My kiln is firing today, (no, that’s not a photo of the process, it’s a campfire) turning all those little fragile clay bowls into something akin to stone. There is a strange weight of responsibility resting on the shoulders of potters. The intense heat of the kiln (2,000+ degrees fahrenheit) liquifies and bonds the silica in clay, creating an incredibly hard material. Potentially the pots I fire today could be intact a thousand years from now.
framework
My eldest daughter turned eleven today, marking not only the first decade of her life, but a full decade of me as a parent. As I assembled these small frames today it prompted me to think about the framework of my life, like a series of self portraits spanning back to my own beginning. Me as a daughter, a student, a sister, an artist, a wife, a mother... The frames overlap, often contain one another, and even sometimes conflict with each other. My daughter is just beginning to determine and diversify her identity, her own framework.
sleep
Sleep is the eager cloth onto which I stitch unformed, unrealized ideas. Sleep is the cool lump of clay that forms and reforms in the hands of my mind, until I wake into a new day with bright fresh notions (some admittedly better than others) of what I plan to tackle. Without sleep I am all disconnected stitches and hardened bits of mud. Last night I didn’t sleep.
Fantasy B
In my massive and well lit studio I have an area completely dedicated to costuming. Aside from using the space to construct a series of elaborate and bizarre costumes meant for a show of some sort, I love having people swing in with their various costuming ideas and challenges. For a reasonable fee, I manifest their wildest costume fantasies.
In the real world, halloween always brings a few friends knocking at my door in search of minor costume augmentation. I love doing it, and I often daydream about taking it more seriously.
this one’s for salt
I spent much of today hand forming these little dishes, dreaming up new sensual food comments that I can stamp into the rims. I am somehow endlessly amused by these double entendres. Spoon me, squeeze me (for lemons), lick me, devour me, I’m a hotty (for salsa),... Got any good ones?
schizocarp!
This tiny seed pod, actually roughly rice grain sized, is called a schizocarp. Great word, which conjures all kinds of strong imagery for me, none involving tiny seeds. I looked it up in the dictionary: a dry seed that splits at maturity into two or more closed carpels. I challenge you to slip the word schizocarp into a regular conversation this week.
don’t eat them
I think these rows of clay beads look like little french confections from a black and white world. I am gearing up for the ArtChics Sale, November 2-3. I tend to make an array of small gift items for this sale, which gives me a chance to experiment with various techniques and ideas, then maybe later apply them to larger work.