the treadlehead

close to the bone

2012-02-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

a pensive moment as I too encounter one of the many hurdles so many low-income people must leap. I have never hid the fact that much of my income is from family gift, untaxed, despite my work ethic. This year I am attempting again to rectify that situation as well as make the most local choices that are available to me. To this end, I just signed up with a meat share CSA, but more on that in a moment. I have also been trying to switch my money to a local credit union, advantis, where I now have a checking account that gives back two percent interest provided that I meet certain conditions. Imagine my surprise to be declined for a credit card. not just the rewards credit card that I wanted which earns miles towards air travel, but ANY credit card. I mean, I get junk mail all the time offering me credit cards because my credit rating is very high. why is it so high? because I'm always paying my existing one (a miles-earning one from wellsfargo) in full. because I'm able to constantly dip into the jar of honey, and I'm never in debt. How did I get the credit card that I have now? when I was a student and first signed on with wellsfargo in utah. maybe they just extend the card to those with a higher credit to debt ratio because its more ways to suck in the poor. But Advantis doesn't play that way, apparently. They want people who can prove (via tax returns) that they have little debt load. and even though I have no debt, it doesn't show up that way.

very interesting to me. for one thing, I know damn well that even if my family is operating well within legal parameters, there are ripple effects to the action. The situation is not comparable to the true injustices of tax loopholes, insider trading, predatory lending, etc. But its fascinating to me to observe it from the opposite shore. At this point, based on my own merits, I am not able to get a credit card from a reputable bank with safe lending practices. I'm not able to start the process of building my paper worth. I couldn't get a loan for the same reason- I guess I need to start thinking of a credit card as a loan as they do, instead of a tool. By using the tool as I have been, I am offered flashy things and free crap all the time, the spoils that go to those who have enough money to make more money, ill-gotten or fair.

and so a junction point, the same one I have encountered before, which means that at least one road is circular and I must be sick of this ride: do I continue to dip into the jar of honey, dropping 700 dollars all at once on a six month share of grass-fed protein BECAUSE I CAN, never mind that the comparison value of the meat is very reasonable, never mind that I will share it, never mind all that- if I were on my own "paper merit", I couldn't put up that kind of cash all at once, I would have to scrimp and save for it, and given the state of things, I'd probably never get there. Which means one less customer for a family farm.

no, as I have stated, with years of prep work completed, this year (and likely, many into the future) is a great experiment: four firings and four shows, building inventory, applying for the best, not wasting time on side-projects, going for the money. this year I'm all about earning money off my work in the studio. I want to see what I can do. get off the circular road of someone else's money and the subtle ties that bind. those are not the ropes that I love- those are the ones I abhor.

what's sick to me is the yardstick by which I am measuring myself: my paper merit. my taxable self. my degree of involvement in the machinations of the state. I appreciate the law and order, I do not appreciate the warmongering. why cant we pay taxes allocated to what we care about?, other than the obvious database nightmare. ...

well, I received that news just an hour ago. However, months ago, I was sleepless one night and researched CSA farms, landing on Sweet Home Farms, the kind of place that just makes me ache with love for people who persist in swimming against the stream of appalling ranching practices- its not even ranching, is it, when they raise sows in cages in warehouses - what is that? if we are what we eat, what am I if I eat that meat? a poisoned slave. I'd rather starve. If that's the meat I can afford with my artist's wages, let me go vegetarian. let me go back along my circular path of parental money. I purchased a share from Sweet Home Farms, and immediately filled the studio with the smell of the simmering stew bones that they throw in for free in winter. my poor bike panniers! fourty pounds of meat and root veggies - beautiful...

full stop

2012-02-02T16:25:00.000-08:00

to say that everything comes to a halt when seed packets or better yet, live plants, arrive at the door* is not completely accurate. but certainly, my excitement jumps to a higher valence level and I find myself magnetically attracted to doing whatever needs to be done to support getting the little plants the food and water that they need.. the photo is an unpacked box from One Green World , a nearby nursery devoted to permaculture practices that has scoured the globe for plants suited to my climate as well as many others- detailed notes available. In Portland, I could grow certain bananas and citrus, pawpaws, pinapple guavas, passionfruit (no kidding!) in addition to vit-C packed seaberries and goji beyond the obvious such as blue and strawberries (including ones that fruit the whole year). I bought purple asparagus, an delicious eatable fern, saffron, razzberries, and 50 stems of three varieties of those year-round strawberries.. and I am loopy with delight....

