I am moved to tell the story of last friday night. Anouk Van Dijk came to Portland, brought to us by that most excellent dance envoy White Bird. Stau is the name of the performance, german for "traffic jam", also the transition point at which water changes between neep and ebb tide. the touring version of this performance is four dancers, they have staged it with up to thirty, which boggles my mind and once again kindles my imagination of running away with some contemporary troupe. I saw Stau with one friend, raved about it to another, and ended up seeing it again with her. On the way, we passed the Acropolis, where she had passed a few pleasant hours enjoying the naked ladies with a friend, and the seed was planted to perhaps return. We carried on, to the Oaks Park old-fashioned amusement park, with a roller-skating rink and teacups and a tilt-a-whirl, all garish in the spotlights of a rainy spring night. The performance was to be held in the Dance Pavilion, built in 1902, and we were treaded to free arcade games beforehand. (pinball!).
in the large dance hall were arranged seats "in the round", but square, and a tight square at that- no more than ten seats in the front row of each side, and three rows deep. a duet began, one male one female, in which their body proximity began really close but not touching, giving great potency to the sliver of space that did remain between their bodies as they reacted to each other, as they undulated back and forth, side to side in reaction to the other's push and pull, maintaining that micro-line of distance. graceful, within the unsettling static of the audio track, and the sudden pelvic twitch that she or he was compelled to make. slowly the motion was dialled up as the tense space was maintained, stronger push and pull, more action reaction, as if the relationship between the individuals was becoming more agitated, the conversation quickening. they split and rejoined, then split and interacted with those immediately around them: US. first with fast-moving hands flying past our faces, then with direct contact on our shoulders, our knees, under the chair, face to face within inches, breaking the space definitions, rejoining to the partner with increasing animation, bodies smacking against each other, perhaps as a final desperate gesture to break into the space of the body that parallels the space of mind, and back to us, imploring, and back to the pair, writhing on the floor, slapping the thigh, working the body into a frenzy of ill success, and then a still point, a shift of lighting as he, naked for a moment, stood with his leg in a ballettic pose, or she, eyes closed, walked in place as her nose bobbed a mere inch from that of an audience member.
and then volunteers removed the chairs from under us, other dancers entered the space, and the boundary between dancer and audience dissolved even further as they moved within our crowd, establising no vantage point from which we could reliably view them. sometimes at the wall, sometimes insinuating themselves among us, the performance pressed even more fervently for us to look around at those of us collected and see ourselves as those that we were trying to watch, keep track of as they dashed and danced among us, picking people seemingly at random with whom to engage in a little contact improvisation. I saw many instances of "audience" members following to their best ability when a "dancer" initiated a motion, and I saw many instances of extreme discomfort or just cluelessness. the thread of attempt at connection ran through the whole piece: can you read my body (ie-mind)? will you engage? are you afraid, are you excited? are you a stone wall, a glass wall, gentle hand? why and how are you looking at me? the dancers, illustrating a lack of connection, tried to walk into the wall, sliding along it, falling against it, getting up, trying again, drawing others to participate.... my friend was as aflame as I had been the first time that I saw some of the walls crumbling- she was bouncing with delight. I enjoyed myself as much the second as the first time, more interested this time in watching the audience reaction.... it was beautiful, and both of us felt high afterward, and took to sliding around on the floor like two loose screws. so we knew some smarmy strip club was probably going to be a big letdown but I was curious, so on a friday night we went to a large (three-stage) club that serves five-dollar one-pound burgers. such that if the girl is about to lay down on the bar at which you are eating, assuming you are at the front row, she has to move the ketchup bottle before she stretches one lithe lucite-hoofed leg into the air, a perfunctory tap to indicate her clit, etc, gives the famous ass wiggle, or slaps that tanned profundity against the bar. my friend and I made it through one, shall we say "set", of four songs, one drink, before I decided that it was a worse let-down than I had hoped, the girls were obviously completely bored, and I had checked out my local watering hole. terrible. (this is friday, after all, and I'm sure the girls were extra-plastiky to cater to the clientelle). However! there is always Devils Point.....
