I’m not sure how long I’ve been making the Outstanding Woman Awards for the library, but its definitely been many years. The awards are given during a celebration of International Women’s Day. Anyone can be nominated by contacting the Pueblo Public Library. I know for certain that many people who are given the honor love the pieces.
That being said, I have literally made hundreds of these and the project is not small. This year I made 44 pie plates at 5 lbs each during the first weekend of the project. Making, trimming glazing firing and decaling take up nearly every weekend for at least 6 weeks, and more time is always better.
just thrownBisquedfiredReady for decalsready for wirefinished
Having made this project so many times, I have also made several videos of the process of making, wheel throwing and trimming especially.
This year, in addition to this project, I am also preparing for a workshop that I will be teaching for the art department of Colorado State University Pueblo, February 4th – 6th, 2022. The subject of the workshop is integrating digital and traditional media. In preparing for the talk I will be giving Friday night I decided to remix a process video using this project since the two are preceding concurrently.
With the help of my dear friend Eric Neyer, We captured several different videos of the throwing and trimming process and I edited those together using some effects in Premier Pro and a separately recorded audio track, thanks again Eric.
The result is a new take for me on videos made specifically for social media. I am very much looking forward to exploring these ideas further. I hope you enjoy it.
While I have made a lot of tiles, tile commissions are another level of stress and commitment entirely. The fixed dimensions of a room and the changing nature of clay through its making and firing process require a mastery of the materials and process that can feel a bit daunting
So when a friend and long time client approached me with a commission for a tile piece for her screened porch I was a bit hesitant. However, my plans to buy a house required ready cash so I agreed after some negotiation.
Initially she was thinking of a floor mosaic, which was a lot of my hesitation, not feeling confident that I could produce a glazed tile that wouldn’t be super slippery when its wet. once we switched to a surround of the floor, I felt I could begin.
The first step was planning and designing. Working out the square footage and then calculating the shrinkage of the tiles is a super difficult proposition, especially since I make my own clay and can’t really do better than estimate shrinkage rates since batches are only about 150 lbs at a time and shrinkage changes from batch to batch.
This step is of course critical to making a bid on the job for the client. Having all the problems and expectations on the table from the beginning is vital for everyone involved.
From there, my next step was to begin testing my making and glazing ideas.
Once the design and glaze choices were approved I started generating the tiles in earnest. This first half of the project, detail and intricacy were important, so I spent a lot of time looking at flowers
Once the research phase ended I switched focus to the studio. First the tiles must be made. As I mentioned above shrinkage is a major consideration, one way to deal with this is to make all the tiles at the same moisture content in the slab. This means cutting them as soon as they are made, which makes them impossible to move for some time. Once made, preventing the tiles from warping becomes a central concern. You might notice that the tiles in this group have a lot less detail at this stage, the earlier tiles had quite a bit more detail, some of which actually made the warping problem worse. The great thing about a job this size is the opportunity to learn along the way. You also might notice fewer number of designs, I had the client choose 5 of her favorites from the first batch to further simplify the process. part of this was the cost of my time, I badly underestimated my costs on this job and had to do what I could to make it more feasible for my studio. Also some of the process was just wasted time. The mishima clay layers were completely lost in the iron wash process after the first firing
First the tiles were carved and slipped for a mishima techniqueThe excess slip was scraped off and slip trails were added for increased dimensionalityStems and details were then added back once all the slip was in place
Once made and bisque, glazing and glaze firing followed.
For all the fussy difficulty, the tiles fired beautifully
The most daunting part of any tile job is the installation. While I’ve trained for years in tile making, I’m a near novice at tile installation. Just like any new skill I’m trying to develop, I watched a lot of YouTube videos.
In the end I was thrilled with the piece, so grateful to have had the opportunity
The gods have always permiated my work and the the idea of divinity of the earth itself have long been a central theme there. So it’s seems very surprising that making magic with art was not something I started playing with until early in 2020. Some how the two ideas felt very separate, or maybe they just live in different parts of the brain. What ever the reason, it wasn’t until moving into my new house that the concept finally gelled.
