Studio Journal

Catching Up with the Local Talkers of 2009

This time last year I embarked on a project I knew for certain would take a minimum of a year to complete, which was part of its appeal: to make one small jug a week inspired by the expressions of the respondents to the Local Talk column in the weekly entertainment tabloid called the Good Times.

I shared my quarterly progress with you and last wrote in October, noting the fact that, while I had faithfully gathered the weekly columns and made lots of other ceramic art, I was OK with the fact that I had finished only one of the 13 jugs in the Third Quarter…and the hands-on studio time for the project in the Fourth Quarter was not looking promising.

You can find the other posts in order here, here, here, here, here and here. I truly recommend reading the first and the last ones, for the original set up and the “we left off here” aspects.

But up top and just below are photos of the still-green evidence of my earnest studio time in the past week, when I returned at long last to Weeks 28-39!

I was concerned that after such a long time away from these faces, my “hand” would be different and it would reflect in an observable and unwanted difference from July to January’s product. Not so! While I felt differently inside and held some completely different mental conversations — many of which were based on the powerful learning I did last summer at Skyline College with Tiffany Schmierer and last fall with Cynthia Siegel — what came out was pretty seamless. Whew!

I have an opportunity to work in my studio at least this much in the coming weeks and would love to get all these lovelies, current and future (Weeks 40-52), into the bisque kiln by month’s end. I am rarin’ to solve the puzzle of how to decorate this body of work and also how to display it to best effect. I have some tantalizing ideas on both fronts.

After a year’s practice, it has been odd to not set out each Thursday morning in search of the current week’s copy of the Good Times, but it has taken one tiny bit of pressure off my days, allowing me to absorb the fact that I really did collect the whole year and now just can enjoy the heck out of making good on my promise to myself.

More on this real soon!

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Thursday’s Tile: Illustrating Poetry

The Sight area of the Five Senses Bench contains many tiles seen only in the mind’s eye, including several renditions of Third, Evil, and Horus eyes, which have special abilities in that realm. There’s even an eyeball with two pupils and irises! Go see for yourself sometime.

As far as I can recall, though, the purple cow tile above is the only one illustrating a poem. I keeled over in peals of kid giggles when first hearing it, which was mid-century, last, making the ditty an old one…. but in researching things a little, I  was surprised to learn it is from 1895, which makes it ancient!

Purple Cow
by Gelett Burgess 

I never saw a purple cow;
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you anyhow;
I’d rather see than be one!
Maybe it’s a stretch to call it poetry, yet it is in the vein of limericks, Ogden Nash and my pal Ernie, so I think it does qualify. Apparently the original verse caught on and grew to become a source of torment to Mr. Burgess, who was moved to pen a rejoinder a few years later:
Confession: and a Portrait, Too, Upon a Background that I Rue
by Gelett Burgess
Ah, yes, I wrote the “Purple Cow”–
I’m sorry, now, I wrote it;
But I can tell you Anyhow
I’ll Kill you if you Quote it!
Illustrations succeed best when mirroring the spirit of their source text, and I think this cartoonish, dippy, unreal cow tile does this so well! If no one has seen a purple cow, the fantasy image is open to interpretation, which then becomes our primal imprint.
Case in point: the images of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends forever in my mind are from the book illustrations of E. H. Shepard and most decidedly not Walt Disney Studios. That’s probably not true for a lot of others who only saw the animation and never the books. A thousand words, people, a thousand words!
Before this edition of Thursday’s Tile concludes, I want to also share with you the fact that the novel idea of a purple cow has gone beyond a fun rhyme. Wine, tobacco, clothing, food, even sports mascots derive from this quatrain of iambic quadrameter, which you can read all about here, if such is your hunger for knowledge.
Until we meet again, enjoy all your chimerical referents, wherever you encounter them, but, take it from Mr. Burgess, keep it to yourself if a slap-happy Muse whispers verse about them into your head!
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Why Begin Again? A New Year’s Resolution!

This post is a living example of itself (aside: would that make it a Strange Loop?) and I couch it purposely in the belly of the New Year, a very hard time to ignore the call of renewal and beginning again. I also couch it in the time of a retrograde Mercury, an esoteric period of reviewing and re-doing, especially one’s words and communications. The ramifications of Starting Over is a complicated, book-worthy topic, which impels me to distill it into a rough “Whereas and Therefore” Resolution format instead of my typically wordy prose, which would take…..ahem…..a book!

