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??!!

Maybe I will try another place to blog -- maybe not.  I like the fact that I can have music here.  I like that.  Nobody reads xanga any more, but that is not why I post. I've always kept a journal.  For most of my life it was not public, of course.  Blogging is a little different than journaling, because its up for anyone to read. That is one reason I post here so infrequently.  There are not much of my personal musings that are up for public grabs.  

BRITISH PETROLEUM ENGINEERS ARE ROYAL FUCKHEADS

Here is the Wall Street Journal article that outlines point by point what the fuckhead engineers at British petroleum did that lead to the Deep Well Horizon disaster.

In response to Tony Hayward's June 4 op-ed "What BP Is Doing about the Gulf Gusher": It is time that the publicity spin that BP is putting on this disaster is put into perspective.

 What is alarming about the content of the article is not so much what it says, but what it does not say. Mr. Haywood, chief executive officer of British Petroleum, asks, "How could this happen?" The answer has largely to do with BP's inability to follow its existing well-construction policies and those of the industry generally. 

The BP testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 25 says it all, but perhaps that material needs to be explained.

 From looking at that evidence, this is what we know: 1) When cementing the production casing the cementing crew, which was being supervised by BP, had difficulty landing the top plug into the casing shoe. This was the first "red flag" because a satisfactory cement job to the production string is fundamental to the safe operation on a go forward basis. 

The fact that the cement job did not go as planned should have caused the testing operation that followed to be carefully scrutinized, it clearly was not.

That is because British Petroleum Engineers are fuckheads.

 2) As is normal practice, the integrity of the pressure tight seal was tested by pressuring up on the casing and observing the pressure response. If pressure bleeds off there is clearly a problem with the pressure integrity of the shoe, However, industry practice dictates that a positive test, that is no pressure drop, is not diagnostic, simply because the reservoir pressure is sufficient to retain the pressure being applied. A negative test is useful because it is diagnostic of a failed cement job. In this case the test was positive.

This also proves that British Petroleum Engineers are fuckheads.

 3) Again, as is normal industry practice a negative pressure test was run, with pressure released from inside the casing and the pressure response was measured. In this case evidence has been bought before the committee that there was a 1,400 psi pressure response. 

OMFG THAT IS A LOT OF PRESSURE. ONLY A FUCKHEAD WOULD THINK THEY COULD PLUG UP THAT PRESSURE WITH SEAWATER!!!!

This response is highly diagnostic and is therefore the second "red flag" and at this point the BP supervisors should have concluded that they had what the industry calls a "wet shoe." That is that the cement job had failed to form a seal at the casing around the reservoir which we know contains high pressure oil and gas.

 4) At this point a decision should have been made to do a remedial cement job; this is an expensive operation, but having seen a 1,400 psi response, there was no choice.

But because British Petroleum Engineers are fuckheads, as well as being cheap, they did not want to plug the hole using expensive fill mud which is very costly and nearly twice as dense and heavy as seawater -- which is free!

 5) The BP engineers then proceeded with the balance of the operation to temporarily abandon the well. This meant replacing the 14-pound-per-gallon mud that was in the wellbore with 8.5-pound-per-gallon sea water. The denser mud had been, up until this time, the primary pressure control and was keeping the hydrocarbons in place despite the lack of an adequate cement job at the casing shoe.

 Given the two red flags that had been thrown up previously, one would have expected that as a precaution a cement plug would have been placed somewhere in the wellbore as a secondary pressure seal before this primary pressure control system (heavy mud) was evacuated from the wellbore. But at the very least the mud replacement operation should have been heavily scrutinized. Clearly it was not. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand you guessed it! This was not done WHY???? Because British Petroleum Engineers are fuckheads.

6) Evidence provided at the hearing, including the pressure data transmitted from the rig for the last two hours before the explosion, is diagnostic. At 8:20 p.m. on the day of the explosion the pressure data suggest there was a constant flow of sea water being pumped into the drill pipe that was displacing the heavier mud system which was the primary pressure control for the well. 

What type of engineer would make that kind of judgement call?? Only a British Petroleum engineer who is a fuckhead! (Are you detecting a pattern here?)

The rate going in was 900 gallons per minute, but the flow data of mud coming out was steadily increasing from 900 gallons a minute at 8:20 p.m. to a rate of 1,200 gallons per minute at 8:34 p.m

This was a clear indication that something was seriously wrong, but hey! With a fuckhead at the helm, every ensurance was in place that a perfect disaster could unfold unimpeded. Why: (You know the drill) ALL TOGETHER NOW: BECAUSE BRITISH PETROLEUM ENGINEERS ARE FUCKHEADS!!!

