Truth?

"In matters of art our society has substituted taste for truth, which she finds more amusing and less of a responsibility, and changes her tastes as frequently as she changes her hats and shoes."

- Mark Rothko

Well, wasn't I mistaken! After some quality time with the afore mentioned Bernard Leach book I've realized that the drawings and verse and prose are all his own! What a prolific artist. No wonder they say he is "the greatest artist-potter-writer of our time" and "perhaps one of the greatest men of our time."

While I don't agree with his Baha'i beliefs, I think it fascinating to find someone who has beliefs beyond himself and is willing to expound on that and live by it. Believe something and live by it?! What a novel idea...

A New Book

I just found a new book by Bernard Leach (that famous potter I mention frequently). You can see the cover to the left. I wasn't quite sure what I was ordering when I presses "buy" online but the cover was enough to make me want it. Bernard Leach was very influenced by Eastern thought, both in his artwork and in his worldview. It is interesting to see how this played out in his philosophies and drawings as he brought them back and modified them to his western life style.

From what I can tell, the book is not his drawings but a collection of drawings that he either owned or enjoyed. The verse I am not sure about yet. Books are so wonderful. Full of mystery and promise. All you have to do is open the cover.

Here I go!

Space

So here I am, on the edge of the Chesapeake, learning, living, and generally loving life.

Now that the initial suspension of reality is dropping, I am settling into my artistic rhythm again. The work load at the Academy has been difficult to balance, especially with regard to artwork. I didn't expect it to be quite this hard but its a challenge that is growing me in areas of responsibility that haven't been touched. That is a good thing. You can keep telling me that, cause I sure forget some times.

Among the many things that I am learning, I've discovered that space is essential. While learning the ropes in the beginning, my mind was preoccupied and I was hard pressed to be creative. When I was finally inclined to create, I felt claustrophobic with my ideas. I had no where to give space to that creative energy. But creativity doesn't just go away. Much of it was expressed and still is expressed in daily activities, in social creativity: creatively engaging with the surroundings, with the other fellows, and adding or highlighting beauty where I can. I put clippings from outside in vases for the dinner table, decorate spaces, draw in community, encouraging others to creatively engage as well.

Recently a couple donated a bunch of freshly caught rockfish to the fellows (always wonderful to get more food!). I volunteered to write the thank you note and decided to paint them a fish in gratitude:

Meanwhile I am working to create a real creative space for myself. As soon as I've worked that out, I'll post some pictures. I am excited about the secret space I've found and am renovating.

*Close Curtain*

Well, this is it Ladies and Gentlemen. I leave on Saturday. I am completely at peace and looking froward to this new adventure. My wheel and tools, my clothes and jewelry, my sheets and books: they are all making their way into boxes. The kick off for my program is on Sunday. After that I will know my schedule a little better and thus my ability to take the time to write.

Here goes.....

Once upon a time....

...I was an apprentice in Northern Virginia. That time has come to an end. I am no longer apprenticing with my mother and my days in Northern Virginia are numbered. I will soon be embarking on a new journey come August and have decided to end my blog for now.

When I started this blog, my purpose was to educate and be educated in pottery, beauty, and life as an artist. With a clear apprenticeship and purpose, I found writing to be a wonderful way to organize my own thoughts as well as fulfill a dream of including the public in my work.

In August I will start a 9 month program focusing around leadership in arts and community. I am excited and nervous but ever positive that this is the best next step for me. I hope that my time there will foster a maturity and focus; that I will gain a depth that will give me confidence in encouraging a fresh infusion of understanding and love of art into the public's scope of life. And, while I don't know what this time will be like, I hope that my time there allows for writing. I would love to continue to share an insiders view of one artist's struggle to find a place. But we'll see.

Until then, enjoy the colors of your food, sit still and listen, touch the bark on that tree you walk past each day, smell the fresh cut grass, and notice the way an artist uses these inexhaustible inspirations to capture a moment of beauty.

Thanks for reading,
Sarah

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I just uploaded a short video of the pump action trimming wheel that I used while in Spain.

Enjoy!

Smithsonian Craft Show Review

I attended the Smithsonian Craft Show for the first time this year. It was a gorgeous venue (The National Building Museum) and a wonderful show. I loved getting to walk amongst some of the greatest crafters in America, seeing their work first hand and talking to them. Crafters by definition want people to use their work and are generally people friendly. Here were some of my favorites:

Jennifer Heller Zurick: Willow Bark Baskets

www.jenniferhellerzurich.com

Robert Briscoe: Functional Stoneware


Stephen Merritt: Potterywww.merrittvessel.com


Lara Moore: Furniture, Wall Art, etc.
www.bellabella.com

There were more favorites but I didn't get their cards. Look up the Craft Show for a complete list!

