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Thursday, May 29  

Undo?

On another topic, while painting trim last night - finishing up on the memorial day weekend house projects - it occured to me that it's one of the few things left that doesn't have 99 layers of Undo associated with it, at least in my daily life. Instead, it is an immediate, visceral experience, and one that requires a steady hand, even breathing, and a lot of detached right-brain concentration. That Zen stuff keeps popping up everywhere!

Certainly nearly everything in the clay studio is this way - immediate and unforgiving - but I've sorta taken that for granted and forgotten about it. I take this as further proof that, while Undo is a godsend in Photoshop or Word, the more of it we have in the virtual world, the more "real" and permanent we want the rest of life to be. Cutting a tomato for dinner can be an interesting experience after 8 hours of making things jump around on a computer screen. If this world is The Matrix, we're doing a damn fine job of creating a matrix within the matrix, and of creating the need for good, solid, physical un-Undoable perceptions.

 

Style

I've been watching the Ceramic Art films made by Richard Peeler*, who taught at DePauw back in the 60's, and was struck by what a wide range of stuff he made, and pretty unselfconsciously at that (or so it seems). It's as if he was just playing with the material, seeing what it was capable of, without a lot of looking over his shoulder as to whether it fit some preconception or standard. And now that I write that thought out, it seems like an awfully strange preconception on my part; that a playful approach to the medium would be an usual thing. When did we, as potters, lose that? Or - when did I, as a person, learn to get by without it?

I've been having a related email conversation with Stephan Robison about potters' styles and variety of work. He's been getting flack at workshops, etc., for the wide variety of clay stuff he and his wife/studio partner Cathy Guss create, as if the variety is a bad thing. The presumption of their accusers seems to be that going wide vs. going deep equates to a lack of commitment; that it's skimming along the surface of what is possible instead of knuckling down to do some serious work. I find this a strange and horribly restrictive idea. At some point, dabbling and playing around have to transition into decisiveness and complexity, but isn't it good to not only explore but also to show the results to the world outside your studio?

Perhaps it's a generational thing. I imagine that in the 60's the exploration of the conceptual boundaries in modern ceramics was just getting started, and so it was cool to make pots and sculpture and everything in between. This is the approach Peeler took, making everything from simple dinner plates to masive concrete sculpture to films. So is the negative reaction to an artist's diversity because it's all been codified into styles and genres that now have an inertia to them? Or because people's egos and livlihoods and portfolios get enmeshed in an ideology that needs advocates to protect it? (Or perhaps the diversity of skills and ideas demonstrated by one person is threatening?)

There's an innocence to those films that is sweet and nostalgic, like putting your pots out on a board in the backyard to take slides, instead of every BFA student needing a professional photographer at their disposal. Times change, for better and for worse. Peeler's teaching approach, as shown in his films, was the "try everything" method**, which seems like an endangered species in a field whose standards now require fine specialization to succeed. The high standards are wonderful, but I think the clay world's desire for legitimacy as "fine art" has bled some of the variety and casual exploration out of the medium... that's a bittersweet trade-off in favor of expertise, recognition, exhibitions and higher price tags.

* Along with his wife Marj, whose contribution isn't mentioned often enough! More info on the Peelers: profile by Russel Fouts and DePauw Archives profile.

** I recognize that these films are instructional, which presents a different sensibility than seeing someone working in their normal environment, but the implied values are consistent.

Tuesday, May 27  

Slow = Evil

Oh blog of my blog, why art thou the last in such a lengthy list of priorities, why O why?

What's been happening that keeps me from the blog, you ask? Well, despite my friend Wade trying to get me thinking like a Buddhist, I'm still a fervent believer in the Cult of the Do, otherwise known as a "productivity-addict". Call do-ers anonymous for me! I can't stop! Cindy and I spent the long weekend [which also happened to be our anniversary (#7)] working on neglected house projects: a brick patio from last summer, repainting the bedroom from an ungainly peach color, putting down quarter-round trim that's been missing since we moved in 3 years ago. Fun stuff. If only each weekend were 4 days long.

