First doc video by Standard Definition

Standard Definition is Filmmaker/Director James Sanders. He's hard at work on his first documentary video, DIANA "LIVING A POTTER'S DREAM." It's a portrait of native Texan Diana Kersey, that delves deeply into Kersey’s movement:


• in creative process—from the primarily solitary work of a potter to more collaborative functions as a public artist;
• in physical space—from a 420 sf home studio to a 3,000 sf commercially-zoned studio/exhibition space; and
• in artistic stature—toward public recognition in a lineage of influential ceramic artists who have called San Antonio TX home.

Diana’s tile fabrication is used as a narrative prism to reveal her artistic vision. James' hip camera work generates disarming, engaging dialogue with Diana about her tenacity, intense focus, and deep roots in a primordial tradition of humans consciously using clay as meditative personal expression to connect with history, spirit, and earth’s ecology.




This image uses the same words as the narrative that appears in the current issue of the literary e-zine Invasive Thoughts, “Drive By Art! Where’s the Shooter?” Click the image to find the story.

This image uses the same words as the narrative that appears in the current issue of the literary e-zine Invasive Thoughts, “Drive By Art! Where’s the Shooter?” Click the image to find the story.



A Peek Into How It Comes Together

Diana and her assistant Sara have finished building and glazing Mill Race Bridge tiles. This series of photos gives a peek into how they work the magic.

First up, how Diana turns a photo into a 3-D bas-relief. Next, colors are undercoated onto to the unfired clay. Then, an amber color comes from application of a second dark grey/black glaze that contains about 4% black iron oxide. Voila, a horizontal bridge tile with the characteristic amber glass finish emerges after firing.

These golf tiles for Mill Race Bridge were created with a different process than the toad tiles installed on Mulberry Bridge. Diana and Sara were able to once fire these tiles slowly, a method that saved a great deal of both electricity and artist energy. Diana also thinks it looks great.

Now the finished tile is resting away in tons of bubble wrap while Diana stops by the construction site for daily check-ins. Last week, she dropped off the foam forms for Hill Country Bridge to use during construction of the guardrail indentations where the tiles will be grouted.

She’s aiming for a painless install during the last week in August, but that may be another challenge if San Antonio’s summer keeps broiling away. Thinset mortars, assistants, Diana herself—and filmmaker James too—all have difficulty working in 100 plus degree heat!



While work progresses to erect the Mill Race Bridge, Diana is just as busy carving portraits for her “History of Brackenridge Golf Course” motif. These tiles will be inserted into guardrails on the new bridge. Some panels—busts of important fellows and a real bitch—are shown in the previous blog entry. Here, Diana is creating a bas relief of the course’s clubhouse by following a 2-D published photograph. The joke around the studio is that meticulously drawing in clay like this proves Diana’s a “real artist”—not merely a clay worker. James is busy too, shooting the whole time as Diana makes the building emerge from a blob of mud. I say, I wish it were as easy to build a fence as Diana makes it look.



A Virtual Trail Ride Bridging Space and Time

Diana’s golf motif for the newly renovated Mill Race Bridge embeds the “History of Brackenridge Golf Course” right into tile panels. She’s taken flat, 2-D historical narratives and filled them out with hand-worked clay (see photos of pre-fired horizontal tile sections). And James adds another dimension—time—when he captures Diana’s artmaking process in motion pictures. Both artists are making Brackenridge Park’s 21st century story come alive.

Let’s mount up and take a virtual trail ride through the Park’s wide-ranging and surprising history. Like the longhorns that once grazed on the city’s outskirts, let’s meander past a few significant way-stations: Blue Hole; Pump House; Golf Course; Trail Drivers Museum; Borglum Studio.

San Antonio Springs AKA The Blue Hole

The Head of the San Antonio River, called San Antonio Springs or The Blue Hole, was an important settlement for native populations for more than 11,000 years. Old maps show buffalo trails leading to this prolific spring. Those same trails led nineteenth century cattlemen and cowboys to use the wild area as a watering hole on this leg of the Chisholm Trail. Once described as geyser-like,  drought and wells upstream have emptied the spring today.

Brackenridge builds a Pump House and gives the city park land

The human population of San Antonio also needed water, leading to George W. Brackenridge’s acquisition of the land, and construction in 1885 of San Antonio Water Works pump house to provide clean water to city inhabitants. Eventually its flow was severely diminished by artesian wells drilled at Edwards Aquifer. Brackenridge offered his land for a public park at the turn of the century.