*uh, right- anyone else notice the irony here?

no ER for me

2011-11-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

so, even though I'm not sure if I fit into the upper 5% based on family association or the near bottom of the 99% based on my personal income, what I do know is that I gashed my lower knee today and I'm not going to the hospital. The cut is 1 1/4 by 1/4 inches, so definitely would benefit from stitches, but given that even at 900$ a quarter, blue cross does not pay for ER visits that do not lead to hospitalization, I know what I'd be looking at: I did go, at the urging of my father, to treat a cat bite two years ago, and it cost 600$. Assuming that stitches would be relatively more messy to deal with than a shot in the arm, I can only assume they'd be comperably more expensive.

its only a flesh wound. no tendons or bones. didn't even hurt much

what I did is this: I cleaned the area with antiseptic, applied a large band-aide in such a way as to pull the flesh back together, and then I went back to the attic. I had just started using the orbital sander, having finished with the various belts. I was approaching a difficult area: semi-underneith a low desk, and narrow. I was clearing the cords and such out of the way, with the sander on in my right hand. it made that mild orbital movement that they do, and I let my wrist roll with it, but my knee was too close- the edge bit me just below it. I think I finished moving the cords and then turned off the sander to see how deep it was, surprised to see the sedimentary layers of body.

so I had just been in an excellent conversation with an interesting character in my life, who had described an accident he had had and how he dealt with the situation. I decided to try the same: replay the incident as if the mistake had not been made. thirty times, focusing on recreating it in your mind as having been done correctly. I did. stand up, turn on the sander, crouch over there, approach, mindful, move cords, begin sanding, stand up, return to start. thirty times, and trying, as with meditation, to clear all memory of the accident, to imprint my mind with a new pattern. Eventually, I just kept sanding, and am currently taking a break. (and breaking the new imprint by writing this, I realize!). there is an intermittent mild pain in my leg, but the bleeding stopped almost as soon as it started (and I cleaned it off the floor so my assistant (and I!) doesn't know it ever happened.) right, so, I guess I've wandered into faith healing territory, but we'll see what it looks like in a week. I'll take another picture.

seasonal princess

2011-11-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

still reeling from the meal that I just wolfed down like an existentialist lunges for the light- ...'is it possible that "I" am "alive" and consuming this divine nutriment' was the general sentiment of the past 20 minutes- it was a chunk of coho salmon, seared, with rice, a persimmon, a few fresh figs, and local wine- I thought of the good people in my life and how I would have loved to have them here with a similar plate to share, and I thought of how poignant it is that we all try so hard all the time and yet still, the place where the effort, appreciation, and loved ones come together is so elusive- as if the vast majority of our time as social innovators/ historical preservationists pans out as just (crucial) practice: 2011: you must value and allow 1000 meals composed of ingredients from carbon-responsible sources before you may share one with a friend- wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off....

life... as it shows itself presently... is looking wonder-full

a tiny summer update

2011-08-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Link to an interview on artclecticpdx about to rebroadcast.

ya, so its august already, and this year I am consumed by creating institutional memory about my PR job for PDXOS in addition to doing it, mentoring about it, and doing other people's work occasionally. Check out the new website at PortlandOpenStudios.com.... just re-wrote most of the copy as I organized its recent launch. Next up: serious database analysis and instituting a professional jury software service!

Studio is on simmer until next year when I shift out of this job obligation. Still managing to fire twice this year, but that's not much compared to what I could do... Having a full and varied social life is a very high priority as I figure out how I want to move forward into the world. And I am still remodeling the sweet little carriage house in which I live and work, but all those photos are up on facebook now- look for them there. I send out a quarterly e-newsletter to my mailing list instead of posting here much anymore.. if you'd like a copy of that, sign up here.

hope you too are loving your summer--

arts dispatch writes the pres about the NEA cuts

2011-02-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

Barry Johnson's blog arts dispatch a loca-arts-ivore staple: here he writes to the president about the NEA cuts.

PDXOS calling all artists!

2011-02-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

Portland Open Studios: Call to Artists

Deadline March 15, 2011

Jury: Mark Woolley, Elise Wagner, Modou Dieng

October 8, 9 and 15, 16

All artist studios open both weekends

Application at www.portlandopenstudios.com

What is Portland Open Studios?

The annual Portland Open Studios tour is a unique opportunity for you to open your studio to the public and educate visitors about your creative methods and materials, inspiration and enjoyment. As a member, you will meet other artists, have access to quality publicity and dialogue, and sell your work.

Open to all visual media. Artists are chosen by a jury of three art professionals.

