What is "Creative Placemaking?"

There's a new hot word going around: PLACEMAKING. Before you ignore it or pass it off as a fleeting trend, you might want to jump on this band wagon; it's a fun one.

Photo from NatGeo

Placemaking is making places. Take a second to think about that obvious statement. What does it mean to make a place? What is a place? When you use that word, to what are you usually referring? An area or building or establishment that has some specific purpose, right? "That place we went to for dinner..." Or "that place with the great hiking trails..." Some places just exist - Niagra Falls for example. Other places have been made - the visitors center at Niagra Falls, for example. 

"Placemaking" or "Creative Placemaking" is a movement striving to put some more thought into the places we make, to include more people in the process of making community oriented spaces, and to infuse these places we make with a creativity that is life-giving/inspiring.

Will our artists and creatives be reintegrated into communities as vital resources? Will we become a more flexible, creative, and human society? I sure hope so.
"A good public space ... is not only inviting, but builds a place for the community around an artwork, or culture venue, by growing and attracting activities that make it a multi-use destination. Alone, no designer, architect, or artist can create a great public space that generates and sustains stronger communities. Instead, such spaces arise from collaboration with the users of the place who articulate what they value about it and assist the artist in understanding its complexity. Public art projects that engage the community in aspects of the art-making process can provide communities with the means to improve their environment and the opportunity to develop a sense of pride and ownership over their parks, streets, and public institutions. Ultimately, however, public art projects will be most effective when they are part of a larger, holistic, multidisciplinary approach to enlivening a city or neighborhood. In this way, public art can contribute both to community life and to the service and vitality of public spaces. This is the promise of the emerging “Creative Placemaking” movement."*

I love the idea of a community of workers from various fields combining their tools and ideas to create a place. I love this call to unsilo our professions when it comes to creating public spaces. Main Streets, walkable town centers, multiuse parks... Find out what your community is doing on this front and see how you might contribute. We must learn to be active participants in what we enjoy rather than passive recipients.

Read more on the NEA website.

*http://www.pps.org/reference/collaborative-creative-placemaking-good-public-art-depends-on-good-public-spaces/

A Delightful Puzzle

Grad school started up again this week. The (mostly) lovely whirlwind of paper, words, people, and ideas are swirling once again. This semester is my most exciting yet. I am incredibly blessed to have a number of things that are coordinating like a puzzle coming together.

First Puzzle Piece: I am taking care of a little house while the owners are away. It is closer to school. It is closer to my internship. It is in the midst of a delightfully artsy and tight knit community. I can walk to a locally owned coffee shop and see incredible architecture each time I walk, drive, or run around the neighborhood. I have space for creating and thinking and sharing. 

A 1920's Bungalow

Second Puzzle Piece: I am so stoked to have gotten an internship at Red Dirt Studios. My program at school requires internships and this is beyond what I thought possible. Many of the internships are in offices for organizations and it just wasn't quite right. But get this. I am at a ceramic arts collaborative! What?! I will be learning their daily grind, how they sustain their practice, installation techniques, management of a space like that (under Margaret Boozer), and meeting loads of artists. On my first day we talked about community art issues, welded some large scale frames for plaster pieces, planed ceramic cheese boards, and went campaigning for getting artists involved in their local community. 

Margaret Boozer and Elle Brande

Third Puzzle Piece: I've always dreamt of starting some sort of studio space or retreat idea for artists. This semester I have a unique opportunity to start something of the sort with no venue cost. Two of my colleagues from my program jumped on board and we've got The Empty House Studio. I am doing it for credit at school and my professor who is overseeing the project is just perfect. She is challenging me and pushing me to get the most out of this temporary experience. I am taking a class called Gallery Management (actually with that same professor) which will give me an even better understanding of the nitty gritty behind a venture like this. 

Click the picture and go to the Mission and Vision tab. 

Fourth Puzzle Piece: My own creativity hasn't quit. Its a funny thing, this artistic impulse. It won't go away. And learning to train and hone and use it 'correctly' has proven quite a task. A number of people, all congregating currently, are the perfect sounding boards and collaborators. I've set goals for studio time, projects, and collaborations. I've missed this community around creation ... and I know that the lack of community cause me to burn out in the past. I will foster this and revel in it while I have it. 

www.sarahcoffin.blogspot.com

If you are on Facebook, you can follow along by "liking" The Empty House Studio community and Sarah Coffin Pottery. 

I am so excited to share the process with you all. 

Thanks for reading. 

Change your mindset. Be grateful for something each day. 

Networking...

Networking is essential to successful and satisfying work, especially for artists. Artists are often of the mindset that they are islands, plagued with the difficult task of doing it all themselves.

While self motivation and alone time with your craft are essential, collaboration and networking seem to be underrated in the minds of individual artists. Done right, networking can boost not hurt your artwork and mind set. In the words of Bill Withers, we all need someone to lean on. Help, encourage, and love and ask for it too. It may not shape up the way you expected, but great things are born from those situations.

This is a short but helpful article on networking. She focuses on women, but the basics are true for all.

Oh, that Sound Looks so Delicious!

I had the privilege of studying at an intensive fellowship program last year on the Eastern Shore. While there I wrote an essay and performed an experiential event of cross-sensory artistry. Sound complicated? Well, we humans are complicated!

