Be Careful What You Hope For . . .

    Or Good things do come to those who hope - with a little elbow grease. . .

Open Studios - 2013

When I last wrote, I was wondering if all the effort expended in participating in Pro Arts Open Studios would be worth it. Actually, I barely managed to make it happen as I was down for the count just 4 days before with what the emergency docs pronounced as a case of “mild pneumonia”. They sent me home with antibiotics and told me to stay in bed until the 103 degree fever broke and I got my energy back. I want to state right here and now that I could have never made Open Studios happen if it weren’t for my very good studio mates, Tyrell Collins and Suzanne Lacke, who not only helped me get my studio in “showtime” order at the last minute, but also afforded me a place to go and have a nap when I needed to during those long 11-6 days of “being on”. And then the extraordinary help I received from my dear husband and friends who took time to be with me from start to finish, and even took on the role of sales person when I was having a nap.

Who said “it takes a village”? Well, it took a village to get my studio open this year and I am forever grateful.

But when I wrote my only hope was that it would all be worth the effort, I never imagined what would come to pass. First of all, I’m delighted to say the work was well received. Even though we didn’t have very large crowds those two Open Studio days, many who came by, bought. After I tallied up the receipts and looked at my less bulging shelves at the end of the two days, I was very satisfied. Even though it was a monumental endeavor, how could I be anything but happy with the outcome?

That was in June.

Sometime in August, I got this email:

  Bobbie:
I was browsing through the Pro Arts Open Studio catalog, and came across your artwork. I have reviewed your website and would love to have some pieces for future exhibitions. I am in the process of opening a new fine art gallery in Alameda. I am interested in meeting you and discussing your work. Please email or telephone me at your earliest convenience.
Kind Regards, Gary Comoglio

This email from Gary Comoglio, started the wheels in motion, and stirred up the most amazing, affirming, exciting series of events I’ve had in a long time. After an hour studio visit, Gary picked 7 pieces to exhibit in his new gallery, the Gary Francis Fine Art Gallery in Alameda for a November/December exhibition called “The Art of Giving Art”. The reception is November 8 from 6-9 PM.

Check out his website:

www.garyfrancisfineart.com

Last Friday evening, I attended the Grand Opening of this beautiful space located in a very classy renovation of an old furniture store in Alameda. We happened to meet the owner of the building who is and should be quite proud of what he has done. Once you walk into what seems like a blend of the kind of alleyway you might find in New Orleans and/or Italy, you find yourself looking into the windows of one interesting storefront after another – a lovely women’s apparel shop, a cigar and European spirits store, an artists’ come-in-and-create-your-own art studio, to mention just a few, and then, of course, the Gary Francis Fine Art Gallery. It fits perfectly in this setting.

That's Gary on the right, looking mighty pleased.

The alleyway to the Gary Francis Fine Art Gallery

 
Now, feeling rather buoyed by having this new venue to show my work, I was encouraged to start thinking about other galleries where my work might be a good fit. 

So I took the leap and wrote to a gallery I’ve admired for years because of its specialization in Asian art, especially Japanese prints and pottery. Here’s how I put it:

I spent a remarkable month in 1976 with other potters on an intensive tour of ceramic artists in Japan, including Hamada, whom we met, and Shimaoka, whose work I collected and then a month touring on my own. Since then, I find my own artistic sensibilities have been influenced by the Japanese aesthetic.
My latest series of clay vessels have come out of my continued search for the beauty in imperfection, or Wabi Sabi.

And I included this particular piece to make my point:

 

China Dream - pinched/coiled/torn with Smokey Gray glaze & cobalt oxide

Sending this has resulted in a series of back and forth emails with the gallery owner, all of which have been, to my utter amazement and delight, quite positive. I’m looking forward to the possibility that my work will find its way into his marvelous gallery. When and if that happens, the loud scream you hear out over the Oakland hills will be mine! And, of course, I’ll then be able to tell you where else you might find my newest work.

So the lesson learned? Be very careful what you hope for. With a little (or a lot) of effort, it can result in more that you could have ever imagined.

 

All These Years Eating Sushi & I'd Never Heard of Wabi Sabi . . .

Or How I Found the Old/New Hook Where I Can Hang My Creative Hat.

"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." Salvador Dali

How long have I been in search of the beauty of the imperfect? And why is it I have just found out this late in my artistic career that there is a Japanese aesthetic, Wabi Sabi, which exactly describes what I have been after all these years and what my newest work surely exemplifies?

Yesterday, my friend and fellow studio artist, Tyrell Collins, came down the hall to see my newest glazed work, just out of the kiln. As she ooohed and ahhhed over the work she said, “You know, these are great examples of Wabi Sabi – where you’ve juxtapositioned the smooth, finish glazed insides with the cracked, uneven outsides."

And then she mentioned a book which was given to her by our fellow studio artist, Kunio, who is Japanese - “Wabi Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers” by Leonard Koren. I just might have to get this publication and have a looksee.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I’d never heard of Wabi Sabi, although many years ago, I spent a good two months traveling and studying pottery in Japan. But I do know that all my time as a working and teaching artist, this idea of the beauty of the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete has been an unconscious, aesthetic quest.

And how many times did I tried to instill in my students, especially the inmates to whom I taught pottery in various California prisons over the years, the idea that what makes a particular piece beautiful is not that it’s perfect, but that you can see the hand of the artist in it?

My favorite saying when they would bemoan the fact that their thrown cup wasn’t exactly round, or perfectly even: “You want perfect? Buy it at K-Mart,” I’d say. It made me smile when, years later, I would walk into the class and hear one of the “old timers” of the class say to a “newbie”, “You want perfect? Get it at K-Mart.”

So now, in my 44^th year of playing in the mud, I find there is a whole philosophy, a whole comprehensive Japanese world view centered on the acceptance of transcience and imperfection, just where my aesthetics fit in.

Wabi Sabi.

Who knew?