MET

At the MET: Contemplations on the Moonjar. Looks too gorgeous not to share! If you go, please tell me!

The Smithsonian Craft Show

The Smithsonian Craft Show is on NOW! The show is held in the gorgeous National Building Museum (worth a visit to the show just for that!) and showcases amazing artists from across America, producing functional beauty by hand. Go see it!

Silence is Golden

"Silence is golden..." I think that quote came about because those who work (making the "gold") all the time are never heard from! My silence has been the product of long hard days full of starched shirts, hot plates, aching feet, hungry people, and beautiful annual flowers coming in by the truck load. Spring has brought a different sort of rain this year and work is flooding my days, whether at my garden center or at my restaurant or in my studio.

Because my passion and focus (art/pottery) is not a clear cut job to apply for and work in solely, I find that I often forget that I do have a passion. What do I mean? Well, as I rush to the kitchen on my first rounds, dropping off dirty dishes, entering the order in the computer, and picking up another server's drink order, I know that serving is not my passion. I'd like to have one job, a job where I can be paid to do what I know, want to learn and am passionate about.

My best friend is a chef. She is enthusiastic and beginning to focus in a particular direction with her culinary talents. She just got a job at an incredible restaurant with the ideals she holds and the passion she exudes. Good food, exceptional food cannot be replaced by microwave boxed meals. Because real cooking, fresh cooking, is still somewhat practiced in homes across America, people can recognize a good meal. People seek out a good meal, share in it, are willing to pay for it, and enjoy it. They have experienced it once and want more, hence the typical longing for "mom's cooking" or a "fine home cooked meal." What they've experienced is real substance, prepared by human hands.

Unfortunately, artistry and craftsmanship of America is lost amongst the mass manufactured. While fresh home cooking has dwindled in the 15 second meal in a box (hopefully being revived by movements like "Slow Food" or Farm to Table"), art education is dwindling even more. And I don't just mean education in the formal sense. Education, especially in something like art and craft, can come from experiencing them.

Bernard Leach writes about this in "The Potter's Challenge". While he, of course, is speaking of pottery primarily, this can be applied to a much broader picture of art and craft - cooking, textiles, painting, photography, etc.

"One has to live with fine pots in order to appreciate their character, for they are intimate expressions of peoples and their cultures. Human virtues such as nobility, generosity, breadth, simplicity, sincerity, and charity -- virtues common to both man and pot -- are there to be discovered in shape, texture, color, and pattern."

It is in the familiarity with these hand made pieces, in knowing the maker, getting comfortable with the various aspects of the meal, of the picture, of the pot, that we really do learn.

[images: 'Cafe des Amie' sketch and 'Chef' sketch by Sarah Coffin]

Posts from a Spanish Diary: #8 Sketches

My time in Spain produced far fewer drawings than I imagined. I think I was a little overwhelmed by the already romantic, picturesque surroundings and intimidated by the rustic beauty of every scene. I did draw pots quite a bit and sketched here and there. I thought it might be fun to share a few of each plus some notes. Enjoy!

A mug by Seth Cardew and a pitcher by Michael Cardew. Drawn in the kitchen after using both for breakfast.


Seth's music room. Listening to Seth play piano, trumpet, or clarinet was one of my favorite aspects of my time there. He would play while I cooked dinner and I almost wanted to continuing cooking just to hear him play a little longer. He learned songs that were familiar to me and introduced me to some gorgeous pieces I didn't know.


Seth always looked so comfortable at the piano and sat at the grand piano with sculptures, pots, and books surrounding him. The side door was usually open, letting the warm, dry Spanish air swirl around the loose paper and music sheets.



Learning Seth's rules for lettering..


Dr. Vogel, Seth's sculpture professor, created this huge reclining nude. Seth proudly displayed it right next to his grand piano.


Wooden spoons in a Cardew pitcher.

Learning Seth's rules for bowls.

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

TONIGHT!

Are you free tonight?! The Kiln Club of Washington D.C. invited me to come speak! I will be presenting on Spain, Seth Cardew, and my experience during my three month stay. I am so thrilled to present and share some of the pottery wisdom I gleaned and some of the wonderful cultural experiences.

Lee Arts Center
5722 Lee Highway Arlington, VA 22207
7pm TONIGHT
March 17th, 2010

International pottery

A friend of mine is in the Peace Corps, living in Burkina Faso. A little bit ago she got the chance to go make pottery with a local potter there. The process is beautiful! Take a look: adventures à go-go

Love it, Carolyn!