Dry(ing) Spell

I have hit a literary dry spell, it would seem.  Vacationing and getting ready for a new school year has taken the front seat, but only on the written page.  I've been burning the midnight oil about 5-6 days a week in the studio, and I'll be excited to begin posting the results, for better or for worse, right here.

First, I have been playing.  Playing in clay, polymer, paint, metal, and even a little glass.  I haven't made anything monumental, but in the pottery arena I have been practicing pulling more refined mug handles, and throwing mugs that are big enough for an actual grown-up to use.  Clay shrinks three times in the pottery-creation process; once to dry, then again with the bisque firing, and yet again with the glaze firing.  I have to make a mug about 12% larger with wet clay than I want the final product to be (did I ever mention I was not required to take math in college because I had 2 years of advanced spanish?  Who knew I would actually need math in my adult life? ¡Que lastima!).  I am also practicing on making larger bowls (which means centering larger amounts of clay with my wimpy, gummy arms), making pendants, studying new glaze combinations, and -the thing I am most excited about this week- making hand built wall hangings I am calling "Relic Boxes".

(Tangent alert!)

When I lived in Costa Rica there was a huge church that was built on the site where a small girl was said to have found a little Madonna and child image that was carved from black stone.  The small item is said to have been retuned to her by the Virgin Mary herself (as the story was told to me) and the priests in that town believed it to be a sign, building an amazing cathedral around that one small stone object.  That simple totem was elevated to a place of great honor, somehow separating it from its common beginnings, telling anyone who looked upon it that it was no longer ordinary.

Stone Madonna and child encrusted in gold and jems.

 The four inch stone in the massive shrine at the front of the cathedral (way up between the two angles near the dome, utterly invisible from the chapel).

(Tangent explination....) 

As most of us do, I have several small, random, and utterly non-monetary-value items that mean the world to me; a little trinket Adam gave me when he was little, a tiny vase that belonged to my grandma, a tiny card that Stephanie gave me long before she got sick, before I ever imagined she wouldn't be here anymore.  These items seem rather unimportant on the little shelf where they sit in the studio, unrelated and undefined, but to me, they are truly valuable.

I began to think about how sometimes a space can define what it contains, the way a book jacket hints to the mysteries contained in a book. I created my first Relic Box with the idea that a simple object could be placed inside, communicating it's secret, though not necessarily universal, value.

 I'm looking forward to creating more of them and seeing if they call to anyone else the way they call to me.

First unglazed Relic Box, still drying.

El Fin!

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

You know how it feels to walk around all day in snug shoes, like all day at Disneyland or on a hike for hours in the mountains?  and when you get home and pop those shoes off your feet and your feet go  "aaaaaahhhhhh" ...?  Yah, that's where I'm at.  My spirit just kicked off it's shoes.

Aaaahhhhhhh.

I did it.  I finished the book. It's done.  I reviewed the pages over and over, making little adjustments and corrections, and at a certain point I had to agree with the little voice in my head that said the book wasn't going to get much better than it was.  Not that it's perfect.  It's not, but it had reached a sort of plateau (also, to be clear; the voices in my head never tell me I to create my own militia or to set animals free from zoos or anything).  It was time to send it on to it's next life.

I wrapped it in bright colored tissue like an amazing present for Ellen, the book's author.  A box with twenty paintings.  The last couple of years of my life, off and on, all in one cardboard box.  As I walked into the empty post office lobby on a Saturday afternoon, it seemed strangely poetic that there was no one there to witness this momentous occasion.  I paid extra for insurance.  I popped on the label.  Then I just stood there in front of the big swinging package drop door.  I hugged the box protectively to my chest, suddenly nervous to let it go out to a faceless system, to trust it would be handled carefully.  I said a prayer and slipped the package into the drop box.  Immediately, I wished I had put it into a bigger, more well padded box.   Or double boxed it!  Why didn't I double box it?  I started picturing that scene in Cast Away where he fishes an artist's FedEx package out of the ocean, dripping wet.  This was a box full of watercolors, for gosh sakes!  The paint will run! Were there any oceans or big lakes between here and Tennessee?  Or one bad move on a conveyor belt and my paintings could be massacred!  Whimper.

It took till Thursday (even though the postage label said Monday!) for Ellen to get the package.  She called me for the grand opening.  She wrestled with tape, and gushed a little at the fun wrapping.  Then one by one the paintings came out.  She read the captions I had put on Post-Its to go with each picture.  She wept a little here and there, and commented, and sometimes was very quiet.

"I'm just speechless... speechless..." she said a few times.  She expressed her gratitude with love.  The phone connection got weird because of my very old, dropped-once-in-water cell phone.  She had to get to a meeting.  Our little moment was finished.