During this 14-minute period one can conclude that hydrocarbons were flowing and pushing more fluid from the wellbore than was being pumped in. This is what this data is supposed to monitor, but the well flow evidence would appear to have been ignored, because at this point the BP rig supervisors should have gone to a well kill operation and started to pump heavy mud back into the well bore to restore the primary control mechanism. Instead the mud continued to be evacuated. 

Clearly a fuckheaded decision

7) At 9:08 there was another piece of evidence that is very clear cut. The sea water pump was shut down presumably to check the well stability. However, with the pump shut down a pressure increase was seen in the standpipe (SPP). This pressure response has to be associated with the reservoir flowing hydrocarbons and again at this point kill operations should have been initiated by the BP engineers. 

8) From 9:08 p.m. to around 9:30, despite the sea-water pump either running at a constant volume or shut-in, the SPP continued to increase; again this is evidence that the well is producing hydrocarbons and should have caused a kill operation to be initiated.

But NOOOOO the fuckhead British Petroleum engineers KNEW that they would get canned by BP for spending too much money on capping the well properly! Its MUCH better to get canned for causing a global disaster than for spending too much of an oil corporations money! Let's hear it for fuckheads!!!

 9) At 9:30 p.m. the seawater pump was again shut-in to presumably observe what the well was doing, and again there is a notable increase in the standpipe pressure.

10) At 9:49 the SPP showed a very large increase and the explosion followed—this is obviously the point at which the gas and oil reached the drill floor and found an ignition source.

 Mr. Hayward and BP have taken the position that this tragedy is all about a fail-safe blow-out preventer (BOP) failing, but in reality the BOP is really the backup system, and yes we expect that it will work. 

However, all of the industry practice and construction systems are aimed at ensuring that one never has to use that device. 

Thus the industry has for decades relied on a dense mud system to keep the hydrocarbons in the reservoir and everything that is done to maintain wellbore integrity is tested, and where a wellbore integrity test fails, remedial action is taken.

 This well failed its casing integrity test and nothing was done. The data collected during a critical operation to monitor hydrocarbon inflow was ignored and nothing was done.

 This spill is about human failure and it is time BP put its hand up and admitted that. Terry Barr

I love this song.  Diamonds and Rust carved its wound upon my soul decades ago.  I've not been writing a journal in forever -- but now I feel the need to pour my heart into words and find myself again.  Clay is helping me heal, but it is a lonely path.  My kids are all growing up and moving away.  Two are at home now, but at present, they are at church camp.  The house is empty save for my husband and I.  We leave for the ranch tomorrow for the end of summer camp.  Things will be more active next week -- so I don't know if I will feel the need to write then. Silence propels you to think. Age propels you to consider.  Life propels you to learn and to advance your goals.

I will be printing my photography on clay this summer and fall.  My photography teacher recommended it for my summer session of ceramics. I've learned three ways to accomplish it.  Its going to be fun trying out this new aspect of the two forms of art I love so much.

There are many different types of personalities in the world. Some are so different and diametrically opposed that each thinks the other ought to go to hell, or came from hell, or both!

For instance there the personality type that speaks with carefully worded sentences, to promote peace and harmony in a group and to nurture a good feeling among all the constituents. This is wonderful for creating peace in a family or club or workplace. It is a wonderful talent and ability for a mother or a manager or for anyone interfacing with many different personality types who need to get along. It helps in so many ways to create ideal relationships among people. It is very needed as groups of widely divergent characters start to merge.

It is, I am sure, a "Holy Spirit" personality type, that helps a family, clan, tribe, church, nation, etc. interact with harmony and good will toward one another.

In my hometown, the Christian church ladies were of this type. There were wonderful family values in my home town, a big focus on attending church on Sundays, and on living according to the precepts of Jesus as these good women interpreted them in their daily lives, and in their families and in the surrounding society that they had impact on. It was the Christian culture that existed in the 50s and even well into the 60s and 70s in my little Southern town.

Unfortunately, this type of operating system does not always work, since it is based on keeping harmony in the group and not offending anyone. It often means that the most vocal and dominant members of the group will sway opinion against anything that does not fit well within the group's opinion of what is "good." It also means that this dominant and vociferous group can wind up "dictating" through disapproval, anything that does not "fit" what they like. That is when such a type of group can harm rather than help.

