Finding My Groove

 I do believe it's out of my system. After months of tinkering and finding my cadence, I am now making pieces I can share/part with.  This involves a certain amount of confidence that my stuff is not crap... at least to me.

I have gone from experimentation to production - hoping to build a cache I can display and sell.  My litmus is, "Would I stop to look at it if it were in a gallery?"
Yep... I probably would.

 "Fish Bowl"

 

"Tree Birds" is one in a series of three...

 

I have many of this same form.... meant to be outdoor art.  

They vary in color and texture.

Holding Pattern



Sets waiting to be bisque fired...


My apologies for the blog hiatus... many factors came together to form the perfect 'hurry up and wait' storm. Okay maybe not a storm, but instead a six week stretch of drizzly weather with an occasional pop of bright blue sky.

There is beauty in drizzle and I am not complaining. All of the sets in the first picture have been bisque fired and now await the great glaze experiment.

now waiting to be glazed and fired a second time.

Glaze is an X-Factor and will keep a mortal humble.  Especially for someone like myself who has no real grasp of the chemistry at hand. I dip, and double dip into glaze combinations hoping for the best.  Opening the kiln after a glaze firing is met with the same anticipation as opening presents on Christmas morning...  I am usually happy and always surprised.

Pieces #2 and #5.

I have two completed sets out of the eighteen en queue.  They are standing in my living room awaiting final refinement.  When I look at them I must admit that I have anxiety that people aren't going to understand. These have, after all, poked out of my imagination like giant, garden, porcupine quills.

Add acceptance to the list of uncertainties on this trip. You can click on the pictures to get a closer view.



"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

Quoted from Albert Einstein  The quote is especially true for persons who tend to fly by the seat of their pants.  With art, every venture is new, and when it stops being new… it stops being art.  So a lot of mistakes are made that never make it onto the gallery floor.  For me, about twenty percent of the time I produce art that is a reject, a hot mess, or an emotional let-down (something that doesn’t quite physically match what’s in my head.) These are tucked away or tossed away as not meant for public experiential consumption.

The following would fall into the ‘hot mess’ category.

The vision: three Styrofoam decoy ducks painted a shiny fluorescent pink gracefully floating atop a living bed of foxtail barley.  In my head, the movement of the feathery grass would give the appearance of waves.  What my vision failed to incorporate was that 1) Styrofoam does not hold paint well and 2) decoys are weighted in the bottom in order to stay upright as they float on WATER.

The process that ensued can be described as one sloppy struggle after another until any grace leftover from the original concept was schmeared into oblivion.  There are times when slate-wiping is in order.

It was a good idea poorly executed and as with all mistakes, a learning experience.  Round one goes to the garbage man, but the concept deserves to be reanimated.  I am now mentally tinkering with the physics and facets of duck decoys and am approaching the project with much less ‘fly by the seat of my pants.’  I believe a trip to Gander Mountain is in order.

In the future, if you stroll past my house and see fluorescent pink ducks floating in my backyard, being privy to the process will (it's my hope) encourage a smile.

Creativity and Art

Abbygrrl and the Tree

In an effort to put all of my blog eggs in one basket, I'm republishing this post.  I must begin by saying that there are many mysteries I just accept - like TV signals, the sewer system, and monarch butterflies.  I don’t know how they work, and I don’t need to question why.  But hand me something a little more personal and I'll dissect it into intangible smithereens.  I have always been fascinated by the divine process of creativity.  Not to be confused with divine creationism… if you were to ask me what came first, the chicken or the egg, I would have to reply, "The dinosaur."  But certainly, in its purest form, creativity is divine.  And if you make it your mission to find its source, the most you will come away with is that it comes from 'someplace else.'

Creativity is not reserved for the artist.  Creativity isn't always artistic, and art isn't always creative.  If you've ever been to a Starving Artist sale at the Holiday Inn West, you know what I mean. Anyone who is deeply immersed in the task at hand has experience some level of disconnect from the din of everyday life. Whether you're rebuilding an engine, tending a garden, writing a song or painting the Mona Lisa, your conscious Elvis has left the building.  Welcome to creativity. 

I cannot tell you what that 'someplace else' is, exactly. It could be a universal frequency whose constant hum resonates more or less intensely within each of us.  Or it could be a way to stay connected to the ultimate creator… allowing us to experience that joy on a very human level.  This makes sense as there are times when I step away from my finished art, or from my writing, and feel like I cannot take complete credit for it.  It comes from 'someplace else.'  A similar feeling I had when holding my children for the first time.  How divine.

Sea legs... or clay fingers, to be exact.

sea legs

pl n Informal

1. The ability to adjust one's balance to the motion of a ship, especially in rough seas. 



Fired, glazed, and fired again, these cylinders will be stacked
around a rebar core to create a reed-like form.

Like struggling to put a name on a distant but familiar face, it's slowly coming back to me.  Those closest to me know I have a hard time staying too long with any one medium...  I am prone to artistic bouncing.  With clay, I may have met my match in the true context of the word.

In an open studio you may hear the term, 'coaxing the clay.'  One learns quickly that you are more her partner than her master.  She will never completely yield to you and you must earn her respect. 

While glass is rendered vulnerable and blown into shape, wood is hacked and sanded, metal is melted and hammered... clay is one small step from her point of origin and you've got to meet her on her terms. She is Earth. There isn't a more intimate or humbling relationship with a medium, and this is what draws me in.

Points of Impact

Every now and then life gives you a jolt.  The effect of which is only as intense as your proximity to the point of impact.  In this case the point of impact was at Holmquest Motors Auto Repair, an arm’s length from our beloved studio in Verona.  Don and I were watching the news Friday night when the familiar landscape rolled onto the screen.  “I know that place!  Oh my gosh, I know that place!  It’s right next door!”

From where one stands at any given moment, we are more or less connected to a galaxy alive with points of impact.  A coworker’s chemo, a friend’s unemployment, a sibling’s medical scare, a neighboring business’ fire… ripple outward from the point of impact and travel the emotional distance between yourself and the event.   I am removed from the fire and am not invested enough to absorb much of its impact, but I extend my heart to the mechanics who may have lost their livelihood.  And as with any near misses, I turn my head to breathe a sigh of relief and count my blessings.

The Studio

When Dave first gave me directions to the studio he said, “We are the big yellow building on the right on Bruce Street. The building is marked with a sign that says WOODWORKING or something like that.”

She was easy enough to find with her worn yellow paint, standing amid various cars in transition and free-range weeds. Cosmetically neglected, she juts and pops with additions and subtractions.  A product of function over form, she is a visual history of tenants come and gone and all have left their mark on her bones.

I can see how easily she could be written off, but anyone who spends as much time as me pondering the inner workings of the world would know this… as with any absolute being, her heart is tucked on the inside.

This is a place where art is born.