Eating+on+the+Fly

Date: 2000
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/2000/2000.88_2a.jpg?itok=3D_hOwhX width="319" height="304" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/eating-on-the-fly-56667"]] || Title: **Eating on the Fly**

Artist: **Connie Kiener** Born: Portland, Oregon 1945

Medium: glazed clay Dimensions: 21 3/4 x 22 x 3 1/2 in. (55.4 x 55.8 x 8.8 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Carol and Charles Rademaker, Garth and Louise Rademaker

Accession: 2000.88 || The work is all hand-built with a white earthenware clay. The work is bisque fired and a white glaze is put on. She decorates in the true Italian Majollica technique by using colored paints she purchases in Italy. They are formulated with colorants and frits to make them bond with the glaze and melt at the right temperature. She paints on the unfired or raw glaze. When complete - a "crystallina" is sprayed on, this is a clear glaze that matures at a slightly lower temperature to keep the painting from melting, flowing or blurring. So the original glaze is underfired but the glossy surface is achieved through the lower maturity of the outer glaze. The painting is sandwiched between the base and the surface glazes.
 * Biographical Information: **

Connie Kiener, whose education includes the Museum Art School, Portland and the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, works exclusively in the traditional majolica ceramic technique as practiced in the Umbria region of Italy. Kiener states, "I remember the excitement I felt the first time I observed the work of Bernard Palissy. His plates were like peering into a carefully arranged forest floor and a little bit scary. This connection with the natural world is evident in my work to this day." Kiener's work is included in the collections of the White House, Renwick Gallery, and the Kamm Collection in Los Angeles. – [Lacoste Gallery, 2007]

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **