I am the grit in the gears, the missing bolt, I am the poker of sticks into spokes.
I like to know how things work, but sometimes when I take them apart and rebuild them, I have a few pieces left over.
I am a man, so I tend to leave reading the instructions until after it goes wrong.
And like all men I have a comprehensive mental map of the world and never need to ask directions.
I never get lost, only sometimes I'm late, or end up in the wrong place entirely.
It's what we do.
“one of the diseases of this age is the multiplicity of books; they doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought forth into the world“ Barnaby Rich (1580-1617), writing in 1613.
A comment on my blog from Gary made me think...
I don't really know Gary at all, I left a comment at his blog, and he visited mine. But in a way, I do know Gary, because I've read his words, and seen his pictures. But more so because we have something in common.
Gary is a Potter. In Ithaca, new York.
And I was a potter once. Or maybe I still am? I don't really know. Some of the things he says in his blog made me laugh, for they were so similar to my experiences.
Like the undeniable fact that forming clay on the potters wheel is a tactile performance.... and can be very erotic.
Back a million years, and I recall how I would sneak into the college pottery studio in the middle of the night and struggle with mud. the mud usually won. It wasn't the course I was on, but, I figured, so long as I hid my efforts away, nobody would notice.
The guy in charge of the pottery department was a VERY fierce person, even the head of the Art Dept was very careful and deferential around him. He was George Owen-Jones, and one day, as I was walking past, he grabbed me. "I want a word with you."
Oh dear. Well, there was nowhere to run to.
So he confronted me, told me he knew I'd been using the pottery studio. He said. "You need to change courses, tell Mr Pugh you're in my department now." So that was it. No more vacillating about my path, I'd been heading toward making jewellery, perhaps... or sculpture, jewellery is just small sculpture, with shiny things, after all.
Then I discovered, that in George's world I was still expected to master sculpture, photography, woodwork, metalwork, floor sweeping, window cleaning, and especially drawing. and looking. To him all these things were self-evidently requirements in place for every potter. And painting, and chemistry, and physics. And understanding electricity. Measuring microvolts, combustion, stoichiometric ratios, eutectics.
The drawing was relentless. I used to disguise my poor draughtsmanship with shading, light and dark, shadows, highlights. George saw through it instantly. "Meaningless scribble!" he would bark. Every week I would have to submit my sketchbook for his perusal, and no shortcuts were allowed, during the week I would be drawing, gnarled branches, twisted metal, pots in galleries, intersecting roots, the swell of a breast, the drape of a curtain, the leaves on a rosebush, draw draw draw. Because it all provides inspiration, grist to the mind's mill.
And though the college had an army of cleaners, I'd mop the floor, wipe the windows, learn about how hydrofluoric acid from kiln emissions etches the surface of glass... He would tell us, me and the three girls on the course in our year, that no artist should ever get too precious to do the dirty work, that clay recycling did not occur by magic, that floors did not naturally sparkle each morning.
I did, after a lot of perseverance, wrestle some mud to a draw.
I left college thinking I was a potter. So I saw an advert that said a pottery needed a thrower. I went for interview, and was instantly humbled. The petite young woman whose, business it was, showed me the row upon row of casserole dishes she had made that day, maybe sixty or so, and asked how many I thought I could make in eight hours of work?
ummmm.
The truth was, that every one of those pieces was better in itself than my best work to date. I lied, and said. "Maybe three" (if you're not too bothered about them being the same size or shape). I'd learned from an artist, not an artisan. Being able to do the same thing twice was not really part of my repertoire.
She took pity on me, and told me she liked my glazes, on the samples of my work she'd brought, and glaze chemistry, she said, was her weak point. Would I be interested in a job glazing and kiln firing? And she'd coach me in throwing after work.
Evening upon evening, I would weigh out bucketfuls of equal sized balls of clay.
Barbara would throw an item, say, a simple cylinder.
My task was to make many, exact copies.
I rather balked at this, I did not see myself as some sort of industrial machine! I was an ARTIST! dammit!
So this was my introduction to zen. I would do a full day's work, then, after everyone else had gone home, I would start my practice. and after a couple of hours she would come back into the pottery, and chuck all my work into the clay bin. Day after day, week after week. until, one night, she only threw about fifty cylinders out, and left three on the table. She sliced them in two, so we could see the thickness of the walls and base. "Those aren't too bad... make another twenty, and I'll come back."
The day she pronounced a few as being borderline acceptable, that was a grand day.
Then the day fifty were acceptable. And then I was told to put handles on them... and she would decorate them.
And they would go into the general production. And go out to customers!
So that was cylinders, next came bowls.....
I felt this all to be stifling my creativity, so i kept trying to slip in a couple of my 'improved' shapes.
