SEVEN UNUSUAL SIGHTINGS DURING A WALK IN FT. WASHINGTON PARK THIS MORNING

1. A miniature footbridge that someone built over a section of washed out ground. It was about 4"wide and 18"long. It was really pretty well done.
2. A group of evangelical cannibals (my read). We avoided them just in case.
3. A feral cat.
4. Two groups of encamped scouts - one set from NJ; the other, troupe 42 from PA. None were doing anything interesting like chopping wood or building a fire.
5. A bird watcher, who when we said hi, responded with a noise that was a cross between ASTRO (the Jetson's dog) and White Fang (from Soupy Sales). My guess is he doesn't speak much to us non-bird types and only knows bird calls. He was probably doing the best he could when we put him on the spot.
6. A lot of broken branches and winter destruction in the pine forest. A good clean-up project for the boy scouts, I would say.
7. A sherpa, walking by the railroad tracks (Sue said we should be quiet so we could hear his call... something like "sher-er-er-er sher-er-er-er, sherrrrr"). She might have made that up.

Art is temporary

The past is a memory

The future is a possibility

Only the present is permanent

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.