On clayart, an email list I belong to, there is a running thread about what influences the potter.  Many people there have been potting for decades, but I have only three scant years to my craft.  So I cannot claim to be so good a potter as to have "influences" from those long schooled in its arts.

Yet, when I thought about it, the very medium itself was a mind-blowing experience when I grasped the awesomeness of a plasticine soft mud that through my efforts, could change into virtually anything I could imagine and craft.

The clay itself influences me -- the smell, texture, feel of it.

Every  potter I see leaves an imprint on my mind.

I love Acoma Pueblo pottery.

I love Kumano pottery. the guy is insane. He fires his kiln to temperatures identical to those inside a volcano!  His stuff looks like living stone
http://www.osakaprints.com/kumano/content/kumano-sales.htm

Conversely, I love the ethereal perfection of Miyamura
http://additionsstyle.blogspot.com/2009/10/artist-to-know-hideaki-miyamura.html

Mesoamerican pottery enthralls me.

The more I think about it -- what "influences" my art -- honestly,  its not so much influence as inspiration.

I have had to process a LOT of data since I began pottery so late in the game -- at age 55.  Many here have been working with clay for decades. I've only been at it for three  years.

The three dimensional aspect of clay blew me away -- the infinite possibilities of each piece from start to finish -- that in and of itself created an absolute addiction to clay

I began to collect images of clay as a screensaver  for my computer -- it was the easiest way I could compile a slideshow study to run through my brain and absorb the awesomeness of clay under the fingers of thousands of different clayists (somehow, artist does not suffice, nor do the words potter or ceramicist),

I have over 2 gig of images collected from everywhere. Not just images of finished art -- but images of kilns and firings and happy potters smiling over spinning clay,  pictures of studios and hand made brushes and people glazing, greenware and bisqueware -- every aspect of this all encompasing artform.

Glaze chemicals themselves are an inspiration, mystifying in their inert powderiness, which, when mixed, leaves behind their dull cocoon and explodes into an array of volcanic color as they embrace and seduce the vessel they cover.

The awesome elemental forces of clay -- earth, fire, water, air -- all delight my deepest paganess despite its veneer of 800 years of Christianity in my Celtic lineage.

In once sense, I have no "influences" -- no pedegrees pompous or otherwise -- in terms of emulation. I am simply trying to learn the craft through repeated, careful, joyful pursuit of a simple objective.

In another sense, everything from the river and ocean where I live, to the sunsets that billow over me, to the colors and textures of life -- they all influence and leave their imprint on my mind. I, in turn, try to leave their imprint on my clay.

much love
DJ

My wild and crazy girl turned 21

photo composed by her brother of sunset off our back yard on the San Jacinto river (taken last summer)

photo taken by a friend on our front porch (taken last fall)

photo of her at Cheong Pyeong imitating a close friend. Can you tell who is who? (taken in 2004)

piloting our pontoon boat on Lake Buchannon in Texas (taken Aug 2007)

taking care of orphans in Africa (taken fall of 2008 in Zambia)

Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter (we waited at WalMart til midnight to get the first edition of this book) (taken whatever year that book came out)

with her sister, riding tube pulled behind pontoon boat on Lake Buchannon (taken Aug of 2007)

in the fires of Hades on Halloween, greeting newcomers to Hell (taken whatever year she served an internship in hell learning how to be a demon)

swinging at the speed of light into the Rio Frio (taken in 2005)

truemy jumping 40 feet out of tree into river below (taken in 2005)

 

Truemy cut and pasted into Venice -- actual portrait shot taken by friend in 2008

 

Well it was a wonderful birthday.  The ribs cooked all day and came out delicious and falling off the bone.  The cheese cakes and carrot cake were outrageous.  So good! But the best was the company -- Kyle and Helen and Jin showed up, and Lalo, the guy who is doing the saltillo for us in the den.  Unfortunately, the saltillo still is not here.  It's getting a little strange.  It's been a month now and no saltillo but we've been charged for it.  We ordered it from Jesus and I know he is trustworthy.  Can't say the same for his shippers.

I may get back more into xanga rather than facebook.  Facebook is like highspeed blathering -- like meaningless life at warp 10 -- combined with an outrageous number of absolutely useless and annoying apps.  I prefer xanga.  No one reads it.  It's chill.  I can have music and make my background and page however I want.  People I've known forever who operate off the beaten track post comments now and then.  And I can write peacefully -- not just a 250 word blurb that describes my life.

