Footnote to the previous post----

The little verse seen on the sculpture in the previous post is a quote from an inscription said to be engraved around the silver collar of a dog belonging to Prince Fredrick of Wales, eldest son of King George II. Said to have been given to the prince by Alexander Pope, Probably similar to the one shown.

--Looks uncomfortable for the dog.

"I am his majesty's dog at Kew,

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"

So, in other words, I began to stop being my job's dog and become my 'own dog' - mentally at least. : )

What You Do Today Affects Tomorrow

When I was working at a 'regular job', I commuted an hour+, worked eight hours plus, sometimes attended an evening class, commuted back home, did the regular house thing, cooking, cleaning, etc. went to bed and started all over again the next day. I was up before the sun and many times fell into bed long past evening time.

Weekends were spent catching up on things that had been left hanging during the week like food shopping, running errands, the million other things that have to be attended to in life.

While I liked my job, felt I was learning new things, living on a small farm in a beautiful valley, and was reasonably happy with my life, many times I was just too tired or wrung out to pick up my art and do anything with it. For me, art requires a bit more peace.

True, I did have windows here and there where I was commuting on a ferry or waiting in the queue to board that didn't require me doing anything but sit. And I sometimes read, ate, slept or just zoned out. It wasn't a bad commute.

One day I realized I was actually grieving about losing my desire to make art. That's when I made a promise to myself. I would FIND TIME EVERY DAY to do SOMETHING to "feed my art". And I would carve it out wherever I could find a few spare minutes.

I would sketch.

Read an article from one of my magazines.

Visit a supply store and catch up on new products.

Go somewhere to see new works.

Plan or get a new project going.

Sort through my stash of supplies.

Interact with other artists.

Think.

Soon, I felt I was doing something. My mood lifted. I began to find more time to work and made some good things. I even arranged for a showing of my pieces in the gallery space where I was working. I didn't feel like I was just plodding along.

Even though it was slow going, this time period helped me find focus and was the basis for the kind of work I did for many years to come. It was a creative seed bed. I would have missed that whole evolution if I hadn't woken up one day and realized I was wasting time I could be using for myself instead of handing it all to other demands.

Sometimes you have to be selfish for your art......

"We are what we continually do."

---attributed to Aristotle.

Note: This little sculpture was cut out of a flat slab of clay. Patterned from a piece of cardboard, the form was cut out, then gently opened up to make it stand. A cardboard 'tent' held the legs apart while the piece dried. The collar is 3-D and fitted when the piece was drying. The black chain was from an old necklace. Lettering was done over the dry glaze prior to firing. Cone 5/6 oxidation.

Rules for Artists - Work Environment

Find your own best work environment:

This would work nicely, but the turret needs some kiln vents....

For years, due to my husband's occupation, I had no workspace of my own for clay. A spare bedroom or the dining room was fine for other things like weaving, painting and drawing, fibers, etc. But clay is a different matter. Finally we settled in one place where I knew I could plan on returning to working in clay.

My first studio of my very own was an old dirt-floor garage/ex-chicken house ca. 1940 on a small farm we bought. It had drafty barn doors, single pane windows and was about 30 feet from the house. There was a standpipe outside the studio door for water.

The first thing I got was a kiln. There was already shelving at the back of the garage, so I bought plastic sheeting to keep the moisture in and used that to store my works in progress.

I poured a concrete floor for the kiln space and, using pre-formed concrete deck footings built a floor for the rest of the space.

I heated it with an old-fashioned kerosene heater. I had an old drafting table I covered in plastic and canvas, an old wooden stool and I was in business. That first year I made sculpture and slabwork pieces.

Since then, I have been lucky enough to expand to a two-car garage with wonderful lighting and big, bright windows. The only thing bad about it is there's more space to clean! So aside from the physical space, what other aspects of a workspace is best for you?

Solitude or in a Group Setting?

I prefer solitude with music. It helps my concentration.

But sometimes--

I like working in a group because I like the give and take of conversation and being with other artists. I learn a lot that way. Sometimes working in a group studio setting is the only way you can go, but if you have a choice, Ask yourself these questions:

Do you work best by yourself?

Do you find others distracting?

Do you feel pressure to 'perform' well in a group? Are you competitive?

Do you need positive reinforcement from others?

Do you learn better when watching others work or when you can work it out by yourself?

Do you need to have someone show you how to do something or can you solve the problem by using a book or video or working it out alone?

Do you pick up a 'vibe' by working with others?

If you work alone:

Is silence the best atmosphere for you?

Do you like music?

Do you listen to discussions on the radio or like to hear recorded books?

How about your physical surroundings?

Are you bugged by mess? Does everything have to be clean before you can get down to work?

Do you need :

Lots of elbow room or only a small space?

Lots of tools or only use a few?

Do you like to work in your own area or are you comfortable in a shared facilities situation?

Do you like to work a while, leave it, then return to work more or are you one of those Stay-up-all-night Gotta-get-it-done-before-the-inspiration-leaves kind of artist?