An Early A. W. Tillinghast Golf Course Design

The park wasn’t open long before city fathers decided to add a municipal golf course. So in 1915 they hired an up-and-coming golf course architect, A.W. Tillinghast to design one of the first courses in Texas. Queenie, the companion of a prominent sportswriter, was a favorite of golfers at the new club.

Trail Drivers Association book sales funded noted Gutzon Borglum sculpture

By this time, old-time cowboys who remembered what Texas life was like for trail drivers were going to meet their Maker. Those still living founded the San Antonio Trail Drivers Association, where they could meet annually to preserve and share their memories and spirit. A book of true tales was compiled, and used as a fundraiser in 1924, to commission nationally recognized artist Gutzon Borglum to design a statue commemorating Texas cattle ranching. This bronze sculpture now stands in front of the Texas Pioneer and Old Trail Driver Museum on Broadway (closed for renovation at this writing). 

Borglum Studio at the Pump House begat Mt Rushmore faces

In 1924 Borglum moved his studio to the vacant former Pump House in San Antonio to begin work on the Trail Drivers commission. It was at this studio in Brackenridge Park that Borglum worked on his preliminary designs and models of the four presidents represented on Mount Rushmore. Borglum remained in the studio until 1937 when he left to work on the actual carving of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  



Diana’s “History of Brackenridge Golf Course” tile designs pick up art deco features on this historic course’s clubhouse eaves and the motif from its weathervane. You can see the resemblance on this 5x7 tile our Kickstarter golf-loving Backers will get in exchange for their support. 

“Old Brack” was built in 1916 by a man who was destined to become one of golf’s foremost course designers, A.W. Tillinghast. Golf.com has more to say about this history:

“Today, the 6,263-yard, par-71 layout won’t induce fear in most golfers, but it is still a joy to play. A slightly revised back nine routing skirts the San Antonio River, while ancient [“terrible”] Tilly touches were brought back — like a half-dozen squarish greens and classic flat-bottom bunkers. In its heyday from ‘20s-‘50s, Brackenridge periodically played host to the PGA Tour’s Texas Open, and winners here included legends like Walter Hagen, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead. It was also at Brackenridge that Mike Souchak broke the Tour scoring record, firing a 27-under-par 257 in 1955.”



James gets to talking about glass, that is, lenses

This is a new Trailer I just finished. I think it’s so much more representative of what I’m trying to do, because I used my new camera (one of those hard-to-get Panasonic GH2s) and my new workhorse lens: a Minolta MD (28-85mm 3.5-4.5 Zoom).

The GH2 can mount most 35mm still camera lenses with the right adapter. Its 3core processor does a lot of the heavy thinking. Now that I’ve got my settings right, the camera by itself compensates for many motion distortions and overexposed lighting effects. This opens up a wealth of possibilities for cinematic values to use on the rest of Diana….

I got coached about choosing lenses from photographer Greg Davis, while working on a video portrait of him for the Net Geo-web site (his photos are published in National Geographic). The Lumix (14-42mm 3.5-5.6 Zoom) lens that came with the camera ended up in the bottom of the bag as soon as I got hold of some older Minolta MD 35mm lenses on Greg’s recommendation. They are relatively inexpensive, have proven high quality glass, and enable me to make many fine-tuned adjustments with minimal problems.

So now I’m also using a couple of Minolta Celtics: (28-85mm 3.5-4.5 Prime) and (135mm 3.5 Telephoto), one Minolta MD (28-70mm 3.5-4.8 Zoom), and a Minolta MD (35-105mm 3.5-4.5 Zoom) with a sliding tube that I’m still figuring out its quirks.

The GH2 uses AVCHD and gives me the ability to shoot with 24p filmic effects using interchangeable lenses of proven artistic value. I hope you’ll be as pleased as I am when you see the results in my ongoing “people shooting” improvisations.



Even though Diana mushed up the clay  in the YouTube vid, this is sorta how the pot might have come out after Diana worked the rest of her magic. 

Even though Diana mushed up the clay  in the YouTube vid, this is sorta how the pot might have come out after Diana worked the rest of her magic. 

Diana Throwing a Pot

Wheel-throwing demo by Diana on YouTube. Doesn’t she make it look easy? Note, please: James did not shoot this video and rarely uses YouTube hosting for quality reasons. He’s been asked by Diana to shoot a better one as soon as the bridges are done. ;-)



The Artist's Touch on Mulberry Bridge

Today’s SA Express-News article explains more about Diana’s work on the now-open-for-traffic Mulberry Bridge. Diana, whose parents were civil engineers, worked closely with the builders to have the bridge itself act as an integrated frame for her toad tiles. James got a lot of this background on his HD video.