The essay's foundation needed to be a question. My question: How can I, an artistically minded individual, properly and effectively bridge the gap between art and the non-artist? What is the missing piece that seems to be making that gulf wider and wider? How can I act not only as a translator but a motivator, a motivator to the non-artist to feel intrigued, accepted and enriched by all that art and beauty can offer?

The year was rich with discussion and I want to present you with some things and include you in my eventual findings.

Think about art. Does that word make you excited? Bored? Angry? Confused? There are so many controversies around that word. Lets step away from that word for a moment.

Think about a creative friend of yours. That one crazy friend whose brain just seems to endlessly come up with ideas, whose hands seems to make something out of nothing or something beautiful out of junk. Or that one friend who has incredible skills in decorating or throwing a themed party. What do they add to your life? They add interest. They add that other element that enlivens you. Those sorts of experiences make you feel something for which, at times, there are no words.

This brings us to our SENSES. We have 5 specified ones... Sight, Auditory, Touch, Taste, Smell. But there are more. What does it mean to have a sense of history, a sense of family, a sense of fear? We absorb an intense amount of nonverbal information. Not only that, but our senses play off of each other and change the experience. Smell connects to memory, sight to stomach, sound to taste...

Art is this multi-sensory experience ... like intense intellectual reading, conversation, or lecture, it brings us into another realm and makes us grow. Art plays upon our memories, our visions, our senses. Art is and always will be a part of us. I've written on this before (Touch, Language, Fluency) but am so intrigued by this idea that I want to keep revisiting and testing it out.

Here are two short articles about our senses crossing over each other and changing the whole experience.
Smells Like Bethoven  from the Economist. (Thanks to JJ)
What does Sweetness Sound Like? from the Food and Think Blog at the Smithsonian.com. (Thanks to RCA)

I hope this idea wakes you up, if not to art, to the crazy awesome world we live in. Eventually, I think, you will begin to appreciate art's place ... a strong tool for waking you up and pulling you up. And the arguments about what it is? Just another bee in your bonnet.

Catch it by the tail

Hello 2012. This year I started a masters program. I'm still not sure if that means if I am mastering something or if I am getting mastered! The program is an MA in Arts Management. I am taking 12 graduate credits and, while time consuming, every single class is stimulating and fascinating.

As I yearn for time to create I thought maybe my work for class, my reading, writing, and discussions, could fill this desire. Well, that sure didn't work. Ideas rush through looking for the old enthusiasm and action but find a stale academic instead. While a break from making is hard, I know that the things I am learning will only spur on even better creating later on.

In the mean time I am meeting wonderful artists and art-instigators. These inspirations are pushing me to work harder and dig deeper into this subject of what it means to be an Arts Manager and how to do it well.

The following TED talk is from Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. While I didn't enjoy that book in particular, Gilbert, an artist of words and story, does an incredible job of describing the creative process and giving a better view of the artist. (Thanks to WB for alerting me to this video!)

If you are an artist, this will show you some balance...something we all need. If you are not an artist, this talk can help you understand the arts without feeling ignorant of the technicals. Enjoy!

Four Tips for Getting Things Finished!

"[I have a lot of] projects ... going on right now, and I find I end up just reading all the fun magazines and blogs I never have time for in real life.  But this is real life and I need to get busy!  Which I notice you're good at, so please, any helpful self-motivators?"

In the span of two weeks a few different friends posed questions to me like the one above. How do I motivate myself, get projects done, act as my own boss... It is a HUGE question and one that I have to rethink daily. I am grateful for the question since it makes me really concentrate on what I am doing and how I am doing it. 

Its definitely not something I figured out once and have in the bag. We are funny, us humans, always wanting to be needed, wanting to be busy and have things to do but constantly trying to find ways around actual work and ways to stay on our own selfish comfy couch. When you have a boss or even clients, you have someone who is directly affected by your work and productivity. That personal connection can be a huge motivating factor. I do work with clients and bosses occasionally but my own art projects? There is no one but me.

I have to be the boss: setting the deadlines, motivating the 'staff', lecturing the lazy, disciplining the worker... I also have to be the client: deciding what I want, changing my mind, wanting it to be useful, affordable, beautiful... I also have to be the employee: putting in the long hard hours, maintaining the deadline set by the boss, producing... 

This reality has been required of me in my situation for years now. In high school I signed up for the art show and realized that I would show up on that day, by myself, to present whatever it was that I completed. There was no one there to grade me, reprimand me, praise me for doing what I set out for myself... people would either stop at my booth or they would not. I was responsible for the work that I did.

In college I wrote up proposals for Independent Studies where, by very definition, you are your own boss. Yes, at certain points in the semester, the professor would check in and at the end I had to present my work. But it was up to me to get out of the study what I wanted. There wasn't an exam to work toward or someone holding my hand through out, ensuring that I would get as much as possible from the experience. I either did or I didn't. Really, I could've fudged my way through an Independent Study if I wanted to... but then where was I? Who had I duped? No one but myself. 

After college I've worked many jobs and continued to create on the side. My work for an employer would finish and then there was my other boss standing in the mirror, urging me to get on with it!

So, how do I set deadlines for myself? What are my "self-motivator tricks?" 

First: Keep it fluid. 