The first manifestation of this idea was a performance piece that I did in collaboration with several of my dear friends; Travis Cleveland, Emilie Pomerleau, Bob Marsh, Jen de Groot, Alex Szyleyko, and Mat Taylor.
The piece was first conceived for a show I was invited to at the Museum of Friends in Walsenburg Colorado, the theme of the show being Earth. The museum director requested a new video, having seen and liked my older work. Though the show never happened, due to Covid 19, the ideas for the video continued to develop until the river blessing project was set in motion.
Using voice, gong, dance, clay, sculpture and clear intention, we set out to bless the water that sustains our city and our lives.
The first step was to gather clay for making horses, an old idea that I have been dreaming of for many years. Back when I was wholly focused on learning and living in the dharma, I came across the idea that horses were used as an offering by the ancient Chinese for blessing and cleansing water. making them from unfired clay taken from the river itself and then offering the sculptures back to the water was such a compelling idea for me that it followed me through several manifestations.
This blessing became the perfect time. This video is pieced together from the day the Emilie and Travis and I collected the clay.
Once we had the clay, I went back to the studio to prepare it for use.
conditioning wild clay
While I had worked with this clay straight from the river a bit for small things, I hadn’t tried anything more complex than pinch pots. my vision of the horse build was not at all what I had anticipated and took several tries before we were able to make small, self supporting horses.
With that complete, all that was left was the performance itself. Every one on the team contributed to the quality and texture of the day, none of it would have been possible without the spirit of collaboration.
The day of I did this short performance as a way of clearing trapped energy and preparing for what might be next.
The day was amazing and the video in progress is one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of. Once we have it finished I’ll definitely post it here.
I love throwing demos because I think others find watching them soothing, but they can get a bit boring for me. For this group of videos I included a decorating demo rather that trimming the pots which makes for more interest for me and hopefully something new for you.
here they are after decorating and before the kiln.
Here are a few after firing, I was really pleased with these and am looking forward to working with the idea.
Still working with my long held ambition to put my Facebook how-to videos up on YouTube and this blog, here are two videos from 2019 showing my process for making and trimming a medium bowl on the potters wheel.
As promised, I am continuing to upload last years videos to YouTube and then post them here. This is a longer video featuring the Smashan Tara figure and a discussion of the importance of a persona art practice and what that might look like.
My latest body of work is one that is going to hold my attention for a long time to come as it threads so beautifully with the rest of my life and practices. While the art at my deepest core will remain large scale and installation in nature I really wanted to hold on to an object practice as well. Not only to provide potential sales to support the larger work but to keep my hands in the fine details of making. its a skill that needs stretched and focused regularly.
I started with Smashan Tara, goddess of the charnel grounds, because she governs burning away of karma and so seemed perfect for the beginning of a new body of work. Plus, its something that is always happening in my life and so felt familiar as well as powerful.
I opted for a solid build on these since I wanted to be able to control the form tightly as well as keep the fine detail that is a critical part of these figures. Here is a video of roughing in the basic shape.
Once this process is complete and the figure is left to dry for a time to make it durable for sculpting and handling I begin to carve out the finer shape of the figure.
Also the early stages require making any additions the piece will require before the clay is too dry to accept the attachment. Here her tools and parts are in place.
Once this is complete it is a matter of looking and responding to the form as it unfolds. A correction in one area often requires the rest of the figure be reexamined as proportion is of primary importance in making this type of work.
Here is the First one finished and ready to dry and below is a video of me destroying it.
Such a difficult decision to edit a piece yet its nearly always the correct choice. The second one came together far better and was a much more successful piece. Here it is finished
I am continuing to add older videos to YouTube and the blog, Here is one from January 2020. I am working on an alter figure, Smashan Tara. Here are some notes on her from https://www.anualchemy.com
Smashan Tara can burn away all karmas from the casual body and free those that work with her from the bondage of life and death. In her compassionate and terrifying form, she shows us the dual nature of this world. You might die of shock if you catch a glimpse of Smashan Tara! She is very tall, and her skin is a beautiful, deep midnight-blue color. Her eyes are filled with compassion and tenderness.