Think about the various ways that this kind of behavior can backfire. In my childhood, segregation was the most powerful way that I saw this type of operating system exclude minorities of any type (including myself), and be very self satisfied that they had kept the status quo, and that the other person(s) who did not meet their standard of deemed goodness were ostracized and kept out of the enclave of good feelings.

The group is not interested in what is righteous and true, they are interested in feeling good and happy and having a harmonious little group. You can see how God would have trouble entering into that sort of environment and trying to change anything. Within the group, it is easier to simply blame the intruder, the bringer of "bad feelings" and label them as bad, rather than assuming that anything is wrong or might need changing within the group structure, or within individuals within the group. Such a group could easily blame someone who is actually right, but outside of their frame of reference, and keep the true and better order of things from emerging.

My entire life I have been persecuted by others, and it is painful and exasperating and frustrating and wounding and many other words that I cannot even begin to think of. And yet, when I feel to the core of my being God prompting me to speak out, I speak out. Even when I try to stop it, I still wind up saying things. Abunim has talked about this sort of personality type also in the Cheong Seong Gyeong (an Asian book of Holy Conduct and Heavenly standards). If something is true, I am going to say it, no matter what people think or feel about it. People can and DO accuse me, but if something needs to be said, even though they attack me and accuse me for saying it, I am pushed from the inner core of my being to speak out. I DO pray about it, and I DO try to say it as accurately as possible, and I NEVER say it with any hatred inside me whatsoever. It's like an intense prayer pouring out verbally, personally given to the person I am speaking to, to let them know exactly what is wrong, what its impact is, and what they need to do to change.

While taking a bath one day, I started laughing and thought to myself, no WONDER they stoned the prophets!!! NO ONE wants to hear that accurately what they are doing wrong!!!

My personality type is needed just as much as that of the harmony-bringer. In an ideal world, there would be much less need for my outspoken, abrasive personality -- but it is a handy personality to have right now, in this ornery world.

There are those who are gracious and bring harmony and reason to every situation that they enter into. I am sure it is an invaluable gift. There are so many situations encountered every day that utilize these awesome skills. Such skills are hard won, and require mastery of one's emotions. One must digest so many suffering situations with a deep desire to create harmony. Now, these are assumptions on my part, but I absolutely DO believe that what I have just said of such people. I am not one of those people of diplomacy and harmony. It is both a blessing and a curse to be of my ilk. I am the jalapeno-in-the-ice-cream personality type.

I am writing this to help people see WHY I do what I do -- its not because I hate anyone or distain anyone or have dislike for anyone. That is NEVER my motivation. I am not a vindictive person. I am a brutally honest person --- and the brutal honesty that I state is turned on myself 24/7 for over 50 years. Anything that I say to someone else is something that I have also turned on myself with full force, day and night, for my entire life. It is difficult to live with that kind of brutally honestl introspection 24/7 -- but I truly don't know any other way to live. AND it has caused me great difficulty for a lifetime, because people will attack me and accuse me and misinterpret my motivations and think I am hateful or whatever. But it does not stop me from saying what I believe needs to be said.

And I DO actually pray about it. Constantly. My feeling is, we never know when we are going to die. If we die as we are, most of us will be in hell, even though we think we are good and fine and are following "God's will" or whatever, and are doing what is good and right and etc etc etc.

In reality, we are FAR from knowing what God's heart is, or what God would do or say were He to speak honestly to us about our character, and we are FAR from being as honest with ourselves as we ought to be, and from pushing ourselves as hard as we should to change, and from repenting as much as we should for our own lack of effort in becoming like God.

It has been my personal life experience, that usually, when you DO say what God would say, you catch holy hell for it.

I sure caught it when I started the first integrated club in my highschool. I sure caught it when I told another person that they single-handedly orchestrated the divorce of a married couple WHILE they were acting as the marriage counselor for our church (they were since removed from their post and caused a lawsuit against the church through their unwise actions). But I told them directly exactly what they were doing wrong the whole time they were doing it, and all they did was accuse me.

I have an extremely clear sense of what is true and what is not, and it is because of a lifetime of living under brutal honesty within myself.

My mother taught me these words when I was a toddler, and I have striven to live by them with my whole being my whole life long:

This above all -- to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Those are the words of Shakespeare. That is the standard that I always strive to live by.

My husband is also absolutely and truly honest, but he is far more diplomatic than I am. Usually, he says nothing to people, because he knows that usually, people cannot receive what you tell them. He is absolutely respected, and is vice president of an outside company, and is now the pastor of our small church in Houston. community, He is perfect, as far as I am concerned.