I can't emphasize enough that it is a fluid process. As I change and as my environment changes, my tactics for motivation and focus have to change as well. Like I said before, I've not 'figured it out and have it in the bag.' Just realizing this fact helps me get to work each day. I look at it like a mystery to solve each day, an adventure in discovery... I'll give you some examples that are close to home. "Hmm, wow today I am REALLY distracted! I haven't stayed on one thing for more than 10 minutes" or "I really don't feel like doing anything today. What is the point anyways? Nothing really matters" or "Hooray! Today I am going to work so hard! ...*2 hours later*... Wait! I'm still watching these youtube clips?! What time is it?!" Then there are outside factors too. I set a list to complete but then a friend needs help unexpectedly, a call comes that takes far too long, I run into an old friend, etc. So realizing that each day's tactics for getting to work have to be directed at that day's adventure is helpful to me. 

Second: Keep promises. 

I am very serious about keeping promises to myself. If I say that I will work on project X or finish cleaning item X, I do it (almost) no matter what. That means if I've made bad decisions earlier in the day or the week I don't just toss that fact aside saying, "Oh well, it doesn't really matter." Sure, my project will still be there, there is still time, etc but I've broken a promise. I am responsible for the use of my time. I will stay up late, say no to fun outings, skip a movie or TV show or reading my book at night in order to stay on track. I see this as good practice for how i interact with others as well. If I make a promise to someone else, I will do all I can to keep it. Be consistent. (Preaching to myself here!)

Third: Lists and priorities. 

I make lists all the time. I include little things and big things. This means my list includes

- Sand down Plywood for tray

- Saw Molding for trim of tray

- Reply to J and K's emails

- Put clothes away

- Eat lunch 

By including all of the things that I want/need to complete I can properly evaluate how much time I have. This way I can create manageable lists. Being honest with myself as to what I can actually complete helps me keep a good attitude. I usually have 2 columns: one column for that day's list and one for things I think of as I create a list (since inevitably my brain gets excited and starts to come up with ALL of the things I could possibly do). After making a list, the evaluation of priorities begins. I constantly have to evaluate priorities. I fail a lot but continue to evaluate and re-evaluate and try to learn. 

EXAMPLE: Do I need to check my email? Yes. I may have time sensitive emails from clients or bosses. I get to my email and have 4 emails that were unexpected and have link to watch or read fascinating things. Do I read them now? Was that what I planned to do? NO. Do I FEEL like watching/reading them right now. YES. Ignore, star in my inbox, and come back another time. The more I give in to whatever I feel like doing in the moment, the less I get done and the more bad decisions I make. 

Fourth: Have a motivating factor.

A motivating factor helps me a lot. If my work outs are getting to be few and far between, I sign up for a race or ask a friend to join to get me out there training. If my art projects are starting to take far too long or pile up, I'll get them out to the public somehow... a show, Etsy, anything! If my home has a half-finished project or my room is a mess, I'll invite someone over to scare myself into responsibility. I often make little calendars and hang it on my bedroom door with a sharpie. The calendar only has the days from the starting date to the ending date of the particular goal. Each night I either cross off the day (meaning I did what needed to be done that day) or I circle the day (meaning I was irresponsible and didn't do what I should've). Then I can see how well I am doing... how much I have actually kept my promises... it keeps me very realistic about my work. Then I can look back at the end and say, "Wow! I really stuck to it!" or look back and say, "Well, no wonder you didn't finish by now... just look at how many days are circled." Count up the circled days, add those to the goal date and try again. No fluff added, just the failed days. 

This eventually gets deep down into your foundation. I find that the more sensitive my conscience is the more guilty I feel for not being productive in a way that would improve the lives of others. I know this is an abstract thought but it really keeps me putting my nose to the grindstone rather than doing whatever it is that I feel like doing. My religious beliefs give me a lot of hope and excitement in this realm. 

Now stop reading this blog and go do a project!

Touch

I grab the wooden handled wire tool, wrapping the thin wire twice around my fingers, and feel it press into my skin as I cut my wet pot from the wheel. I have dried clay cracking around my wrists and wet clay between my fingers. As I slap a new mound of clay on my wheel I can feel it give way and change shape. I throw the walls of my next bowl and my outside fingers mimic the opening motion they can feel of my inside fingers.

The sense of touch is a huge part of a potter's life. While everyone "feels" everyday, a potter's livelihood rests in a heightened sense of touch. A sensitive yet firm grasp of what is happening with your hands is essential.

This appreciation of touch was brought home to me when my sister, my niece and I sat together watching a documentary the other day. At one point in the film, a woman walked through a beautiful stone arched veranda in Paris. The camera panned over an immaculate garden full of trimmed hedges, brightly colored flowers, and rich green grass. The woman's hair, frizzy and red, made the colors of the flowers pop and both contrasted beautifully with the stone arches and gray, rainy sky. My 3 year old niece's immediate reaction to this gorgeous scene was, "Mom, can we go there for I can touch it?" And then added, "I want to touch it so I can feel it."

