In May I installed a series of my sketchbooks as part of an exhibit called Sculpting Time at VisArts in Rockville, Maryland. These notebooks represent images and writing that have accumulated over the last several years. I try to write five days a week as part of my process of finding direction and clarifying ideas in my work and life. I write three pages and then paint a page with color which later gets an added collaged drawing. Some notebooks are only visual records of what I am pursing in the clay realm and some are collages of the varied streams of life. They are like the lining of my mind.
This week one of the notebooks was stolen from the gallery. I am stunned. Suddenly the memory of what those pages held gains importance. From each volume I have selected one single page or spread to exhibit, but the whole book lost represents a month or more of personal reflection.
The report that the notebook is gone comes on the heels of the news that my parents' summer cottage has had a major fire. The fire began in the kitchen which is now destroyed. Over the years my mother had brought many of my pots to use there. I am struck by how those objects held snapshots in time. Particular moments are captured in the clay when I experimented with texture, color and simplicity. I may revisit those ideas but I will not be able to make those pots again.
I really liked the notebook that was stolen and so luckily I had scanned many of the images. I had used several of the pages of writing as the basis for other projects, so I know the gist of what the pages held. I plan to recreate a book called The Lost Notebook; rather than mourn its loss, there is the hope that I will come up with something better than the pages that are gone.
"Barn's burnt down ... Now I can see the moon"
Masahide
This week one of the notebooks was stolen from the gallery. I am stunned. Suddenly the memory of what those pages held gains importance. From each volume I have selected one single page or spread to exhibit, but the whole book lost represents a month or more of personal reflection. The report that the notebook is gone comes on the heels of the news that my parents' summer cottage has had a major fire. The fire began in the kitchen which is now destroyed. Over the years my mother had brought many of my pots to use there. I am struck by how those objects held snapshots in time. Particular moments are captured in the clay when I experimented with texture, color and simplicity. I may revisit those ideas but I will not be able to make those pots again.
I really liked the notebook that was stolen and so luckily I had scanned many of the images. I had used several of the pages of writing as the basis for other projects, so I know the gist of what the pages held. I plan to recreate a book called The Lost Notebook; rather than mourn its loss, there is the hope that I will come up with something better than the pages that are gone."Barn's burnt down ... Now I can see the moon"
Masahide
