Lulls

My hand built lid didn’t make it fully thru the kiln. It’s still functional as a lid, but wouldn’t be flush anymore with the base. As I made more fish with sophie we talked artistic processes. Ceramics is a different beast than my other mediums. So much is out of my control and on other people’s timelines.

I have to create work arounds and act in response to. Or accept that sometimes my lids will fall apart and my fish will turn out duller than I’d like.

With ceramics being more of an ongoing investment, unlike painting and collage, I feel a pressure to be creating. Historically if I felt that pressure I’d take a break, until joy came back to the process. When the work is inherently about grief, is there a space for this? There was never intended to be joy in the process, just relief. I’m left to question, am I feeling relief still?

a week of work

I spent my time at the studio last week trying to make a lidded compost pot. It’s organic and messy for organic and messy things. Some fish were made—attempts at clownfish but the orange didn’t pop like I would like. The parrotfish turned out beautifully.

A lot of my sculptural things didn’t translate in the glaze kiln or broke. This first one turned out beautifully.

The others had varying degrees of success. I wonder if I should’ve considered how to mount them to a wall before this point. Hindsight.

birds and fish

I walked into Ly’s classroom to see her ocean exhibit and found my own fish. I forget every year that I gave her these.

I made them probably a decade ago. After Aaron overdosed and Suzanne had died and Maria’s mom had been killed my PTSD kept me from participating in the world. I started painting again and made birds and fish, birds and fish. I’d forgotten that. Birds and fish.

beautiful day in the clayborhood

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my claybor?

Explored near the studio for the first time and found a potential new coffee spot and a cute market. Then I got to the studio and retrieved my kiln haul.

This is the biggest fish I’ve made so far. I decided to make the smallest fish today as a companion.

Three or four fish had their string holes filled in by glaze. No major epiphanies occurred with glaze combinations.

In fact, there’s some confusion because I swear I put a white on some of these sculptural pieces and these fuckers are not white.

And this vase lost an underglaze color.

Ended up making twenty or so new fish to keep me glazing for a while.

Made a new studio friend, a woman behind me who was just making toothbrushes the entire time. We all have our things.

Parrotfish

Every year in my classroom we learn about and make the ocean. It’s my favorite time of the year, it’s process oriented, it allows them to dive deep into something new.

Each year we get delightful new animals interpreted by four and five years old. This year has some really beautiful fish.

The parrotfish made me want to make something more parrotfish.

I took to the studio in the heat yesterday to try and replicate the feeling.

Each fish has multiple colors and I want to keep exploring adding color to the fish in novel and different ways. I’ve noticed different clay colors in the studio that have been tinted by mason color. I’ll snap a picture next time I’m in but the heat makes stepping into that space difficult.