The participation fee is $140 plus 8 hours of volunteer service. Artists who choose not to volunteer pay an additional $155. There is a separate non-refundable jury fee of $25 for early application before March 8. The jury fee is $35 from the 8^th to the 15^th.

Artists are required to open their studio and demonstrate their working methods both weekends.

Open to residents of Portland, Tigard, Beaverton, Aloha, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Gladstone, Happy Valley, Lake Oswego, West Linn and Tualatin

Kimberly Gales Scholarship Artists 20–30 years of age are encouraged to apply for the Kimberly Gales Scholarship to Portland Open Studios. Recipient will have all fees waived, and will receive a $100 stipend. See the website for details.

The 2011 Jury

Mark Woolley founded one of the first commercial galleries in what is now the Pearl District in 1993. Known initially as Acanthus Gallery the space featured emerging, mid-career and iconic late career painters and sculptors as well as challenging and provocative "outsider" artists and socio-political installation shows coupled with legendary openings and literary events. For the last 17 years, Woolley has been a force for moving the visual and performing arts forward in Portland and co-founded the Wonder Ballroom in 2005. He currently curates a variety of independent spaces and sponsors selected individual and group shows throughout the Portland area.

Elise Wagner has been a working and exhibiting artist in Portland for over twenty years. Best known for her deft handling of the encaustic medium, Wagner teaches both nationally and internationally. Wagner is represented locally by Butters Gallery in addition to Chase Young Gallery in Boston, Hallway Gallery in Bellevue, WA and Aberson Exhibits in Tulsa, OK. Elise Wagner was the recipient of a 2010 Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant to fund concurrent 2011 solo exhibitions in Boston and at the Sordoni Art Gallery in Wilkes Barre, PA.

Modou Dieng is an Assistant Painting and Drawing Professor at PNCA. Dieng is known internationally for his multidisciplinary artistic work conceptualizing visions of contemporary life. He has exhibited with numerous galleries including Steve Turner Gallery (Los Angeles), Pascal Polar Gallery (Brussels), Museum of Contemporary African and Diaspora Art (NY), and Carousel du Louvre (Paris). Dieng is the founder and curator of Portland’s Worksound Gallery.

Benefits of being a Portland Open Studios member artist:

• Have your artwork published in 2,500 full color Tour Guides with targeted distribution, and on the website with a link to your site. A ticketed map with your location will also be printed.

• Get 5 free Tour Guides and the use of studio signs.

• Connect with other artists in 2 free workshops as you learn marketing and demonstration techniques. Gain confidence with self-presentation.

• Submit announcements in the Portland Open Studios blog for one year

• Tangible benefits extend beyond the two weekend event:

The Tour Guide is a valuable catalog with your name and contact info given to and used by the media, curators, and art buyers all year long. Artists may be invited to exhibitions, sell their work, become the subject of news articles, or asked to teach classes as a result of being in Portland Open Studios.

energy panel: major cultural paradigm shift needed in face of limited resources

2010-11-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/300162

...learn to live creatively with less consumption...learn to value life by different markers... no more subsidies for monocrops... U.S. oil peaked in 2000... need federal support for local foods networks.... growth has occurred for 100 years on the back of petroleum, it is a finite resource, and now we're struggling to get it... wealth disparity contributes to the problem... three indicators before a period of famine:...

debunking misinformation about oil

2010-11-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

Robert Rapier who writes the R squared energy blog pointed out this article in the Huff Post.

yes, I'm back. it was wonderful. What a treat to meet and spend so much time with various artists- Dustin and Nim, their friends in the various places, my friends old and new in Berlin and London- truly the way to travel. No, I didn't see buckingham palace, but I did have a lovely conversation nearby with my friend in a crazy posh apartment with animal heads. No I didn't see the shards of the berlin wall, I had dessert and wine with three artists and a chef, comparing cultures, histories, politics, passions. I walked through a vibrant art quarter in London with a fashion designer, eating bagles and spotted a small parade of loveliness including a well-known queen in a full-length pink feather cape. and caught a cold from sharing so many spliffs. oh well.

so I'm on facebook, and photos are there. I see facebook as a necessary evil to keeping up with certain friends in a more consistent, less focussed way. I really don't like their privacy policies. I look forward to using the decentralized network that Nim's friend Max Ogden is writing. No monolith.

