I recently have begun work on some new sculptural vessels. They are largely wheel-thrown combined with slab construction. I'd been discussing creative processes with my close friend, Robin who is a musician and poet. I find it remarkable how similar the creative process can be whether discussing poetry or sculpture. In sharing my process with her, I made it a point to document the creation of a piece from beginning on. I am pleased to be able to share it on my web site and find value in observing the process. This was created in one marathon session on Saturday, September 19, 2009. I often do my best work when I can arrive at the studio, materials previously prepared (slabs, pots, etc.) and spend the entire day in focused work. I begin by attempting to empty my head of distracting concerns and focus entirely on the work at hand. Intuition and the subconscious play a vital role in my process. "Sensibilities", I've come to call it. Below you may find some of my rambling reflections that were part of our correspondence.

 

        

       

  

       

 

       

 

"The process of building a piece seems too often disconnected from the steps involving surface treatment. As ceramic work often takes a long time to build, bisque fire, decorate with colored slips or underglazes, re-fire, and repeat and re-fire, the surface decisions too often collide with the initial pure form or sculptural considerations when the thing was built. I consider the first step, the actual building of a piece to be PURELY sculptural. Later on painting sensibilities need to be brought in. My students, because of their inexperience, too often ruin a strong sculptural form by obliterating or contradicting its merits with misplaced, ill-advised color and glaze. In the Summer of 2007 I spent a couple of weeks at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine for a clay workshop. I had a chance to experiment with applying underglazes directly to my newly rolled out slabs of clay and making decisions about color WHILE I construct. I used this way of working for this piece (you might have noticed some areas of color). To my immense frustration, the slabs I rolled out in between teaching duties dried too fast. I over estimated how wet they'd be and kept a fan running on them for a few hours on Friday afternoon (bad choice). Half of my slabs were unusable as they'd dried too hard. In working with slabs, the clay initially is too soft and its plasticity makes it slump and sag when building with it. Clay needs to dry ever-so-slightly to a state called "leather hard" so that it can be manipulated, yet give you nice straight walls and allow you to cut precise angles and bevel edges when needed. I require my slabs to be at just the optimum consistency for much of what I do in cutting out specific shapes and angling them against one another to make various planes or facets that lead the eye on a sort of adventure of shape and form. I like to mix slabs with wheel-thrown forms as the flatness and the roundness make for essential contrasting qualities. Much of what I do as I construct is intuitive... or ad-libbed. I begin with the pot. I slice out a portion from the bowl shape and begin to select pieces of slab to replace the round areas that were removed with walls at angles that seem proportionate and serve to surprise the viewer with some unexpected experience when seen in the round. I had it drilled into my head when studying design with Phil Paratore and Josh Nadel that symmetry is death. It is boredom. It is like placing the focal point of a painting right smack in the middle of a canvas. the viewer's eye wants to roam and to become surprised and have its preconceptions challenged. This can be accomplished while sculpting by creating a design that is not strictly symmetrical, that contradicts itself at times or possesses areas of contrasting qualities. Contrast can be about many things: color, shape, dark/light, texture, function. To call my vessels vessels smacks some traditional potters as wrong because they are not utilitarian service objects. A vessel is that which contains... does it need to hold drink or food? No. A vessel form can contain ones spirit and in so doing, I believe, rises above the fray and becomes art. That is not to say that a functional vessel cannot make that leap as well. (That's fodder for another long dissertation, which, I'm afraid this is turning into... sorry) One decision, a slab set into place, informs the next, and the next until I find myself having created a quagmire for myself. How the heck do I resolve this? When I've created a dilemma for myself I know I'm on the right track because it means that I've taken the piece into the unknown. Like going for a walk in an unfamiliar forest and realizing that you're lost. Making sense out of it and resolving the piece ultimately takes you to places one could never arrive with the certainty of a road map (does that make sense to you? I wonder if this is in any way related because writing strikes me as very much like sculpting). I lean heavily on my design experience and knowledge in creating small strips of clay that when applied purposefully to the piece, serve to help draw the eye to areas of interest or merely keep the visual flow going around the piece. I intentionally roll out slabs that have a pitted, often textured irregular surface along with smoother ones. The relationships formed when these pieces are measured, scored and slipped into place are at the core of what works in the pieces (when they do!) and although I use some slabs with color, most of my pieces remain white. (I use a white earthenware clay, by the way... I bought some porcelain this past summer with the intent to create a series of these in that body as well). The strips of clay that I cut and attach also serve to divide sections of the piece so that they may exist as smaller areas of interest. Sometimes they frame the area, sometimes they deliberately are openings that invite the eye to move along and beyond their confines. The vessels often do have an architectural quality to them, but not as something formal or lifted from the world of architecture. I am fascinated by the passage of time... of the effects of decay and change and of renewal. This happens very noticeably when we look around our cities and find vestiges of the old peering out from newer facades and evidence of the past peering out from peeled paint and various other coverings that have been devised to renovate and refurbish. So often, these things seem to happen haphazard and without respect for the old and the resulting contrast can be downright poetic, even if purely by accident. Too often, I'm afraid, the past is disposed of as some kind of refuse. I think we do this very same thing when the voices, lessons and essence of our ancestors become smothered and lost in our pursuit of the present. I once had a dream that was so vivid it left me seeing ghosts everywhere (in a good way). I dreamt that I took a walk along the familiar downtown of Lewiston (I'd just been reading and researching historical sites, etc.) and suddenly there was a suspension of time as we know it. As I walked down the street in the present, everyone who'd ever walked down the street at any given time in the past were walking their routes too at the same time, yet all were somewhat transparent and able to walk through one another without interruption or notice. The longer ago the person walked the route, the fainter their image. I crossed paths with old relatives and loved ones departed in their youths. I called to them without reaching, but felt the comfort of their presence. I specifically remember walking alongside my Uncle Larry, Dad's older brother who died in 1945 in Belgium during WWII. I never met him, but have heard enough about him to know that I'd have loved to have had my Uncle Larry to enjoy and grow up knowing. I just enjoyed walking with him. I couldn't reach him to speak with, but his presence was a comfort. Since that dream I have a hard time looking at things as separate from the past. I also know, as a consequence that my own footprints resonate into the future and affect its outcome, even if ever so subtly. Uncle Larry, because of who he was and his interactions with his brother, Claude and countless others, played a role in shaping who I am. There cannot help but be a resonating influence, even if a very subtle one. I learned that while dreaming and awaking to a new understanding. That is also what art at its best should do: awaken us to new understandings. I think a great work of art should invite the viewer to places completely unknown, yet mysteriously familiar. In creating these vessels with varied, apparently added architectural elements, I hope to suggest the passage of time and the subtle contributions of the many builders and experiences that combine to create our worlds... and our perceptions. I don't know if by using these various textures and colors and shapes to design a piece providing a viewer with something substantial, yet hopefully surprising to experience in the round, I ever come close to the ideas or ideals that I have put forth. Best, perhaps should the viewer bring his or her own experience to it. I firmly believe that works should allow a viewer enough room to invite personal interpretation. I can share what's on my mind... and hopefully, especially what comes up from the subconscious, because I think that stuff is the stuff of universal truths.... but I'm not so sure each piece is successful in drawing you in to a state of wonder."   (9/20/2009)