This fall has been about honing language to explain my work, refining sculptures and letting go of or redefining refinement in wares. I also interned at Harvard Ceramics Program which was frustrating at times but, in the end, educational. Being in the HCP community allowed me to use four different types of clay freely. I was able to try T-1 sculpture clay, a new to me white stoneware, brown stoneware, and porcelain all from Amherst Pottery Supply. Their clay is super. So much so that I am now ordering from them for my clay at the high school where I teach.

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I had spent the summer looking at water and pushing that as a focus.

Clay is an important component of my creative life and meditative practice. It has unique qualities that require mindfulness, patience, attention to detail, and time. It has the potential to teach us about its relationship to the earth, impermanence, and transformation. As a medium, for me, clay has moved from the consideration of fabricating wares and improving my skill set to an embedded and significant element of my spiritual practice. In the short-term creating this way reduces anxiety, clarifies my thoughts, and leaves me feeling more equanimity but also has the long-term benefit of guiding my life toward compassion through interactions with the greater ceramic community.

For me, the work is an integral part of the practice of meditation. I believe that engaging with my work is an opportunity to slow down the mind, to stop for a moment, become quiet and find focus. I invite the viewer to see the work as a reminder to notice the small wonders in the world.

Dharana, or getting lost in the moment of creating, where time falls away, is meditation. Hours feel like minutes when I create. In my sculptural forms, each one is a continuous line/form. I want my viewers to engage with these forms, to find a moment of quiet as they visually move through and around each piece. The inspiration for these forms comes from plants; succulents that spiral, ferns that unfurl, and desert rose crystal formations which obviously is not a plant but resembles one.

Because there are an infinite number of patterns and textures I tend to work sculpturally but also create useful wares.  Moving into this semester a goal was set by my mentor and I for me to not use pieces added to forms, but to use the actual form. The result can be seen in a series of vessels where I push the material further until the last in the series has the rim exploded. This is something I do want to explore more but it sure is tricky. The exploded rim piece is porcelain which is not very forgiving when fighting gravity.

I did hit a little bit of a drought at this point in the semester. I felt spread thin and frustrated by being in a clay community space but much of the time was not spent creating. I had studio care work to do. What this did allow me to do though, was to step back and observe. I had some excellent conversations with other ceramic artists and was able to do a bit of teaching/assisting during workshops. I really like teaching adult learners.

As we wrapped up the semester at HCP my head came out of the fog and I sought out some images I took over the past few months. During a walk, my path crossed some wonderful shadows created by street lights casting through trees. There were several light sources so the street appeared to me to vibrate. I am posting the images next then the subsequent pieces that were created in the order that I made them. There are four pieces total.

 

Being in the ceramics studio, with all of the materials, tools, space, and guidance, has been liberating. This summer began with a process challenge –  to use paperclay and create work which combined my sgraffito and sculptural pieces. While working on this, I discovered  an  underlying thread in my work. Water. The circular designs which have been created over and over are representations of drops of water on another body of water. Yo Ahn suggested looking deeper at the memory of water or exploring what water leaves behind. This, along with a workshop with Ben Ryderband, sparked bolder expressions with clay and experimentation. I added excessive slip to one pot to watch how the water decomposed it. Pieces of clay were added  to the outside of another pot and a few tumblers to resemble mud and observe the interactions of gravity and weight. This exploration and some work in Seminar, led to me realizing I really wanted to look at water more closely, not what is left behind in the absence of water.

We, as humans, are drawn to water. Standing in the ocean or a large lake, we become calm and meditative – watching gentle waves, feeling them lift us, then place us back down again.

Without water we do not live. It’s movement or stillness, scent, sound, how it catches the light, and reflectiveness…it’s power, it’s rhythm. That is the physicality of water. But it has deeper meanings through time and cultures, like raking representations of water in a sandy zen garden. 

I am presently looking at the representation of water from the perspective of someone who has a life-long meditation and yoga practice. Water can be seen as a symbol of wisdom, peace, and purity. It represents healing and suffering, stillness and rage, change and constancy.

By week three I created the first piece in the Wave Series. The viewer of this series will feel the meditative quality of gentle waves, the occasional mini whirlpool, get lost in the crests and troughs, and  find a quiet mind. I have also started to note other disruptions to the surface of water, but have not yet created with that thought. The exploration has just begun.I am currently planning pieces that reflect the dichotomies previously mentioned.

I am looking at artists Alberto Bustos (experimentation and movement) Judi Tavill (translating connections visually) Janny Baek (micro studies) and Rebecca Hutchinson (detail)

his has sparked thoughts about fire, and what it is about a fire that we can stare at it, silent, for long periods of time?

Below is the first of the Waves.

Below is #2 in Waves: Whirlpool

#3 Waves: Surface Disruption

Some pieces in process from the Ceramics Workshop with Ben Ryderband. These pieces were used as tests for shop glazes and what to use on the Waves.

A bowl as a study in the memory of water. “Relic” is a combination of sculpture, sgraffito, and throwing

“Limits” Before, with excessive amounts of slip and After, it has bowed down.

Explorative works for the memory of water concept and a few explorations with the clay I was given.

The first larger piece using paperclay. It has potential but was not hitting the mark for me. It feels too forced. I have bisque fired it but am currently contemplaing how to finish it.

I mix geometry with organic, in shape, form, and surface design. My wares are meant to be used daily or displayed and my sculptures are meant to be touched,  held, rolled around in the hand. My own lifelong practice of meditation and yoga has manifested in my creations as the process of mark-making is part of my practice. Interaction with the audience is important to me as it represents our human interaction with the universe. 

