Mah Na Mah Na

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to showing some new work to Gail, my independent study teacher. I have been working on tall, skinny, somewhat abstract figures. They are medium-scale, which feels right to me right now. After my pinch pot project, I felt like my work had gotten a little too cute. So while I draw from the same basic inspiration, I was trying to go a little less literal. A little more pared down and minimal. I regularly ask myself such probing questions as, “How many eyes do you really need to show that it’s a face?” Or “what simple, elegant shape says body?” That sort of thing.

Gail really responded to the work. She smiled a lot. She oooohhh-ed & ahhhh-ed. She laughed. But then she hesitated for a moment. Finally, she cleared her throat and confessed what she had probably been thinking all along, “You know, they kind of remind me of the Muppets. What’s that one guy with the red hair?”

I’m pretty sure she was talking about Elmo. And it’s fur, not hair.

This is funny to me. Not that I don’t see the Beeker-esque qualities in recent sculptures, or the animal-like hairstyles or the Cookie-Monster-eyeballs. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom, and even though my boys have grown past Sesame Street, the Muppets will always hold a soft spot in our mutual hearts.

But here’s the funny thing…if I had to pinpoint what has inspired my new work, I would have to say it comes directly from a recent visit we made to the Field Museum in Chicago. I was NUTS for the Field Museum, ask my kids. My iphone and sketchbook are filled with photos and sketches from a few glorious hours roaming the hallways: Ancient Egypt, The Ancient Americas, Northwest Coast & Arctic Peoples. I’m not picky. If the exhibit feels primitive and urgent, with tribal drums, masks, hand-crafted costumes for some kind of spirit-gathering ritual, I am all in. I love this stuff.

So when Gail said Muppets, I’m thinking, what’s the connection here? Did Jim Henson and his muppet-making pals hang out at the same museums as me??  Or is there just something so intrinsic, from the time of cave paintings and early civilizations in how we render the basic human form? Is mankind destined to always view themselves first and foremost in a universal Muppet-like way?

Let’s be honest, little kids make Muppet-drawings all the time. I’ve seen it first-hand as all my boys went through pre-school. Child psychologists have analyzed it like crazy. In the land of preschool self-portraits, you really only need a head to be human. Maybe some legs. If you’re a precocious fashion-forward little girl with thing for mom’s make-up, you might get lips, eyelashes, hair. (My guys were not precocious -- they were mostly bald.) Eventually, as children become more aware, they get legs, hands, bellybuttons, a complete face. At ages 14, 12 and 9, my children now can really draw. They make intricate sketches of their hands holding chess pieces or they invent detailed cartoons of characters wearing sweatshirts with Under Armor Logos and Nike Free Runs. They think their art-making has progressed and has gotten So Much Better. It has indeed. But I miss the wavy circle heads and triangle bodies. And while I am determined not to be too cute, I embrace my Muppetness.

And now, a glimpse of some work-in-progress with some BIG disclaimers:  the work is unfinished, unfired and unglazed, and nearly every piece will get long skinny legs, either made of steel rods (with a base) or clay. Some will have feet, too... 

 

Starting Over. Starting Now.

I scooted my canvas-covered studio table around to a workable place, nicely situated under the fluorescent lights. I grabbed my plastic tote full of clay tools. I dug out an old box of Stoneware and I got to work. I admit, at first it disturbed me that I couldn’t find the ratty old canvas apron that I like to wear, but I couldn’t let that stop me. It also worried me that the table wasn’t in exactly the right spot and that the slurry I use to stick the slabs together needed to be wetted down and mudded up. But this was not the time to be a perfectionist. I needed to work.

To make a long story short, my husband and I bought a nearly perfect home in November 2011 that sat across the street from a small, sweet little lake. Our new home is a long, skinny ivy-covered ranch-style house. Tom and I have owned 4 prior homes and this is the first house I have ever really loved. As summer unfolded, my husband and I would grin at each other and say we felt like we were on vacation. My sons and I would spend long afternoons at the beach. Tom would come home from work and swim across the lake and back.  We’d have dinner out on our secluded back patio with lush gardens all around -- Rose of Sharon, bursting Hydrangas, Black-eyed Susans and over 100 varieties of Hostas. Instead of wandering inside to watch a tv show, we’d find ourselves back at the beach as the sun slanted just so. The guys would swim and splash in the water silhouetted against the sunset. Sometimes we were completely alone. Sometimes we’d bump into a friendly neighbor or two.

Like I said, it was nearly perfect.

It turns out that total perfection was a merely a mudroom, a powder room, a first floor laundry, and a 3-car garage away. And since we were doing all of that anyway, we might as well fix the kitchen so it’s a little bigger, brighter and more functional…

I have taken a loooooong sabbatical from making art.