Smashan Tara only appears to protect you in the most difficult circumstances. She has the extraordinary power of rescuing those who love her from death and all suffering! Smashan Tara is said to be born from a lotus in an ocean of tears of sympathy for all. This Siddha Medicine awakens you to the cry of suffering, thereby revealing the essence of compassion. When you are anointed with this Siddha Medicine, you are praying to the Goddess Smashan Tara to grasp you with the iron hook of her compassion.
I’ve been producing a series of demo-philosophy of art videos over the past several months and decided this weekend to get them posted to the blog and other platforms. I’ll be uploading several over the next couple weeks.
I’m beginning here with the most recent as its theme is current <3 I shot this March 14th, 2020.
I love to blog, seriously, but it’s been out of my regular time frame for a few years now. Partly this because I’ve been working through some major transitions in my life and the time just wasn’t right. But more importantly, I was dissatisfied with the direction the form had taken for me. It’s simply not enough for me to stay on a single topic and the perfection game of previous projects is stupid, so like the Great Transition this represents, when something no longer serves, kick it over and be done.
Through the work we’ve been doing together so many of my lost passions have been returning, and with this last grand adventure I finally feel my writing is again ready. For this post, rather than something that everyone might read and find interest in I’ve chosen to write to you 6 companions, because you were there and it seems that presence is required in understanding the revelations I want to talk about
Being careful of what you wish for is so true its cliche. less well known but possibly more true is being careful of what you evoke, and sitting between Emilie and Travis on the cusp of their great adventure I couldn’t help but see us held in embrace of the Mother and the Father. It was a theme that ran through the entire experience for me and one that I called out to repeatedly, and that obviously has a power. And I feel certain that all of us played host to those particular archetypes at some point in the night.
The other great power that held space with us was the Earth her self. Through the repeated form of the pentagram and the crystalline structure of everything I saw, she was the driving force in all that I was to experience. Indeed, another Mother to hold us as we Change.
Finally, I brought the I Ching, which goes everywhere with me and provides deep insight into the nature of the world regardless of the substance in my blood or the state of my mind. On my way in, I consulted Change to ask what images I should hold in my mind and body throughout the night. The response was the same as Mat’s from earlier in the week. 42, Augmenting/ The Blessing. Though doubtless to a different inquiry, the response for us was: Increase, Expand, Develop, Pour in More, Fertile and Expansive, Ancestors send their Blessing, Rain Spirits, The site of creative transformation.
As always, Change was direct and correct.
I sort of always expect to have my ass handed to me when I trip these days. It’s likely a hold over to the younger days when that’s exactly what it did, regularly. Through my work with the I Ching though I have more fully learned to yield, to my mind, to the medicine and to my situation, making that fear pretty unnecessary. As always the trip itself was bursting with Love and Bliss. I am always so content and happy to find myself in a body when the Magic hits the Blood, all I wind up doing is playing, this time in the dirt, for a good portion of the time.
It was the later portion, after most of us had bailed on the evening, that things really opened up for me. Mat is wanting to study the I Ching, and one of the things I learned early from my teacher in the Sangha is that you must have a personal relationship with an ancestor to use it safely. For me this was simple since that kind of veiled presence is just a part of how my family dynamics work. I learned it as a kid and it has always been a part of the working of my mind. How then to help open up that relationship for someone who has never learned that aspect of human consciousness has been a problem that I have been carrying around with me since Emilie first asked if I would be willing to teach Change in a workshop through Everyday Adventures.
So Mat and I talked about it, our ancestors, our ghosts, about loss and grief and sorrow. About the trauma of those things that have shaped us as people and what it might look like if we were really able to heal. And I opened that shit up all the fucking way, telling my dear and trusted friend things about myself and my lost relationship to my father that I’ve never told anyone. Not Roshi, therapist, lover or child, deep secrets that I myself have only been able to really see clearly since I’ve been hearing the Gong. It was a healing and miraculous conversation that I will never forget. And at the end of it, when we had rolled over to rest a bit as dawn filled the sky, I had a clear insight, In spite of the horrors that shit bag subjected me to, I still love him, deeply. I will never not love him.