So human and so real! She wasn't just content to sit on the couch and see the scene before her, she wanted to envelope her senses in it, to truly experience it by touching the stone or wet grass or frizzy red hair. This desire is one that so many of us don't realize we are missing in our world of life on screen. TV and computers have made it possible to experience a vast amount of the world previously privy to the rich or well traveled. But this innocent sentiment of a 3 year old made me think. We should not be content with duo-sensory (did I just make up that term?!) experiences on screen, overdeveloping our hearing and seeing senses. We should seek out true full experiences for ourselves as well! We should be conscious of how each sense absorbs particular circumstances during the day. I believe that in developing and titillating all five, life will take on an extraordinarily satisfied feeling of fullness.

How have you fed all five of your senses today?

touch taste smell see hear

Gretchen and Edie

I often tell people that I chose not to go to art school because I've spent my life as an Art major. My family, on both sides, has art running through the genes. So, really, I can't help myself.

I grew up with original works of art on our walls, my attention drawn to their styles, their differences. Often the youngest at family gatherings, I listened as my family noted colors, shapes, details, and compositions. From a simple walk around the neighborhood to a historic home tour to a camping trip, I naturally gravitated towards trying to see what drew my eye, seeing beauty in a seed pod, a painting, a wrought iron gate, a pattern in the sidewalk, the way the wind caused a tree to bend...

Trips to "Grandma's house" always encouraged this appreciation of beauty. Both of my Grandmother's, Edie Coffin and Gretchen Quie, were professional artists, visibly producing, growing, and challenging themselves in their work. Paintings hung on the walls and sat on easels. Handmade paper, woodblocks, illustrations, hand thrown pots, and designs for murals made my head spin in all of the creativity.

I can remember Grandma Coffin, with her easel set up on the dinning room table at the beach house. I watched her, with her watercolors and brushes, sweeping the paper with washes that suddenly became the stormy sky outside. She sat with me and showed pictures from her painting trips to other countires, the paintings in the pictures now completed and hanging on the wall or in a gallery. I sat with Grandma Coffin and her painting "buddies" listening to them discuss the effects of this color or that stroke, watching them draw the world around them. (Self-portrait Squares by Edie Coffin)

I can remember going to Minnesota to visit the Quie side of the family. Grandma Quie always had projects for us. Once we were driving home from an event and we passed a dock full of fisherman. Grandma Quie made a u-turn, drove down to the dock, and got out to ask the fishermen for a small fish. We took it home, rolled it with blue paint, and pressed it onto a piece of paper. I still have my fish print, numbered, signed and matted. (Two Men by Gretchen Quie)

These women were not weekend painters, they were artists because they were created to create. Each of them drew people's attention to a different way of seeing, to the details in a world full of interest.

The following are merely photographs, a poor attempt to capture the qulaity of the paintings themselves. Still Life by Gretchen Quie

Four Bathers by Gretchen Quie

Sketch of a woman by Gretchen Quie

Vase by Edie Coffin (a study of a pot!)

Woman by Edie Coffin

Baltimore Harbor by Edie Coffin

Diligence

At a stupid hour to be awake, running out of time and money, I decided to make some important decisions in my life. Never a good idea but its done. And it all worked out just as I "planned".

I am now working for a local, high class, high expectations, high stress restaurant chain. My whole working life I have avoided the restaurant biz. Now, as I think about it, I'm not exactly sure why. I love people, I love action, I love food. Seems like a good fit. But the whims and particularities of people and their comforts (ie. food) seemed like a tall order for me, a person who wants to ensure that everyone is pleased as pie. There were always a few too many variables in that picture for it to be a happy one for me.

Yet here I am, getting shirts professionally dry cleaned, buying "spec" shoes and skirts, memorizing ingredients, learning how to answer a phone and put people on a wait, maintaining a smile, always a smile.

I cannot help but say that I am disappointed. I love, absolutely love, this restaurant. I would not work for another restaurant. But here I am, 26 and working in a restaurant (not even able to be a waiter yet since I have no prior experience), struggling to find the time and energy to devote to art and struggling to make ends meet. I am stressed learning the details and spending more money than I've made so far. I would be lying if I didn't say that at this point, I'm loosing sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

These are the moments that I think I should throw in the towel and walk away. But that's just it. When I think of walking away, what is it that I'm walking away from? Dreams. Now, that word has become so cliched it almost makes me roll my eyes to say it. But really, that is what I would be walking away from: a dream. "A strongly desired goal or purpose", something to consider as a possibility. I was talking to a friend about some of this and he had the best response, "I know it is overwhelming and stressful at times, and if that is the case, you need to march your butt downstairs and throw some clay around. That will get your mind off of things and calm you down a bit."

Any fool should be able to see that merely because a dream is not realized at this particular moment does not mean that any towels should be thrown in any direction but over your shoulder for more work to be done. The key word there is "should", any fool should be able to see. But my sorry excuse for patience and hard work blurs that sight completely and I am struggling to wipe my eyes clear. While I'd like to be present, be aware and active in the now, I need to keep that strong desire, that purpose, that goal in mind.

Beauty

Roger Scruton is a British philosopher with a tall mess of strawberry blond hair and an English fashion sense. His patterned suit coat, patterned shirt, and patterned tie played wonderfully into the British stereotype. That being said, his lecture did anything but.

