Change is Never Easy . . .

Or How Working in Black Clay is Putting on the Pounds.

In my studio, it’s never easy to change from working in one medium to another.  When working in 2D collage and mixed media, I have my table set up with a large piece of heavy-duty plastic placed over the stretched canvas top and underneath white butcher paper. The plastic keeps me from cutting into the canvas when using my Xacto knife. All of that is removed down to the permanently stretched canvas which is used when I work in clay. But this is the set up only when I’m working in lighter colored clays – stoneware and porcelain. 

What takes more time is when I’m working exclusively with Cassius Basaltic, the “black” clay – it’s actually chocolate brown. It necessitates my stretching another piece of heavy canvas on top of the first and then a piece of light cotton canvas material on top of that since this clay will stain anything that it gets on.

And it does get on everything that isn’t protected in some way or another.

I was introduced to this particular clay years ago. I’ve always loved the look of black pottery and used to do raku firings to get that result. I even had my own raku kiln made to my specs by the inmates at Deuel Vocational Institution, Tracy, California, where I was an artist-in-residence for years. Teaching ceramics classes there, every couple of months on a Saturday, I would drive up to the exercise yard at the prison in my big yellow Dodge station wagon packed with the raku kiln, the propane gas tank fitted with the appropriate hose and burner, several large metal tongs and assorted tools, all of which were thoroughly inspected going in and coming out. It was a day long event for my ‘guys’ who would work with me through their lunch into the late afternoon, until they had to get back to their cells for ‘count.’ They made some incredible pieces and they, too, fell in love with not just the process, but also the beautiful surfaces it can produce.

With all that going for it, raku can be very time consuming and is more of a collective process than an individual endeavor. I needed another person to help lift my kiln off and put it back on the stacked clay pieces for the fire.  Then, even more folks were needed to pull the red-hot pieces off the shelves and place into combustible material quickly to force a reduction burn and smoke, which makes the bare, unglazed clay go black.

After I left the job at DVI, I rarely if ever did a raku firing with my own equipment. Luckily, I found this Cassius Basaltic clay, which matures into a black ceramic surface. Granted, it doesn’t have the subtlety of raku but it does satisfy my lust for the deep black I once created with fire and smoke.

But there is a bit of a problem. Working with Cassius Basaltic clay really IS like working in chocolate - the smooth consistency; the way it gets on everything that isn't protected; the way it coats my hands when I've finished a throwing session.

No wonder I'm eating more chocolate than usual.  This change in the studio, the move to working in  black clay may mean another change is inevitable. I may now have to reorganize my closet - find those larger size jeans and put the smaller ones towards the back.

Thinking about this is just making me hungry. Excuse me. I'm going to get a piece of chocolate brittle.

Life Speaks to Me in Signs . . .

And When It Does, I Listen.

As I said before, I am not new to being open to 'signs' when they show themselves - sometimes just when I need them and often when I least expect them. The next were a bit of both.

The second sign came to me the day after my return from Harbin in the form of a request. My friend and vocal instructor Scarlett asked me if I might create a special clay piece for her dear friend who is going through heavy chemo as well as a double mastectomy/reconstruction in the next few months. And would I include my own writings, which describe these pieces as ‘my life as a vessel’ – torn, carved, altered and delicately balanced?

I had been itching to get back into clay, wondering what direction I might take after finishing the 2D Dora and Anna commission. Just thinking about working on this theme again stirred my creative juices and of course, I agreed to do it without a second thought.

The third was an email I received yesterday from a dear friend whose daughter-in-law has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and who, according to my friend, would like to talk with me about my experiences, as she will be having a mastectomy/reconstruction in June. Of course I’m always available to share my experiences with any woman who has become a member of this sisterhood none of us ever wanted to join.

The final sign came again through an email from Joe, our friend and collector of my art over the years and who recently purchased one of the 2D series “Protector/Betrayer” which I created during my first bout with BC. He now owns the piece titled: “The Myth of the Cure.” (see August 2009 post - "My Life As A Vessel) And he wrote, “I wanted to tell you that after several months now it has been a source of inspiration living with your work of art. I love it.”

These signs have raised an internal mirror, which I can no longer ignore. I can see more clearly now who I am to myself and to those around me. I am the 64 year-old woman who lost her breast, and is no longer afraid to bare her body to the world. I am the creative person who has taken that loss and used it as her muse. I am the artist who takes her scarred soul and damaged body and with them, makes objects of beauty to be seen and admired and sometimes even loved.

Seeing this reflected in the internal mirror helps me accept a little more easily the deepening wrinkles and sagging skin, which is so obviously present in the external one. Not that I like it, but, hey, as I always say to my friends Nancy and Ricki when we go out every year to celebrate our birthdays together and I insist on taking pictures, “we’re never going to look as young as we do today.”

Do I take these birthday pictures as a sign?  Only when I can remember where I put them.

A Time For Baring One's Soul . . .

and Other Body Parts.

I wrote this days ago and have been pondering ever since if this is the sort of thing I should post. It made me question what the purpose is of my blog. Originally, I thought it would be my answer to having a static artist's website. It seemed a perfect way to combine my artwork, and my creative process with my love of writing.

But now I wonder if this isn’t just another way for me to journal about life’s experiences and how they affect me as an artist. Should I hold back when something seems too personal? As a good friend of mine recently told me when I posed the question to her, “what is art if not the baring of one's soul? In my opinion, nothing is too personal when it comes to our art.”

So it comes to this then: Am I truly ready to shed my clothes and go running naked into cyberspace – scars, warts and all?