I am still not convinced that being silent is always the best way to go, because there are many types of people in the world -- and many ways of dealing with things. The feel-good person's way is deeply needed and creates tremendous harmony. My husband's way is deeply needed and makes him a manager unparalleled, with God's heart. My way is deeply needed because people would rather believe they are fine than make the effort that they need to change before they die.

What I say, I say always out of concern and love not only for the person to whom I am speaking, but also for those with whom they interact and who they are impacting on. Often, people who are convinced that they are good and doing the right thing are very difficult to impact on. They see no reason to change, because they believe they are right.

I am not convinced that I am good, but I do believe I am saying the right thing, when I speak or write someone. I know there must be a better way to say it, and sometimes I hit the mark and say it just right, or sometimes the person gets very upset. But I KNOW beyond any shadow of a doubt that the message was heard, and that, if it is valid, in time God Himself will help them to clarify what was said and to help the person change -- so I guess maybe I am like a surgeon who really needs to learn to use anesthetics for the sake of the patient.

Maybe one day I will learn to be more calm, like my husband, and say less of what I am thinking or desperately worried about for the person about whom I have concern. Maybe I will be a jalepeno pepper found in the ice cream forever, always shocking people and causing them to spit out whatever I sadi to them.

I don't really know. But I will continue to pray and to strive to be better with each breath that I take, and to speak out honestly when I feel someone is doing something that is not good for themselves OR for others upon whom they have impact.

much love
DJ

You soul is stolen selfishness

One young person commented on my Hippie Flowers picture that he was a hippie.

Having grown up in the 60s, and having read his idea of why he thought he was a hippie, I thought I'd let him know that while he knew about hippies, he really wasn't one. He had simply adopted a label that he liked.

Below is something I wrote to him, but then I realized that it could apply to all of us. So I posted it in my journal

I think one's identity should come from a deeper source than a label. I never fit in anywhere. I still don't. People called me a hippie when I was young. I never called myself one. I called myself a freak -- but I meant it in a good way. I was always very different from everyone else, not because I was trying to be different, but because I actually WAS different. I simply did not think like the people around me. I have no idea why. It continues to this day.

You may like anime and a lot of things that are very much a part of your current day culture. Some of the things you may not like -- such as certain genres of music. One does not need a label to define oneself.

Myself, I like rap. I love 2pac. To me 2pac is the origin of rap. There are many rappers that are just stuck on themselves, but some are deep, and some truly have a message. Dead Prez is definitely a message bringer. Some of the stuff I like is definitely older -- LL Cooljay, Nelly -- and some is not even from the US, I like the song Gangster Moderne by MC Solaar.

I also love heavy metal -- from Black Sabbath to Otep, there are many many metal bands that I enjoy. 40 below summer, Mushroomhead, messhuga, Il Nino, Slipknot, Godsmack, Skindred, Machine Head, StaticX,Powerman 5000, Rob Zombie, Rammstein, Metallica and many many many other metal groups.Most 57-year-old mothers my age do not enjoy this kind of music.

But I also like country (which I hated up until I was 50 and one of my students who was a metalhead showed me how to like it). Besides country, there are other types of music that I like. I like Lifehouse, The Calling, Vast (a really really great individual from Austin. You should check out Vast [link]). I like literally hundreds of genres of music. I love bluegrass and folk.

My four kids and I have learned so much together, including a deep appreciation of music. Now my youngest child is 15 and starting college next year. We homeschooled, but not in the traditional way, because I homeschooled many other people's children also. I founded a school for character and true learning.

Being different means being yourself and standing strong on your own. You don't do things because other people approve of you -- you do them because you truly like them.

You become strong and clear. You do things for your own reasons. You dont worry about what other people say. In 10 years time, they will just be beginning to discover who they are. Some may not even do it until they are 50.

That has been my path my whole life, and my children are the same. They are very independent individuals and don't follow the herd. We are not conformists. It is tough to be independent, but it makes you a more whole person. You are not dependent on the approval of others for your decisions and actions. You stand on your own convictions and do what you believe in because it is right, not because it is popular.

So life has taught me there are no simple answers, and that labels are seldom adequate unless they are on jars of jelly.

With that, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee. Find your true self -- it won't be in a label. It will be in your heart.

I have made 73 out of 100 chawan. I've glazed about 25 of them.

Here are the first couple of photos from the first three firings -- cone 6 and cone 10. They are intentionally made uneven and with heavily textured glazing.