Whereas I have read in more than one place that the Four Most Dangerous Words in the English language are, “I already know that.”

Whereas I have “taken” (by virtue of my continued volunteering and actually listening to every lecture and demo) Art 7A Ceramics: Handbuilding at Cabrillo College around 27 times.

Whereas I have learned it is pretty much impossible to reproduce an artwork exactly, whether it is a master’s or your own.

Whereas I have watched A Christmas Story at least 47 times, Harold and Maude, 15, Brave Little Toaster, umpteen-zillion and have read Norma Jean The Termite Queen at least five times, enjoying each repetition (mostly) anew.

Whereas I recently learned that the creators of Blue’s Clues, a Sesame Street-like program on Nickelodeon, were initially so short of cash they repeated each program every day for a week and the series was a hit precisely because of that.

Whereas I have experienced the phenomenon of learning a new word or concept and then hearing it or seeing it used all around me.

Whereas once I understood the nature of neuroplasticity, I felt much freer to go deeper into what I wanted to know, over and over, knowing the truth of Heraclitus’ words, “You can’t step in the same river twice.”

Whereas my original teacher of the Creative Process, Coeleen Kiebert was fond of saying, “Begin again, it will move,” (that’s a photo of my actual notes from that class up top) and she emphatically honored all steps of this process, including the stages that appear as blocked or fallow, such as Gathering.

Whereas the Universe is ever-expanding and our cells are entirely replaced every seven years, yet still retain our true essence.

Whereas I notice that if I cultivate my dreams and make efforts to write down dreams and dream snippets and the hunches and connections I get from them, eventually and upon review, I can make meaningful connections because of the recurring themes and images.

Whereas the minute I began considering the value of beginning again and repetition, I saw these wonderful blog posts at Mildly Creative by Ken Robert: Themes Familiar, and Why It’s Good to Go Back Where You Started, that exactly said what I wanted to here. (And now I don’t have to!)

Whereas I am loving words such as, “let me repeat that….” “you can say that again!” “lest I repeat myself….” and “it bears repeating,” especially when said with enthusiasm and wonder.

Therefore, be it Resolved (solved again?) that my enthusiastic learning and re-learning in all things with heart and soul truth in my life continue wild and unchecked this entire year because I stay open, present, cognizant, energetic, healthy and able to respond.

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Thursday’s Tile: The Not Quite Finished Story of "Piece of Meat"

This is the sort of tile on the Five Senses Bench that probably looks better in a photo than in real life. Shot on the perfect overcast day, the photo provides framing and focus, which also helps us see the lovely juxtaposition of off-primary colors that lie right next to “Piece of Meat.”  (Heck, they might even qualify as off-secondary colors! Oh, and the orange-yellow squiggly things are ceramic Cheetos!)

You can find this uncooked classic T-bone steak tile curving slightly on the left end of the Taste area seat. There is really no image on the whole bench that is as blatantly raw, which was JMC’s impetus for including it. He said that the sashimi was too pretty. He was looking for defiant visual *POW* and maybe even meaty offensiveness. Well, as a Bench Curator who maintained detailed Wanted lists for each sense area, so was I!

He wanted to replicate the bright red Threadless “Piece of Meat” tee he had on. Who says art inspiration can’t be found literally right under your own nose? And whether your message is on your chest or left forever for folks to discover and contemplate, it’s just as valid, no?

As with most of the tiles we all made, we used a source photocopy, laid it over a leatherhard clay slab and traced the image with a slightly dull pencil, physically transferring both the outline and the main lines needed later when decorating. Then the shape was carefully cut out with a sharp blade, keeping it perpendicular to the image surface. No undercuts!

Ever so carefully the still-malleable tile was laid in position on the bench and gently curved to match the topography of its intended location. While in position, it also got traced around with a permanent marker, right onto the bench surface, so others would know that spot was taken! It might be weeks or even months before it was ready to be applied. Sometimes we even wrote the artist or image name in the outlined space so we would know who or what to look for if either seemed to have gone missing. Ah, group art projects!

Well, Mr. “Piece of Meat” stuck around for the duration and was thrilled with his contribution.

He told me not too long ago that he still loves that tile, but that the tee shirt is now too large for him because he’s clearly lost a few steaks’ worth of baby fat. He’d love a meat-tee that fits, but it’s “Out of Print.”

