing, I am reprinting a post I wrote on her amazing life and work in April of 2010.


above: Eva Zeisel, 2009, photos courtesy of Talisman Photo

103 year old Eva Zeisel continues to amaze. The Hungarian born designer just doesn't stop. In addition to being an enormous talent, she has a life story as interesting as her work.

She was born Eva Amalia Stricker on November 13th to Alexander and Laura Polanyi Stricker. At the age of 17 she enrolled in the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, intent on becoming a painter, but was convinced by her mother to try a trade at which she could earn money. She then began apprenticing as a potter. In 1925, she started her own pottery on her family estate. In 1927 she moved to Hamburg Germany, where she worked at Hansa Kunstkeramic for 6 months.

In 1932, she visited Russia for the first time. She worked at the Lomonosov Manufactory designing dinnerware and at the Artistic Laboratory of the Lomonosov State Porcelain Factory (the former Imperial Porcelain Factory) in Leningrad.



By 1935 she was the artistic director of the Glass and China Industries in Moscow, Russia. It was soon after, in 1936, that the talented Stricker was falsely accused of being part of a conspiracy to kill Josef Stalin and imprisoned in Russia for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Upon her 1937 release from prison (without explanation), she was put on a train to Vienna where she was met by relatives. In 1938 she married her second husband, Hans Zeisel in England (her first marriage was to physicist Alexander Weissberg and was dissolved). Soon after marrying Zeisel, they both moved to new York.

In 1939, she created the first department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she taught until 1952.


above: Eva Zeisel in 1940 with student work at Pratt. Image courtesy of Pratt.
above image courtesy of Eva Zeisel Archives

She then went on to design iconic pieces for Chantal, Sears, Red Wing Pottery, Hall China Company, Watt Pottery, H. Heisey and more. You can still find many of her vintage pieces at the Orange Chicken Gallery.

At the impressive age of 103, she is still actively designing. She has current collections of ceramics and silk-screened prints for Klein Reid, Classic Century ceramics and One O One earthenware for Royal Stafford, the re-issued Granit collection for Design Within Reach, pens, pen holder and card holder designs for Acme, hand blown glassware collections for Gumps , glassware, aluminum and more for Nambé, exclusive China pieces for various galleries, and a furniture line, and most recently a collection of three Tibetan wool rugs for The Rug Company.



above photos courtesy of Talisman photo and the Brooklyn Museum

Eve Zeisel Glassware for Gumps:


Exclusives for the Neue gallerie:
Fine bone china Baby feeder:

Porcelain painted Icebox pitchers:


Eva Zeisel for Royal Stafford


A coffee set she designed in 1940:

One O One:


Eva Zeisel for Klein Reid:



Eva Zeisel for Nambé:




Eva Zeisel Glassware for Bombay Sapphire:


Designed in early 2001, the Centennial Set consists of six impressively scaled celebratory goblets inspired by Eva's martini glass designed exclusively for the Bombay Sapphire's promotional campaign. Individually hand-blown by master craftsmen, these elegant works of art are made of the highest quality glass.

Eva Zeisel Originals (furniture and more):





Eva Zeisel for Design Within Reach:

Granit tableware:


Eve Zeisel For The Rug Company:

Fish and Lacy X:



Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little interview with Eva Zeisel here.

Special thanks to the Eva Zeisel forum for additional information and links.

Eva Zeisel Books, Dinnerware and More