Rules for Artists - Safety First

First and foremost, you must school yourself in clay safety.

Sure, you will hear people say, "I've been spraying glaze/looking in the kiln/sweeping out the studio/ for years and it hasn't affected me." Or something else of that ilk.

Maybe it hasn't affected them..............yet.

How would they know until it is too late? Hazardous materials have a way of building up in your body. You may not have symptoms for years. But when and if you do, it could be devastating.

How many times have you walked into a pottery supply place where classes are going on and a kiln is firing in the back? You can smell it the minute you walk in!

Or have you known someone who lets their toddler play in the studio while they are working? I even had an instructor (internationally known artist and author who shall be nameless) say when she was a child, she played with a box of powdered asbestos her clay-artist father (also famous and nameless) had in the studio when she was a child. "And it didn't bother her." (!!)

Always take care of yourself and be mindful of others' safety when working with materials and firing. There are no prosecutable laws governing material content of clay, glazes, colorants, or handling. It's up to you to school yourself. If you can't find the information, proceed with judgement.

Safety of materials is not usually a part of the arts curriculum, but in my opinion, it should be the FIRST thing covered in any program.

For instance, I never handle glaze, underglaze or any material that could possibly be hazardous without wearing surgical gloves. As a matter of fact, surgical gloves can actually help in handling freshly-glazed pots because the glaze doesn't come off or smear. The gloves are cheap, disposable, easy to use once you get accustomed to them. (There is an ad that runs in clay magazines showing a young girl with a paintbrush in her mouth and hands covered with colorant that just sets my teeth on edge.)

I never mix powdered substances or clean the studio without a respirator on.

I never fire lead or other hazardous glazes in the kiln because I know the residue can stick to the walls and affect future firings.

I never eat or drink in my studio or invite others to do so. (I can't tell you how many classes and workshops I've attended where food and drink is available. I even went to a class where I wondered if it was for clay or eating!)

Here are some resources:

The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide - Monona Russell - available at Amazon.com

Artist Beware: The Hazards of Working with All Art and Craft Materials and Precautions Every Artist/Craftperson Should Take - Michael McCann - also available at Amazon.com

You can review both books by sourcing them on Google Books)

Websites:

http://www.amaco.com/html/amaco_safety.html

http://www.claytimes.com/reference-guide/health-safety.html

Good videos for safety and other subjects can be found on:

http://www.ehow.com/video_4946355_pottery-clay-making-safety.html

Rules for Artists

-- The symbol for Zen--

Some time ago, I was reading an article about the art of writing. Famous writers were asked, "What advice would you give new writers?" While it was specific to writers, in some respects the basic ideas could apply to artists just as well. The article was rather long and detailed and I won't go into it here. However, it got me thinking. What would I tell a new potter who was just starting out?

I began jotting down thoughts as they came to me. They weren't in any kind of order. I saved them in a file and from time to time, when a new thought hit my brain, I added it. I put it aside. Then, a few days ago as I was going to sleep, two more ideas occurred to me. I jotted them down on the sheet of paper on my nightstand.

Looking at the list again, I decided to break it down into sections. I will write more later in coming entries.

Overall Philosophy Department: "The first 10 years are the hardest."

This is a quote from the writers' list. It is sort of a joke and not a joke. The same statement could hold true for artists.

It's great to have an innate gift, but talent undeveloped is still just that. Mastery is the prize. It takes time and work to develop talent into the sum of skills with the materials, understanding and cultivation of your own technique and using your gift to bring artistic thought into reality.

There is a book entitled 'Finding One's Way with Clay'. That's a great title and a good book to have. You must figure out our own unique path in the clay otherwise, the work is not yours; it's someone else's.

You may take classes, and seek out instructors for workshops, pour over books on aesthetics, technique and materials. You might pick the brains of colleagues and suppliers. But in the end it is just you and the materials and time.

And really, what could possibly be better than that?

I dub thee Master of the Pot.

Beatrice Wood at the Renwick

I had never seen a Beatrice Wood piece before I saw these pieces sharing the case with the previous teapot.

Now I know why everyone has a fit over her glazes. (The formulae for which she took to her grave, unfortunately.)

They absolutely GLOW. This is a mustard glaze with a rich brown background is almost hare's fur glaze. It just vibrates. I wish so much I could take my jeweler's glass to that surface. I think I would see a slide of microscopic crystals tobogganing down the sides of the rims and across the surface.

I'd love to know the heft and weight of these pieces; they look as if they could be light.

Too bad my camera's battery sighed it's last just after I took this shot.

Not Clay, but Nice Form

This wonderful hammered silver teapot with the coral lid knob was sitting in a case in the permanent collection section of the Renwick.

It's almost more a piece of jewelry than a utilitarian vessel.

Maybe jewelry for your table?

The body is produced by skillfully hammering a flat, round disc into a three dimensional piece. And, the statement here is that it is all hand-made, which is an admirable work of skill. The only thing I find stops the eye is the slight irregularity of the hand wrought handle.