This past week I went into DC to a beautiful club for Scruton's lecture on Beauty. Scruton is boldly breaking from modern aesthetic philosophy on beauty to say that it is absolutely necessary, that it is about redeeming human life and making this world livable. I found the lecture very encouraging and thought provoking. I will try to give a coherent picture of his lecture (I'm going to quote him periodically. He was free with his language so I'm sorry if it is offensive to anyone):

He started by noting that beauty is not paid attention to much these days, saying that there is "nothing which to raise your eyes." In the world of art, he went on, beauty has been neglected; we are stuck in a moment in which art is not the pursuit of beauty but the desecration of it. He called this the tragedy of modern life and by neglecting beauty we produce ultimately useless things. We can see this in the buildings built and torn down without thought in contrast to the buildings that we want to save. Why? Because pure function "resigns things to oblivion."

One of my favorite points of the lecture came after this introduction. He clarified beauty to be beyond just "art". Scruton thinks of beauty and its place in the lives of real people; where does beauty fit in the lives of ordinary people? He envisioned a table set for dinner, an easy image to conjure at this time of year! The arranging of the items, the making of the food, the inviting people to participate ... its not just a matter of food in the belly. With that image in mind, contrast it to much of art today: not inviting others in; "its ME on display and f*** you if you don't like it." In the Q&A time afterwards a gentleman in the back asked Scruton to define beauty. Scruton gave a wry smile and said that that is like trying to define "red". Beauty is defining "a state of mind in the objects, the arragnging of the world so that you are at home in it."

So why is it, Scruton asked, that our tastes in ordinary things like food are not argued about but accepted as part of a person but with beauty we want to discuss what we like and why. He claimed that it is because these are things that actually can demean the human condition which matters incredibly to you, being part of humanity. The desecration of beauty is oppressive and being oppressed, there ought to be some discussion about this!

At this point I connected this to why there is a noticeable lack of interest in/engagement with art today: not only because the artist is not inviting the viewer in but because this needed "discussion" mentioned above is a difficult and blurry path to go down.

Scruton gave some interesting thoughts on education, saying that there should be some education in producing the things that entertain us, giving us a foundation of knowledge upon which to base an opinion of what we listen to, look at, enjoy, etc. And that way, he claimed, there might be some agreement in community of what entertains us.

Well, where does the desecration of beauty/humanity start? Scruton had what I thought was a great point, that it starts with the ruling thought that "I am alone." That is the downfall.

Well, I am not alone! And I hope that provoked you to some thoughts on beauty and humanity as well.

Reality

I walk amidst the leaves of autumn in familiar Virginia again, having left just 3 short months ago. No more horizon with mountain peaks out my front door, no more almond and olive groves to climb through, no more Seth and proper British ways, no more enthusiastic Spaniards speaking rapidly to me. My time in Spain is definitely over. That reality must have crept in over night last night, like a large looming rain cloud, because today, day 6 of being home, is the hardest.

As expected, it doesn't seem real. I took a grand leap in my artistic life and am on the other side of the chasm now. I thought, as I sat on the plane on Monday, that I would wake up on Tuesday morning, in my very own bed, and imagine I dreamt the entire experience, a long, elaborate and wonderful dream. It does feel like that now ... though when I woke on Tuesday morning my first thought was, how do I get to the bathroom!?

I went through all of the motions of leaving: packing, cleaning, stripping the bed, saying Adios to people and places, but I couldn't comprehend not being there anymore. At 3am on Monday morning I walked into the courtyard, through the antique wooden door ornately carved by a Spaniard years ago, passed the garage where Seth keeps his "girlfriend" (An antique car, the Morris 8), passed the ruins of old goat stalls, passed the empty river bed which gleamed in the dark with it's white stones, bent beyond the cliff and out of sight, to the red Spanish van I learned to love and hate.

As we drove out of Masia Albadas in the dark, my mind flooded with the things I would miss most. I thought of my walk to work each day, down the stone stairs I so meticulously weeded, crumbling and uneven, passed the newly jacketed kiln, passed discarded pots and into a dirt and stone floored wonderful mess.

I thought of the work that I had come to learn, work which energizes and exhausts, work which brings each customer a period, even if its just a brief moment, of contemplation - that life is more than your 9-5, life is more than greyscale predictability, that we are more than ants scuttling from place to place.

We can touch, smell, taste, feel, and see such a range and variety that even with the awareness of thousands of years of human creativity we still have the urge to create, share, and try to communicate with each other what is beauty and goodness and what is not.

To ignore this is to isolate ourselves, a very unnatural and spirit crushing mental state. Modernity has made it easier and cheaper to surround ourselves with factory produced 'beauty' but the lack of human touch in the objects is akin to a human with no contact, an ultimately stoney and cold thing. It evaporates the potential for long lasting beauty.

I have many things to share and stories to tell but for now, for today, thank you for reading. Thank you for learning along with me what it means to share, to enjoy, and to appreciate the rugged beauty in human creativity and creation.

Lisps and dill

I used to work with a spitfire of a woman from Poland. Her English was nearly perfect and her Polish accent clipped or lengthened certain words, giving everything she said a seductive glaze. She occasionally asked for correct pronunciations which I gave gladly but couldn't help feeling that the way she expressed it had a fullness which my tone completely lacked. Despite this, she often mentioned how embarrassed she was of her English. I tried to encourage her that there was never any question of what she was communicating - something I long for now. My Spanish started off so vacant and looks I got in response were too. I imagine that if my Polish friend could hear her English when she first began, she would not be so hard on herself. As I hear myself trying desperately to communicate in the local language, I know that its laughable. The glimmering moments when I've done it on my own and the poor Spaniard across from me responds with an affirming "Ci!" are precious to me.

