A Mid-Globetrotting Update

Greetings, friends!

Thought I'd pop in and send a few photos your way. In addition to "the move," we're looking a lot of travel in our immediate future (and immediate past). Krystal had to travel to Pennsylvania the last week of April for the annual meeting of a board on which she serves, so I tagged along for the trip. 

We spent a couple days in Philadelphia catching the sights (historical and otherwise) and practicing for our upcoming European backpacking trip (what, I haven't mentioned that yet?) with efficient packing and hostel accommodations. As someone who has always been an automobile traveler (me), this was a great dry run on which to learn "Yes, you definitely need to bring this" and "No, you definitely don't need to bring that" and "Why is Luke's backpack smaller and lighter than Krystal's? That doesn't seem fair!" So, obviously a lot going on there.  Oh, look - pictures!

Independence Hall. Quite impressive from down the green.

Liberty Bell/Independence Hall.

Found Ben Franklin's privy. Definitely not the most fascinating part of the Ben Franklin houses area, but still seemed like we ought to snag a photo of that one. 

We managed to coordinate our visit to coincide with the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Wednesday night "pay what you want" special. The Museum stayed open until 9 and attracted a diverse crowd and many families with kids for whom the $20 tickets might otherwise have been prohibitive, while also offering special activities for children of all ages, free guided tours, and yoga in the galleria staircase, just to mention a few things. It was great fun and a good warm-up for all the museum-ing we'll be tackling in Europe (have I mentioned that trip yet?).  But anyway, saw some great art by great artists and very excited to see even more.

They had really quite a tremendous collection of Picasso's works.

Also tremendous: a collection of Brancusi sculptures, this representing about 1/3 of the collection. Absolutely beautiful lines, movement, form, and texture. 

Found some pottery in the American gallery. Something art nouveau-y. Beautiful greens.

Found this Qing Dynasty porcelain jar in one of the roccoco period rooms. More beautiful greens. 

Despite her pacifistic leanings, the gallery of medieval arms and armor was Krystal's favorite. That or Renoir. So, you know, those are obvious pairings.

Finished our days in Philadelphia with tours of the Independence Hall complex. While Independence Hall was nifty (you know, famous history, the actual chair where George Washington sat as president of the Continental Congress, whatever...) it didn't come off as nearly as impressive as our experience of Congress Hall which was home to the first sitting congress of the United States of America. So that was pretty neat.

The first US House Chamber.

The first US Senate Chamber.

 We then spent a couple days just outside of Philadelphia at Pendle Hill, a charming Quaker retreat center, for Krystal's board meeting. I made it a point to have my own retreat for the days spent there as well, and was pleased to discover a full pottery studio in their craft room. I spent an afternoon throwing some pots and enjoying some great conversation with some of the resident students on campus, and left three pieces to be fired and glazed at their discretion. Was a refreshing time after having packed my studio up for the move.

Three pieces to stay behind at Pendle Hill.

When I wasn't throwing pots and being contemplative at my leisure, I was instructed to put some effort into itinerizing our time overseas. So I did spend a lot of time doing stuff that looked like this.

After almost a week on the east coast it was time to return and deal with real life stuff. Like loading a moving truck. That was a chore, but we have wonderful friends who made it possible and not miserable.

See all those blue bins? Those are pots YOU didn't buy, so I had to move them. Ugh.

Now all our earthly belongs are in storage and we're taking a spell off from the real world to do some globetrotting (specifically, abroad).  One week from today we'll be on our way across the pond to spend roughly five weeks hiking and train-ing our way across the continent. Should have some great stories to share when we return. 

Take care!

Bowls and Vases.

Just wanted to stop in and drop off these shots of what I've been doing in the studio over the last week or so. Heading in for a long haul this afternoon - some morning errands to attend to and then clay for the rest of the day.

2-pounders.

4-pounders.

 

Lefty's a keeper, a little weight to trim out of the foot, but a keeper. Righty might turn out.

