"The true work of
art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical
creation.
It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life,
becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a
spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being." - Kandinsky
When the art speaks to me, tells me what it is... then I know I'm on the right track... When it speaks to someone else then I know I have succeeded.
Diva of the Eclipse emerged from the clay last night. Perhaps she should be Magdalena of the Cliffs...
She IS a cliff.. those undulating landforms of slick rock and sandstone. Using the white clay has been a nice change. So smooth and easy to carve... Working small is liberating... she's about 12" as opposed to life sized..
But I immediately think of making her immense: large enough to lean against like the warm desert rock from which she emerged. She is white now...pure clay. But that will change soon enough. Sandstone and slick rock will emerge
Bones of the earth.
- Beauty is a form of genius- is higher indeed than genius as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon - Oscar Wilde
Here is the full moon AGAIN, that luminous orb making visible a cycle of energy that pulls the heaving tides as well as the blood in my veins. It energizes me...
I am trying to regulate myself. Sleep at more normal hours and still get work done. To conquer the rhythms that make it easier for me to work from 9-3 am than 9-3 pm.
I am in the process of developing a new group of relatively small clay sculptures for a show at Gallery in the Field. Using a new white clay is interesting. It works very differently. #66 has sand for grog. A finer grained clay than my old faithful #30 red. #65 is the same stoneware without any grog. Buttery like porcelain but easier to build with. It has a austere purity to it.. clean as a snow drift.
Less of a primadonna medium than porcelain.
Fran asked for an artist's statement. Always a good touchstone to reach within and find out why.
Here is the artist's statement I just wrote about the new clay pieces:
My first artistic efforts are very clear in my memory: I would sit in the sun on a huge, flat rock fashioning objects from pebbly red clay dug from a ditch in the meadow below my mother's garden. I made my first glazed goddess figurine at age eight, and they have revealed themselves to me ever since. Their manifestation is variable. Sometimes they are Madonnas, sometimes Venus figurines, more lately they are Divas. Powerful and mysterious women, connecting the spiritual and material world with grace and humor and song.That first glazed goddess was made at Hampton Elementary school out of clay brought in by an art-on-a-cart art teacher. Here I am so many years later, carving these graceful figures, waiting for them to tell me who they are, what they are holding; what are the attributes of these Madonnas?
Three days in a booth at Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton, Mass.
What a wonderful city... what terrific art... what an exhausting process...
Preparing, choosing, loading, hauling, unloading, hanging, standing.
Then after three days of sitting and standing, and more sitting and standing... The process begins again in reverse.
Lots of WONDERFUL feedback, and some nice sales. It's hard to let the paintings go away though.
The creative quality and integrity of the work of other participants was uplifting. To be surrounded by such beautiful, well-made and diverse art: wearable fabric; hangable fabric; jewelry; sculpture; painting in every medium; prints of every sort.... the energy was tangible.
Northampton is a great town. Many diversions and amusements there, in keeping with the complex interwoven layers of cultures in this town populated by professors, students, farmers, business people and the people who are drawn to a melting pot of ideas and learning. From lovely craft and art galleries, great bookstores; elegant boutiques; every imaginable sort of restaurant; to Walmart.
The show organizers were very positive about my work. They put me on their "Showstoppers" page in their 40 page glossy magazine writing: "This Vermont artist brings a realist's eye, a painterly touch and a draftsman's expertise to her drawings and paintings of nature," along with a few other flattering sentences
and a photo of Homecoming.And to top it all off, on the last afternoon as I was chatting with an onlooker, a woman standing in the aisle caught my eye. She was staring at me intensely. In a heartbeat I realized it was Lorna Hinton Kepes, who I last saw about 15 years ago when we had a similar chance encounter on the peak of Mount Abraham on the Long Trail. Prior to that our last meeting was in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico in 1975. A lifetime ago... We were young, full of hope, with every intention of saving the world.
It's good to see her and find out that we're both still working on it.
