raw rxn to garth clark

the lecture itself, here in pdx, was full to capacity, i couldn't get in. but the podcast is available, as is the q&a. ....
... and so, in true journal style, I am responding sans structured thought. for one thing, it seems he's right on. damnit. because, selfishly, it relegates my m.o. to "lush" if I am to continue on in the delusion that this is somehow even vaguely financially viable: I cannot pare down enough to make it work. I cannot live much smaller witout moving back to the sticks (shudder). I invested thousands in this wonderful kiln that runs on free fuel but even that will last only until the green revolution picks up speed. I am in a state of financial lush: determined to do what I want to do, blind to its economic absurdity. But there I go dragging my lead foot of money guilt, and I have known this for years. between garth and the economy such as it is, the last nail is in the coffin, to continue his analogy.
so step back. do I have art envy? sure! who doesn't want to be a rock star? (I partied with rock stars the other night, and they make less money than me! but look how they are dealing with it!) wait, do I have art envy? art is more about ideas. craft is, by clark's definition, materials-intensive. for me, than means, I fucking live to TOUCH clay. I want to interact with this medium. not as in, I have this great micheal jackson and bubbles idea that is most appropriately expressed in the medium of porcelain. that is art's purvey. excellent. I can have great ideas too, and execute the ones that are best expressed in clay, but I am selfish. I want to bathe in the stuff for the rest of my loving life. whatever art I may happen to make will come out of my gut touching the material. ok, so if I am an Artist, and separated from my medium, I would no longer have art envy, I would suddenly have craft envy. but i follow his autopsy, and i'll have to take his word for it, because I wasn't there in NY when they had their bickering. I appreciate him laying it all out on the table for someone like me- I knew I was in a losing battle, but I didn't really realize that neither was there contnuity from "the establishment"- I thought craft was, albeit the ugly stepchild, at least given high-end support from museums and organizations like the ACC. ok, thanks garth!, now I know who not to assume has their act together. his answer to the etsy question was brilliant.
SO! now what?

.......long pause.........


and as I have never tried to hide, I am not a unicorn. my parents support me. before I quit my job at mt hood college (due to delicious redhead), I earned about half my life/studio expense without health insurance. maybe, maybe, if I'd kept that job, and worked as I do, and growing gallery sales, I could see supporting my lifestyle, even in this market. I've been smart. but I can't be smart enough now. Clark is talking about free design, in NL! design in general, divested of the baggage of sentimentality and academia (I'm not sure I follow or agree with that part, but..) ... the sentimentality, for sure. I think there's a lot of romanticizing the potter's way. a lot of misconception of what our lives are really like (one of my dearest friends still thinks I get to sit down and just make pots whenever I want to). But I wonder if more of what he's referring to is that loopy doodad way of making pots, like trills on mingei, as if it needed enriching.

... I got on a thought tangent about the hyper-ethics of "digging-your-own", like Josh Copus, Micheal and Naomi. This spring, at Penland, I had a complicated reaction to the class upstairs. It was all about working with locally-dug materials (and wood-fire, of course)... that in order to have the most intimate connection with the work, one needs to look to the materials that compose the clay. dig it up, yourself. do the chemistry, love the labor. zen-style, in a lot of ways- this is the history to the pots that you make. this is the history to the love that you give... it was moving, it was of a particular time and place, audience, and level of physical health. I remember meeting Ruggles and Rankin and learning that they had eventually switched to electric wheels for certain tasks. because after a while, the body just couldn't take it anymore.... but I get ahead of myself. my point is that the love is glorious, the amount of energy devoted to this sweet little mug that I use so often is breathtaking to behold. But Clark's point, I surmise, is that their example is perhaps the most anachronistic of all. as in "how stupid could you get??" the market is so small. the craft market is small, and then the market that is able, willing, and interested in reading that level of intimacy with the material is even smaller. the math does not work. according to clark. but micheal and naomi are, I think, unicorns, situated in a part of the country with a strong support of the crafts. as are, incidentally, Kent and Suze. but they are a bit older, had established a clientelle, their share of the pie. this is a real pie, and we are not lutherans saving one quarter of the last bite for the next person.


so return. what next? clark says go design. ok, i have design ideas. I love Eva Ziesel. but I want to interact with CLAY, not paper and plaster. well, I love making books, but that's another story. is this one of those junction points where I have to buck up and say ok, for two days out of the week, i will make moulds and create designs, then another day to market them. in exchange for the rest of my lush week fucking around with porcelain? well, I exchanged two days of mixing glazes and cleaning buckets at mt hood for 11 an hour...