The day after returning, I tore the kitchen apart. Mama bought me a new energy star refrigerator and a proper range-top to replace the 1950's beast of a free fridge and gutless hotplate that I've been using. With the construction of a shed this year, the bisque kiln is now out of the single room in which I work and also live (hooray!), and that corner is being claimed as a kitchen. I will now have the facility to cook for more than two people, so I look forward to hosting dinner parties like I've so enjoyed in the past.. ( the most recent one was three years ago in which I made french onion soup which took all day on the hotplate, and then used the bisque kiln to broil the cheeze on top- )

happy thanksgiving, all! truly, it is a generous world. (if you don't ask for too much)

Berlin with Dustin and Nim

2010-10-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

I am feeling porous- a favorite feeling. a challenge, in which I know that I am stretching out of my skin. that my mind is moving and maybe parts are hurting a little. Today was Research Club's Brunch in Berlin. at first it was only us and our hosts and one student from an art school. But it seems the relaxed pace of the venue Gartenstudio carried through in its perfect way- most people arrived "late", others came and went multiple times, some people who didn't know what we were about until last night presented their work spontaneously. One couple (or collaborators) arrived "at the end" with four-page copies of her project descriptions (in german) and proceeded to wow us with their work. We have done what we could to plan and invite and generate energy around the event and then what do you do when most of the speakers you hoped for don't show up and it seems it "isn't working right"? Nim has a watery look about him sometimes- you can see he is in a semi-liminal state. throw a cat at him and he wouldn't be perturbed- he would laugh, joke, defer, question, reference some chinese parable or web project and say hey, check out so and so, and the show goes on... as I said at the beginning of my presentation (also spontaneous), I am continually energized by these meetings. This one was no different. cattywumpus yes, and completely great nonetheless. here is a link for the research club blog post about it. that post has embedded links to all the speakers as well as a summary (and links) of the interviews that Nim has done with Dustin recording, for their research in a feature within Proximity Magazine.

so the speakers! were: Per Schullman, with whom we spent a very pleasant evening last night too at Dustin's Grand Detour screening of Portland area experimental film. He is one of those for whom Dustin adds a "f*$#ing" in front of "awesome"- he designs and has built these excellent cabinets of salvaged drawers restored into a new casing, and will soon be constructing a moving cart (in Istambul) that will unfold into a banquet table into which will be integrated a cookstove and oven, tiny kitchen. He has a little gallery in Hamburg where art and community events happen. He visited Gallery Homeland in Portland and has been involved in the happenings at GartenStudio, which has been our home for these days. We have also enjoyed the company of Malta who gives Gartenstudio its life and character- he is involved in many art projects and teaches flamenco. passionate music and the smoke of hand-rolled cigarettes fills the kitchen.

I presented my short story, Nim had it on file from earlier this year, thank goodness because my friend Madeline didn't make it- mistook the day. but I presented in her stead, and what fun too.. to see people's eyes light up. Mine certainly did when a beautiful french woman stood up a bit later for the first of several spontaneous presentations- with her little girl tugging on her skirt and her equally interesting filmmaker husband coming and going, she described for us that she is a conductor and has created two situations in new york and London in which a painter, the orchestra, herself and a composer created a whole new experience in which a piece was vocalized for one hour but people came and went as they pleased, and the painter made his work impromptu (word?). The next was a neighbor, Stephan. He shared a short promotional video he made for a small vacation place in Italy that welcomes people with special needs. something that will not be advertised with all of that attendant cost and commercial consideration, but shared with friends to generate interest and information about this otherwise unassuming location. Nim also shared for the newcomers that kept dropping in what Research Club is all about. I think he had three opportunities to do so, all of them appreciated, as brunch extended well into five or six pm, I think, with all the coming and going..

And then a classy and quirky couple arrived and soon began to share their delightful creations. From birdhouses to squiggly installations of telephone cord to rocketships under mirrored ceilings, topped off with an animation involving the merging of the yin yang and -was it Goethe?- to create cam shapes and eggs, Maria and her partner Martin opened a little window into her imagination that tickled her lips and quivered her eyebrows.

... the next day I went to the contemporary art museum and caught up with Madeline, and after a little time with her alone, we went to her friend's house for wine and desserts- quickly falling into my favorite conversation topics- art, social justice, history, how certain systems work, and food! I'm at home...