Which, by the way, is awesome.  I'm loving doing pottery.  I bought some midrange clay to try out at the ceramic store yesterday or the day before -- its called buff.  I threw a bowl with it for Helen to see how the wheel worked.  She thought it was so cool.  The clay was very soft and centered and openen up easily.  I did not wedge it -- I think it needs it to get a bit of the moisture out.  I really love having saltillo for wedging tiles.  They work so well. I'll try throwing more of the clay tomorrow.  I've got to go to the college studio to give Jen a piece of mine to put in the Vice President's office.  They want artwork from students in that office.  I've got a ton of photography that I can offer some piece of -- I'll have to find out if they want it framed -- cuz I don't have no framed pieces! 

I want to start getting up some of the photography from my one man show in February.  That was a great success -- seven exhibits and over 100 pieces of work up.  Yeah, I was definitely proud of that show.  I should take all the pieces and make a musical video montage out of it so people who could not see the show can experience it.

so much for today.  I just want to think some and relax some and get a good night's rest.  I am so glad I gave my son a very good birthday.  His wife really helped a lot too, to mobilize everyone for the event.  She planned it from the get-go and even "fundraised" to friends and family to get him a nice giftcard at New Egg. She is the true orchestrator behind my son's wonderful birthday, and I was the true cook pushing people to clean up the kitchen so I could work. Everyone pitched in to make this a wonderful, successful event. My son had a great day.

 

much love

dj

Today is my son's birthday.  I made three cheesecakes last night.  I've got 20 pounds of BBQ ribs cooking, and the carrot cake is in the oven.  People will start arriving this afternoon for the pah-tay! Yaaaay for birthdays!

 

 

I hate "shock art: -- that is -- art that is an affront to the soul,the stuff that violates one's sense of peace and dignity Life has enough affronts without adding one more to its plethora and calling it "art." 
But in reality -- what I am hating is the part that does not resonate with my spirit.  I hate Jackson Pollack, but I love photography of urban decay.  I guess what resonates with me there is the sense of the passage of time -- the inference of what went on before in the things that remain behind.  The trashed out, decaying buildings give me a sense of the eternal, and the ephemeral at the same time.  Who knew, when those buildings were filled with activity, that they would come to such an ugly and wretched demise?

Ironically, I make "ugly art" -- horrible face mugs and jugs -- and I love doing it.  I guess its a humorous way of confronting and taming my own demons of rage and grief.  Like trolls turned to stone at the sun's first rays, these poor monsters will never devour another soul.  They are hapless victims, caught in clay, immortalized in mason stain, and forever frozen in the fires of Cone 10 Hell.

http://corazondedios.deviantart.com/gallery/#FACE-MUGS

In their very ugliness,there is an inferred irony that beauty is temporal and age erodes it with its own graceful strokes.

age

in lines

a network never ceasing

seams of sorrow

sewn in softly

by an unseen hand

(written when I was 17)

 

Perhaps I will make some aging faces also.  Art can reflect the ugliness of the world around us and give it a gaussian edge that imbues it with its own ragged beauty. Ugliness has its own odd beauty.

It's funny -- some people here may love Jackson Pollack -- but I consider his stuff "trash art" -- although I know he invested his heart and soul in creating it.  Perhaps he, too, was digesting his own demons in that huge shapeless volume of spattered paint.  Still, they were HIS demons, and I don't have to love how he decided to decimate them! I'll decimate my own demons in my own way!

 

I just mixed up some glazes and slips to test out various hues of red, blue and yellow to be fired to cone 6 and cone 10. Even though the ceramics studio already has those colors made up, I want to personalize them a bit more and learn more about different ways to get various shades and intensities of those hues.  This is so fun! I feel like a Mad Scientist!

 

I mixed up a cone 6 gloss white base -- but left out the white colorant zircopax so that I can substitute different coloring oxides to the base glaze.  I'm going to try cobalt, and dark red, and lobster and praesidium yellow and vanadium yellow, and also turquoise.

 

This is really so fun. 

I already took the Helmar slip I made and put 5 tablespoons in a little container, then added 5 quarter teaspoons of dark red -- I mean -- THAT color is gonna come out RED!! I put it one a couple of greenware teabowls, just to see how they will do.

