One of the absolutely, positively, hyperbole-intensified, hardest things for me to learn and retain in ceramics is to wait for the right time to do the right thing to the right amount of clay at the right moisture content. There are delicious names that potters give to describe the stages of clay wetness, and here are some common “cheese names”: brie, mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan. (Hungry?) If you just think of how relatively wet these cheeses are and how they might behave when modeled a la ceramique, you get the idea a teensy bit. For years now, I have come up crying when I tried to get clay to stand and behave when it is brie or even fresh mozz consistency OR when I try too zealously to shape or bend it when it is cheddar or, heavens, parmesan hard. You see those cracks?
So Creative Timing in ceramics not only includes when the Muse/Genius arrives and tells you NOW!!!! but also includes where your clay piece is at when that alpenhorn sounds. Riding this magic carpet of Creative Timing is part of avoiding the ultimate frustration and embarassment of know-better failure as well as grabbing the soaring, roaring upwelling of spirit and plain ol’ fun that nailing it gives. And I suspect that speaks true in any sport or creative endeavor. Probably even poker.
That said, I am full of ceramic pertinacity, so slowly, slowly, slowly I have gotten better at the Waiting Game. Yes, it is possible to rewet dry clay and to dry out wetter stuff, but it is totally sweet to have the rhythm in place, because then it matches the creative surges that might be accompanying the reason I am in the studio in the first place!
So, this directly applies to what I am doing in my Art Swap with Karen Koch. There is that Big Idea: take the art she has sent me and rework it in some way so that it becomes new art in the loosely interpreted spirit of “Erased DeKooning” by Robert Rauschenberg. (And see my last post for the most interesting particulars and links.)
Yet, as I have heard someone who eschews vacations say, it’s because, “Wherever I travel, I take me along,” the bald fact is I am just me, livin’ my day-to-day. Some days I have good ideas and energy, some days I am dull, distracted and dissident. But I really have not survived this long as an artist to mind any of it. I just know to go in the studio regardless of what the finger-to-the-winds of my creative mood reads… and it generally is the right thing to do.
I stalled in addressing this project today, for familiar, but ultimately dismissible, reasons. Karen and I have agreed to a deadline and deadlines are conducive to showing up, at least to me. Also, the clay was ready for my next impulse. Deadline + clay readiness = dismissible reasons for creative avoidance.
I wanted to apply a subtle nubbly texture to the bottle form I am working on because Karen, in her note to me, mentioned that she made her art with “colored pencil, paint, and Sharpie marker on patterned paper.” I can’t replicate the pencil, paint or marker, directly, because they would burn out in the kiln, but, hey, I can do texture! So the first shot above is of the homespun fabric that I applied to the perfectly-ready (mozzarella-hard) clay and then rubbed a bit with a nice rounded wooden tool. Second shot is what that left the clay bottle looking like: happily it is reminiscent of patterned paper!
So it was a few hours well-spent. All in good time, especially in clay.