There was a moment of apathy. I knew Devils Point would be good, but at this point, we had had such a lovely evening already, was another strip joint really necessary? I was about to let go of it. I'm glad I didn't, because we stumbled into the owners birthday party, featuring Miss Steak and Nikita, who spin fire, not to mention a host of all manner of superfuckinghot punked out/ spanish seniorita with pierced clits/ purple worms in pirate tights ladies most of whom were kinetic sculpture on the pole. we plunked our unfabulous asses in the front row and proceeded to have a fabulous night. But here's the thread- tell me about the connection, the tension of contact. oh sure, you're not allowed to touch as stripper. not even when they drop their face upside down in your lap, not when she uses your thighs as a balance beam and puts her leg behind your head. Not when she teases you with the flame and not when she accidentally kicks you in the face. who is controlling the gaze? who is initiating, insinuating the contact improv? the glass wall exists but never in my adventures has it dissolved as definitively in two drastically different performance instances as it did that night-- last time I was at Devils Point, it was manditory for the front row to leave when there was fire dancing. not this time- I got to lean forward. I got the whoosh right in front of my tingling face. I could have touched the subtle scarification on the her chest- could have but could not have, just as one of the dancers reacted to a man who was a stone before her in Stau- she held up her own had in front of his gaze and beat herself into this wall. WHY WON'T YOU LET ME IN!!!!!!!!! I felt the scratch of her earrings, the heat of the flame, saw the slight clench of the anus, the red after the slap, and in Stau, they surrounded me, I held the gaze, I brushed the pectoral, I touched her hair, I nuzzled him with my feet as he moved on the floor, turned, was clenched by his calves, was slid in my socked feet and held contact bwteen his ankles and my toes while feighning escape. I was in the liminal space, the sliver of tense space between us and them, you and me- kind of like blogging come to think of it.
well, so Miss Steak's routine was down. old-fasioned vaudeville, the slide of the fingers around the fedora, gestures to match "this is the life" boheme, fearless fire dancing sequences that might start in single time and then progress to dizzing double, a fun little vynl scratch inside the fire-proof underpants, and, as I mentioned, teasing me with the wire wands. My friend next to me was also well-sated with our debaucherous evening. and that, my dear readers, is most likely the last time I will write about strippers. I'll let your own imagination carry on from here.
I will say one thing more that may answer a question you may have of me, given quite a few recent posts about dancing and bodies in general. I used to think quite a lot about performance art. I trained as a dancer when I was a girl and it was a simple leap to incorporate contact improv with my dance teacher into my senior thesis in college. Then, for many unconscious reasons, I chose clay instead of the expressive medium of my own body. We make decisions with the tools at hand and I would lie if I denied a twinge of regret. For whatever reason, I was unprepared to move into the world of professional dance, despite my potential and enthusiasm. I think I know now why I made that decision then, and it is not a pleasant series of memories. It is far too late for me to become a member of a dance troupe- my still-young body creaks in the morning, and the tendons move over my bones in new ways that signal the beginning of the end of superhuman youth. But perhaps i can allow myself to daydream about expanding the interactive aspect of my installation work. I stumbled into a very successful mfa thesis show that was interactive, I'm sure that I can create the venue in the future...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
personal story for SOF
Spring. official: calm and gray in the morning, then windy and crazy, within ten minutes bright sun, then next hour a blast of rain, and two hours later, sun that stays. boys is shorts, skaters in helmets, ants in my pants.
I'd like to share with you a someting. I have written before about a favorite radio broadcast: Speaking of Faith- I had an extended meltdown a year after coming to portland, and one thing that pulled me out of it was listening to podcasts of this program, usually while walking brick after brick into the backyard for the kiln. they have recently created a spin-off project that incorporates the voices of listeners, and asked for people to share on the topic of how the recession has effected our lives. so this is mine:
"I am again compelled to thank all of you on the team for continuing to create such a vibrant space for challenging dialog. The broadcast in particular that moved me this time was in December with Parker Palmer, who spoke with such calm about his experience of depression a year or two ago. It is wise people like him being vulnerable with listeners like me that provide much-needed support to my growing realization that my voice is also needed. As our dear president reiterated again recently, everyone needs to step up in the global effort to shift our paradigm once and for all, from the crazed and broken cycle that has brought our country and by export, the world, to our current state of affairs. You have extended an invitation to listeners to share our stories of how the recession has effected our lives- I have other ideas of how to engage in rebuilding my country, but perhaps I should start with this particular moment... and thanks for the invitation!
The real trouble is that I'm not exactly sure how to start effectively leading because my work seems so marginalized by now. I'm a potter. I live to make dishes. I love touching the porcelain, easing it into shape, softening its symmetry, burnishing it to feel like a tumbled stone, the camaraderie and intensity of the firing, and then sitting down to dinner with friends. Beautifully presented food made with love, from local farms tended with care, around the table where conversations zing and query, ideas grown, plans are hatched.... to me this feels like revolution. People respond with their hearts to good craftsmanship because it is a human connection that is materialized in the object. The object is communicating: I gave it energy but what it awakens in the user is their own memory, their own value structure, their own synapses are helped to fire in new ways. So I think my work is extremely important in the world today.