The other day I went to the grocery store, a tiny two aisle place in Els Ibarsos, and walked around looking for the herb Dill. It wasn't in my dictionary, so I proceeded to try and figure out how in world I could find it with out the actual word.

Rather than giving up, I told the grocer, a small Spanish woman who is used to seeing me and dealing with my fumbling of her language, that I was looking for a green herb sometimes used with pickles. That took some time.

I wasn't sure we had done the job but she was confident that a certain herb was exactly what I wanted. The one she pointed out, "eneldo", happened to be one that I remembered seeing back at the house, unopened. I thanked her and thought I'd go home to smell it and check the larger dictionary before buying it. Sure enough, she and I had understood each other perfectly! "Eneldo" was dill! I went back a few days later and successfully communicated to her that she had been right and that eneldo was what I had wanted! We were both so giddy at the moment, it was wonderful.

All of this thought given to communicating simple and complex ideas made me think of, what else?!, pottery. I remember working as the Ceramics Lab assistant in college. One of my duties was to be present during lab time to assist students fulfilling their studio hours. I loved sitting down with beginners to help them progress. Each person had a different approach to the wheel.

Looking back I see the incredible similarities to language: I was teaching them the language of pottery. The feeling of the clay spinning between thier hands was as foriegn to them as the feeling of a purposeful Spanish lisped word in my mouth. I helped them center the clay or pull up the wall of a pot to give them a better sense of the proper pronunciation with their hands to the clay.

The same glimmer (and virtual affirming "Ci!") came to them when they finally communicated clearly enough to the clay that their first few pots came off the wheel. They were not beautiful by any means -- standing alone and out of context -- just like my Spanish. But in that moment they hold a different sort of beauty, an interpersonal beauty, like a mother appreciating her child's first scribbles.

As I learn the language of pottery, of art, of beauty, I can feel certain aspects becoming more fluid, more natural -- the way English is to my mouth or Polish is to my coworker or Spanish is to my neighbors, Pepe and Rosa. I look back at my first attempts in this deep and complicated language of pottery and appreciate how much I've learned. But I see and work with potters so much more fluent then myself. There is always more to explore, more to understand, more to communicate. I love to hear my pronunciation change slightly as I'm corrected in my Spanish, just as my pots change slightly as I create and learn. While I'll always have my accent, I have a lot to learn to smooth and give coherency to all of my words, all of my pots, all of my work.

Painful pruning...

I'm waiting for a friend at a local gas station. A beautiful tree next to me has large oval leaves with an incredibly fabric-like crinkle to them. There are vines growing around the root of the tree, bursting from the cement that surrounds it and I just noticed that there are grapes hanging from these vines. The land is prolific!

I love to go for runs and take long walks. There are endless directions for my expeditions around the Masia (the term for a cluster of houses). I usually end up in groves of almonds or olives where the earth is churned up regularly by local farmers. This loosens the dense clay and rock around the trees and rids the tree of its competitions -- weeds. The trees all have curious growth patterns very carefully monitored (or in some cases not so carefully) by the farmers. Branches are pruned so that the nutrients can flow well to the fruits. Each tree has branches that reach out, droop down, and splay back up with the fruits popping out all over. Its interesting to think about the process of trimming off fresh, healthy growth in order to achieve more fruits in the future. That takes a serious amount of trust in the process and foresight.

Last week Seth introduced me to his way of making pitchers. They are rounded bodies with taller, straighter necks than I'm used to. After watching him throw once I sat down to my second teacher, the wheel. Well, I spent the day with these blasted forms and had three mediocre ones to show for it by the end. I was so frustrated and disappointed that once Seth left the studio I sat down on one of the rickety old chairs (that almost toppled) and cried pitiful tears. All work has its frustrating days and art is no different. I had run out of steam completely.

I was being pruned. Painfully and laboriously. I had mentioned to Seth that I was having a hard time. He merely said to keep throwing and there would eventually be that moment of light ... hopefully. I just stood there with my eyebrows raised and mouth open. That was it.

So, I threw more. I threw smaller versions at Seth's suggestion and then upped the weight as I felt more comfortable. Yesterday I threw some. I asked Seth, who isn't one to come checking up on me, to come look. My form was a bit rounder than his but echoed the idea quite well. I was ready for his short comment on what was wrong, ready for a good pruning but got almonds instead! He said thoughtfully, yes, yes thats quite nice. Different but rather nice. Maybe that will be the new Albadas (the name of his casa) syle.

It was brief and not much but it was growth. My eyes popped and heart fluttered. I wonder if thats how the trees feel as the almonds finally emerge?

A thoughtful potter

A large mound of clay in the shape of a large box sits on one side of our wedging surface. This is the reclaim clay, shoveled out of the bucket and slopped onto the table top to set up. The air in Spain is very arid, a perfect bonus for a potter. The breezes and the sun streaming into the studio give the reclaim and thrown pots a quick turn over time. Seth's usual practice is to throw in the morning, leave the pots out, eat la comidar (lunch), and come back to pots ready to trim. Remember from previous posts that a pot has to be at the "leather hard" stage to trim the bottoms. Trimming gives the pot a "foot" on the bottom, a nice finished, grip-able foot.