And she kept squishing them into the clay bin.
oh yes. Months, even. So there I was. The college had told me I was pretty good. An artist, nearly. And here I am. repeat repeat repeat, hardly a word of praise.
Ever see the film, The Karate Kid?
Wax on.... wax off!
Paint the fence, polish the car.
I stayed there for three years, By the time I left, I was a thrower.
You could give me a drawing and I could make it.
The breakthrough came on a day when I stopped thinking about what I was doing, and my conscious brain let go of the motor skills. When I came back to consciousness, there they were, lively shapes, not lumpen, but turning still.
Okay. Enough for this episode. Maybe I'll post more some day.
Here's the video Gary posted, which set this train of thought in motion.
Thanks, Gary. It's time for me to figure out how to get back to making things out of mud.
Here are a few of my pots.
These were made from clay out of the field behind the pottery, lovely throwing clay!
Chrome-tin pink.. Note that it 'kissed' another pot, but hey, all's well that ends well, I like the little bald patch on the side!
These were little one-cup teapots. My sister commissioned some as gifts for friends in the U.S., and interest in those was so good I started making tiny teapots as a regular item. Alongside giant ones. Thirty-cup teapots were popular too.
Casserole, and salt-pig. the lip on the casserole acts as handles for carrying. I've been using this one on the oven for over thirty years now!
"I was asked in New York City, "Do you like my clothes?" I'm talking to my tape recorder, walking down the road, But on Friday night, I'm purified that my feet don't touch the floor when the rubber meets the road, in between my toes,
Everyday is fucking perfect, its a paradise. watch my life, like its a movie, have to watch it twice a boy looks at a girl, and a girl looks like a pony she gallops all day long, in between my toes and every night, she's purified, she don't do that dance no more when the rubber meets the road, in between my toes
I'm skankin, on the dance floor, I'm drunk off that hennesy i ain't sober, i don't mix with coca cola, or soda but right now i'm on a roller, i take a look over my shoulder and i see this sexy thing, i think its time to walk my way over so i shuffle on my heels, and bounce on my toes I'm crazy and she knows, still it's all good i suppose she nailed my face she backed it off so I got behind her and i let it off then we got thrown out an' the sun came out so' i took her to my yard an' i racked it up
I'm a member of the ju ju nation down in new Orleans you don't need an application if you move your feet
explode if you poke it exposed on the floor it grows if you soak it it rolls out the door
now it's summer time, every night, now my feet don't touch the floor she don't do that dance no more, in between my toes him and you, you and I, I don't do that dance no more where the rubber meets the road, in between my toes
the lady starts to sing, but she ain't no disco dancer she learned to shake her thing, in between my toes
explodes if you poke it exposed on the floor it grows if you soak it it rolls out the door
explodes if you poke it exposed on the floor it grows if you soak it it rolls out the door"
"Fatboy Slim gets a lift from Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Dizzee Rascal, Martha Wainwright and Ashley Beedle on the debut album from his new project, the Brighton Port Authority.
The BPA's debut album, on which Fatboy Slim appears under his given name of Norman Cook, is further presented as having been culled from a series of tapes found in a cardboard box at "Brighton dockside warehouse".
A release date for the collection has yet to be announced, but "Toe Jam" will be out digitally July 7th via Cook's Southern Fried label."
Steve, of "Bullet Holes in the Mailbox" has been looking for a car. Soubriquet Enterprises has sourced this low milage model, which benefits from low tire replacement costs, both active and passive anti-theft devices, a unique paint finish, and break-resistant windows. It can park pretty much anywhere it wants, and is an excellent commuter model, being resistant to everyday abuses. This car is not a bland sub-compact. This is a car for the assertive driver.
These last ones are the symbol of Yorkshire. In the 15th century, the retinue of the Duke of York wore the white rose as a badge on going into battle against the forces of the house of Lancaster, led by Henry the VI. The Lancastrians wore a red rose, the Yorkists wore the white. The war over which great family was to hold the crown of England lasted from 1455, to 1487... and is known in history as "The War of the Roses".
Because I've had a very tiring and annoying day at work, I'm looking at my pics file from a holiday , north and west coast of Scotland. It was, when I was a child, our family holiday destination each summer, my father had friends there, an unshakeable, forever friend he'd lived through a war with, survived captivity with. I learned a lot about friendship without realising it.
No captions yet. I'll add to them, attempt to caption them if it seems necessary, that depends on who comes here and asks.
Boggler is annoying me with not accepting my pics. no time to investigate, must go to work.
Chrome-tin pink.. Note that it 'kissed' another pot, but hey, all's well that ends well, I like the little bald patch on the side!