It seems like a huge part of the problem is the lack of connection between humans- the system of cause and effect is so huge, global, that unless we take the time to really find out, we would have no way of knowing the consequences of our nation's actions on the people of other countries. If mainstream media were to actively draw the picture for the average American of where, say, bottled water comes from and where the plastic goes when we toss it and the political and social consequences of this seemingly trifle issue, I believe in my heart that the good conscience of people would never allow them to consume this particular commodity. Now put a heavyweight on the table: consumption of petroleum. We are not given the tools to make the connections. How does my action effect the big picture? The big picture is overwhelming, and as we all know, the recent administration actively lied to confuse the issue to their own gain. Ok, so thank god we are crawling slowly out of that hole, and how? Because it became clear over the course of Obama's bid for the presidency that people looked around and saw that they weren't alone in wanting change. Not alone. The collective depression of solitude and fear has in part been lifted and we look at each other just as the other shoe drops. The law of cause and effect is still in place, and we're all going down together. At least we know we're together. Maybe most of us still have no idea how the effect happened but what is clear is that some fundamental thing is very wrong.
Again, I think it is the human connection. There is nothing wrong with consumerism per se, but who made the product, what materials were used, where did they come from, what are the hidden costs and are they reasonable, is there integrity to the chain? I firmly believe that cottage industry is uniquely poised to dig its roots into the crumbling walls of bloated big business. Not just for the economies of scale (the hidden cost of long transportation, for example) but arguably of paramount importance, for the economies of energy transfer. Good juju. Everybody loves massage. Everybody should enjoy it. Massage should not be a luxury for the wealthy. Massage is the direct transfer of energy from one body to the other (and back). Farming is a step removed into the transfer of nutrients. What I do is a step further removed, the literal container for the transfer of the nutrients. The transfer of physical energy carries with it a transfer of juju energy. CSA farmers tend to really care about what they're doing. Good juju, good nutrients. Monsanto does not tend to care. So they give us hydrogenated corn oil on which America grown fat, and pesticide runoff, etc. Bad juju! And worse when they force sterile seeds down the throats of Indian farmers! War in Iraq to secure petroleum resources breeds more war, torture, and terrorism that has ethical ripple effects all over the planet. Industry as a phenomenon isn't at fault, it's when the scale of industry grows to a point where we can't see the effects. When the human connection is lost.
If we could see how our consumption of energy can be shifted away from the global into the national, the regional, the neighborhood, we can regain the human connection from which stems accountability. Nobody messes in their own nest, and there will be a natural self-righting system in which material resources or supply will inform demand. Big industry can no longer pillage other countries for their resources. Of course that means that consumers have to adjust their demands. And we will inevitably get clever in our innovation. If I haven't lost you by now, that's great because I feel like this is where I come in.
My life work has been marginalized by big business. Not only is it impossible for me to compete with the mass-production economics of a factory in China, but the consumer culture ( as a phenomenon created by industry to feed it's greed) has valued the cheap, shiny, trendy and replaceable over the high-quality, sustaining, substantial, and yes, more expensive work of artisans. But increasingly over the past few years, there is a growing trend away from walmart's nonsense and towards a much higher quality of life. This trend is coupled with the increasingly relevant fact that we are rapidly running out of resources. We will run out of oil and it will no longer be cost effective to ship iron scrap to china so that they can ship us sheets of steel. The collapse of our market only illustrates this more conclusively- this is the death blow. I'm excited!
I saw this coming, and I have settled myself into situation where I live simply, in my studio in a quiet neighborhood in one of the most progressive cities in the world: Portland, Oregon. I lucked out with a fabulous landlady who let me build a kiln in her garden. My kiln is fairly big for a potter working alone, but I worked with materials available to me, and most importantly, I walked my talk about my energy values: my kiln runs primarily on waste vegetable oil. My fuel, until demand effects supply, is free from my local recycling company. My kiln is innovative and efficient in design. It's emissions are nontoxic and it has a battery of permits from the city. All my neighbors know about me and many of them are enthusiastic about what I'm doing. So I am poised to provide the kind of product that speaks to a new paradigm of ethical consumption. Great! Now what?
Nobody has any money. I'm not advertising because I'm still learning the vicissitudes of this kiln and I've had quite a few mishaps in the first two firings (none of them directly related to the kiln itself). So it's all right that I'm not quite collected because neither is the rest of America at the moment. With no product, I don't have much money either. But I don't need to spend much to keep going at this point, so I will continue to plod along, firm in the faith that my work is valuable. Perhaps my work rings higher on the juju meter than the greenback but I'm banking on the assumption that trust in all its manifestations is rebuilt one brick, one smile, one conversation, one meal, one loan at a time. It is built by one brave soul after another going out on a limb because really, if we don't pull together, we are going to hell really fast. The state of the world is so precarious right now, even a dirty rebel potter like me has a lot to contribute to get it back on track.
How? Ok, I can plod along in my quiet neighborhood, spend the next year tuning a body of work and approaching a seamless firing. I can enter into a barter economy in which my work has the most direct transfer to others. But how can I lead? I can conduct workshops once I have more knowledge, teach at community colleges, direct the cooperative studio of my dreams. I can ally myself with new organizations that may form or grow with the green fractions so essentially preserved in the stimulus package. Perhaps my kiln can be a testing ground for biofuels.