...now we're in London, at the loft of some of Nim's friends from Glasgow art school- it is exactly as you might imagine- a slightly cold big brick building that has been modified over the years to accomodate living quarters- simple but sturdy interior stud walls splitting some spaces into tiny sleeping lofts, a laundry line connected to a pully so it can be raised up to the tall ceiling, and of course the flotsam of artmaking everywhere- fake fruit, sixties postcards, photographs of textures, books on books on piles and shelves of books, twisted bike parts, flags and plants and a fireplace painted on the wall one evening that someone was cold.

rip Hermann Scheer

2010-10-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

just as this potter on alt fuel is headed to Germany, here is today's interview on DNow! ...

he says in the next ten years or so, one hundred cities and provinces in Germany are instituting systems that will have them on 100%! renewable energy sources. I must listen again to understand the mechanisms of policymaking that managed to subvert the corporate energy powers in Germany, but somehow it is now clear to the people (75-80% statistics) that they can and have voted for an entirely new paradigm of energy policy. it involves a restructuring of investment opportunity. *** With this paradigm shift is also one of ethical policy that is supportive of developing countries on an economic level*** and should America finally take note, we could move away from our poisonous relationship with Saudi Arabia. mutual enablers. get off the sauce!

you better believe I will be asking people about this when I get to Berlin.

and hey hey, here's Research Club in the Wweek! it took us a second to figure out how they ended up with boy George's head on a toilet...

a blogger riffs on the art critic

2010-10-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

Bob Hicks send me his link: http://www.artscatter.com/general/open-studios-see-rare-artistus-americanus-in-its-native-habitat/ --- a lovely way to flesh out (and gently shift the record on) that tricky aspect of what proportion of our artists have gallery representation.

oh, I am just in a fit of delight! The press that I've been scrabbling for this year is all being printed this week- here's another in the same paper that featured me last month (a story organized by the pr dept at Art in the Pearl). Here's one in an independant paper that goes to my quarter of town. I wrote one for the NE quarter (they couldn't afford a professional writer), but they aren't online. apparently they liked it so well that they put it on the front page.

and that's all i have time to say- I've already gotten a late start, since i was so enjoying hanging out with two dear men at Biwa's last night. potters, and foodies, both of whom want to be on my firing crew- ya! love it! what a relief to have people excited to help fire and put pots in the Tin Man-

the art critic writes about Portland Open Studios

2010-10-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Our local art critic for the big paper wrote about us. It's a tricky truth. and not completely true, because many of the member artists are quite successful. But then, they don't always participate year after year. So, it's true- he called us out- we are working artists doing what no-one else is doing for us.

And apparently we're kicking tail this year! One week till go time, and sales of the tour guide are higher than expected. Typically we sell the most this upcoming week, of course, as all the ads are printed and the articles published right about now. Other than the unexpected gift from the critic, there is another article in the Oregonian, and two that I can link to here, plus one in every little paper I could find. ads on the air of a popular radio station that decided to sponsor us- sweet!- and maybe some bloggers will announce us too. It's all very exciting for me to see tangibly the results of my hard work this year. We'll see what happens when the good people arrive at the carriage house doors...

keep walking

2010-09-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

I was recently poked by two people who read this blog- Hi Gail hi Larry!- they and presumably a few others are wondering why my web journal has become hushed. In short, I am busy, more busy that I've been since the last year of grad school, but that it slowly tapering off, and I have that emerging from a tunnel feeling. In length, I am so immersed in the expansion of my place as a maker in this town and in the world in general, that I can hardly analyze it in real time. As a maker, I started this blog to document information about my innovative firing process, and that info is condensed on the new website. As a person, I started it to put on the sunglasses and face the glare of an unavoidably public life. And there's the rub- if I had time to write, I would at this time not have certainty about how to fully address questions about my making in the public sphere. I am a spokesperson for a small arts organization. In one mild form or another, I represent one hundred people. I control my communication, which means some of the juicy bits get left out. ahhh, better for you to ask in person! and fortunately the press is more topical at this early stage of my career. Here is an article written about me in a small but widely circulated paper. This piece was organized by the PR department of Art in the Pearl, the big high-end art fair for which I busted my butt this year. I felt great about my work and its presentation, I did not suffer a loss, but this alone will not be the studio's big annual paycheck (assuming I get in next year). Keep Walking...