Latest throw. Not perfectly the shape I was going for. Might still be some room to work with it. Thrown Thursday night.

So that's where it's been. Lots of throwing, not always keeping everything. Especially in the vases. Wrote about it at greater length in the previous post. Still living in that space. Engaged some other thinkers and creatives on Twitter this week (artist and dear friend Alxndr Jones and his close friend Adam Lorenz) regarding the intersections of hard work and creativity, where does art occur. Throwing ideas around about the balance of organic creativity and need for practice and production. I'd like to give these thoughts some more time to create a coherent train of thought, but for now I'm trying to live in a place of hard work and production and discernment at sorting the wheat from the chaff, and identifying even in happy accidents places that present me with an option for creativity.

And so, I'm off. Happy Saturday to y'all.

#200 - for my Valentine.

I may be a day late, but I'd like to dedicate this, my 200th post - to my Valentine. It seems fitting. Krystal's a special gal. I made sure these were waiting for her when she got home from work last night.

Arranged them myself!

Nice vase!

I've been a bit sporadic, distracted from the pottery - I'd like to blame Krystal for some of it, if I could get away with it. In addition to the lovely Valentine's Day flowers, Saturday was also her birthday, so not much potting this weekend. See? Blame!

But blame is foolhardy. She's also the only reason I've come so far in my work, the reason I keep at it. My cheerleader, my critic, my curator. She encourages my work when I feel discouraged, and grounds me when I'm spending too much time on utter rubbish.

Lately I've been needing the extra encouragement to get down to business. No, not really talking about making pots, but taking care of "business" - pursuing avenues of turning MY pots into YOUR pots. And it hasn't been happening.

A few years ago I read Seven Days in the Art World, a book that takes a day-in-the-life sort of snapshot of seven different people/places/events of significance - the Venice Biennale, the studio of Takashi Murakami, a Christie's art auction, and so on. It was fascinating. A few years out of school, the chapter where author Sarah Thornton witnessed a marathon critique session at the California Institute of the Arts made me miss sorely the ever-so-mild and oh-so-rare critiques we had in our senior seminar - the camaraderie, the criticism, the praise, the constructive dismantling of the work. A vain comparison, my experiences vs. that described, but so deeply affecting.

There was a point, and I'm getting to it. I saved a quote from the book in a drafted blog post and never touched on it. From Paul Schimmel, chief curator of MOCA Los Angeles:


"Talent is a double-edged sword.  What you are given is not really yours.  What you work at, what you struggle for, what you have to take command of - that often makes for very good art."

-Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton, 2008

That's the kind of thought that sticks with you. Especially, I think, if you find yourself, like me, the kind of person who tends to avoid the things that don't come naturally. Not that art can't come naturally, but the stuff that comes out of struggle is often "very good good art." Getting into this work, this art form, has involved more work, more time, more energy, effort than I've had to put forth in anything else in life. Save, perhaps, married life. And likewise, both give back so much more abundantly in joy and reward.

There's so much more in that idea to be unpacked than I have the time or clarity of mind to do so now. Maybe later. Maybe when it's time to delve deeply into the clay, to reach into something that struggles, to come out the other side with art. Maybe when I've tackled some "business" - the hard work, for me - I'll discover the art in that struggle. Maybe when I get tired of my blue slips and sgraffito and decide it's time to go back to the beginning and dream it all up again.

But back to the point, that it was sort of a strange revelation, a moment of some epiphany, when I realized that part of my love of the pottery came from the struggle. That it was never completely mastered, never completely fulfilled. There was always more to learn, room to grow, room for more struggle and more success and more frustration and inevitably fantastic joys. That I had discovered something worth working at and fighting for. 

I find the two are somehow intertwined, this art and our relationship. And so I dedicate this momentous occasion, this 200th entry into the blog, to my Krystal.

(back to the regularly scheduled pottery in the near future.)