I can write more. To whom? On my blog, to my newspaper, I suppose, to the good people at Speaking of Faith.... but what I have to say to you all specifically is really more than all these extended paragraphs about business. I'm constantly referred to as 'that crazy artist', like I'm a little girl being patted on the head. American culture has a love-hate relationship with artists. We're everything so many people wish they were, and we're also portrayed as leaches, sucking valuable money from the system that should better go towards science and math, business school and sports. Rarely are we taken seriously, and as I have hammered already, the value of our work is largely intangible. I live small and responsibly but after ten years of hard work and higher education, my studio still doesn't pay my rent.
As an incidental note to further explain the integration of my life in this moment, I have suffered under a variety of abuses and extended depression, and have only just recently been able to see and name it. Name it, unearth it and understand the cause and effect relationship it has had in my life. I was trapped in the cycle of abuse for large parts of my twenties and only when I came to Portland did I find the resources and information to help me understand the pattern and change my paradigms. There have been many many factors that have contributed to my healing and one of them is that I spent months moving bricks and listening to podcasts of SOF. I'm still getting rid of the last few twitches- my epiphany did not occur as suddenly and thoroughly as Toelle's, but let me be very clear about something: I know Obama does not wield a magic wand, but I feel immensely empowered by his presence at the helm and the fabulous opportunity that such a collapse of the economy provides to us, to ME. I know I am not alone in my capacity to combine my talents for making, writing, teaching, and leading in a moment of historical re-valuation. For me to do so as an “artist”, legitimized and respected, is exciting. For me to do it as a person, in this specific moment, is a deeply emotional and spiritual experience."
I'd like to share with you a someting. I have written before about a favorite radio broadcast: Speaking of Faith- I had an extended meltdown a year after coming to portland, and one thing that pulled me out of it was listening to podcasts of this program, usually while walking brick after brick into the backyard for the kiln. they have recently created a spin-off project that incorporates the voices of listeners, and asked for people to share on the topic of how the recession has effected our lives. so this is mine:
"I am again compelled to thank all of you on the team for continuing to create such a vibrant space for challenging dialog. The broadcast in particular that moved me this time was in December with Parker Palmer, who spoke with such calm about his experience of depression a year or two ago. It is wise people like him being vulnerable with listeners like me that provide much-needed support to my growing realization that my voice is also needed. As our dear president reiterated again recently, everyone needs to step up in the global effort to shift our paradigm once and for all, from the crazed and broken cycle that has brought our country and by export, the world, to our current state of affairs. You have extended an invitation to listeners to share our stories of how the recession has effected our lives- I have other ideas of how to engage in rebuilding my country, but perhaps I should start with this particular moment... and thanks for the invitation!
The real trouble is that I'm not exactly sure how to start effectively leading because my work seems so marginalized by now. I'm a potter. I live to make dishes. I love touching the porcelain, easing it into shape, softening its symmetry, burnishing it to feel like a tumbled stone, the camaraderie and intensity of the firing, and then sitting down to dinner with friends. Beautifully presented food made with love, from local farms tended with care, around the table where conversations zing and query, ideas grown, plans are hatched.... to me this feels like revolution. People respond with their hearts to good craftsmanship because it is a human connection that is materialized in the object. The object is communicating: I gave it energy but what it awakens in the user is their own memory, their own value structure, their own synapses are helped to fire in new ways. So I think my work is extremely important in the world today.
It seems like a huge part of the problem is the lack of connection between humans- the system of cause and effect is so huge, global, that unless we take the time to really find out, we would have no way of knowing the consequences of our nation's actions on the people of other countries. If mainstream media were to actively draw the picture for the average American of where, say, bottled water comes from and where the plastic goes when we toss it and the political and social consequences of this seemingly trifle issue, I believe in my heart that the good conscience of people would never allow them to consume this particular commodity. Now put a heavyweight on the table: consumption of petroleum. We are not given the tools to make the connections. How does my action effect the big picture? The big picture is overwhelming, and as we all know, the recent administration actively lied to confuse the issue to their own gain. Ok, so thank god we are crawling slowly out of that hole, and how? Because it became clear over the course of Obama's bid for the presidency that people looked around and saw that they weren't alone in wanting change. Not alone. The collective depression of solitude and fear has in part been lifted and we look at each other just as the other shoe drops. The law of cause and effect is still in place, and we're all going down together. At least we know we're together. Maybe most of us still have no idea how the effect happened but what is clear is that some fundamental thing is very wrong.
