Show at the Artist's Alley

I set up the show at Artist's Alley in San Francisco. It seems to have been a gruelling birth to get this gallery open, what with city permits in San Francisco. It is open now though and there are about 30 artists showing. Beverly Mikolon, the gallery director did a great job dealing with the space and making sense of so many artists showing in one building.

It was wonderful to finally place these pieces there. I needed the space in my studio and there is just something when as an artist you place a piece. Its a bit, I would imagine, like sending your kid off to college, when they sell it is more like them getting married. Anyway, they are all set up. I had just come from the foundry to pick up Dos Angeles. When I put them up in the gallery, they seemed to just breath. They are so beautiful together, the way they touch and kiss one another. It is such a loving embrace. The patina is beautiful too.

The process of this piece from the beginning of this second mold to the end was truly a challenge. I am so fortunate to have the foundry that I do. It is called Artworks and they are in Berkeley , Ca.

Fly the Wind

After tossing around some inane options for names, yes, Bandit was one, I admit it, I finally came up with a name that I think suits the piece... Fly the Wind. It came to me when after months of being wrapped up waiting to go to the show at the Artist's Alley gallery in San Francisco. I put her up on her base and the name spoke to me.

Mother's Day

It is Mother's Day. It has been two months since I have touched ceramic, stone or paint. I never had children. I had always assumed that I would. Often I believe that I traded my work for the experience of having biological children.

I decided then, that today it was essential that I make a new piece. He is standing on the podium right now all bolstered up my poles and props to keep him from falling until he dries. I don't use armatures because I want to be able to fire them in the kiln, so i am left with this way of creating. He showed up quickly today. I had been dieing a little inside without my work. ( I had foot surgery and the recovery time took me by surprise. If you or anyone is deciding on foot surgery, I'll tell you, be prepared.)

I don't know the name of the piece yet. I was surprised though by the openness of it. The wide armed gesture of saying yes to whatever is coming his way. I guess once again the work is my witness to my own emotional process, being in the midst, that I am, to some deep emotional work. I feel like I am hiding from the world and I guess I am. But I feel the need to do so as I confront decades old issues that have been keeping me from truly having my life.

magnificent in bronze

Just wanted to show you some photos of the new wax, I think that they are going to be magnificent in bronze. This piece was truly a challenge to try to get them to stand in balance with these huge wings circling around them.

wings were sprouting

I have been working spontaneously in ceramic for about 20 years. One day, I simply bought a bag of clay and decided to start making things. It was so exhilarating at first to watch these interesting beings come to life. Soon into the process, wings were sprouting. I felt strange and a bit silly when I would step away from the finished piece at first because of the connotation of wings on people, the whole 'angel' thing. But when I was making them, there was no judgement, it was like being taken in my this amazing process, where hands and feet and noses, shoulders, all these beautiful passages would appear before my eyes. I would just wonder where it was all coming from and how could it be that i could understand anatomy at least as well as these beings were a witness to.

It is still exhilarating and sometimes I wonder why I let the clay lay fallow for so long. The stone calls me too, the paint and my life outside of my work. And too, the clay will call me when she is ready, because there are times that I try to work when I don't feel the pull of the clay, but I feel that I 'should' make a new piece. Well...it is those times that I think maybe another profession might be in order, because nothing, absolutely nothing will come forth.

During the early years of the work I created 'Dos Angeles'. I decided after I had fired the piece that I would make it a limited edition bronze. The photo you see up top is that piece. What I didn't understand in those early years of bronzing is that you'd better have it exactly the way that you want it before you send it to the mold, because you are setting yourself up for a bit of hell, which I did, if you want to change it much after it is in the wax. Well, this piece I added to and moved the wings a bit, so that every time a new edition would come out of the wax room, I had set myself up for 30 hrs of work, 10 times the amount of time that I had spent on the original. So, this year I had ordered another bronze and changed it so very drastically that I had them pour a new mold. I will show you that piece in the wax in the next post.