So what Wade said (sorry no link; sadly he's still offline) was in reponse to my email description of my month of May: a steamroller of the St. Earth spring sale and closing out the semester at depauw. I quote: Do you sigh in a relaxing kind of way or in a remorseful way when the end arrives?.

Good question! I bore it like a Zen koan over the weekend, a mental centerpiece to my corner-cutting/trim finishing painting tasks to slow me down and keep the brush going in the right direction.

When did I start thinking that slow was evil?*

* I seem to be in a gratuitous, self-referential state of mind today, so we'll leave it at that before things get ugly.

Thursday, May 15  

Reawakening for Spring

I'm in full Rutger Hauer mode these days, seems like. You know, the guy in Blade Runner, who says, "I want more life, fucker." (sorry, Mom). Even as my eyes are burny from too little sleep, or my body sore from too much hauling pots in and out of cars and kilns, all I can think of is getting to move on to the next thing, with anticipation. I run out of energy before I run out of time and desire; if only the desire were enough.

I'm really anxious to get back to the wheel this weekend -- looking at my students pots just made me envious of the time they had to work on them. I'm going to try to repair the little soda kiln that could, see how many more firings it can get through before the arch comes down, and I'm excited to try firing some of my leftover earthenware w/ underglazes pots from the workshop in Tennessee last summer. Thinking I'll experiment with both clear glaze oxidation in the electric kiln and no glaze salt firing in the small salt test kiln. Hmm... got some research to do to, I guess. Time to fill the galleries up with new pots again, now that the sale is over, and to get around to some of the lingering, neglected house projects before Cindy goes wild and calls someone to do it for us. Ha.

A beautiful spring day in Indiana.

Wednesday, May 14  

Post-Sale Defrag

Even with an amazing thunderstorm, tornado sirens, the threat of serious flooding and a temporary power outage (all by 11am) the sale turned out pretty good... the best of the three so far. It was fun to see the mix of old and new customers, see which glazes garnered the most attention ( poor temmoku, nobody loves you...), and so on.

I'm still pretty wired up, after a long time of holding myself to a pretty tight schedule and taking about 1 afternoon off over a 3 month span; it'll take a while to get used to having uncommited time. Doubt it will last, anyways, as my fantasy to-do list is ever-growing. I'm investigating the notion of ambition as self-destruction... as if there weren't already at least a few good Greek tragedies on the idea.

Friday, May 9  

Another ending.

Sale day is tomorrow, and I think we're going to make it... got the yard mowed, windows cleaned, house rearranged and the pots sorted, along with a million other little miscellaneous tasks that make things run smoothly. Cindy and I both think this is the best batch of pots overall yet (and we're not just saying that!); it's extremely gratifying to look at them as a group of 6 months work and be able to identify progress from the previous work cycle. She's complaining just now that she has too many pots to contend with in setting them all out - ha! a great problem to have. I'll post a roundup of tomorrow's chaos once the recovery period starts....

Wednesday, May 7  

Pics

I've added about 30 photos of new pots to the St. Earth site in the past week or so. Quite a few that I'm really happy with, and the photography side keeps getting a bit better each time I shoot. Digital is great - I can shoot as much as I want, instant feedback, quick editing and uploading... to think of all the times I nearly killed myself trying to get good slides on film. I've even had some good results with sending the digital image to a service bureau (like Matrix in Indianapolis) and getting them to print a slide from it, for all those stone-age functions where a slide is still the peak of the technology curve. Now somebody should set up a web exhibition that was digital from start to finish. Shouldn't they? Potters like computers too!

Monday, May 5  

Tech Recs

Two items of techno-topia today: a Wired magazine article on the Matrix: Reloaded and a great video clip, submitted by our old friends at halarooney.

Saturday, May 3  

Biz

Sale prep, sale prep... one week to go until the big event. Unloading the last firing today, then a lot of cleaning and pricing to do, some cane and wire handles to finish, display platforms to build [finally], etc. etc.

Feeling pretty good about it - somehow the whole experience is a lot more enjoyable in the spring, with bright green grass outside and AM sun that gets me up before 7am on a Saturday all charged with the possibilities for the day. clay geek.