Again, I think it is the human connection. There is nothing wrong with consumerism per se, but who made the product, what materials were used, where did they come from, what are the hidden costs and are they reasonable, is there integrity to the chain? I firmly believe that cottage industry is uniquely poised to dig its roots into the crumbling walls of bloated big business. Not just for the economies of scale (the hidden cost of long transportation, for example) but arguably of paramount importance, for the economies of energy transfer. Good juju. Everybody loves massage. Everybody should enjoy it. Massage should not be a luxury for the wealthy. Massage is the direct transfer of energy from one body to the other (and back). Farming is a step removed into the transfer of nutrients. What I do is a step further removed, the literal container for the transfer of the nutrients. The transfer of physical energy carries with it a transfer of juju energy. CSA farmers tend to really care about what they're doing. Good juju, good nutrients. Monsanto does not tend to care. So they give us hydrogenated corn oil on which America grown fat, and pesticide runoff, etc. Bad juju! And worse when they force sterile seeds down the throats of Indian farmers! War in Iraq to secure petroleum resources breeds more war, torture, and terrorism that has ethical ripple effects all over the planet. Industry as a phenomenon isn't at fault, it's when the scale of industry grows to a point where we can't see the effects. When the human connection is lost.
If we could see how our consumption of energy can be shifted away from the global into the national, the regional, the neighborhood, we can regain the human connection from which stems accountability. Nobody messes in their own nest, and there will be a natural self-righting system in which material resources or supply will inform demand. Big industry can no longer pillage other countries for their resources. Of course that means that consumers have to adjust their demands. And we will inevitably get clever in our innovation. If I haven't lost you by now, that's great because I feel like this is where I come in.
My life work has been marginalized by big business. Not only is it impossible for me to compete with the mass-production economics of a factory in China, but the consumer culture ( as a phenomenon created by industry to feed it's greed) has valued the cheap, shiny, trendy and replaceable over the high-quality, sustaining, substantial, and yes, more expensive work of artisans. But increasingly over the past few years, there is a growing trend away from walmart's nonsense and towards a much higher quality of life. This trend is coupled with the increasingly relevant fact that we are rapidly running out of resources. We will run out of oil and it will no longer be cost effective to ship iron scrap to china so that they can ship us sheets of steel. The collapse of our market only illustrates this more conclusively- this is the death blow. I'm excited!
I saw this coming, and I have settled myself into situation where I live simply, in my studio in a quiet neighborhood in one of the most progressive cities in the world: Portland, Oregon. I lucked out with a fabulous landlady who let me build a kiln in her garden. My kiln is fairly big for a potter working alone, but I worked with materials available to me, and most importantly, I walked my talk about my energy values: my kiln runs primarily on waste vegetable oil. My fuel, until demand effects supply, is free from my local recycling company. My kiln is innovative and efficient in design. It's emissions are nontoxic and it has a battery of permits from the city. All my neighbors know about me and many of them are enthusiastic about what I'm doing. So I am poised to provide the kind of product that speaks to a new paradigm of ethical consumption. Great! Now what?
Nobody has any money. I'm not advertising because I'm still learning the vicissitudes of this kiln and I've had quite a few mishaps in the first two firings (none of them directly related to the kiln itself). So it's all right that I'm not quite collected because neither is the rest of America at the moment. With no product, I don't have much money either. But I don't need to spend much to keep going at this point, so I will continue to plod along, firm in the faith that my work is valuable. Perhaps my work rings higher on the juju meter than the greenback but I'm banking on the assumption that trust in all its manifestations is rebuilt one brick, one smile, one conversation, one meal, one loan at a time. It is built by one brave soul after another going out on a limb because really, if we don't pull together, we are going to hell really fast. The state of the world is so precarious right now, even a dirty rebel potter like me has a lot to contribute to get it back on track.
How? Ok, I can plod along in my quiet neighborhood, spend the next year tuning a body of work and approaching a seamless firing. I can enter into a barter economy in which my work has the most direct transfer to others. But how can I lead? I can conduct workshops once I have more knowledge, teach at community colleges, direct the cooperative studio of my dreams. I can ally myself with new organizations that may form or grow with the green fractions so essentially preserved in the stimulus package. Perhaps my kiln can be a testing ground for biofuels.
I can write more. To whom? On my blog, to my newspaper, I suppose, to the good people at Speaking of Faith.... but what I have to say to you all specifically is really more than all these extended paragraphs about business. I'm constantly referred to as 'that crazy artist', like I'm a little girl being patted on the head. American culture has a love-hate relationship with artists. We're everything so many people wish they were, and we're also portrayed as leaches, sucking valuable money from the system that should better go towards science and math, business school and sports. Rarely are we taken seriously, and as I have hammered already, the value of our work is largely intangible. I live small and responsibly but after ten years of hard work and higher education, my studio still doesn't pay my rent.
