Gratitude

Hey there.  I hope everyone is well out there where ever you happen to be in the world.  I am fine.  Thanks for asking.  I will say right off that I've been meaning to do a post but really didn't know what to say and thinking to myself, 'it's gotta be something good, so just wait and post when you have something good.'  Well, I don't really have anything really good.  But who cares.  I mean if we wait for the perfect thing or whatever then who the hell knows when we'd get anything done?  Never. Ok?  Ok.  I think I just want to use this space to write and be less judgmental about it.  I've been reading some things online that are really well written.  God I wish I could write like some people out there.  But I am me and not them and this will have to do.

I have been reading some things about gratitude lately.  How it's good to be grateful and how by practicing gratitude then your life will be better, blah, blah, blah.  I don't mention the blah, blah, in a negative way.  Just that I don't want to go into the details.  You get it right?  Be grateful.  Enough said.  Do it!  That's what I tell myself.  And I've been practicing.  I write some things down in my journal every day.  And sometimes at night when I can't sleep I do the alphabet backwards and for each letter I think of something I am thankful for.  Z. Zippers, I am thankful for zippers.  Y. My big Yard of grass that I love to mow in the summer time.  X.  Ah, X.  Skip.  It's okay to skip.  And so on.  And then I am asleep.

Yes, it snowed.  Here in Shelby people go crazy when it snows.  It's so funny.  I don't know how much snow we got but it wasn't a ton like further north.  But you'd have thought Armageddon was coming.  I was just outside sitting on the porch.  The blues and grays and whites of the sky and landscape are so beautiful.  And then I came in to write and looked out the window and saw how the sky in the west was turning pink so I had to run out and have a look at that.  I'm so thankful to be able to take a moment to see the beauty of the sunset.

I am really hoping to fire this week.  I have a bisque kiln cooling tonight.  I got a little jump on the loading by pre-wadding all the pots I could today.  Maybe tomorrow I can glaze what's in the bisque and load the last bisque which will consist of tall pots I couldn't get in this load.  I made a few special pots for Valentine's Day so I better get on the ball if I'm to have them fired in time.

I guess that's about all I have for now.  I am feeling good and looking forward to the days ahead.  What a good life I have.  I am so thankful for  it all.  No kidding.  I'm feeling a bit mushy and I think maybe I should delete that but I know that there are days when I feel sorry for myself or I think my work sucks because I didn't get invited to some show or don't have a lot of money.  (That's a huge run-on sentence and if I was a better writer I'd fix that!).  He he.  Ok.  Yes, in this moment...things are perfect.

Thanks for checking in.  Cheers.  ~Ron

Energy

I like the drawings of Quentin Blake.  They seem alive and about to move around or off the page.  I think I remember reading Blake saying that the drawings should show 'action' or the 'anticipation of action'.  I like that.  And I think it's hard to pull off.  Blake's illustrations feel scratchy and twitchy to me.  They have a great energy that keeps me engaged and interested.

As a potter I want to make pots that have energy about them. I want them to maintain some of the action that was present during the making.  I like marking the pot with the tool as the pot spins on the wheel.  The relationship between the speed of the turning pot and the raising tool, or hand/finger, can impart all sorts of information on the pot. Personally, I like a bit of asymmetry, a slow wheel and fast movement of the throwing rib.  A wobble in the line around the rim.  Those things, for me, keep the pot in motion.  An anticipation of action remains in the pot even after the firing.

I throw pots on a treadle wheel.  It's a machine that puts me at a disadvantage the minute I sit down at it.  I have to sit sort of cock-eyed on a narrow seat and I'm kicking continuously with my left leg.  So I'm off balance in some way at all times.  But I love it.  And I love the way the pots come off that wheel.  I have to use soft clay to make the pots on the treadle.  The flywheel is light and the crook in the bar makes me feel sort of like I am whipping around.  Whoom, whoom.  (Kind of like the bass groove in The Humpty Dance.)  Well, maybe that's stretching it but for some reason I thought of that.  Anyhow, working in this manner, soft clay, kicking, off balance, whoom, whoom, my body moving, the clay spinning, all that is energy right?  And that energy can show up in the pot if I allow it to.

Another thing Blake says about drawing is that 'you have to know when to stop'.  That's really important with pots too. I don't want to work the pot to it's death.  Or 'cat lick' it as John Leach has been known to say.  The way I work, with the soft clay and the treadle wheel I am forced into an economy of movement and time.  For one thing, the clay is soft and will collapse if I just keep adding water to it.  And the other is that I don't want to be up there kicking on one pot for ages and ages!  So I try to make my statement and move on to the next pot.  

It's been a few weeks since I've made any pots.  I had to finish up all the work and clean the studio for the Holiday Sale.  Now it's time to get back in there and make a few boards of pots.  I'm a bit hesitant to start up right now during Christmas week.  But I'm feeling the urge to get my hands dirty and to make a few cups and some plates.  So today I'll at least do that.  I like having a nice easy start and then moving on through the making list.