How do you begin your day? I like to begin mine quietly. I love having a cup of coffee in my favorite chair on the east side of my condo. I enjoy watching the outdoor light and sky change to begin a new day. Hmmm…There are times when the clouds, light, and other natural contours catch my eye. I wonder how I can take this observation of nature and apply it to my art. After an hour of reading from one of the meatier books that I am currently enjoying, Leo and I head out for a walk.
If we walk in Duncan’s woods, the light coming through the trees always catches my attention. Then, seeing how the light lands on trees with highly textured bark and lichen. I pause hoping that I can retain the memory of what I am seeing right now. My desire is to transfer my observations of nature into art.
If we head to the beach, the daily changes in our lakeshore mesmerizes me. I love finding lines in the sand caused by waves, bugs, animals and more. Of course, Leo is hoping that I won’t see a dead fish before he does and that he will get to roll in it. I typically find beach glass along the way.
I am working on connecting these walks to the surfaces of my clay forms. The forms are simple – squares, ovals, and rounds. I want the textures, patterns, and marks to catch your eye. My hope is that you can connect the patterns to your observations of our forests and lakeshore. I think my initial pieces are too busy. I need to simplify and also create more abstracted details that are vague interpretations of trees, stumps, bark textures, horizon lines, water and sand movement.
As I work in the studio, I am testing colored engobes to be the shades of our waterfront: blues, yellows, tans, grays to blacks, with vivid oranges for our sunsets. Another series of engobes reflecting the forest colors: shades of greens, grays, browns, and black. A firing earlier in the month where I was working on a vase that would relate to tree bark and lichen, ended up too dark. So, I will begin again with testing colors. It takes so much time to create new colors for your ceramic work. I don’t use prepared glaze materials. I start with the dry chemicals dug from the earth; follow an engobe or glaze recipe that I have used for several of years as a base; then change the colorants by percentage. These chemical changes must be kiln fired and then evaluated. It all takes a lot of time with many tests to arrive with the desired colors and correct chemical fit to the clay body – porcelain. Below are examples of imagery and then attempts to represent what I saw on clay. In my opinion, a couple are successful and several will have a hammer taken to them.
In previous years, I would work in the studio, creating many mugs, bowls, plates and more in a week. Now, I am taking my time to look at my natural world and thinking about how do I transfer what I saw on my walk today to my artwork. I have a large sketchbook where I draw my ideas so that I don’t forget what I saw. I almost always take pictures while I walk. Lately, I have been writing a date in my sketchbook so that I can go back in my photos to see what my camera recorded on that day. This is a new pattern of working for me. It’s slower. I am taking my time thinking about what I saw and considering why it caught my attention. I will try to capture “that” in my art. Truly an ongoing work in progress.
A friend shared this poem by Nikita Gill and it resonated with me:
“Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.”
The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t know all that much. I do believe in the power of making good art (ceramics) and the connection that it can make between two people. Making good art/pots is about thoughtfulness; slowing down and appreciating the moment; then, choosing to have right thoughts and then right actions.