I guess I am.

February 21, 2010 -

Is there something about birthdays, which, as we get older, opens our eyes to seeing ourselves if not anew then at least in a different light? I’m not necessarily talking about taking a good look in the mirror although, that can also be a rude awakening. But every year, it seems to be a time to look inward, to have a little peek at who we think we are, to ourselves, to those around us. Have we lived up to our own expectations? Have we buried feelings, which are now so deeply covered we can hardly remember what we felt and why? Often, this looking comes not from some internal need to know, but from outside happenstances.

Which is what just happened to me.

I believe in signs. There have been many in my life - some, which I recognized at the time and some which, only after time, were obvious to me. This past week has been fraught with so many signs – some subtle, some hit-me-over-the-head obvious – that I had to stop and really take a moment to reflect.

The first appeared at Harbin Hot Springs, a clothing-optional retreat we visited this past week. It was the first time in eight years we were at Harbin, a place we often frequented before my body was changed so radically by scars and a new breast with its reconstructed but colorless nipple. It was eight years ago this week when I underwent that body/life changing mastectomy/reconstruction. Our last visit to Harbin eight years ago was a time of saying goodbye to the body I had grown up with and grown into – of reveling in it, still visually whole with merely a couple of almost invisible scars from biopsies and a laparoscopic gall bladder surgery.

At that time, I wasn’t sure I would ever feel comfortable baring my body so openly again. We took pictures. I have no idea where they are.

But there I was last Tuesday afternoon, unwrapping the towel, which kept me covered from the communal dressing room to the warm pool, and slipping into the exquisitely soothing waters, looking around, hoping to find at least a woman my age, if not someone with a scar or two. But no, mostly there were only older men, younger men and the beautiful bodies of younger women.

I was the only crone present. But a bit more embarrassing to me was the fact that no one, not one person had a scar anywhere on his or her body. There were lots of tattoos in interesting places, but no scars.

It wasn’t a big deal, really. OK, so maybe I felt a little uncomfortable, but I was there, wasn’t I? I didn’t hesitate to go into the water. I dressed and undressed in the communal dressing room. I had taken that leap of baring my body to strangers after all these years and so I gave myself big pats on the back for even showing up.

That evening in the Harbin dining room (where clothing is required – the old ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ signs clearly posted) I noticed a few older women, none of whom I had seen in the waters. My hope was that the next day I would.

And I did. As before, I slipped into the warm pool, after depositing my towel and my flip-flops at the top of the stairs. I perched myself just to the right of the stairs where I could actually sit on a ledge and out of the corner of my eye, watch the folks coming and going. Even in clothed situations, I’m an inveterate people watcher.

There were several grey haired women in the pool that morning. We gave each other the knowing nod and smile – this being a ‘quiet meditation pool’ – no conversations allowed. And I wasn’t surprised at all when a tall, lovely looking young woman eased her beautiful body with her perfectly perky boobies down the stairs into the water followed by an even taller broad shouldered young man, her obvious companion. They made their way to the far wall of the pool and like many other couples, noodled a little (overt sexual intimacies are strictly verboten in the pools) whispering and cooing quietly. There were others who joined us over the next while and soon with the sun warming the air and the temperate water relaxing me into a less anxious state of mind than the day before, I started to feel much more at ease.

It wasn’t until I glanced casually to the top of the stairs that I saw the sign.  There, with toes facing my black flip-flops, (which I was sure I took off toe end pointing the opposite way) was a prosthetic leg standing alone, without a body attached. I couldn’t believe it. Someone, like me, was in the water missing a body part. Who could it be? Of course I couldn’t tell since all I could see were people’s heads and sometimes shoulders and occasionally, frontal parts if they decided to float face up. But even before I saw who it was, (it was, in fact, that young Adonis with his beautiful woman) it hit me that each of us in the pool at that moment was missing a part, had a loss, if not physical, then certainly psychological, emotional. I was sure there wasn’t one person soaking in those waters who was completely whole.

When this finally sank in, I couldn’t contain myself and began to cry softly for my own loss. The grief I had never allowed myself to feel for eight years came gurgling out of me as I sat in the warm waters of Harbin, under a clear blue February sky.

We left the next day after enjoying another long soak. The young man with the prosthetic leg wasn’t there. I had only seen him that one time and then he was gone. But someone somewhere wanted me to know this fundamental truth, which was presented so literally for me to see – every one of us, one way or another, is missing a part. No one is truly whole.

I left Harbin feeling lighter than when I arrived, as if this had been a healing – a psychic laying on of hands or of the waters, if you will. I think we’ll be going back again, before another eight years go by.

Of course, there were more signs to come.  As I'll be writing in the next post.

A Valentine for Dora and Anna . . .

through time and imagination.

Is it possible to fall in love with the subjects of a piece of art you on which you are working?  I never knew Dora or Anna, the grandmothers of my friend’s husband and my friend, who asked me to create this collage. And even though Judith has shared a few good stories and many pictures of them taken over the years, it is the women of these two pictures, who have captivated my heart. The more I work with them, the more I look into their young eyes, I find myself wishing I “knew them when.” 

My own inner workings, my own aesthetic sensibilities have taken these women and put them into unfamiliar surroundings – more Persian than European or 19^th century American – and yet, with a touch of antique lace, they don’t seem at all out of place in this arched illusion. Perhaps my visual connection is creating not merely a 2 dimensional home for these women to share but rather a deeper place, a place they now share in my world, my imagination, my heart.

Dora and Anna, this Valentine is for you.