BACK TO CERAMICS (part III)

I signed up for another ceramics class and started back last Thursday night. One of my objectives this time is to create pieces that have a look and feel of having been worked with the hands. Pieces that are neither too polished nor too juvenile - but somewhere in between... primitive, but with an expression of experience.

Series 1 - BOWLS

My initial thought was of create a set of functional objects - bowls, dishes - inspired by road kill. Do I have your attention now?

But as I played with the idea and took it from concept to design - the form, the species - I couldn't remove the off-colored elements from the art, at least in my mind. For example, my sketch of a flat skunk,  with a tail posed overhead to hold a dip bowl - lovely in its etherial majesty AND FUNCTIONALITY - still, retained too much of that element of tragedy. I mean, who is going to dip the crudite into the sauce in the tail bowl without thinking all that is associated with dead skunk on the highway - the guts, the head-swooning smell?

So I thought maybe we could start with something simpler - and more acceptable... like a dead fish.

Here's the first pilot. Made from some leftover 306 clay (from my last class, 2 years ago), this piece was hand formed from the vague internal sense of fish that we all carry in out heads. I think it's like a cross between a friday dinner in lent and a whaling boat. It doesn't exactly match my vision, but it's close. I am not sure it will survive the first firing, but if it does, I have a firm sense for how I want to glaze it. Let's hope for the best.

"Flounder I" is a different story. This guy was researched on the internet and developed on a custom form that I created from a piece of drywall. It's been formed with fresh, low-fire clay and is currently drying in my studio.

I am very excited about this piece but also worried - because of the delicate nature of its form and my uncertainty on how the low-fire clay performs. (This is the first time I am working with it.)

BOWLS and PLATES

The PHO bowl (below) was meant to subscribe to my intention of making a piece that looks like it was made with the hands. It was formed around a mold and worked intensively until I was happy with the lines. For a touch of whimsey, I made 5 slits in the underside and pressed a set of 3-5 clay balls - like peas in a pod. They may fall out during firing - I don't know. In fact, the whole thing may crack because I fear I waited too long to release it from the mold.

It was a learning process, filled with a significant amount of unknown. I wanted a certain look - a primitive refinement - but with a certain elegance of a slightly upraised rim. This required the bowl to dry suspended upside down and turned over only when it was firm enough so that the rim and base did not droop from gravity. Since clay shrinks significantly as it dries, there is a conflict between the clay and the form it sits on. Wait too long and cracks will develop. I guess we will see.

The cosmic plate is a fun and simple object to make - a rare combination for me. Perhaps a prototype for something that could be given as gifts - or even sold, if the insanity strikes me to do something like that.

And because I am using low-fire clay, I have the opportunity to apply some strikingly bright color to it.


Regardless of how these objects turn out, I am finding again that clay is a format that allows a high degree of expression and, depending on your approach and discipline, an opportunity for surprise  - both good (like serendipity) and bad (like a broken piece of brown burnt rock).  Every week, something new comes out of the kiln to make you happy or puzzled or sad. Just like life.

MY ENEMY, MY THUMB

Maybe I would not have pushed the pen knife into my thumb had I been wearing my glasses while trying to cut a small hole in a milk jug. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Not that it matters, but the blade went in with painless, surgical precision. I didn't know anything was wrong until the blood started flowing.

The bruise in the picture happened back in December when, in spite of not being able to get into a comfortable and clear striking position, I sent a hammer toward a 1" nail that I was awkwardly holding against a gutter hanger. It was outside. It was cold. I was in a hurry to finish something that I didn't think I'd have to do, so I was in my, 'get-this-the-f-done' mode. It was not a strong blow but it struck on an angle that focused the impact of the hammerhead on the phalange like a shape charge. Since the hand was already partially anesthetized from the cold, the full extent of the damage was not immediately felt. Weeks later though, the beauty of bloom showed as the nail grew out of its root.

To be fair, it is not just my left thumb that I seem to be mad at. Recently, the right thumb had a deep splinter removed and had recently finished healing from a series of winter crackings - an ongoing series of small but painful splits which develop on the tip. Each split reopens repeatedly when it is banged against, say, a table, or when you strike a tennis ball with torque, or something less turbulent like wash your hand.

The winter is not kind to my hands but why so much thumb violence? They are faithful workers. They are what separates me from many other animals. I need to be kinder. I need to stop biting the dead skin off them. I need to give them more lotion. I need to call a truce.

So today, in the middle of BE KIND TO YOUR HANDS month, I say to my thumbs, the war is over.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN (a morning coffee at Starbucks)

Something I found as I was paging through an old magazine. I don't remember much of what these notes refer to (nor should I), but it definitely is my handwriting...

I was doing OK again at Starbucks. The screw-up at the register where I was charged twice for a coffee and blueberry scone was behind me. And corrected. The scenery wasn't great, but it kept changing. Putting my leather jacket back on took care of the cascading chill that was coming off the window.

But then mr. "grande 6-shot mocha" sat down [in the chair beside me] and I was immediately transported from Lafayette Hill to COLOGNE. Not the city in Germany but the one in some awful smelling burg in North Jersey.

In time, he finally left but as they say, "the smell lingers on".

-  as scribbled down one day in December, 2007.

TIME AND A SLICE OF BREAD

Seventeen years ago today, dad died.

What strikes me as I see this on my calendar is that it seems like it could easily be 50 years.

Because my memory plays with time, and the 90s seem like yesterday, until you stop to think about it and contrast the past to the present - who I was, where our family life was and what the world was then and now.