On Threadless.com anyone can vote to have a favorite tee shirt re-printed. With enough votes, they actually do it. Whaddya say we all mysteriously flood the request line and see what happens? “Piece of Meat” the tile will last forever and, with our help, maybe “Piece of Meat” the tee shirt can too.

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Thursday’s Tile: Observing the Obvious

At one point in the earliest days of tile-making for the Five Senses Bench, folks thought of just putting the obviously-related body parts all over it. That would have been pretty fun, but, as there was really no layout and no real themes then, the concept just kept growing associatively and soon left the body-parts-alone realms.

However, there are plenty to choose from for this year-end photo essay. I think there are more eyes (and a wider variety of them) than anything, but there are plenty of hands, ears and tongues. Only one nose, though!

Enjoy this selection of one from each sense and may your own senses stay sharp and artful in the coming year!

Seeing Eye

Hearing Ear

Smelling Nose

Tasting Tongue

Touching Hands

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Outside Adjustments, Inside Surprise

A few posts ago I showed ya’ll the results of my figure sculpture studies with Cynthia Siegel this past semester. I wrote that post before Cynthia reviewed my work and,  following our brief but thoughtful discussion, there is a bit more to share with you concerning the Two Hour Challenge sculpture of runner Maggie Vessey. Up top is a shot as close to the angle of the source photo (below) as I could get.

Here’s why it’s great to have instruction: Cynthia pointed out aspects of this pose that, given a bit more time, I might have addressed, but one never knows! I will just list these points and you can see for yourself:
1. Maggie has thrown herself down, and is maybe still a little bit in motion. She may have even been rocking slightly. Her butt does not rest on her shoes, as I have modeled it! And even if she was completely still, a runner’s muscled thighs and calves probably wouldn’t let her fold up into a compact Child’s Pose. What I have made is resonant with wet clay not quite being able to stand up in the air AND with the strong emotional folding in of the figure.
2. Maggie’s back is arched. I have modeled a sway back! I kept trying to keep the clay up in the torso, but did not get this all-important line. I feel pretty sure, given more time,  I would have restated this until it was fairly accurate. After all, it is the one view I did have!
3. The proportions of the negative space and angles of limbs needs compacting. I have elongated things. Arching the back correctly will help this problem too. The lower leg shin needs to curve upward more.
4. The arms are pretty well done, but they aren’t inserting into the back correctly. There is more of a transition that includes the shoulder blade and that web of muscles….that alone would help with a better back/shoulder curve.
5. Muscles are convex. My thigh muscle on this side is concave…I got it strong on the other side, though!
Now for the Inside Surprise! What drew me to this photo was the memorable and compelling emotion. That’s why I saved it for over nine years, wanting to align with and honor it in a piece of art. Far more than realistic replication, for me, that emotion was the most important aspect to capture, even in a short academic exercise.
Every item I still need to adjust to make the figure’s Outside more true arrived because I was paying more attention to the felt narrative I wanted to express. I got into this position while sculpting and so did Cynthia in our talk! Cynthia even put the whole pose into motion in her discussion of movement and musculature.
If I draw, I craft one view, with many others implied, if I’m lucky. If I sculpt, like it or not, I must address all views, even the ones not easily seen.
At one point in our talk, Cynthia and I picked up this smallish sculpture and discovered the Inner Truth of this pose. I treasure this unrealized, expressive, protective, intimate inside view!
Here is the fearsome power of misery, anger, defeat and the active defiance of all of it too! This is what arises in me when I look at that photo and what my hands wanted to make.
Ultimately getting the figure accurate, in my personal view, is meant to support the message of the work. Like a musician bending notes or playing ahead or behind the beat, a sculptor can choose to simplify, abstract, or distort, too. And if they know where academic, even photographic, realism lies, they are that much more agile in expressing their intentions.
Ultimately, keeping the Inside alive while Adjusting the Outside, sounds like a life skill as well as an artistic one, and in that case, I’m signing on for the duration.
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Thursday’s Tile: Season’s Sensations

I just got back from visiting The Five Senses Bench in the thin winter light. I went there looking to collect shots of hands, eyes, noses, ears and tongues — which I did and will show you on New Year’s Eve — but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sights and sounds, smells, tastes and feel of the holiday live there all year too.

So here is my first Blog Photo Essay: Season’s Sensations from the Five Senses Bench.
Enjoy and Peace!

 

Hearing
Touch

Smell

 

Taste

Sight

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