So the light is visible at the end of the tunnel. I now have an idea of how to deal with this beast known as the Press. And I have a greater person to person confidence when networking in advocacy of my organization and by practiced extension, of myself. It has been one of many ways the I am learning to shed a burden. So the question now is this- who cares? a few care- that's great. As I learn about the mechanisms of social networking, I learn the ether-version of what we know so well in real life- to make friends you must seek their story, and ask questions. I think one of the other major reasons why I have let this blog fall silent is that there is so much interesting activity in Portland right now, I'd rather be out exploring than home (still!) on the computer (still!) making equally meaningful but er, mediated connections with other bloggers- I can find, I can read, and I can comment and make friends. And lord knows I desperately need to connect with fellow potters around the world. That is an aspect of staying current in my field that I consistently neglect, to my detriment. boo! maybe come winter, I'll catch up on new yorkers and all my contemporaries....

for the moment, I thoroughly enjoy time at Research Club events. I put a link to Nim (the chef) explaining what RC is all about in a previous post. Timing is such that the day after Portland Open Studios is over, he and Dustin who runs Grand Detour (indy film) are flying to Glasgow. then on to Berlin, London, and returning to Scotland. As my friendship with them has grown, and my need for a vacation, I asked to come along, and they said please! so I'm going on the Heavy Meta tour them on Oct 18. press release below. I'm going to see my friend Madeline Stillwell in Berlin. and I am researching potters who work with alternative fuels in these locations... if anyone out there knows any, please let me know.. SO, big exciting break on the horizon. blogging will continue. promise.

Here's the one page pdf of the tour press release

HERE'S THE KICKSTARTER VIDEO THAT DUSTIN PUT TOGETHER.
does everyone know about kickstarter? it's a great way to reach a wide audience of supporters for new projects. The Blue Cranes are going on tour by train in part because of the help they got from their kickstarter..

lots of love- C

I closed the computer, but it's open again

2010-07-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

It is 10 pm on another luscious summer evening, and my friend's birthday. I am not downtown carousing with him and the wily company that he keeps because- I'm being good.. I'm trying, still, to get on my own two feet when it comes to money- why does this matter to me?
even if I were capable of finding a well-paying job in this town doing something I don't love, I'd have a hard time accepting it. so I took a poorly paying job doing something I don't really love.

But it's an important job, for me and for others. It serves the growth of a small arts organization that I believe in, one that has at its core the generosity of spirit that comes with opening a facet of one's intimate creative life in order to educate and facilitate excitement in others. that's huge. it's the mundanety of working with this ether-box that I find so draining. oh, sure, I'm writing sometimes, I'm researching interesting people sometimes, but really, it's an office job. it's not a shitty office job and it's not a jailhouse 9 to 5, but I stare at this plastic screen for hours and days on end, organizing. when I reach a stopping point, the last thing I want to do is work on my website

the time-suck PDXOS job is balanced nicely by teaching a single-credit workshop at a community college once a term. I did the math. I make about twenty-five times as much teaching as I do for Portland Open Studios. Between these two situations plus maybe some income from Art in the Pearl, if I weren't paying a premium for health insurance, I might be able to be independent this year. But I have no time to make pots. But I wouldn't be able to continue the home improvements. and no motorcycle. and no crazy vacations in South Africa for a month. even if it is on Pop's dime- its too much time away from the studio. In short, I am, as usual, straddling, uncomfortably, my ability to access someone else's money, and my privilege- guilt driven desire to be just me. On my own "merit"? someone I love dearly says he wants to "make something of his life" beyond the lucrative but lonely career in which he finds himself. He wants to make a family. I want to make "a living". what an absurd name for the acquisition of money- a living? that's not living. that's making money. I don't want to "make" money- what a waste of time- I want to make pots. which is more useful? you tell me! which, I ask you, is more conducive to living the good life? bah! (and no, I don't want to make babies, though I hope my friend does someday..)

in other news, we had a great firing, number six. the first time that I've felt confident enough about the result to charge for space in the kiln. Mostly Richard's work, but I finally worked the glitches out of an easily reproducible oval plate. and a brand new design for an flared bowl! very very exciting.. someday soon, the website will be up, with images.. I actually have a deadline now, because it's printed in 3500 tour guides for Portland Open Studios, which will be available to the public on July 23rd. eek!

Research Club

2010-05-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, this year.... seems like a scramble of tending to the next highest priority. I let one low-priority item jump to the top of the list last week and restored a rocking chair about three times older than me, but now it's back to dj-ing. I spent the last two days at the Research Club constructing a few white walls suitable for showing art, and now I need to get some more content uploaded to the website. But I wanted to share about RC and include this recording of Nim explaining a bit about the history and future...

2010-05-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

yes, thank you, that was completely lovely

Bill Moyers and Barry Lopez

current events

2010-05-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

are occasionally overwhelming for this little lady with hermetic tendencies. This year I am focussed on connecting as a professional with the wide world of possibility. Portland is full of good food, great ideas, wildly creative people, and no money. That kind of works with my m.o. I'm working towards insinuating my work into cafe settings- and I got into Art in the Pearl, a high-end affair, so we'll see just how much money there isn't on Labor Day weekend.