The idea was that I would be too busy learning to cook in an electric skillet from my mother-in-law and picking out granite countertops to really dig into art-making. Also, renovating a home is a creative endeavor too, isn’t it? Well, for me at least, the process was not nearly as fun or inspiring as one would have hoped. I was mostly bored and a little embarrassed at how my days got filled up. I mean, it’s one thing to ditch out of art-making in order to watch your kid’s forensics tournament, quite another to ditch out because you had to compare the 800 samples of white subway tile for the backsplash.

Also, my studio, a long skinny unfinished part of my basement was totally trashed during construction. There was literally RUBBLE falling from the ceiling. Thankfully, all of that is behind me. I have a sketchbook full of ideas. The basement has been swept up. I needed to start again.

Even my clay was getting old. It was actually a little on the dry side, which meant that the slabs I rolled out on my big industrial-strength slab-roller were practically leather-hard to begin with. Just the way I like them. The slab roller itself seemed harder to manipulate -- do you have to be in shape to roll out a slab?

I thumbed through my sketchbook filled with a year of dreamy-dream ideas from the Field Museum, visits to the Detroit Institute of Arts, doodles and the inspiration of my 9-year-old. I had to stop thinking so much. I had to begin with something, anything.

And so I did.

It was the best week I’ve had in a long time. Let me try to describe the pleasure: I felt like, for the first time in over a year, I had a little story going in my head, a little secret that made me smile, and kept me happy and engaged in a way that raising kids and cooking dinner and running the house just doesn’t get. It’s mine, all mine and I delighted not just in the steps and techniques, but in the imagination of it all. What will the glaze look like. Should it have steel rod legs or clay legs. Can I finish another figure by the end of the week?

I remembered the way to scratch the surface with deep nicks with my pin-tool. I remember how the fettling knife is my all time favorite tool. The exact dryness the clay should be before I start shaving it with a rasp, and smoothing it with a rubber rib. It all came back to me like a physical language, a muscle memory, a love affair.

And quickly, so quickly, making art matters so much more to me. My days are

measured by whether I get to work or not. My weeks are divided into the days that require interruptive tasks like grocery shopping & orthodontist appointments, and the days that can be all mine, all in the studio. I even think about canceling little pleasures like having lunch with a girlfriend or going shopping for something new to wear. I’d rather make art.

This is the life, I think to myself. And as my dreamy sketches that have been waiting to be made come to life, they are replaced by new ideas, new inspirations, new creations… and now you're going to have to hear about it. :)

"365 Pinch Pots" at the Chelsea River Gallery

Dear Friends & Pinch Pot Followers,

This is just to say that at long last the pinch pots will be on display (and for sale!) from September 17 until October 30 at the Chelsea River Gallery. www.chelsearivergallery.com. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Imagine Render Group, the non-profit charity that invented "Empty Bowls." So excited for the show ... and so busy getting ready. I will post more after the opening, but please stop by if you can!

Lisa

Where Have My Yellows Gone?

The three pots in the above photos were glazed with the same low-fire commercial yellow glaze made by Duncan called "Harvest." The swatch in the catalog shows a beautiful golden yellow color with a nice satin finish, sort of along the lines of a 1950's harvest-gold refrigerator or oven. I love this color for a pinch pot. And that creamy gold is exactly what I would get if I stuck my pots in an electric kiln and fired to Cone 04. Ahhh, the good, easy life of commercial glazes.

But that’s not what I do. Instead, I’ve gotten it in my head that Raku is better. Even though it means tending a kiln, pulling red-hot pots out one-by-one with long steel tongs, trying not to singe my polar fleece or my ratty old sweatshirt. Trying not to singe my eyelashes or brows. Why? You ask. Well it has to do with surface texture. Layers of depth and interest, which is, for some reason, what all us ceramic types strive for.

For a while there, in the late winter-early spring of Michigan, when the weather was dismal and thankless, I got pots like the first two yellows. But later, when spring finally gave way to moderate temperatures, I got pots like the last one. Not yellow at all. More like ugly, dull flesh. You’ll notice I’m going on and on about the weather. That’s because EVERYTHING ELSE WAS THE SAME. I cannot tell you scientifically that it was the weather, but what else can I blame?! I applied the glazes the same way. I brought the kiln up to the same temperature in the same amount of time, give or take a few degrees. The clay body was the same. So what could it be? My mood? My karma? Do pinch pots have personalities that can alter the outcome of the glazes on their little faces? I think not. I have controlled what I could control and yet, my yellows are out of control.

And don’t even get me started on my purples.