I don't know. I could wait for the devil at the crossroads. I got skills.
or I could train to be a geisha, amerika-style. as in, I'm hot. you want a piece of me? lick my plates.


I think I'll do that. sounds like an equally misplacedly-romanticized career as mine.

deluge

of portland, with Kidd Pivot, with Bassnectar, with an amazing man, with blues and brilliant improv jazz, with lovers, with friends, with strangers... i am finally, infinatelly, here.
not to imply that portland is a place. it's a state of mind. it is the journey, for me at least.
I must have accumulated a hunger for the social arts, visual, visceral, ephemoral, in the years that I rampaged in the woods and desert. now that I am here, I find myself on the pendulum swinging from long periods of my own making to long periods of soaking in the delights of so many other makers. Halloween saw the close of a long period of work-related stress, and I sailed into a long weekend of woodfiring with a light step if heavy eyelids. The workshop with Lindsay was just brilliant. that chicka knows her bizness- what an inspiration... I saw an unusually well-organized workshop (thank you Chris Baskin!) glow with good cooperative energy and great communication. and then, selfishly, I got to spend beautiful long hours with the dear lady, on her birthday. after election day!!! Fuck Yea! I spent a good portion of that day after listening to all the jubilant voices on the radio, looking at photos on the huffington post- dazed. delighted. porous. (tempered now by doubts over his cabinet choices, but, yea, um- I guess it was a short hunnymoon- but I'm still in love)
so, Kidd Pivot. Kidd Pivot! brainchild of Crystal Pite. maybe I just crave more in the way of emotive qualities in dance. well, there's lots of expression, of course everywhere, there's also a most beautiful rarefied sometimes jaw-dropping but still distant entertainment quality to certain performances. I want to be punched in the gut. I want to be quivering in my seat. I got what I wanted. seemed like every delicious articulation of toe and every elation of breath gasped out the intensity of life in the face of death. we social, competitive, manic, ebullient and empathetic individuals seemed condensed in her choreographic vision- I have never before so strongly identified with a space and movement. I sat in the audience calculating just how impossible it would be for me to leave behind 15 years of ceramics and dance all day for her instead. I'm too old. but maybe? maybe? until I found myself engulfed ... oh!
and then a few days later it was Bassnectar! coming at us with his constant good juju jujitsu. more friends and a soul shakedown party. You should look him up, regardless of whether or not you like the phat break-bass, because he is slowly, lovingly, gathering steam, and the man is making some big political statements. He doesn't do it with a sledgehammer, he does it by tuning in to the vibe of the crowd and getting all of them dancing- all of them. the whole wonder ballroom was, if not dancing, at least swaying. me? you know me. accidentally jumping on people's toes and apologizing.
a few nights later than that, what should happen- a tour kickoff show by the Blue Cranes. pdx brilliant jazz improv, one of the saxes a carl grad that i enjoyed at some of the finer parties of my college daze.. so tight now, aiee! recorded, in a little gallery, with two drunk girls who didn't have a clue how loud they were but hey. a few of us had escorted them out, and the Portland Cello Project joined the cranes at the stage, what a treat- and one of the ladies returned, sang along with the lead cello, then demanded a dance partner. at that point, it was laughter- not derisive. a silly duet, interactive art, one seemingly desheveled medium materializing into another. and then off they go, looping around the post and off into the backalley.
I am full. and broke. and going travelling for almost two months. this is rediculous. it's fucking beautiful... long live the end of the world as we know it!!