the hesitant warrior

Truly, doing the ceramic pieces will never cease to amaze me around the access that it gives to my around my emotional well being. I truly did not understand the depth of the sense of not knowing which way to move or how. This piece is truly a crying out for some guidance. The hesitant warrior.

it feels alive, very much so

Created a new piece today. Wish that I could take photos as I go along. So many different sculptures were in this piece in the the last couple of hours. Because I don’t use an armature for the clay, since I want to fire them, the wet clay cannot hold itself up in different points in the piece. It fell many times during the process. It started with one face and ended with one very different. The emotions went from searching to jubilant to sorrowful to so many places. Where it is now, well, I need to stand away from it to know. I like this piece, a lot. What I like most is the roughness of the clay, the under working of it. Not too much detail. The motion works as well as the emotion. I sit here writing, jumping up every few minutes to be sure that it has not fallen again. I have put her out in the wind to dry faster. It feels alive, very much so.

in the midst of madness

In the midst of madness this piece was born. I am amazed that these new pieces have come forth right now. But I am glad. In lieu of the written word, the clay speaks for me. Today it was a cry for help and an acknowledgement that I simply cannot take any more emotional insanity. I like this piece. I like the continued rawness of the new work. The quick strokes and the gestures of the piece. His large hands are telling. He is no longer able to give the way he did. Well, I guess I should speak in first person. I am no longer able to give the way that I have and I am asking for help to get myself centered again.

Chagall

May 29, 2007

Again a piece not expected. Not knowing how to move forward in my day emotionally, once again the clay screamed to me and I listened. This piece came extremely quickly, 20 to 30 minutes. I was intent on not overworking it. I was just given a Marc Chagall painting by someone that I love very dearly. Her name is Holly. (She is a teacher and a magnificent one. We should all hope that our children had her in her tutelage or regret that we didn't. But, please can someone convince her to pursue her writing? Honestly, she has volumes of stories to tell us, inform us, entertain us, and ultimately to change how we look at the world) Oh, did I digress? Back to the painting...it is a beautiful angel child descending from heaven. I of course was so moved by the magnitude of the gift itself, but so moved also by the familiarity of the piece. It reminds me so much of my work in its rawest moments…in the beginning when I have not tried to make everything anatomically correct…when it is the gesture of the torso or the feel of the eyes, though they may not be symmetrical. This Chagall has a hand that looks like a foot and two eyes that don’t match. In my readings of Chagall he was spontaneous and rapid in his creations. He painted often in pen and ink, a medium that is unforgiving in the permanence of a stroke. He gave over the need to make the piece representationally correct for the feel of it. And he simply kept making more pieces as many artists do, to let the work and his inner world come forward.

Clay is forgiving. One can change a stroke. But in changing a stroke one takes the chance of changing the whole emotion of the piece. I am struggling to attend to the emotion and feel of the piece and not try to make the piece realistically perfect.

It is such a beautiful challenge to attempt to stay present in the creation. What stroke of clay takes away from the piece and what oddly unrealistic turn makes it feel more real?

bottom of the ocean

Felt at the bottom of the ocean emotionally this week. I was walking through my studio not at all thinking that I would do a piece and it was as if the clay grabbed hold of me and asked me to engage with her. So, in the middle of some inane domestic chore, I opened the bag, pulled pieces of clay and very quickly started allowing the piece to become itself. Within 3 strokes of the clay I saw that she was a mermaid and saw that she was reaching up to the sky. In looking at the piece in its completion, I can see that it is of course me wanting some reprieve from the emotional deep water darkness of my world at the moment. Her hands are unrefined, almost as if they are fin like. She is not the most anatomically correct of pieces, but I didn’t want to overwork her so as not to lose some of the spontaneity. I see that one hand is receiving and the other giving. I am still unaware of what that means in the complexity of my life right now, but none the less she makes me happy.