Each of the wares is enhanced by the use of sgraffito to ignite the surface. I engage the viewer by creating the illusion of depth and movement, space and time. The geometric shapes and designs are an interpretation of how I see the world; architectural details, patterns on insects and plants, the flow of mud from a geyser, colors in the sand on a beach, the waves and ripples created by a bug on the surface of an otherwise still body of water, are examples of my inspiration, memories, and documentation in photographs. 

While working with wares, I did not find satisfaction in the representation of some of the designs in this way. I felt the need to create sculptural forms. Tree roots and branches both still and waving in the wind, the flight pattern of a bee, a bird, a falling leaf, the spin of a dog before laying down, the shape a cat takes while bathing, the waves of a body of water, are some examples of organic patterns I see and interpret in sculptural form. The line that creates these forms, is generally but not exclusively, infinite. 

I began with more of the same that I had been doing in the first larger bowl then changed it up a bit with the smaller one. This one I allowed myself to bring the design from the outside to the inside and through. I have not done this again but will certainly revisit this concept. Outside, inside and through. I will likely do some of this work during the summer while on campus because the only way to decipher it is to have a clear head. It’s a really fun puzzle. 

Another fun puzzle was this green and yellow serving dish and the organic line that didn’t seem to belong at first. I was stuck. I asked everyone for an assist. In the end I used what I have learned with the dodecahedrons which have now turned into fluid forms. One series informed the other. An ah-ha moment. The organic was meant to be there. While the yoga I practice has its series’ and patterns, it is fluid in breath and movement. I saw this line as breath. It became the fluid. It became the movement. It became the wind. It became a branch, alive and growing.

I started looking through my visual references, photos I have collected of patterns or scenes which were deliberately saved for use in work “at some point”. A favorite image was taken on a backpacking trip in 2009 with my brother, my sister-in-law, and my kids. We hiked 7 miles that day with everything we needed on our backs. This was a piece of heaven. During the hike in to where we would eventually camp, we passed a body of water that caught the light just right. So beautiful. The illusion from the reflection of the grass in the water was mesmerizing. Finally, I found a way to use it in my work. Layers and layers in this process.

I have taken to working on several pieces at one time, all in different stages. The dish above was worked on simultaneously with the next two. The large dish is handbuilt using a form. I have another one of these under plastic, ready when I am, for it. There seemed to be a bit of a water focus happening. I do love ripples and waves. Not as much the big ones but the subtle ones on the surface of an otherwise still pond, created by a gentle wind, a bug on the surface, or some creature stirring from the depths. The bottle is going to get a gold luster accent but I’m not exactly sure where just yet. While the other two dishes are of water, this one IS water or at least some kind of liquid engulfing the form. I’m not sure if you can see it but the porcelain bottle has facets at the “naked” area as the top appears to be overlapping it from carving out that base.

The last dish is a new design I have not sorted out yet but it’s on the way. Very very complex.

 

 

The spring semester brought a change in mentors from Tim See to Chuck Stigliano.

The same day we had the fall review, I headed back to the studio. I had in my head a different way to work with the geometric sculptures I had been working on. I started with a solid form instead of hollow.

 

 

I took that form and twisted and turned it to break beyond the barrier of the expected, into a much more gestural and lively place. Below is that form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here there were some failures in trying to sort out how to expand on this idea…and figure out exactly what this idea represented. (See three images below)

What am I trying to show? What does it mean? Why am I making this? What is driving me? Why does this one feel unsuccessful and another triumphant? What is leading these decisions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything I create has become part of my yoga and meditation practice. If my mind is not focused, the form is disjointed, choppy, lacks fluidity. Each line and curve has a purpose; a means for going from here to there, always and forever moving forward and around.

 

 

The sculptures I create show a continuous flow from one place to the next, around and back again. It is almost always a never-ending cycle. This can be experienced with the eyes but it’s best done with the hands. Roll one around over and over. Get lost in it. The forms are similar in some ways but each is unique. I love spirals and how we can tunnel in or out with them. It’s all in the viewer’s perception. Is the glass half empty or half full?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the forms did start to become more articulated, I found this path to be too “busy”. It is interesting to hold but the ones I find most successful are the ones that the viewer can follow the lines and the lines, forms, and flow make sense.  From here I went on to make a larger, much simpler piece to help me understand my own goals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the first larger piece. It is also the first one to have a specific direction. There is a bottom. There is a top.

 

In the end, the forms I really enjoy the most that speak from my insides, are the more complex and compact ones. I do have a few that are in the works but I am also moving forward with the exploration of larger forms. The form below is still very rough.

I am also experimenting with different base shapes. This particular one, still in progress, is taking on an almost human shape. Again, there is a direction but if it is tipped on its side, there is a large spiral as a reward for curiosity. It’s not refined enough to show yet!

I am also looking at experimenting with alternate atmosphere firings. I was able to get one little piece into a soda firing at MassArt and the majority of the pieces which are pictured above will be getting the same treatment. The earthy effect is the perfect way to finish these. I will also be trying obvara raku firing this summer. I’m looking for a contrast that will accentuate the forms in a natural way. The wood firing of a piece or two may happen also. Loads more to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 2021 I made some tiles that I find interesting because it is revisiting an inspiration that has popped up several times over the years. Trees at dusk.

The first piece, c2001, is papier mache on canvas and is 36″ x 36″.  The second is my first attempt at this idea using clay.  The most recent are 4 x 4 tiles.