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From the body
Nov. 28th, 2023 09:22 amThe juxtaposition of pottery, data entry for work that requires mousing in a web entry form for each of thousands of entries, and carrying water in buckets to the animals has wreaked serious havoc on my right elbow. It hurts, but it hurts especially when I'm typing or right after carrying water. In some ways it's nice to have a familiar hurt when my body is doing strange things, but I do worry about losing use more than I have. So far it's just concentration when typing that suffers, functionally.
I haven't sold the pigs. I'd asked some folks to help me write up the ad and none of them did, so I relied on that instead of trying to sidestep PDA and grief and do it myself. That means I'm out of money -- worried about paying basic bills for the first time in maybe decades -- and hauling heavy water. The more important this is to do, the harder it is to bypass my PDA and do it. If I took a week off work I could probably manage but I do not have that week. I haven't been able to bear the thought of just shooting them all.
That said, this Friday and Saturday I am selling pottery for the first time at a little local sale, at the historic site at the original Fort. I have zero idea how it will go and no real expectations of selling a ton of stuff, but it would be nice.
I have thoughts about pottery, a lot of them, but pretty much only when I'm physically engaging with it. I don't have a visual memory. I have no idea what things look like if my eyes aren't on them. I could describe them pretty well if they were in front of me, but when I'm writing that doesn't really happen. I can collect only fragments here:
I use many different clay bodies -- clays -- and they all feel different and finish different. I love them, I love the contrast between the many surfaces that can be created from even just one clay and the quite different surface of glazes. I do not want to cover up the whole of anything with glaze, really.
I'm starting to have skills to create the shapes I want, instead of having them happen and then needing to stop before the piece collapses. Shape and line is fascinating, and when I sit down and do a set of pieces on the wheel each shape relates to the one before it in that set. For instance, I'll do a cylinder, then a classic vase curve, then invert it to a curved hourglass, like that. Those pieces, usually three to five, speak to each other and feel like a set in my mind even if they're different sizes and, obviously, different shapes.
Glazing is awkward and hasn't settled into a rhythm. I don't have a lot of space to store glazed pieces at the studio and every time I get in the glaze room other people come in and ask questions and want to do their own glazing. It's super understandable because glazing is weird and intimidating and we haven't had much instruction on it, and I am kind of positioned as the person who knows what I'm doing. I love answering these questions and helping.
But, I don't have a visual memory, and one doesn't have glaze buckets all open at once, and pieces need to dry between layers of glaze. So I would love to make series of several pieces where the glaze also relates to the other glazes and to the shape, but that requires an intense concentration and uninterruptedness I don't have. Right now everything is haphazard, "I know I like this combo" rather than "what best fits this series of shapes and how do I best show off the raw pottery as a highlight to glazes" let alone "how do I catch my poetry into these forms".
I suspect as people learn they will be able to work on their own and also answer other folks questions and I'll be able to find time to glaze when other people don't flock in.
There's a long time between shape creation and use of a vessel. Because of that long time and the burst nature of finished products -- the glaze kiln runs maybe once a month so I get several objects back at once -- it takes a long time to get feedback on the actual purpose of the item. I'm still creating in that time, with no feedback. I'm still iterating on a couple things I made in the summer without that actual use to direct me. It's an interesting feeling.
It's astonishing the number of things that can be made with clay that are actually useful. Not just cups and plates and knicknack holders but jars and dog dishes and shower caddies and shelves and rings and beads and buttons and so on. And wall sculpture. And signage.
I've made enough beautiful things that it's going to feel sad to part with them, but the ones I use are the flawed ones. Not sure if that's an aesthetic preference or if it's because I feel safe attaching to them or just because my first pieces tended to be flawed and I got into the habit of using them. It will be unusual and extraordinary, though, if people choose objects they like to use and then use them? That's a kind of sharing that doesn't happen with most things I make.
There is a weird and unnecessary chasm between pottery as a craft and pottery as an art in the community that's mostly erased in practice because of course it is, humans don't actually work that way, but exists in the discourse.
As in natural systems (how is our brain interpreting the world not a natural system?) edges are useful and intriguing.
I have always liked playing with the unexpected and will continue to do so.