As an incidental note to further explain the integration of my life in this moment, I have suffered under a variety of abuses and extended depression, and have only just recently been able to see and name it. Name it, unearth it and understand the cause and effect relationship it has had in my life. I was trapped in the cycle of abuse for large parts of my twenties and only when I came to Portland did I find the resources and information to help me understand the pattern and change my paradigms. There have been many many factors that have contributed to my healing and one of them is that I spent months moving bricks and listening to podcasts of SOF. I'm still getting rid of the last few twitches- my epiphany did not occur as suddenly and thoroughly as Toelle's, but let me be very clear about something: I know Obama does not wield a magic wand, but I feel immensely empowered by his presence at the helm and the fabulous opportunity that such a collapse of the economy provides to us, to ME. I know I am not alone in my capacity to combine my talents for making, writing, teaching, and leading in a moment of historical re-valuation. For me to do so as an “artist”, legitimized and respected, is exciting. For me to do it as a person, in this specific moment, is a deeply emotional and spiritual experience."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
hot but distant winter, so far
where did february go? I got a job for one quarter, doing technical work at a community college. The school is converting to cone six, a firing temperature that is slightly lower (2192*F) than the more standard cone ten (2372*), and they asked for my assistance in getting a new palette of glazes. they had an eye-blistering blue, a flat black, a taupe, a clear, and something called assafa white which I abbreviated in my head. one instructor went to mexico and the teck was on maternity leave, so I basically had one big project and the place to myself. thanks to recepies from my friend Richard Brandt who teaches at a different division of portland community colleges, I was able to basically whup assafa. I don't see any reason not to convert to cone six in a school setting, if the program is not focussed on atmospheric firings. There is no visible or functional difference to the glaze. Only one of the glazes I chose uses frit, which is higher in net processing energy, as far as dry materials go. I have not calculated energy savings in kiln fuel cost, but how can it not save the school money and reduce demand for natural gas? It's an all-over win situation, and a small illustration of how an ecologically sound decision is also and economically beneficial one. If any teachers or tecks out there want to know more, write me or Richard- he has a beautiful palette- yellow, red, purple, shino, you name it. I highly reccommend.
that has been my focus recently, and we've had a delightfully clear winter, for the NW, so I have been outside building deep beds and filling them with black gold, and then dear mama spotted me some extra cash to put in a dwarf fig tree, some artic kiwi vines (!?), a new graft of apple that grows only up, a mini guava- really, I could plant a banana tree if I had the space, it's crazy!
but my heartthrob at the moment is this little jewel- a hellebore...
this was a small project- this is a rambling (?) tea rose that just won't quit growing- I've never delt with roses before I moved to rose city. I didn't know that fancy roses are grafted onto a root stock. if there's a hard frost, the graft dies and the indestructable root stock takes over. well, it's flowers are so numerous. solution? a tunnel.
acquiring the steel for this arch took me to the steel scrap yard. Read: me, maneuvering a 64 chevy with an exhaust leak and no power steering through the jam of contractors trucks down a muddy one-way tight turn drive. (he did a fine job, thank you very much). then hobnobbing, like all the guys, with the hot brusque cashier all fresh and tan from vacation, with her uhgs, and her corn-row hair extensions and her "honey,...." ... then bent the tubes and did the welding with my neighbor.
so this is one of those situations where getting to know your neighbor is a particuarly interesting process. My neighbors have included a crack addict behind us for a while, and there are accountants too. There are boys down the street with glass-packs on the little blue sporty spoiler thing (it's funny- there are now two of these blue cars at the same driveway- it makes me wonder if there will soon be little baby blues, but that's homoerotic, so we're not going to say it in public, hehe) (I accidentally had glass-packs on my 4x4 diesel pickup in MN for a few months after I'd first bought it- jesus was that loud!) (I kind of loved it) ...right, so my neighbor has a bicycle version of those redneck yards, where the weeds grow out of the hoods of car skeletons. except he's always in his huge garage welding and angle grinding and banging and lord knows what he's doing, it reminds me of that tom waits song "what's he building in there?" and for the longest time I just stayed the hell away because he would wander around with his fly open and his housemate decided that I was cute and started whispering at my door at night and I'd hear arguments and there would be police, the whole nine. well, turns out that despite his wandering eye (I have one too, somedays), he's really just this poor, absent-minded old dude whose standards of decency are a little wacked but basically good man whose wife died- he's lived this fascinating life as a mercenary in the bloody Congo and I found all this out after the whisperer and the police left because there was a time when I was building the kiln when I really just needed a welder and I didn't want to spend yet another two hundred dollars to rent one so I offered him some money to borrow his. Ever since, we've (mostly he's) been talking about his Samian ancestry, the coming energy crisis and the glory of bikes and windmills and how we all need to be better neighbors to each other. preaching to the choir. So grumpy arthritic old dude and I bent the steel and welded an arch for my roses, and I picked up some steel for him so he could keep making noise making bike trailers.
