Posts from a Spanish Diary: #4 My Large Pot...

Remember my large pot I threw in Spain? Well, it made it successfully through both firings! Unfortunately it was too large to throw over my shoulder and lug through the airport and so it is enjoying time with Uncle Seth now.

I wanted that pot to really be symbolic of my time in Spain and I had a few different ideas of what to paint on it. As the time for the firing and my departure grew closer, I realized that there was no way I would be able to bring that pot home with me. I had no money to pay for it to be shipped either. So, I resigned it to the corner and tried to detach myself. As Helen and I loaded the kiln, Seth says, "Sarah, what about your large pot? Aren't you going to glaze that?" I told him my reasoning and he very gently told me that it would be good practice.

So off I went to paint my big pot. The pot was made in three sections so I thought it would be interesting to mimic that with three scenes. I decided on three scenes from the process of pottery with the pot itself as the finished product, rather like a fourth scene. As I sat outside in the sun painting my pot Seth walked by and noted, "Oh yes, rather vigorous decoration there darling, very nice." Complements indeed, coming from Seth!! That certainly inspired me to continue.

I've included images below (rather poorly lit). At the very end I've included a video of the pot with my explanation. (If you watch it twice, the second time around notice the unbelievable sunset happening out the door in the background!) As I said, this poor pot was left behind but I like to think that it's enjoying Spain for me while I'm not there!

[To see the earlier post about it, click here; to see more photos of the making of the large pot as well as more photos of the pottery in Spain, click here]


The first is a potter at the wheel with his clay, all of his attention on the lump that will be his pot.


The second is an expressive hand with a brush, ready to paint the pot.


The third is a very active figure, stoking the flames of a wood kiln.


The fourth is the pot itself, the finished product of all of those processes.

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A review

Our show before Christmas was a wonderful success. Thank you to all of you who made it out on one (or more!) of the weekends. It is always wonderful to see everyone and to share my work. Below I've included a slide show of some of the pieces as well as some of the space we create for the show. A lot goes into preparing for this and I would love to hear any and all feed back on any aspect. You should be able to click on a picture and be taken to Picasa web albums to see a larger picture. Enjoy!

New York City

The combination of people in New York City really is incredible. I drove up to the Big Apple after Christmas this year and experienced NYC like never before. Every street, every neighborhood looked like Times Square; it was packed. The streets were thick with bundled faces, some meandering, some purposefully pursuing. I tried to keep track of the number of languages, the number of nationalities or different states but after only two days, I lost count.

To see so many faces, various shapes, big noses, little noses, almond eyes, round eyes, wide mouths, big lips, no lips, huge hair, dyed hair... not to mention the fashion or styles people chose to cover or compliment or accentuate those features... I was as overstimulated as an artist could get! And to think that all of these features, natural or donned, stem from different backgrounds and cultures and experiences.

That combination of people brings out an amazing array of creative outlets that could not be showcased anywhere else the way it was here. Walking from Madison Square Gardens through Central Park to The Plaza, I experienced a trio of hilarious, energetic young men doing a stand up comedy routine with jokes said in unison and feats of gymnastics thrown in. We also saw a group of artists drawing people's portraits with charcoal in 2 minutes, a man selling Obama condoms, Statue of Liberty impersonators taking photos with tourists, Santa's looking lost, Toy soldiers enthusiastically managing and entertaining a line of frozen parents and crazy kids about a half a mile long for F.A.O. Schwarz, a ragged man playing beautiful saxophone holiday songs, a man in bare feet trotting through the crowds, a group of drummers and dancers celebrating Kwanzaa with ancestral beats, chants, and awesome shimmies and stomps, and a man in shorts and a tank top and gloves up to his armpits running 5 minute miles through the crowds. Through all of this, conversations, food smells, and faces around me were Russian, French, African, Spanish, Korean, Chinese...

If you've not had the opportunity to travel much, NYC (or London, I hear) is, you might say, a great bang for your buck. You get a HUGE variety of pretty authentic experiences from around the globe in one place. Aurthur Schopenhauer, an early 1900's philosopher wrote a number of essays now collected in a volume called "Studies in Pessimism." I read a quote from these essays where Schopenhauer says,
That is a strong encouragement to broaden one's own vision in order to better understand fellow man and the world in which we live. Reading, traveling, in conversation, art, fashion, food, work; all of these experiences

House Beautiful

"Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are ever in our way, conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do but make work for servants and doctors. If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

-- William Morris, 19 February 1880 --

Posts from a Spanish Diary: # 3 An escape to Milano!

While in Spain I met a great friend of mine, Abigail, in Milan, Italy. Italy ... oh Italy. What an amazing place, from the food to the fashion to the beautiful people to the passions running rampant! While I don't know from personal experience, I hear that Milan is quite different from the rest of Italy. Oh but it was still Italy. The Italians win for best language, hands down. The price of fashion and the amount of people who spent that much made me a little sick but, oh, was it beautiful!

Abigail travels to and from Africa frequently and keeps a blog (what a different life on that continent!). She recently posted about our trip to Milan here. If you are interested, you can read more about Africa as well.

Enjoy a little escape to Italy through those pictures and I have a few more here: Sarah's Italy photos. Also check out the awesome photos taken by Christopher Sabatini, our host. He is a photographer in Milan and wow, does he do a beautiful job. He captures the essence of a person so well. There are two links: Abigail and Sarah & the Photo Shoot.

Museums

The Holiday momentum is gathering and snow droops lower and lower in the sky. This time of year is so full but if you have free vacation time or visitors in town looking for something to do, check out some of the great exhibits in DC right now!

The American Art Museum
The Corcoran Gallery of Art has a wonderful looking show on Sargent and the Sea right now.

If you see any of these or any others, please share!

SYLA

CALLING ALL ARTISTS in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Please click here or the title for more info!