My kitten, henceforward Bear, not only likes joining me on the wheel but also lounges among the drying pieces. We were joking that he's quality control, but actually two days ago he was lounging among the drying pieces, sniffed them all, and reached out to tip over and break... the ugliest one. He has never broken any others. So, fair enough.
I haven't sold the pigs. I'd asked some folks to help me write up the ad and none of them did, so I relied on that instead of trying to sidestep PDA and grief and do it myself. That means I'm out of money -- worried about paying basic bills for the first time in maybe decades -- and hauling heavy water. The more important this is to do, the harder it is to bypass my PDA and do it. If I took a week off work I could probably manage but I do not have that week. I haven't been able to bear the thought of just shooting them all.
That said, this Friday and Saturday I am selling pottery for the first time at a little local sale, at the historic site at the original Fort. I have zero idea how it will go and no real expectations of selling a ton of stuff, but it would be nice.
I have thoughts about pottery, a lot of them, but pretty much only when I'm physically engaging with it. I don't have a visual memory. I have no idea what things look like if my eyes aren't on them. I could describe them pretty well if they were in front of me, but when I'm writing that doesn't really happen. I can collect only fragments here:
I use many different clay bodies -- clays -- and they all feel different and finish different. I love them, I love the contrast between the many surfaces that can be created from even just one clay and the quite different surface of glazes. I do not want to cover up the whole of anything with glaze, really.
I'm starting to have skills to create the shapes I want, instead of having them happen and then needing to stop before the piece collapses. Shape and line is fascinating, and when I sit down and do a set of pieces on the wheel each shape relates to the one before it in that set. For instance, I'll do a cylinder, then a classic vase curve, then invert it to a curved hourglass, like that. Those pieces, usually three to five, speak to each other and feel like a set in my mind even if they're different sizes and, obviously, different shapes.
Glazing is awkward and hasn't settled into a rhythm. I don't have a lot of space to store glazed pieces at the studio and every time I get in the glaze room other people come in and ask questions and want to do their own glazing. It's super understandable because glazing is weird and intimidating and we haven't had much instruction on it, and I am kind of positioned as the person who knows what I'm doing. I love answering these questions and helping.
But, I don't have a visual memory, and one doesn't have glaze buckets all open at once, and pieces need to dry between layers of glaze. So I would love to make series of several pieces where the glaze also relates to the other glazes and to the shape, but that requires an intense concentration and uninterruptedness I don't have. Right now everything is haphazard, "I know I like this combo" rather than "what best fits this series of shapes and how do I best show off the raw pottery as a highlight to glazes" let alone "how do I catch my poetry into these forms".
I suspect as people learn they will be able to work on their own and also answer other folks questions and I'll be able to find time to glaze when other people don't flock in.
There's a long time between shape creation and use of a vessel. Because of that long time and the burst nature of finished products -- the glaze kiln runs maybe once a month so I get several objects back at once -- it takes a long time to get feedback on the actual purpose of the item. I'm still creating in that time, with no feedback. I'm still iterating on a couple things I made in the summer without that actual use to direct me. It's an interesting feeling.
It's astonishing the number of things that can be made with clay that are actually useful. Not just cups and plates and knicknack holders but jars and dog dishes and shower caddies and shelves and rings and beads and buttons and so on. And wall sculpture. And signage.
I've made enough beautiful things that it's going to feel sad to part with them, but the ones I use are the flawed ones. Not sure if that's an aesthetic preference or if it's because I feel safe attaching to them or just because my first pieces tended to be flawed and I got into the habit of using them. It will be unusual and extraordinary, though, if people choose objects they like to use and then use them? That's a kind of sharing that doesn't happen with most things I make.
There is a weird and unnecessary chasm between pottery as a craft and pottery as an art in the community that's mostly erased in practice because of course it is, humans don't actually work that way, but exists in the discourse.
As in natural systems (how is our brain interpreting the world not a natural system?) edges are useful and intriguing.
I have always liked playing with the unexpected and will continue to do so.
My kitten, henceforward Bear, not only likes joining me on the wheel but also lounges among the drying pieces. We were joking that he's quality control, but actually two days ago he was lounging among the drying pieces, sniffed them all, and reached out to tip over and break... the ugliest one. He has never broken any others. So, fair enough.