Now new work will begin.  I won't be involved in a lot of it.  Tennessee is far away.  But I trust Ellen implicitly.  Well, what's not to trust?  I was just sending her baby, her book, back to her.

I can't wait to see what she does with it.

Beginning Rituals - Earrings

Here are the most recent additions to the jewelry to be sold on Etsy and at my Annual Sale, which I'll tell you more about later (except to say that my annual Open Studio Sale was the real inspiration for the Etsy site, as many friends from out of state were sad not to be able to come to the sale and wanted a way to participate online.  So really, it's all thanks to them!  Thank you, Them!)

In the book I have been reading called, "Making Art a Practice: Thirty Ways to Paint a Pipe", the author encourages aspiring artists on all levels to begin each art making session with a ritual.  It can be a cup of herbal tea, a certain song or CD, a particular art warm up, the recitation of a goal, quote or motivational mission statement -  any action that will take them to that creative place.  It acts as a portal, immediately extracting one from the day-to-day rigmarole, and transporting them back into the creative flow they stepped away from at the end of their last creating session.

I have found mine.

I make a single pair of earrings before I begin any project currently in progress.  It's a great creative warm up (and it will serve to rescue me from the November crunch when I usually try to pound out items to have enough for my Open Studio Sale.  Freak-out mode is not a yummy-fun way to make art).  

For the moment I am relying on the stock pile of beads I have on hand, but as soon as Ellen's book is done (this week! YAY!), I will begin making ceramic pieces that are one of a kind.  That's when my heart is really happy.  Anyone could make the exact same jewelry I make out of beads from the store, but my ceramic pieces are unique to me.  

In the mean time I will still try to find that playfulness that is part of why I enjoy making things with my hands so much, even if the beads did come from a store.

The light at the end of the painting

The problem with not starting to work until 10 o'clock at night is 1. Quitting time is usually between the hours of one and two, and 2. Yoga. 

See, yoga happens at 9am. I sure wish the days were longer.  I would flourish with a 30 hour day, and 9 hours of sleep. 

I'm nearing the end of Ellen's book, and am excited to send it on its way to it's next life in Tessasee, where it will become something wonderful in her capable hands. Just a few things to touch up here and there, and then a double page spread to grapple with (third try's the charm, right?). 

I Spy (Making Order out of Chaos)

Can you find...?

2 hearts

a nest

an oak leaf

4 blue flowers

a bird

2 pairs of earrings

a measuring tape

3 spirals

a paint brush

a teapot

a cork

2 white pearls

When I was in college working on my final show, I stayed in my campus art studio so late one night that the early morning janitorial crew came through.  I was humored to learn that they never entered my studio space because, as the crew chief said, "We can't tell what's important and what's not."

That's okay.  

Sometimes I don't know what is important either, 

until it shows itself to me.

"Out of clutter, find simplicity.  From discord, find harmony.  In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." 

~ Albert Einstein

It is in the midst of materials and art books in my studio that I find ideas that might pair themselves together simply because my eyes drifted from one object to another in sequence.  My brain then allows them to mingle in a quiet space together, drawing unusual conclusions and connections.  There is an energy that comes at times as I drift from one collection of materials to another in my work space, that is the steam to drive my next creative effort.  Until recently I viewed the many partially completed pieces, the remnants of failed experiments and the small collections of strange objects around my studio like the debris after a flood; useless, unimportant.  But I am drawing connections now between them.  The tiny stacks of pebbles, the repetition of book stacks, the repeated lines in one of Jonah's drawings on my table, all dance together in my mind and begin to influence a new painting.  The trimmings of scrapbook paper beneath a bowl of stones asks me to borrow color from one to lend to the other.

Failed attempts are learning moments.

Incomplete projects are gestating solutions.

They are not debris.  They are relics.  

It's not a mess. 

 It's not chaos. 

 It's a seedbed, 

a cosmos,

 a beginning.

Getting All Businesslike

I'm working at getting my packaging perfected for my Etsy shop.

I got my business cards in the mail this week.

I used a painting I did last year and I'm pretty pleased with them.  

They will be pretty versatile given the many mediums I dabble in.

Also, they are made of nice sturdy cardstock, so they will double nicely for picking your teeth with.  

Shadow Box

Our Tuesday Project is complete.  We made them in triplicate to give away the other two for Mother's Day to two dear friends who mother our children so sweetly.  The first copy took about 18 hours to produce, the second and third, of course, an hour.  Once all of the photo editing, sizing and such were completed, the assembly was a cake walk.

The real art is their sweet faces. 

 God, the first and greatest Artist.