Seventeen years ago, the kids were still in high school, living with us and going through teen things. We were in between cats. Pocono died in August, the year before and Calypso (my first act of grandfathering when Sharon got the boot order from her college residence) did not yet arrive on our doorstep. We had a station wagon in our driveway and I drove a honda to my job with J&J, still depositing mounds of traumatic stress into my PTSS account and wondering if becoming a chef would be a good mid-life career switch.

Thinking back about dad, it's like, 'dad who?'.  It is difficult for me now, to understand how I was never able to break through to him. Because I look at myself now and imagine having different conversations and creating something, even if it was only a different understanding. We never had anything that resembled an adult relationship. He was gone - as an active participant in living - long before I grew up. Checked out on life and growth and fathering somewhere along the line for reasons I can surmise but can't understand.

Last year, I wrote a song for dad. It includes music and exists in MP3 format (but not to be included at this time). Although the song relates to one of the positive aspects of his collective activity - as a man who had some skill in the kitchen, it is also littered with my own attempts to resolve ambivalences and mixed emotions. He was always living in the tense of a 3rd person, not as a "you and I" figure. The song is about an activity that should be passed on through family lines in an active sense - baking traditional ethnic foods. But as with all things relating to dad, I learned by watching and emulating what I thought I saw, or in most cases, by doing the opposite.

The bread is called hzympka - a simple, peasant bread, filled with swiss cheese or mashed potatoes. No one has any idea how to spell it, so I put this spelling together as a phonetic representation of my memory of what I heard. There is no written recipe for it and I've never been able to find anything similar in a cookbook or through the internet. Later, I'll publish the actual recipe but for now, here's the words of my song.

Hzympka  © 2009 C.Pronchik

First you have a smoke

It's gotta be a Pall Mall (pall mall)

Then don't wash your hands

You want to keep the tobacco smell (the tobacco smell)

Flour, yeast and water

Mix it up and let it soak (let it soak)

This will give you time

To step aside and catch another smoke (catch another smoke)

pomollo,  pomollo katskia

When it sponges up, add more flour and some salt

Go grease some pans;  ashes fall in - it's no one's fault (it's no one's fault)

Pull the dough into the pans

warm and soft and somewhat wetter  (it should be somewhat wetter)

Chop some cheese and mix it in 

Swiss is good but Switzer's better (switzer's better)    (don't forget the ground pepper !!!!)

Wet your fingers with your mouth; pull the dough, edge to middle

Seal it up and let it rise; you forgot the pepper, didn't ya?  (Jesus Christ, you forgot the pepper, didn't ya?)

Egg and water, glaze the top

In the oven three hundred and fifty degrees (that's 350 degrees farenheit)

Catch a smoke, pet the dog

drink a couple Balentines for me (don't forget to make the 3-ring sign for ballentine)

THE BALANCE OF THE DAY

Tuesday....

(-5) Not the best of starts... still troubled by the problems of Roger Ebert and his disfigurement. It makes me sad for him but it also brings 2 thoughts again to the forefront: how much of our perception of individuals is controlled by what our eyes show us, and how vulnerable we all are to the vagaries of life.

(+2) Sue dresses up like Jillian Mele. (this is not a kinky thing, it's just a thing, and a plus 2)

(+5) Learned quite a bit from several outstanding articles in the N.Y. Times (on-line and STILL FREE!). Forward one on PINK NOISE to my scientific son, Jeremy, another on protecting the ears of the young to the soon to be parents, my daughter and son-in-law, and a third on what the Russians think about their olympic shortcomings to my Olympics loving wife. Kept the reviews on the new TV show, Parenthood and the new movie, Alice in Wonderland to myself.

(-10) I decide to go out and take care of some tasks. Look. I'm not ranting. I'm just saying the world is full of... let's just say (I'm being REALLY kind), people who can do better. Let's ignore the rude, distracted drivers on the road - here's IRONY for you: I go to the doctor's office to pick up my prescription for ADD medicine (attention deficit disorder) from a person who is struggling with some kind of attention disorder of her own - a receptionist that is apparently unable to multi-task and who pays no attention to me as I stand in front of her and she completes multiple steps of whatever it is she's doing, past the point of rudeness. Dear woman: FIND ANOTHER JOB! A receptionist needs to be able to multitask. Dear woman: All you needed to do was look up momentarily and ask what I was there for - and THEN, if you couldn't pause for the 10 seconds it takes to retrieve the prescription, say to me, "would you mind waiting while I finish this task?" (and then not take 10 minutes and not hand me my RX without a further word.) You twerp.

(-2) Was almost side-swiped IN the supermarket by a muttonhead (with a baby no less!) who is pushing along while watching his hand-held. Yes, even at the supermarket, they drive distracted. Do we need a law for this too?  (Don't get me started!)

(+2) Receive an unexpected pleasantry at Lowes from an employee (not even a greeter) who gives me a big "how are you doing sir."

(-3) BUT, Lowes has no heirloom tomato seeds. Home Depot has no heirloom tomato seeds. And Staples has no Arrow P-22 staples ! (Yes, ironic moment #2 - STAPLES has no STAPLES).

(+4) Back home, receive email from Jeremy telling me how much he enjoyed the article I forwarded to him. Further, he posts it on his facebook page and gives me credit.

(-1) F'n mailman.

(+3) Snagged the last piece of home made, exotic mushroom pizza (oyster, shitake and crimini mushrooms) from the freezer and reheat it for lunch, then eat it with EXTRA TRUFFLE OIL drizzled on top.

(+2) At chestnut hill coffee, remind myself I am 57, and have a cappuccino. No, wait, I'm 58.

TOTAL for the day.... -3