Recently in pottery Category

Often when I am asked why I make pottery, I flippantly reply that growing up in a household of artists every other medium was taken so I filled the table. In truth, as a beginning potter one of my dreams was to be able to make all the dishes for a meal. On a rainy October Saturday we had enough plates to host a potluck for 35 members of the Washington Oriental Ceramic Group.

Through our cups, plates, and vases, Warren and I hoped to convey our philosophy of the importance of creative use as an aesthetic component of art.
 
Viewing the work in the contrasting, simple white gallery enhances ones attention and focus to  the ideas expressed in clay. For us the realm of physical functioning is similar to the surface of an inflated balloon--it can be expanded and stretched to encompass difficult uses as well as including the traditional habits of morning coffee or tea--but we don't want any punctures obliterating the balloon.

I had hoped for beautiful weather so our visitors could walk in the field and see the direct relationship between the inspiration of the Virginia hills and my expression of horizon lines and grasses in specific pots. When I walk in the rolling terrain of the Virginia piedmont, I rejoice in the moments when all I can see is hillside and sky. It's a similar feeling to being on the ocean when all one can see is sea and sky--when the horizon line becomes a boundary between the expression of landscape and the embodiment of landscape.

The woodfired work expresses an environmental feel partly due to the layered, atmospheric glazing of ash bonding to clay.

The pouring rain kept many people from walking to the kiln, much less encountering pots ensconced in the field. My hope is that our example of living with and using pots will fill in the gaps of what was not verbally enunciated given the tight schedule.

We had some visitors today from Norway. We wandered through the the studio and looked at the kiln and pots. As they were packing up their treasures in the van, what really got them excited were the trees. One of the potters collected a bag of pods from the bald cypress tree. Others collected the large, wrinkly green osage oranges. I love it when a visitor or an experience gets my vision to refocus--to look afresh at my common surroundings as if I were traveling in a strange land. I collected a handful of cypress pods and photographed them on a leaf plate.

I've been deep in the studio with the windows wide open to each new gust of cool air. The crisp light highlighted individual grass stems. It was as if grass stalks have been whispering poems to their inky shadows. At the end of the evening I turn off the lights and walk to the house while the huge moon keeps an eye on progress.


The tulip magnolia
writes first in white ink, then in green.
each new twig as ink to the reading mind
- From Ink by Jane Hirshfield

On the 5:00 dog walk the afternoon thunderstorm was fading. As I looked across the pond into the swampy corner it was as if chalky paint had been mixed into the color of every willow, red maple and green ash leaf. By the time we had taken our full spin, the sun was out, hot on my back.The board fencing around the fields was deep black like writing on the hills.

We had a lovely dinner on the porch as the light faded from the trees across the pond.  This orange will have to be a stand-in for our dessert of beautiful raspberries. Fireflies in the distance spoke the language of a June night. Happy Fathers Day!

Last night we took an after dinner walk. At first it seemed so dark we were unsure of the path and as our eyes adjusted the half moon created shadows and encouraged spontaneous interpretive dances, giggles and songs not to mention new insights on cups.

In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

from a Navajo blessing

I borrowed the Mexican cup in the foreground years ago from a friend to use as inspiration for some of my own. It is very low fire red earthenware and more lumpy than my drawing lets on. I am sure it has a lead glaze. When it gets hot and buggy I often find myself thinking about a summer trip to San Blas Mexico when I was in my 20s. We would run through a swamp swatting with bugs away with towels to get to a beach with a palm frond roofed restaurant and a perfect wave that peeled off of a point. The cup must have been made with the reflection of the relaxed heat and the agitation of buzzing mosquitoes.

I am never sure what it is that kicks off summer memories. Sometimes it's the smell of privit and honeysuckle on a breeze, other times it's the feeling of dried salt on my skin from swimming in the ocean. Today's sensation of quiet and hot blacktop  made me feel like I was eleven years old.

In the early morning light pockets of dry heat surprised me as I walked up the hill with the dog into the sun.The shadows were long and the sky blue with the promise of another steaming day.


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us....
Nelson Mandela