This is the thing about ceramics: It’s all a little bit mumbo-jumbo. My sister has started making paintings with oil paint -- a medium I have never tried. She emails me pictures of her beautiful paintings every day. (She’s quite prolific.) Other than the mouth of her daughter not quite looking right or an eyeball that looks a little out-of-kilter, she is in control. No surprises. No mistakes. The cadmium yellow is always cadmium yellow unless she blends it with a little red, but then she gets just what you’d expect: ORANGE. She can actually look at the color right then and there and assess it… is that orange too bright? Should I make it a redder orange?

With ceramic glazes, the unfired glaze is chalky and an entirely different color than what you’ll get after it’s fired. The assessment is after-the-fact, after the piece you once loved is now precisely the color of a turd.

Ahhh, but sometimes, every once in a while, something magical can happen in that red-hot wonder of a kiln: A glaze gets an extra bit of crackle. The greens go all molten and dazzling. The blue on the nose is just right. And what you pull from the fire is extraordinary and fortifying and the next thing you know, you are back in the basement glazing away, dreaming of another gorgeous miracle.

Thanks to Hank, Tom & Sandy.

Finally, at long last, I have found myself a friendly, affordable welder and I couldn’t be happier. Hank. He works at a TrueValue Hardware store and runs a little welding business on the side. He has thick, curly, shoulder length white hair and a beard. A cross between Santa Claus and a farmer. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s wearing overalls. He has a nice face and I keep expecting that he’ll have a southern accent. But he’s Midwest through and through. No nonsense. Practical. And about two thirds cheaper than the other guy I talked to. He even told me to get my steel pipes from a big box hardware store because they’d be cheaper. So I did. I taped paper templates to the steel to show him where to put exactly to put the pipes. A week later, I picked them up and left a check with his wife, who also works at the hardware store. I had to tell her how great Hank was. “I think he’s great, too,” she said, “but of course I wouldn’t tell him that.” They’ve been married 48 years.

There's another guy named Tom at Armstrong Millworks. Also in overalls. I ordered 150 wooden blocks for cube shelves for each pinch pot. He assured me that he would make the cuts as smooth as possible so I wouldn’t have to sand two sides. He is a craftsman, as is Hank, and I am lucky to have the skills of these two men at my service. I love their earnestness, their sincerity, their willingness to listen and understand me. Tom told me it would take a week, but then he got my blocks done in two days. I think they even get a little excited about my project.

Then there’s Sandy. She runs the studio at the community college where I work. She has an artist’s brain, yet she is full of expert technical ceramic knowledge about glazes, firing, fixing a crack in greenware. What could be better? She’s patient and a great listener and a great problem-solver. The other day, I frantically called her, trying to figure out how to get affordable photos made of all these damn pots. Two days later, I was at the studio, setting up a graduated background, learning how to set my camera. The results are posted above, in case you were wondering.

Meanwhile, my three boy children are swimming, playing Lacrosse, running track and taking the last few piano lessons that will lead to the end of the year recital. The swimming, lacrosse and track are 4 -5 days a week after school. I have turned into a caricature of a busy mom. There are also field trips, and Honors Orchestra, and switching from Trombone to Drums so he’ll have to go in early a few times for extra practice and the 2^nd graders’ Community Workers presentation that requires a small costume and parental attendance. It turns out the second graders think "community workers" are airplane pilots and mechanics. But I know better. They are woodworkers, welders & photographers. This is my community, and I couldn’t do it without them.

More About Slab Rollers

About two years ago, it became clear that I needed to make a capital investment. I coveted a slab roller. As I’ve mentioned earlier, a slab roller is a large, heavy piece of equipment that looks like a long skinny table, with a giant steel roller with a wheel attached. You crank the wheel, and the roller runs along the table and flattens out a wad of clay into something smooth and even and effortless.

There are other, lower-tech ways to make slabs. You can throw a wad of clay in a sideways motion until the force of hitting the table thins it out; then you take to it with a wooden rolling pin. This is nice, too, but a little more time consuming and a little less consistent. At the time, two years ago, I was making a lot of large, 3 – 5 foot tall sculptures, all out of slabs. There’s nothing like a smooth, perfectly uniform slab of ½ inch thick clay, drying to a perfectly stiff leather-hard consistency, awaiting my knife and my imagination. Remember the Elf & the Shoemaker Story? How the Shoemaker would leave out sheets of leather and the elf would sneak into his shop and cut out the leather to create the most beautiful shoes? That is me. I am the Elf turning perfect slabs into art.

I ordered my slab roller from a pottery supply place a good hour from my house. Then I loaded up my mom and my sister for a road trip. Admittedly, they were not as keen on the slab roller as I. They came along for the nearby outlet mall. To each his own. When we showed up at the pottery supply place, the owner took us into the drafty back room – the warehouse, really – and showed us an enormous wooden crate that housed my slab roller. Then he had me back the minivan in through the sliding garage door and said, “Let me get the fork lift.”

