In
Mr. LaHotan's second-grade art class I was excited when we were going to make things out of clay. But before we could move from painting to pottery, we had to tell him the difference. Since it seemed so obvious to me that clay was 3-dimensional, I stayed quiet. He stressed that when we worked in clay we had to observe our progress from every direction.
Surprisingly, I still see it differently. Trying to combine what I love about working on paper and what I love about 3-dimensional clay I am mixing my paint so it is like slip and mixing my slip so it is like paint. I write in my fast, illegible script and paint in my notebook. Then, transitioning to slip and clay, I search for the same feeling. When the claywork drawing seems more exciting, I alter my sketching materials yet again. The cups above are the result of printed handwriting; the page below shows template-shaped ideas for the cups.
Sometimes on my walks I see things that are inspiring. And they ignite a new way of working or looking. Other times I find something that I recognize that I have already been working on, in this case a broken goose egg on the edge of a swampy trail. At first I thought it was plastic. I recognized the edge of my shard plates. These are bowls that began a few years ago when my slip was too strong for the clay body and cracked the edges as they dried. I decided to let go of the "good craftsmanship" sensibility that said these were a failure and put on my artist hat that said there are no mistakes in art. ... and ask "Now what?." I snapped off the edges and remembered how when I traveled in Japan I loved looking at remains of once whole pots and found them mysterious and often found myself making drawings of the partial patterns and arbitrary shapes.