I spent the first few months of this year in the tumble of a new job, new lovers, new friends, teaching, and making sculpture. My old friend Richard and I filled the Tin Man with our work two weeks ago, and were joined this round by Lauren, a new friend from NYC. Lauren and I have become fast friends, and I hope that she will continue to join us. With the completion (and yes, success) of the firing, I feel more settled, and eager to return to functional work.

In a week or two, I will be ready to present the new website Tim and I have been working on- long-awaited for me... hard to put together a confident website before I have a high-quality "product", as Pop refers to my pots. It was only last year that we got the kiln figured out.

so much- it is exciting! and I am stretched.

political bodymod

2010-03-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

this interview starts interesting and gets better- he ends up talking about one of his other projects in which he hacked a video game created by the us military to illustrate his point.

here's a link to the current event- the server is overloaded at the moment

I'm now PR for Portland Open Studios, this is my first project

2010-03-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Press Release from the city on the wire!

Thank you Careen for all your help on our press release and this one!!

Cheers,
Kindra

	City of	Sam Adams, Mayor E: mayorsam@ci.portland.or.us Twitter: @mayorsamadams www.mayorsamadams.com
	PORTLAND, OREGON
	Office of Mayor Sam Adams

March 1, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Mayor Sam Adams, Portland Arts Community to Celebrate 10 Years of Portland Open Studios

Portland, Ore. -- For two weekends every year, "Portland Open Studios Tour" artists in the Portland metropolitan area open their studios to the public. This Thursday, March 4, Mayor Sam Adams and Portland Open Studios will be hosting a City Hall reception and ceremony to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Portland Open Studios.

"The arts in Portland help define and differentiate Portland as an energetic and creative community," said Mayor Adams. "Helping artists make their work accessible to the public and helping the public understand the value of professional artists benefits us all."

To commemorate the milestone, Mayor Adams will read a proclamation recognizing Portland Open Studios' commitment to providing art education to all members of our community, adults and children alike, and for its dedicated support of local working artists. Portland Open Studios will unveil the organization's 10th Anniversary Purchase Prize gift to the City of Portland.

"In the past 10 years, over 500 artists have participated in Portland Open Studios, sharing the act of art making with thousands of visitors from around the block and across the country," said Kelly Neidig, President of Portland Open Studios. "We could not have remained self-sufficient for ten years without the individuals and business who support us and local artists by buying our Tour Guide and taking the tour. This celebration is for our volunteers, our neighbors and for everyone who has supported us."

Portland Open Studios supports local artists and also provides an art education experience; visitors can watch artists at work in 100 studios around Portland during the second and third weekends in October. In 2009, for the tenth year anniversary, an exciting mentorship program was introduced, connecting art students in the public high schools with participating artists. More than 20 artists on the tour mentored 45 students, giving them an inside view of their studios and business practices. These young apprentices could become the future creative capital of Portland.

"Portland Open Studios was truly a springboard for me as an artist because others took notice of my work that may not have before then," said Chris Haberman, 2008 Portland Open Studios artist. "It helped me get on OPB's Oregon Art Beat and into the next phase of my career."

The City Hall reception also kicks off a special month-long City Hall Exhibition, The 10 x 10 Show, which features works of art by over 80 artists in the 2009 Portland Open Studios tour. The event is free and open to the public. Artwork is for sale with 20 percent going to the Kimberly Gales Scholarship fund for young artists.

Visitors can enjoy music, refreshments, and this rare opportunity to see an array of art by Portland Open Studios' artists. Refreshments are being generously provided by Storyteller Wine, Full Sail Brewing Co, and Artemis Foods. Music entertainment includes Jim Boydston, Daryl Davis, and Steve Remington of Manzanita.

To learn more, contact Pollyanne Birge with the Office of Mayor Adams at 503-823-4182, or visit www.portlandopenstudios.com.