That’s when my mother and sister’s eyebrows shot up to the tippy top of their foreheads. Forklift? How is she going to get this thing OUT of the minivan if it takes a forklift to get it INTO the minivan.

They were worried for my marriage, because a lot of times, my husband gets a little cranky about some of the stuff I bring home. Like the piano I bought on Craig’s list. Or grandma’s totally retro old bamboo sofa and chairs. Or the collection of ridiculously heavy pedestals I had a handyman make for me in Atlanta and insisted on moving to Michigan just in case. Or the industrial steel desk from my grandfather that I just recently got dibs on when my sister-in-law was moving and offered it up.

I understand Tom’s resistance: It all falls into the category of HEAVY stuff. I have no strength in my arms, and Tom does. Or at least he used to. I make the joke that I married him for his ability to lift heavy things. But usually these heavy things don’t require forklifts.

We eased the Slab Roller into the back of the minivan, which promptly sunk down about 3 inches. (It’s a lease.) Then we went to the outlets, where fortunately, the only things we found were small, lightweight articles of clothing, barely a pound of product between the three of us.

Then we made the trek back from Clio, Michigan to my home. The whole drive, I was plotting about how to get the slab roller out of the car into the basement, when suddenly I had an Eureka! moment and remembered my dear, sweet, wonderful neighbor Dan.

Ahhh, Dan, how to describe him? Well, he’s about 6’5” and 230 pounds of what appears to be brick solid muscle. He’s Canadian. He played football in College and is actually in the Canadian College Football Hall of Fame. He makes my big strong husband look like a cheerleader. Plus, he’s really, really nice and not married to me, which makes him way less likely to get irritable. I called him and told him my dilemma.

A few hours latter, Dan and Tom were standing outside the minivan peering at my beautiful new piece of equipment. The good news is it didn’t really weigh 750 pounds like the pottery guy said. That weight included the wooden crate and packing material. (We all know how heavy Styrofoam popcorn can be.) Really, the whole thing came apart in pieces… the four steel legs were separate. The wheel that you crank was separate. (I could even carry that!) The big, heavy roller was separate. Just as Tom was struggling a little with the roller, our friendly giant Dan reached in with his incredible-hulk-like hands and PLUCKED the sucker out of the car. I’m not making this up. It was a thing to behold. Lovely. AND, the guy’s an engineer so he knew how to put the thing together too.

All and all, the slab roller turned out to be a very good purchase and not nearly as heavy as the piano Dan’s wife made him move all by himself a few years ago.

Something Old. Something New.

It is March. A month and a half after the end of my pinch-pot-a-day endeavor, and I have started working on something NEW. Oh, now don’t get excited - the pinch pots are still a big part of my life, believe me. I have set a goal for myself that I will have AT LEAST two kiln-loads glazed and fired each week, preferably three. I have kept that promise as you can see from the above picture of actual, fired and finished work.

But this past week, the studio where I fire my work happened to be closed for mid-winter break. I found myself with a little extra time on my hands. So I got to work and I did not make a pinch pot.

Instead I cranked up my favorite piece of equipment, my slab roller. This large, heavy machine has a giant wheel that you spin, like a captain on a ship, and it rolls, in all its weightiness, over a lump of clay producing a beautiful, even, perfect slab of clay. You can use these slabs to make almost anything… a box, a cylinder, a giant house, or in my case, a bunch of funky bodies, some with lumps, some with long skinny necks, some with swirly edges. I also made heads in triangle shapes, squares, half-circles and added faces, not unlike the faces on the pinch pots. My new pieces will get long skinny legs. Eventually, they will be fired in bright colors with polka dots or stripes or checkerboard patterns. I know, I know, the same old thing for me, the same old themes, but it feels so NEW and exciting. And once again, I measure my days based on how much time I get to work.

Where did this burst of productivity come from, you may ask? I am happy to report: I am feeding the beast. Yes, I spent the last days of February doing an “Artist Market” at a wonderful local shop called Leon & Lulu. It’s an old roller rink turned home goods store. 15,000 square feet of coffee tables, sofas, rugs, women’s fashion, kids toys, books, the best dog ever and cute high school girls gliding around the place on roller skates offering popcorn.

About 4 times a year, Leon & Lulu does an Artist Market. This was the first time I’ve participated, the first time my pinch pots have made their way out of the basement into the light. It was a thrill, I tell you. A thrill. I sold a coffee table’s worth of product. I got lots of feedback. And the owner, bless her artistic little heart, bought a dozen pots wholesale to put in the store when I’m not sitting there hocking my wares. This is sort of a dream come true for me. Because while I appreciate the feedback and the immediacy of working an art fair, I’d much rather have someone else do the selling for me. So I can creep back to the basement and make something new, even if it's the same old thing.

And that’s precisely what I’ve done.