It Took Leather Balls to Play Golf Diana’s Mill Race Bridge panels incorporate featheries as part of her (“History of Brackenridge Golf Course”) golfer motif. The featherie ball was invented in the early 17th century to improve upon original wooden golf balls. A hand-sewn leather pouch stuffed with chicken or goose feathers and coated with paint, the featherie added superior flight characteristics that made it standard for more than two centuries. Feathers—enough to fill a top hat—were boiled and placed in the pouch. As the ball cooled, the feathers would expand as the hide shrank, making a compact ball. Any openings in the cowhide were stitched closed. This ball had its problems, though. An experienced ball maker could only make a few balls in one day, so featheries were expensive. Also, it was hard to make a perfectly spherical ball, and because of this, the ball often flew irregularly. When playing in wet weather, the stitches in the ball would rot, and the ball could split open after hitting a hard surface. (Adapted from Wikipedia) While researching her design, Diana ran into an old duffer who occasionally played with featheries. Maybe there’s a whole group of “period” golfers who try to play the pre-tech game. Maybe you have leather balls?

It Took Leather Balls to Play Golf

Diana’s Mill Race Bridge panels incorporate featheries as part of her (“History of Brackenridge Golf Course”) golfer motif.

The featherie ball was invented in the early 17th century to improve upon original wooden golf balls. A hand-sewn leather pouch stuffed with chicken or goose feathers and coated with paint, the featherie added superior flight characteristics that made it standard for more than two centuries. Feathers—enough to fill a top hat—were boiled and placed in the pouch. As the ball cooled, the feathers would expand as the hide shrank, making a compact ball. Any openings in the cowhide were stitched closed.

This ball had its problems, though. An experienced ball maker could only make a few balls in one day, so featheries were expensive. Also, it was hard to make a perfectly spherical ball, and because of this, the ball often flew irregularly. When playing in wet weather, the stitches in the ball would rot, and the ball could split open after hitting a hard surface. (Adapted from Wikipedia)

While researching her design, Diana ran into an old duffer who occasionally played with featheries. Maybe there’s a whole group of “period” golfers who try to play the pre-tech game. Maybe you have leather balls?



How to put art on a bridge. This was Mulberry Bridge. Step 1. Make friends with hard hats. Step 2. They build space for the art OK. Step 3. Fill the holes. Step 4. Admire. Mill Race Bridge with the golf motif is back to Step 1.



Brackenridge Park, the birthplace of public golf in Texas

Diana is currently hard at work building golf tiles for the Mill Race Bridge in Brackenridge Park. This will be the bridge that leads to the “Old Brack” clubhouse, now home to the Texas Golf Hall of Fame. But right now it’s a pile of rubble, to be completed by Sept. 2011.

Here’s what TXGOLFHOF has to say about itself: “In 2008, as part of the restoration of the historic Brackenridge Park Golf Course, designed by famed golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast, Texas Golf Hall of Fame member and former President of the PGA of America, Joe Black, contacted San Antonio golf officials about reconstituting the Hall of Fame at Brackenridge Park, the birthplace of public golf in Texas….The Texas Golf Hall of Fame and Museum is now a reality both online and at the Brackenridge Park Golf Course.“ 



June Artist of the Month - Diana Kersey

Our friend Diana is San Anto’s Office of Cultural Affairs’ queen this month.  

Here’s a photo sequence from Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream”. This shows Diana building a toad panel for Mulberry St Bridge. Step 1. Diana carving a toad. Step 2. starting to glaze colors. Step 3. Installing on the bridge. Step 4. Grout application outdoors in summer heat. Step 5. Voila Ms. Toad.



This 1st Trailer shows Diana building toad panels for Mulberry St Bridge in San Antonio TX. But first she had to meet with all the suits. Diana got a big commission from the city to put her ceramic art on 2 new bridges in Brackenridge Park, a project called Catalpa Pershing renovation. The city wants to finish it by late 2011, so Diana had to really hustle to get her art done at the same time the bridge was constructed. What I shot between March and June 2011 caught Diana improvising to build the clay pieces, test glazes, actually fire the hundreds of handmade sprigs into jigsaw puzzle pieces of large quatrefoil panels. And assemble and glue them on the bridge in the noonday sun.