Museums- Renwick

While in Washington D.C. this last week, I made the trek to visit the Renwick.

It's always first on my list. My timing isn't the greatest, though. Half the bottom floor is walled off in prep for the next exhibit which will be all wood craftsmanship. I'm sorry to miss that one.

The other half was a collection of works made by Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps during the Second World War. The pieces were both beautiful and sad. Even in the desolation of their surroundings, the spirit of Art still whispered in their ears and things of beauty were made of the humblest of materials: Beautifully carved wood pins, tiny chests and implements, sewn garments and constructed utensils, inkstones and an amazing teapot chiseled out of common slate. A slide show of the exhibit can be found at http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions and scroll down to The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946

I'm sure there are many families who own and treasure such items of that time and this was but a small representation. I came away feeling sad for them and shaking my head at the injustice.

The second floor of the Renwick had old friends on display plus a few new things from the permanent collection.

One of my favorites is Ghost Clock, an actual sized wood sculpture of a long case clock that appears to be covered by a white cloth, tied in the middle. On close inspection, the cloth, which is astoundingly real looking is not fabric at all, but wood. I wonder how many times the alarm goes off daily from people just having to touch it to be sure it is not a sheet. Wendell Castle is a master.

Making your own trim batts

I like to make my own trimming batts.

The other day, I went to a fabrics and craft supply store to get high density foam and found a 17 x 14 x 2 inch piece. Usually, I scrounge most of the foam I use, but this time, I didn't have any squirreled away.

I had measured my wheel and pan prior to shopping for the foam, so I knew the maximum outside diameter measurement to shop for.

I marked out the circumference of the batt onto the foam using a marking pen, then cut it into a circle using large sewing scissors. I don't really care if the foam is neatly cut--that doesn't matter, just as long as it clears the catch-pan of the wheel.

I put a batt on the foam to serve as a base, centered it, then glued it on. This is done with the foam side down and a hefty weight put on the batt. As my Dad used to say, "Glueing without pressure is a waste of time."

After I let the glue set for 24 hours, I used a long bamboo skewer threaded through the batt pin holes and pierced through to the top on the reverse side.

I marked with a permanent pen where the skewer came out on the top. This way, with the foam side up, I can easily locate where the batt pin holes and center the trim wheel easily.

I marked around the skewer with a permanent marker

I put the new batt on the wheel and marked true center. I measured out from the center in one-inch increments and, holding the marker on each dot, rotated the wheel to create concentric circles.

I like the foam because it grips the clay. it's easy to center the piece using the guidelines, the foam doesn't alter the lips or rims of a form. You only need to steady the piece lightly with your fingers to keep it in place while trimming.

The foam catches the trims for easy brush off.

More About Work and ADD

I'm still a bit ADD even as an adult. I manage the problem better now than when I was younger.

Understanding ADD and the long-range view of maturity helps.

Although I can be distracted easily and have many things going on at one time, the other side of ADD is the ability to focus intently when interested in something.

Take this plus a creative "mandate" and you've got someone who goes into a bubble where time, hunger, sleep become irrelevant until it burns itself out. I still do go off on tangents.

I can also multi-task like crazy.

But this can have a bad side too. I can accumulate so many things on my plate, things can become muddled or overpowering. The Coulda', Shoulda', Woulda' rolls up behind me and sticks like Velcro until I become paralyzed. That's when I just have to take a deep breath and either sort it out or go do something else for a while.

One strategy is making long lists, writing things down before they evaporate. That and a good calendar with lots of space for notes is a good way to get a handle on things.

My notebooks, of which there are legion, are just a jumble of everything from measurements of rooms, sizes of frames for images to matt, ideas, sketches, projects, floor plans, grocery lists, interesting recipes, passing thoughts and observations, books to buy, remembrances, to-do lists: A regular brain-trust I can't do without. I finally transferred and alphabetized my books-to-look-for list onto my iPhone so that when I happen to be near a used book store (one of my fav haunts) or the library (another) I'll at least make a better stab at what to look for.

For me, it still has to be on paper. I don't trust electronic storage because too many things can hamper getting to it. Paper. Pencil/Pen. Handy. Simple.

Work

Creativity for me is not a smooth track, a steadily flowing river.

It is torrent and and stillness; raging flood and and draught.

In my heart of hearts, I think the quiet is just as important as the intensity of working.

But the quiet worries me. I feel guilty within it. I wonder if I'm playing hooky. Granted, I've got a lot on my plate at the moment.

And when I have no control over this absence from work, as in being away from home or attending to something that suspends my studio work, I feel no dig at my conscience.

But when I choose to avoid the studio and busy myself with things like, reading or vacuously watching some kind of mind-waste on TV, THEN I worry.

Nose to the Grindstone, Me

Is it because I grew up thinking I should be productive and fill my days with useful, practical, productive work? Certainly no one pressed this ideology on me; it was/is of my own making. In the past, I have thought I needed to be productive every waking moment. Not just art, but in everything. For instance, if I sat down to watch television, I should be doing something with my hands.

