Tuesday, July 7, 2009
I'm aware when working with clay, that I'm handling a small bit of this earth we all live in & on. And come to think of it, the minerals that make up the colors applied to the fired pieces are other, rarer bits of planet Earth.
Sometimes I make containers....a traditional role for clay. Their surfaces are usually clay/earth stressed by pulling, stretching, pushing, tearing: my own intimate versions of earthquakes, eruptions, foldings, sliding continental plates. Recently I've made tablets to go inside these vessels....that can be taken out, & replaced, too! What a fluid & dynamic world we inhabit!
I also love making clay landscapes.....chunks of land with things going on. Recently I've thought of these as stage sets, where you could imagine human characters entering & interacting with the scenery. Or sometimes, I feel like we are spectators looking from the outside at the clay event, wondering what it is we're seeing....things 1/2-hidden, suggested, suggestive, ambiguous.
And color: I've been sneaking up on color for a few years now. At first, I just used darks to bring out the contours & textures of the clay.....heightening the forms with layers of subtle color.
The result was pastel, shimmery.
I often lay skin-thin layers of clay over each other....so you can just make out that there are things going on underneath. Or make windows in those skins so you can really see part of what's below. It's like collaging with clay.
One day I began glueing actual pieces of colored paper onto the surface of the fired clay....traditional collaging on an unconventional surface. This suddenly introduced the fully-saturated color onto the pieces, that had been missing with the delicate coloring I'd used before.
COLOR!!
And the surprises in borrowed images!
Hours & hours of solitary time spent in the pursuit of the aha's:
when the wet clay takes its final shape;
when the layers & layers of color give life back to the fired clay;
when a body of work seems to add up to part of at least one person's experience of being of this earth.
Sometimes I make containers....a traditional role for clay. Their surfaces are usually clay/earth stressed by pulling, stretching, pushing, tearing: my own intimate versions of earthquakes, eruptions, foldings, sliding continental plates. Recently I've made tablets to go inside these vessels....that can be taken out, & replaced, too! What a fluid & dynamic world we inhabit!
I also love making clay landscapes.....chunks of land with things going on. Recently I've thought of these as stage sets, where you could imagine human characters entering & interacting with the scenery. Or sometimes, I feel like we are spectators looking from the outside at the clay event, wondering what it is we're seeing....things 1/2-hidden, suggested, suggestive, ambiguous.
And color: I've been sneaking up on color for a few years now. At first, I just used darks to bring out the contours & textures of the clay.....heightening the forms with layers of subtle color.
The result was pastel, shimmery.
I often lay skin-thin layers of clay over each other....so you can just make out that there are things going on underneath. Or make windows in those skins so you can really see part of what's below. It's like collaging with clay.
One day I began glueing actual pieces of colored paper onto the surface of the fired clay....traditional collaging on an unconventional surface. This suddenly introduced the fully-saturated color onto the pieces, that had been missing with the delicate coloring I'd used before.
COLOR!!
And the surprises in borrowed images!
Hours & hours of solitary time spent in the pursuit of the aha's:
when the wet clay takes its final shape;
when the layers & layers of color give life back to the fired clay;
when a body of work seems to add up to part of at least one person's experience of being of this earth.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Today is June 12th, & all the musicians in that foto, minus the little boy, & plus a black labrador dog, met at Lorraine's house which is perched up in the forest above Lake Samish. We hiked beneath a wild rose arbor, down many switchbacks, to their dock carrying celebratory edibles, put up a large umbrella, & enjoyed ourselves for two hours in the sunshine by the water.
I hope we get to do another concert next spring!
I hope we get to do another concert next spring!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Music for 3 sticks (flutes) & a board (piano) at the Whatcom Museum...... Cinco de Maya!
And.....wonderful eggs from the county.
The story-telling piece & the receptacle piece just got accepted to be shown at Bham's City Hall in a revolving show of local artists. Yay!
5.13.09
5.13.09
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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