Mat and Andrew
Subdued Sunday came, we cleaned up and went our ways, for me that’s back to being alone. Truly I am a person that requires a shit ton of alone time and aside from missing the conversation and the sharing a bit I was content to sleep, do the laundry and feel really happy to have such amazing people in my life that could hold space for such a beautiful experience.
It wasn’t until Monday that I really felt the force of opening the Dad Jar like we did. Fully back on my bullshit, my most frequent thought was an intense wish for death.Through the process of working with my ancestors and a good studio sesh with Travis that evening I was able to turn my mind around enough to rest and wake the next morning with a better question.
It must have been in the unsettling dreams I had that night that I realized that I was cutting off the Love I had discovered that magical night. Not allowing love for that shitty old man is a reflex so strong I don’t even realize I do it, but it had been so many years since I had admitted my feelings for him that it simply wouldn’t go peacefully back in the Jar. So there I was, filled with feelings that I didn’t know how to allow or to deal with, stuck in the office and going half mad. So I went to the only place for help that I could, to my ancestors and asked ” Letting my heart and mind run away with Love. How do I keep myself healthy in the midst of exploring Love for the things and people I fear? How can i be true to my heart and my life at the same time? Loving my toxic father and all that Love touches?” Cause inappropriate touch is at the heart of the thing of course.
The response from Change was 40, Deliverance. I’m including a link to it here, since there is so very much to each of the hexagrams, but the line that stood out for me at the moment and opened my experience of our time together was “Containing your fear and impulse now brings a liberating awareness of the whole”. So I worked on containing my fear and my impulses and just let the thing open up. stayed with the uncomfortable love and listened to what it might teach me.
http://inthefamilyway.org/iching/hexagrams/h40/
Through this meditation I have begun to really understand why i am so bad at relationships and why I have held myself alone for so very long. How could I ever have had real love with half the light of my heart buried under darkness and pain and fear? The trauma of parental abandonment teaches us as children that our most basic nature, that of Love. is not safe and must be suppressed for continued survival. And while I have gone on to have a life, until this wound is healed, all my relationships are a shadow of what they might be with the full force of my great heart unleashed.
I don’t turn my back on people I have loved. I may not actively have them in my life but my love lasts for ever, no matter how hard the circumstances. How could I have imagined that turning away my father, my first lover and my most intimate friend could have worked? Actually it didn’t work at all and nearly cost me my life a million times over. Regardless of the horror, in spite of the wrongness in the whole relationship, I will no longer hold my heart away, hoping to keep it safe from the pain of living a life. Through this act, I not only will heal myself but my father and my children as well.
We don’t have to be pals, and in fact I have no intention of seeing him, but I will no longer lie to myself about the way I feel. It’s poison and it doesn’t work.
So that’s my revelation, but I don’t want to just leave it there. I feel a need to sanctify the whole process of lost years and unhappy love. I want to allow it to grow into something that we can all use and benefit from. So I am proposing we continue with the night and move it into a season.
I’m sure you all heard me talking about the pit firing that I want to do down on my land this fall. I propose each of us use the opportunity to do the transformational ritual of turning a ghost into an ancestor. The planning is sketchy in my mind still but I am thinking that we begin on the equinox, working with Change and the spirits and making pots in the studio for the firing and bringing the process to a close on Samain (Halloween) with a firing and a shared meal (the medicine) with the ancestors. I know the weather is uncertain that time of year and it may be a freezing ass cold shit show but I sort of like the challenge of that and there is no better time to contact the other side than during that particular cross quarter.
I offer this freely as you are free to refuse, this type of work is not for everyone but if you choose to come with me I will provide lessons in clay and the Change as we go through which will allow me a bit of a buffer as I head back into my process as a teacher. But ultimately this is my offering and I renounce the results of my actions completely.
I love you guys so much. Thanks for holding this space with me