Why should a potter make a foot that can be grabbed? Why should a potter think about the bottom of a pot? Why does a customer lean toward one pot and not another? Why do you gravitate towards that certain bowl or mug in your cupboard? A good artist, a good potter, knows the answer to all of these questions. The success of a pot relies on the consciousness of the artist even if the reasons for success are inexplicable to the user/admirer. Seth mentions the"washer and dryer" a lot as we are making pots. He says that a good potter must think of a person holding the pot, using the pot, and washing the pot. Is it easy to hold? Is it comfortable? Is it convenient to wash? These are wonderful things to imagine as thought goes into every aspect of every pot, from the smallest bowl to the largest vase.

I wrapped my unfinished pots with plastic a few days ago, leaving them on a low shelf where they will await my return. As I stood looking at my clean, empty work space I ceremoniously turned off the lights and stood there for a moment in the dim drone of a distant florescent. When I come back to this, what will it look like to me? What will I want to change about it? What will I have missed the most? How will I have changed? How will my pots have changed? Oh, what an adventure this will be!

I love knowing that when I return to sit at my wheel, my very own wheel, that I will be different, will have grown, developed, matured as a potter and as an artist. My hope for this trip is threefold:

1. To develop in confidence as an artist and especially the combining of mediums. Seth studied as a painter. He draws and paints as well as potting. He has successfully meshed the two and is so comfortable in that dual role. I want to see that in action. I want to know what he thinks about as he makes a form, as he looks at a form, as he analyzes the pot and his decorations.

2. I want to learn more about the firing process. Seth and I will be starting at the beginning, throwing the raw clay, and working together to fill his wood kiln. I'm hoping that being one of the primary potters involved in the firing will really piece together my bits of experience and knowledge of firing.

3. Seth has grown up with pottery and worked in it for many many years. He understands what it takes to make a life of it. He knows potters around the world that have done the same in various ways. To get a better grasp on the possibilities for making this artistic calling a sustaining vocation is invaluable to me. I think of a college kid's perspective; the job possibilities are basically limited to the ones they grew up around. As they search and meet people and expand their perspective, jobs that they did not know existed begin to surface. I feel a little like that. I'm excited for ideas.

Languages

On the metro the other night, in this the melting pot of the world, I, a Norwegian European American mutt sat beside a 4'1" 65 year old Cuban woman. Her accent was strong though she told me, quite close to my face, that she had been here for, oh, 50 years. She said, "I do not care about my accent! People ask me, 'I hear you accented, where is that? and I say I am here for long time!" I laughed and said her English was far better than my Spanish. I mentioned that I was going to Spain and trying to learn Spanish. She dismissed me with a hand saying, "I tell you," she raised her arms with emphasis, "compared to English, Spanish is easy. It is pho-net-ical," with an emphasis on each syllable, "You learn fast."

So, do you speak Spanish? Yes, well umm, no. I don't. I don't speak much Spanish at all. In the weeks leading up to my trip I have had very limited time to teach myself. I've looked over the basics but have not gotten comfortable speaking Spanish. Language is an interesting aspect to this trip. Seth Cardew is British so we will communicate pretty well. Undoubtedly, I will wish I sounded more like him and try to pick up some of the beautiful lilt. But the remote area of Castellon will, I hear, prove to be a Spanish speaking classroom for me. In my regular glass half full mentality I am banking on the universal languages of food, love, and art, confident that I will get by and learn moi rappido!

At one of my jobs there is a vivacious group of Spanish speakers from Bolivia and Peru. They speak to me in rapid Spanish, tossing my name in the midst of a long string of sounds and calling me "butterfly" and "queen" with a laugh. Its my job to draw on the chalkboard and even the ones that speak very little English enjoy the development of my pictures and advertisements and communicate their appreciation. We've gotten by with a slow friendship developing but there is always a barrier of language. The excitement on their faces, in their body language when they found I was trying to learn Spanish was priceless. Why? To be able to communicate with someone, to have that communal relationship with a fellow human being is essential to our well being.

In his broken English and my barely present Spanish, my Bolivian co-worker told me that when I return from Spain they would have me over for a meal to eat traditional Bolivian food. FOOD. Another universal language. Something to share in, to give, to take, to enjoy, to spit out, to laugh over, to cry over, to do together. Where has that sense of universality gone for a lot of today's art, for a lot of today's people's understanding of art? The ability for art to be a universal language of deep beauty - one to share, to give, to take, to enjoy, to spit at, to laugh over, to cry over, to come together has been lost in commercialism, egotism, and a lack of education in the arts.

But art and beauty, like food, is so much more than those wonderful aspects. Our poor minds and hearts starve without it ... other parts of our lives are affected by the lack of that essential harmony of nutrients or in this case, sights, sounds and textures. Sights, sounds, and textures that allow you to come out of yourself, to realize beyond the everyday. This subtle starvation makes for a sad, limited life, indeed.

Everyone has taste buds, taste buds prone towards certain tastes but taste buds that can be honed, developed, broadened and instructed to appreciate more flavors and textures. Our sense of appreciation for beauty, in music or arts, is the same way. We are prone towards certain styles, colors, shapes, patterns, harmonies, rhythms, sounds, and textures. But with exposure, with development and learning, those tastes can be expanded and our minds and hearts fed in so many more wonderful and fulfilling ways.