A recent highlight was hearing Angela Davis speak. I had no idea that it costs $40,000 to keep someone incarcerated for a year in Oregon. No wonder we're spending more on jails than education. I did know that it is obviously because we are profiling minorities that we end up with a hugely overrepresented black population in the prison system. Another thing I learned recently, from Democracy Now, is that in New York as in many states, the prison population is counted as residents of that county (ususally upstate), even though they can't vote. This brings disproportional funding up to those counties, among other injustices like unfair representation. sneaky. I disagree with Davis that we should close the jails altogether but I agree that if we put all that money into therapy and treatment, we would break the cycle of abuse. I have had my experience with the law, and it was fucked. I remember the cold sweat when I read up on mandatory minimums. I'm lucky, though, I could pay for an advocate. I don't even see the point in targeting poor people and minorities. It's systemic racism, that's the only reason. it doesn't make any kind of economic sense, nevermind the social destruction. it's insane.
What else?a nice dinner party- french onion soup with many dear friends the other night. and I'm finally honing in on a totally new drape-moulded oval bowl and plate design, which took for flipping ever. the quarter is nearly done at the college and I will have completed that project and so many others and so soon there will be uninterrupted day after glorious day at my wheel doing nothing but making pots in preparation for a firing in early may. that's the goal.
ah, but after that long story, this is what got me back on my blog to start with: carbon hydraulic hybrid.
In Minnesota, I was delighted to reconnect with some old friends, teachers, and firing partners- Simon Levin, Lloyd Cledwyn, Linda Chrsitianson, and Anna Metcalf (a peer currently in grad school in MN). There were many wonderful conversations all around, and wanders through memory lanes. all of mudlovers with a bunch of their kids had a fun excursion to the St. Paul science museum, and this is where I learned more thoroughly about the incredible potential of hydraulic machinery. So I was very excited to run across that article about the hybrid today. Of course I am pro-hybrid vehicle in any form, but as my airplane mechanic friend explained to me, the basic reciprocating engine (car engine/ diesel) is incredibly wasteful. only something like thirty (?) percent of the potential energy of the fuel is actually transferred to the wheels. so incorportating a hydraulic system into a moving vehicle seems like a brilliant idea. and if it has to look like a corvette, the older the better, in my book. I think its hot!
ok, I give in to the overly long post. here's one last story. I had a frustrating New Year's Eve. and about two weeks later I fell into a fucking great party at a small club here in pdx. DJ Dara, an old pro. I pretty much went there not giving a shit how I might be judged/ categorized, and proceeded to get sweaty to jungly beats. lovely... towards the end of the night, this ultra-hot young lady, this is not exaggerating, literally pushes me into the corner where the bar meets the wall. pushes me, in the sense that it became impossible to maintain six inches of space between us. this doesn't happen very often, so I didn't take it seriously. but hell, the world is strange, maybe she actually does want me, I mean, the chick is petting me and her clothes are falling off. ok, I bite. who knows. I brush my nose against her cheek as we talk about horticulture (?!), music, travel, and how she's new in town (I heard that twice that evening). she wasn't serious, but damn she was hot, so I give her my card, told her to write if she wanted to, and resumed dancing. about two weeks later, I'm with a few lady friends at a popular strip joint. and who should come to the stage.............. she saw me. ............... she did not meet my bemused gaze twice, though I had my dollar out for the collection plate.... (a small internet search tells me what the problem was- braces seem to be back in style- who knew?)
that has been my focus recently, and we've had a delightfully clear winter, for the NW, so I have been outside building deep beds and filling them with black gold, and then dear mama spotted me some extra cash to put in a dwarf fig tree, some artic kiwi vines (!?), a new graft of apple that grows only up, a mini guava- really, I could plant a banana tree if I had the space, it's crazy!
but my heartthrob at the moment is this little jewel- a hellebore...
this was a small project- this is a rambling (?) tea rose that just won't quit growing- I've never delt with roses before I moved to rose city. I didn't know that fancy roses are grafted onto a root stock. if there's a hard frost, the graft dies and the indestructable root stock takes over. well, it's flowers are so numerous. solution? a tunnel.