Everything works here. The rough textured body, the graceful arch of the handle which lands on two toes above the spout, the tripod legs.

The whole thing just seems to have flown in and lightly landed on the table.

And look how the spout joins and blends so well with the shape of the body. This is a spout that means business......

"Theme and Variation", a mantra my modern art professor used to say. The variation is the audacity of the coral, I think.

This photo goes into my "Teapots" file for future reference. It would look nice interpreted in clay. A bit of a challenge, but worth trying.

Torso - Wall Hanging

This wall piece is a raku sculpture with a touch of glaze. It sold through a gallery where had been hanging for several months.

I had decided it was time to bring the torso home when I exchanged some new work for some old work at the gallery.

I hadn't had it more than a week when I got a call from the owner. One of the sales people wanted her to ask me if I still had the torso. I said, " yes" and the owner said, "One of the sales people wants to buy it."

So it is now on her wall. And I'm so pleased she likes it and will have it.

It's funny how you can, in your mind, 'own' something and only feel it's loss when it is not there anymore.

The Master Bath Shower Pad

I made and installed this mosaic when we put the addition on for the master bedroom.

Before the shower enclosure was tiled and finished, this was the beginning of the fish motif idea. The design thought here is as if you are looking down into a fish pool.

The fish are shown from a top view. milling around. A few round sea urchins are thrown in. The tile photographs with is variation in the color, but in real life, the range of color is less than it appears here. Even though these pieces are the same clay, the same glaze and fired in the same kiln, the subtle variations are very pleasing.

I didn't want anything that would overshadow the future floor (We installed carpet in the bath as a stop-gap. Bad Mistake.)

I wanted something that would have enough texture to not become slick with water.

When we did select the tile for the floor, both the grey-ish border and the cream field tile went well with the variations in the handmade tile.

The Phillips Collection, D.C.

While in Washington D.C., I made the trek past Dupont Circle to the Phillips Collection. It's a little hard to find since it's located a bit off Massachusetts Ave. I made a special effort to go there this time, since I just have not visited this museum before, usually making the rounds of the Renwick, Freer and any one of the other Smithsonian museums. After that visit, the Phillips will go to the top of my list. What a great place to spend the day.

The collection is unique.

There is a nice mix of early and later modern work and a range of European and American pieces. I discovered a couple of artists I had never seen before and who have done intriguing work. I plan to research more on both when I get home. There's a nice mix of European impressionist paintings--some w

ell known works by Renoir, Monet, Picasso, and of course, my favorite, Gauguin. I'm always amazed at how his colors just glow--something you can't see in a book. The jewel of the collection must be Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" which is huge and takes up one entire wall of an exhibit room.

**Scale is something you never get in books. The Mona Lisa is surprisingly small. The Night Watch by Rembrandt is nearly life size.**

The collection is not arranged according to say, European impressionism, the pictures are hung in each room as they relate to each other.

For example, I walked into one room and realized immediately that it was all about negative space. I was totally intrigued by it and returned to look again before leaving. This work by Francis Bacon (Not my favorite painter until I saw this) was massive. A photo just cannot do it justice. One square foot of this painting is just as interesting as the whole. It has very subtle brushstrokes and beautiful overlay of pigment. It is so mysterious, I could live with it and study it daily.

The other great thing about the Phillips is you can actually walk up and get close to a painting--up to two feet, they request--to enjoy a really close look at the work. Photos without flash are also permitted in the permanent collection. Unfortunately, my camera battery gave up the ghost. And I did not trust my cell phone's camera to suppress the flash.

I was lucky enough to walk into the main living room of the house (The Phillips is a museum building joined to a Greek Revival residence which has been turned into display spaces and offices) while a concert rehearsal was going on. The singer had a beautiful operatic voice and was accompanied by a string quartet. A folding chair on the side of the room was empty and I immediately jumped into it to sit behind the first violin and be with about 15 feet of the singer. What a rare treat! The music was a selection I'm guessing from a Spanish composition and during a break for discussion of some fragment or other, the musicians were talking to each other in Spanish (singer and 2 violins) and either a Scandinavian or Russian dialect between the viola and cello players. They were preparing for a concert that evening. I love rehearsals almost as much as performances because you can hear them taking apart and analyzing some phrase of the music. I happily stayed glued to my seat until they finally broke to rest before the performance.

The Phillips has a nice small cafe. The food is a selection of cold sandwiches, salads and pastries. The room has been decorated by a wall treatment called "Flurries", a cream-colored wallpaper with transparent apricot colored glassy half-bubbles or spheres placed in interesting patters over the surface and extending over the glass windows and doors. A video showing the process of installing the wall treatment, along with two other videos of installations in the museum are shown in a continuous loop for you to watch while you enjoy the food. The Flurries video: http://www.youtube.com/user/PhillipsArtMuseum

Other work: The Migration Series - wonderful abstractly executed narrative series by Jacob Lawrence.

And this little jewel by Christenberry.