Learn to communicate and understand more than a spoken language. Learn what it is to communicate without words, through music, art, food, dance, etc. Allow yourself to grow in these things. The rich experiences that come out of that will feed your soul.

A horse... a whole horse!

You may remember a few posts back when I received an incredible gift (which you can see upside down and ready for surgery in the picture to the left). Well, that gift has now been upgraded and I've learned so much in the process.

There are a number of different Brent wheels for different sorts of potters. The wheel that my co-worker so graciously gave to me was a lower model wheel. Now this does not mean that things are plastic rather than metal, that the control board is slapped together with shoddy parts, or that the wheel has any sort of inferior workmanship. The lower model just has a smaller motor. In my case it was a 1/4 horse power motor. Its drive, torque, and strength are more for classroom use than a professional potter. Brent (now AMACO, American Art Clay Company) makes great, reliable wheels from the bottom of the totem pole right on up to the top. So even though my wheel is a lower model, its still a Brent and it will last me a long long time.

Excited for the possibilities, I decided to look into an upgrade. I called AMACO and talked to a wonderful man, Bob Randolph. Bob couldn't have been more helpful! He explained parts of my wheel to me, from the control box to the foot pedal to the wheel belt. My mentor, Mel Jacobson, always said that I needed to learn how my equipment works so that I can do all of the maintenance myself.

I decided to do some business with Bob. The wheel was running well but was having a few issues (would start turning while the foot pedal was off...). He walked me through dismantling the control box and foot pedal, pulling wires and screws out right and left. I saw the interior of the control box for the first time (see part of it in the picture on the right). I shipped the box and pedal to Bob and he fixed it and shipped it back in two days! Now thats service.

Bob also sold me a motor, 3/4 more horse power than my old one. That means that I now have a supped up Brent with an entire horse power motor on there! I have the equivalent of a Brent CXC for about $1200 less than I would've spent on a new one. I feel like a car junkie. I'm considering runner lights, a dual exhaust, and new sound system too ...

Oh the choices!

Life is grand when you are aware of the simple pleasures of every day! I stumble down the stairs to the kitchen each morning for my breakfast. I assemble the various parts of the meal, picking my cereal, getting out the soy milk, spoon, berries or raisins. I always take a simple pleasure in one particular choice: my dish. It is never a calculated choice, a potter choosing with a critical eye. No, it is much more simple, much more organic. I open the cupboard to an array of bowls from our own basement and from the studio of many other potters. Not one is alike. They all have different weights, decorations, shapes. They all have different personalities. One bowl can catch my eye and there is just something about it, that morning, that I can't get away from. The shape of the bowl, how small or wide the inside seems to me that morning, how open and hospitable or closed and cozy. I am rarely conscious of these details as I choose but as I look, as I touch, I just know that one bowl will suit and another simply will not.

Our mug cupboard is the same way. Friends who come over to our house know this well. The choices when it comes to beverages don't only consist of whether to have coffee or tea or what kind of tea but which mug will you choose? Its a very personal choice and I hate to have to choose for another person! It is always fun to see which mug a person chooses too. Something in the aesthetic of a particular mug drew that person in enough to choose it over another. Most often it is one that I haven't used for a while and their choice draws my attention to it once again.

Some may think that they just don't have that kind of time, the time it takes to choose one pot over another, its just another thing to think about ... but they are so mistaken! It is a very different kind of thought process, unrelated to the list of to do's in the morning. Imagine you are back in elementary school... if you had a good art teacher, art class was not just another class. It fed a different thought process, it was engaging, bit of a break from the norm. The simple pleasure of choosing your mug in the morning can be that little break all over again.

In "The Potter's Challenge", Bernard Leach discusses the value in hand made work vs. machine made and the inexplicable joy and element of humanity that makes all the difference between the two. Read here as he writes about making handles for a pitcher, making it over and over, perfecting the form:

"[The handle] must be comfortable to hold. It can covey beauty, and provide use and pleasure in combination. Now a young potter may say that as a machine can turn out repeated things item for item what is the purpose of trying to do the same thing by hand? The answer is that aside from the rhythm and method of work that develop within the potter, there are a surprising number of people who want to enjoy a pitcher when they use it, and they cannot get that kind of joy when the man who produced it did not really make it, did not have any joy in making it. How is the joy to get into factory-made work? We need that joy. It serves a starved heart both in the maker and the user. We need to find a way for all people in this world to get this extra bonus. There must be an element of choice and the play of imagination." (pg. 18-19)

And more:

"Even under favorable conditions the absence of overall personal responsibility at every stage of execution, combined with standardization of raw material, and absolute uniformity of exact repetition inherent in the process of mass reproduction, reduce the possibility of expression to a cool hard abstraction far removed from the warmth and character and spontaneity of direct hand-craftsmanship. [Here Leach makes allowances for a new sort of beauty to emerge from factory made things but goes on to say:] It is about time that we realized that the real contribution of the machine is mass-production of the basic necessities which a swelling population requires, not the make-believe application of false art. ... Factory-made pots are not produced by the whole man." (pg. 46-47)

So, raise your mugs, brimming with life and imagination and joy: Here's to personality, here's to simple pleasures, here's to the whole man!