acquiring the steel for this arch took me to the steel scrap yard. Read: me, maneuvering a 64 chevy with an exhaust leak and no power steering through the jam of contractors trucks down a muddy one-way tight turn drive. (he did a fine job, thank you very much). then hobnobbing, like all the guys, with the hot brusque cashier all fresh and tan from vacation, with her uhgs, and her corn-row hair extensions and her "honey,...." ... then bent the tubes and did the welding with my neighbor. so this is one of those situations where getting to know your neighbor is a particuarly interesting process. My neighbors have included a crack addict behind us for a while, and there are accountants too. There are boys down the street with glass-packs on the little blue sporty spoiler thing (it's funny- there are now two of these blue cars at the same driveway- it makes me wonder if there will soon be little baby blues, but that's homoerotic, so we're not going to say it in public, hehe) (I accidentally had glass-packs on my 4x4 diesel pickup in MN for a few months after I'd first bought it- jesus was that loud!) (I kind of loved it) ...right, so my neighbor has a bicycle version of those redneck yards, where the weeds grow out of the hoods of car skeletons. except he's always in his huge garage welding and angle grinding and banging and lord knows what he's doing, it reminds me of that tom waits song "what's he building in there?" and for the longest time I just stayed the hell away because he would wander around with his fly open and his housemate decided that I was cute and started whispering at my door at night and I'd hear arguments and there would be police, the whole nine. well, turns out that despite his wandering eye (I have one too, somedays), he's really just this poor, absent-minded old dude whose standards of decency are a little wacked but basically good man whose wife died- he's lived this fascinating life as a mercenary in the bloody Congo and I found all this out after the whisperer and the police left because there was a time when I was building the kiln when I really just needed a welder and I didn't want to spend yet another two hundred dollars to rent one so I offered him some money to borrow his. Ever since, we've (mostly he's) been talking about his Samian ancestry, the coming energy crisis and the glory of bikes and windmills and how we all need to be better neighbors to each other. preaching to the choir. So grumpy arthritic old dude and I bent the steel and welded an arch for my roses, and I picked up some steel for him so he could keep making noise making bike trailers.
A recent highlight was hearing Angela Davis speak. I had no idea that it costs $40,000 to keep someone incarcerated for a year in Oregon. No wonder we're spending more on jails than education. I did know that it is obviously because we are profiling minorities that we end up with a hugely overrepresented black population in the prison system. Another thing I learned recently, from Democracy Now, is that in New York as in many states, the prison population is counted as residents of that county (ususally upstate), even though they can't vote. This brings disproportional funding up to those counties, among other injustices like unfair representation. sneaky. I disagree with Davis that we should close the jails altogether but I agree that if we put all that money into therapy and treatment, we would break the cycle of abuse. I have had my experience with the law, and it was fucked. I remember the cold sweat when I read up on mandatory minimums. I'm lucky, though, I could pay for an advocate. I don't even see the point in targeting poor people and minorities. It's systemic racism, that's the only reason. it doesn't make any kind of economic sense, nevermind the social destruction. it's insane.
What else?a nice dinner party- french onion soup with many dear friends the other night. and I'm finally honing in on a totally new drape-moulded oval bowl and plate design, which took for flipping ever. the quarter is nearly done at the college and I will have completed that project and so many others and so soon there will be uninterrupted day after glorious day at my wheel doing nothing but making pots in preparation for a firing in early may. that's the goal.
ah, but after that long story, this is what got me back on my blog to start with: carbon hydraulic hybrid.
In Minnesota, I was delighted to reconnect with some old friends, teachers, and firing partners- Simon Levin, Lloyd Cledwyn, Linda Chrsitianson, and Anna Metcalf (a peer currently in grad school in MN). There were many wonderful conversations all around, and wanders through memory lanes. all of mudlovers with a bunch of their kids had a fun excursion to the St. Paul science museum, and this is where I learned more thoroughly about the incredible potential of hydraulic machinery. So I was very excited to run across that article about the hybrid today. Of course I am pro-hybrid vehicle in any form, but as my airplane mechanic friend explained to me, the basic reciprocating engine (car engine/ diesel) is incredibly wasteful. only something like thirty (?) percent of the potential energy of the fuel is actually transferred to the wheels. so incorportating a hydraulic system into a moving vehicle seems like a brilliant idea. and if it has to look like a corvette, the older the better, in my book. I think its hot!
ok, I give in to the overly long post. here's one last story. I had a frustrating New Year's Eve. and about two weeks later I fell into a fucking great party at a small club here in pdx. DJ Dara, an old pro. I pretty much went there not giving a shit how I might be judged/ categorized, and proceeded to get sweaty to jungly beats. lovely... towards the end of the night, this ultra-hot young lady, this is not exaggerating, literally pushes me into the corner where the bar meets the wall. pushes me, in the sense that it became impossible to maintain six inches of space between us. this doesn't happen very often, so I didn't take it seriously. but hell, the world is strange, maybe she actually does want me, I mean, the chick is petting me and her clothes are falling off. ok, I bite. who knows. I brush my nose against her cheek as we talk about horticulture (?!), music, travel, and how she's new in town (I heard that twice that evening). she wasn't serious, but damn she was hot, so I give her my card, told her to write if she wanted to, and resumed dancing. about two weeks later, I'm with a few lady friends at a popular strip joint. and who should come to the stage.............. she saw me. ............... she did not meet my bemused gaze twice, though I had my dollar out for the collection plate.... (a small internet search tells me what the problem was- braces seem to be back in style- who knew?)
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