Preference vs. Criticism

For decades now I’ve been doing my stuff and bracing myself for emails and tweets. I’d spent an entire career conflating preference with criticism. I’ve been holding up tiny articles of clothing to strangers and waiting for the scream. Here’s what my daughter taught me: You can’t win. Everyone sobs it out, puts on their pants, and gets on with their day.

— Bob Sherron, from “My daughter, the user”

I love this quote… to me it’s a reminder to stand by one’s work and to have discernment regarding incoming commentary.

There is only the dance

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

— from Burnt Norton, T.S.Elliot

 

I was visiting the Picasso Ceramics exhibit (yes, Picasso did ceramics too!) at the University of Hong Kong Art Museum, and there was this lovely exhibit in the downstairs gallery about the Four Seasons.  They had quoted T.S. Elliot poems on the walls, and I really loved this excerpt.

Proximity Sensing Origami Flower

As part of our sponsorship with Instructables.com at my hackerspace, Ace Monster Toys, I came up with this little origami flower that vibrates when someone comes close to it.  It was a quick little project with an Arduino and Bare Conductive paint.  I really am thinking of this as a proof of concept for something that has much larger potential.  I’m imagining a bouquet of these things, or maybe some really large ones.

Pots Galore

I’m really behind on my posting, so I’m just going to put a bunch of pictures of things in progress.  When (if?) I get them back safely from glaze firing, then I’ll post them again.

  These two are of the same bowl.  I did some “chattering” on the bottom when I was trimming to add texture.  This guy was Leslie Happy clay, and is being bisque fired.

 These four include the Blowfish Vase, the Chattered Bowl from above, and my first attempts at a plate and a bowl.  These are in bisque firing now.

 This bowl has been set out to dry.  I attempted to throw an orb, but I’m hella slow so it got kind of floppy before I could finish.  I decided to just roll the rim over and make a bowl.  I trimmed a gouge about 2/3 of the way up to catch some glaze.  I’m thinking yellow salt for this one because it responds to texture so nicely.

 Some more pieces for glazing… this is the “Big Mug?” from before as well as another textured cup that I did.  To interpret my chicken scratch, they are both waxy white on the inside.  The cup is Rutile Blue on the outside.  The Big Mug was dipped in Rutile Blue (top half of the bowl) and Copper Red for the bottom… should come out interesting.

First Three Pots

I finally got my first pots back from glaze firing.  There was a bit of a mix-up in the glaze lids, but at any rate the two reddish ones were glazed with Copper Red on the outside and Persimmon on the inside.  The other one was Rutile Blue on the outside with Persimmon on the inside.  My dip was way too long (8 seconds) for glaze so thick, so unfortunately I lost some of the texture in the form.  Next time I will use a quicker dip to retain the texture.  The gouged pot and the blue pot are both Berkeley Potter’s Studio special recycled clay.  The Mushroom Pot was Leslie Ceramics’ Happy Clay.

Blowfish Vase

A lot of activity with pottery lately… trying to catch up on my posts.  This vase is called the “Blowfish Vase”.  It was made with Leslie Ceramics Happy clay.  Currently it is in the bisque fire stage… I’m still deciding how to glaze it.

When I trimmed the foot, I used a plastic take-out container for soup as a chuck.  It seemed to work pretty well.

Bricks

Here is a picture of a little sculpture I did with bricks leftover from a demolition.  Nothing fancy, just messing with composition and texture.

No Day But To-day

Last night, I saw Rent at the Altarena Theater in Alameda, and it reminded me of this piece I did as part of the Monoprinting and Pop-up Engineering class I took at Kala Institute (http://www.kala.org/class/individual2011/mono/Wilson_PopUpMono_11.html) with Michelle Wilson. The class was pretty awesome and fun, though I wish I had thought a bit about what I would have liked to make ahead of time. At any rate, I kind of like the piece anyway and I framed it. There’s a picture of it in progress as well as framed.  The phrase “No Day But To-day” is a refrain from several songs in Rent, with the hyphen emphasizing the rhythm of how it is sung.  The rhinoceros is one of the totem animals I have adopted for myself over the years.

A Really Big Mug?

A new pot, fresh off the wheel. I’m not sure whether it’s a flat bottomed bowl or a really big mug. I guess I’ll figure it out after I fire the thing.  Assuming I don’t turn it into a flower pot when I trim the thing….

Stay tuned for more pottery action… I actually get to glaze my first pieces this week! woot!

Tamalpa Life/Art Process Drawing

This past weekend I attended a workshop at Yoga Loft in SF by Daria Halprin of the Tamalpa Institute (http://www.tamalpa.org) on Movement and the Life/Art Process. The workshop used movement,drawing, and words to explore embodied awareness and tap into the intelligence of my body.

This drawing was the result of a movement/drawing/sharing exercise in which we were instructed to move in such a way as to explore the question “Where am I physically, emotionally, mentally in my life right now?”. The image of the bird shot with an arrow appeared in my head immediately at the end of the movement exercise, and I drew it almost immediately. Then, we got in groups of three and held our own drawing while another member of the group explored it through movement. It was much more difficult for me to hold this up and watch someone dance my drawing than it was for me to dance someone else’s drawing, despite my aversion to dance. After we watched others dance our drawing, we were then instructed to dance our own drawing.

This was a very special experience for me because I think it was the first time in my life that I’ve ever been referred to as “graceful”.