I couldn't just sit at the beach, I had to improve my mind. I read instead of relaxing. Lay on a pool float? Nah-swim laps.

Busy hands and busy minds. Definitely not the imperialistic idea that idleness was the right of the privileged class.

A friend of mine who grew up in Europe and knew how to really relax and enjoy it, used to chide me about what she referred to as my "Puritan Tradition" problem.

Maybe she's right.

Weird and Wonderful World of Clay

Wonders never cease when it comes to what some manufacturers made out of clay. Here's the great-great grandson of William Copeland, Spode's original business partner, demonstrating a china footbath.

I'm sure this is decorated with either blue and white or sepia colored transfer prints.

Just look at the lugs on the thing. Must have weighted a ton when filled with water.

Anyway, this photo appears in "Spode and Copeland Marks" by Robert Copeland, printed in the U.K. and available at a pricey $170+ through various used book sellers.

Looking at old and new work

Coming back to my alternate studio after a 6-month absence, I looked at my work from the past year.

The first thought was, "I must make bigger work." It suddenly struck me that my previous pieces are rather small and I wonder, "Why did I not see this before?"

Lately, I have been making much larger work. The living area at the other studio is larger with pure white walls and lofty ceilings. Could this be having an impact on my work?

The paradox is that the studio I just left is small; my regular studio here is large.

I threw a lot of pieces there. I sat them out during the day, but carefully put them in sealed boxes at night in order to slow down the drying. A big bisque firing awaits when I return.

I'm also trying an experiment--I had about 100 lbs. of various clays that I put into a large plastic container. I poured water into it and sealed it up. We'll see if it kept the clay moist.

This guy is pretty large--about 14 inches tall. I put it in a 10 gallon bucket overnight to keep it from drying to quickly. I threw it with no base because I wanted to form it into an oval and slab-roll the base to fit.

And this one is even taller.

Even these bakers are as large as the batts.

I had to fill in the places where the batt pins showed on the

bottoms, so the bakers are about 10 inches in diameter.

They'll shrink, of course, about 10% by the time they're bisqued, then glazed and fired again.

Knowledge

Once, while I was in college, a professor said, "The more you learn about a subject, the less defined it becomes."

"Whaaaat?" I thought. "That can't be true. The more you know about something the more you should be an expert on it. The more you should be able to pin it down. Expert knowledge leads to a point, a finite amount of information and precise definition," my mind screamed.

Well, now I think he was right.

The end result of study and search into any field, the more fuzzy it becomes. It doesn't result in a point; it results in a fan. The more variations you discover and the more interlocking happens with other areas of study.

So, it's almost like the more you know, the less you really know. Like going from a tunnel to a hall, then a small room, larger rooms to an dense jungle to a forest to a plain to a beach to an ocean to the air.

I hope when I die, I will finally know everything.

If you're interested in the many different ways thinking happens, http://www.thinking.net/ might be a good jumping off place. I know I plan to mine this site for a while.

The Akar Yunomi show

There is a dizzying array of yanomi up on the Akar site:

http://www.akardesign.com/

20 pages to peruse.

Arfs and Crafts 2010

Arfs and Crafts will be coming up.

The show opens at The Art Stop, Tacoma, WA on April 15th.

Artists from all over the area make and contribute pieces for sale to support the Prison Pet Partnership Program and Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound.

Dogs are rescued from animal shelters around the Northwest and taken to be trained as service and assist dogs by inmates of the Purdy WA Women's Correctional Institute. The trainers are inmates who have worked hard to earn the position. Under supervision of professionals, these inmates care for the dogs and train them for their future lives.

The Prudy program has received national acclaim and was featured on a 1997 PBS documentary on service dogs. To date, only one of the many women who have finished their sentences and participated successfully in this program has returned to prison.

The focus of the show is pet dishes, functional, fanciful, funky and fun. Past entries range from the practical to cast bronze sculptures of dogs.

There have even been soup bowls and plates for pet owners.

The show opens during the Third Thrusday Artwalk, April 15th. Artwork will be sold at silent auction through Saturday, April 17th.

The Art Stop is located at 940 Broadway, Tacoma, WA 98402.

White Pear Salt Shaker - How it works

Interesting glaze experiment. The stem is underglaze black. the top 1/3 is transparent glaze. The bottom 2/3rds is Coyote Creamy Matt.

Very subtle.

I applied small points of black for interest.

It's not quite there yet, but getting close.

View of the bottom.

It was waxed for firing, but I set it on a stilt anyway because I wasn't sure how stable the Creamy Matt would be.

You can see the funnel for the salt that leads to the internal cavity.

The salt comes out through the tiny hole at the top of the cone shape.

This is how the shaker works:

A cutaway view of the hollow pear showing it with salt inside.

The thing in the center is like a funnel.

To fill an empty pear with salt, turn it over and pour the salt into the bottom funnel.

The salt all goes into the top of the pear.

After no more salt will go in, gently turn the pear over. All the salt will fall to the bottom around the funnel.

The salt comes out when the pear is shaken straight up and down.

The salt flies up into the top of the pear shape, then falls back down into the bottom section with some of it falling through the hole at the top of the funnel.