I've already put three coats of Amaco Velvet snapdragon red on oa bisqued teabowl.  

I have not added any colorants to the glaze base that I mixed.  I put it in bentonite water, but I think one cup of water was too much for the 200 grams of glaze that I made, so I am leaving it open in the studio to evaporate and thicken before I mess with it.

For the first time all summer, I turned on the air conditioner in the studio.  The big fan is now blowing the airconditioned air from the glaze mixing room into the wheel room.  I worked in the glazing room to put the coats of slip on the teabowls.  They are sitting on their respective shelves now, drying.  Hope it all works out good.  I really need to get to glazing a ton of stuff, because there will be a highfire when I go to Kodiak, so I need to have stuff done before I leave.

Anyway, that's about all for right now

much love

me

no one will read what I post here, but I don't care.  I went to the ceramics studio today at Lee college. I'd already brought in 18 pieces to bisque yesterday, and 9 more today.  I painted Mari's blue monster's eye chartreuse before loading up the kiln.  Jennifer and I loaded it. She had a bunch of nice pieces -- one was a very beautiful  12 x16 pattern maker made out of Longhorn lowfire clay.  Hope it doesn't crack in firing.  She put it on a lot of sand so if it expands and contracts while firing, it can move freely and not get stuck on the kiln shelf.

 

I fired three monster mugs already colored with mason stains, two large monster jugs, and various bowls and teabowls.  Oh -- and about 10 jarros -- the Mexican coffee cup shaped kind of like a potbelly stove.  I am going to be glazing up a storm once all that stuff comes out on Saturday.  I need to go into the studio tomorrow morning and remove the bit of firewool keeping the kiln open.  Jen extended the first ramp of the firing (under 200 degrees) to 10 hours so that the kiln would reach 1200 degrees by 10 am tomorrow instead of 4 am.  No way in hell was I getting up and going to the studio at 4 am to remove the firewool!

 

I've had three or four noodle bowls die on me this week -- two by my own hands.  One of them, I had just finished throwing. It was beautiful.  I was running the fishingline tool under it several times to loosen it from the bat, when my thumb hit a sharp splinter on the spinning wheel.  I jerked my hands up, still holding both ends of the fishingline tool and effectively cut the bowl in half an a graceful curve. Dammit! I wadded the clay back up and rethrew it later.

 

Another bowl that came out beautifully cracked on the bottom while drying -- not sure why.  Then today, I was going to trim a bowl that was MUCH wetter than I usually deal with.  I successfully loosened it from the bat -- careful not to slice it in half while running my thumb into a splinter like last time.  So this time, instead, I dropped it............................................doubledammit.  It just kinda of smooshed on one side. I picked it up and tried to prod it back into a circle, but it was too depressed to comply.  I thought about turning it into a triangle shape, or a squarish shape, but finally opted just to cut it in half evenly to see how well I had thrown it, and to see how even the sides were.  They were perfect -- a little thick at the base because I had not trimmed it yet -- but truly well done.  I wadded the bowl up and put the clay in a plastic bag and will throw it tomorrow. 

I need to make 8 noodle bowls, 8 teabowls and 8 chopstick rests.  I've already done the most difficult part of the order from Laszlo -- his two-faced Janus mug is thrown and is drying slowly in my studio damp box (actually, a busted fridge). One side is leering with an evil smile and the other side has a hopeless grimace on it that looks for all the world like an upsidedown smile.  

So actually, despite the mishap with the bowl, I had a good day with pottery.  I still have two beautiful bowls that I threw today, spinning on wheels in the studio drying.  And I just reconfirmed my reasons for drying more thoroughly before messing with stuff -- its easier to handle and I am less likely to drop it because I can put a more secure grip on it.

Now, the only real question left is  -- where should I blog? I've had xanga forever, and no one really uses it any more -- but I like it because I can have music with it, as well as pictures.  No other blog offers that -- at least, I don't think they do.

Anyway, that's my thoughts for today.

Oh. the lonely artist part.  Well, usually an artist works alone in a studio -- so yeah it can be lonely.  Creativity is a solitary course when it comes to working with clay (and many other media).  But Hitomi will be here soon, so then there will be two of us in the studio at home, so that should be fun.

much love

DJ  

whoa! thunder just rumbled as I wrote my name! Is that an omen??!!