###

mike singing about lions and dragons

2010-02-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

I have to record a few of my neighbor's stories this afternoon, because he was a mercenary in Angola in the late seventies (civil war) and we talked about big cats for a few hours. spring is here- a little early- the plants know best. after teaching in the morning, I change into shorts and rescue a few huge clumps of daffodils from said neighbor's encroaching ivy. A few years ago, a motley crew of middle- aged men moved across the street, replacing some person who had loved the yard enough to trim the rose bushes, shape the cherry tree, and plant a few daffodils that gradually became an explosion of yellow every spring. Now they are obscured by a rotting boat with a shredded tarp, and I intend to rescue some of them.

so, Mike is of Sarmatian blood, and he never lets you forget it- he has a tattoo of the Goddesse with a bow and arrow on his pectoral, and his vision of heaven is a "golden meadow" and no reason for war. He watches the history channel incessantly, or maybe his stories all rush out of him when a friend comes around, but in a tumble that I rarely follow for various reasons. That the sarmatians were the original Amazons I've grasped by now, along with their adherence to the principal that no matter how bad it gets to be the underdog, do NOT fight dirty. his mother was an assassin in the spanish civil war and was taken out by Franco. His wife and he both worked in Africa protecting a zinc mine, dodging machine gun fire and screaming airplanes - she eventually was hit by a drunk here in portland, and he just, oh, he misses her so much.... he went to church on valentine's day and could not stand with her -

Mike told me about cats this time (after telling me a kid's story involving a wounded and generous dragon). He asserts that cheetahs are as dumb as rocks but they make great watch-dogs in the small towns because what you really have to watch out for are the hyenas, and the cheetahs make all sorts of noise when they come around. as watch-dogs, they were not domesticated, but maybe sometimes their cubs would be given a safe place in a closet. but one time, Mom was out chasing an antelope or some large critter, and just as the cheetah (which he says has a special claw that they use as a hook to snag the back leg in a certain way) was about to get it, it made a sharp turn, so the cheetah ran smack into it. antelope goes tumbling, at sixtywhatever miles per hour, catches its horn on something and gets a broken neck. cheetah was discovered with a bloody nose, knocked cold. but she's the mom, and her cubs are in the closet, so she was rescued. but the hyenas had come, so the rescuers ran, with mom, back to the village just in time to close the gate and Mike says one of the hyenas was still running at them and slammed his head into the gate.

that was good, but this one was better: as guards, they have a short list of friend and foe, in a handbook of sorts. one time they had identified foe but were far from shelter. under the trees was a pride of lions. I love this- all about the attitude, they saunter over to the trees, hiding the guns, pretty much acting like they have as much right to be there as anyone else. the lionesses shuffle over, instructing the cubs to make space. The lion, however, grumbles and carries on. The lionesses grumble back at him. Soon afterward, a truck with a mounted machine gun cruises by, never noticing the bipeds among the other beasts.

the one with the dragon was a parable: it is said that dragons do not care to be disturbed, and that they are greedy. But once upon a time, there was a group of friends who came upon a wounded dragon, and they decided to follow their own council and offer their help to the dragon. She accepted, and they carried her in a net to her lair whereupon she offered them as much gold as they could carry, saying that she had no taste for it. But also, she offered them precious stones, which she loved very much. by that point, I was discovering that the daffodils had multiplied so many times that they were a solid clump about a foot wide and sucked down into about a foot of mud (under the ivy and around the rabid butterfly bush). but you know, the day is sweet, the stories are good, there are other garden-lovers who would happily take some-- "did I ever tell you about the griffin!?" so the griffin was a real creature before the time of the sarmations.... something about how the griffin was one of the Goddesses' favorite creatures, so when it came time for them to die, she didn't want to let them go, so she turned them into stone.... fossils.

and I have written this entire post with an impossibly sweet little stray lounging sort of around my left arm as I type- I would take a photo but that would mean I'd have to get up.

thoughts on the TRC and reparations

2010-01-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

my trip ended "on a hot note" as we say in ceramics: a date, lots of dancing, some disappointing dancers, and then a most interesting seatmate on the 16 hour plane ride home. (oh, yes, and then utterly lascivious ladyslippers in a greenhouse in florida not to mention how hot it is in portland at the moment).. by the time I was getting on the plane, I was well into the groove of a travelling state of mind- it takes me some time to adjust away from the comforts of home- though I was delighted to return to it, I could have been equally delighted to do something like Sam is doing now- a few months exploring ZA and neighboring countries by 4x4. this is the Kiwi staff aboard, a most compelling gentleman. a wanderer, for a time, he's about to top eighty sovereign nations explored- this is his blog, and he said he'd be writing again, but who knows-

I'm going to tackle a tricky subject, for me, with the full awareness that I have only scratched the surface of understanding- racial integration in ZA. This is my central question: given that other nations have been the product of centuries of conquest and division, suffered colonization, civil wars, apartheid and held truth and reconciliation commissions, did South Africa manage to get it more right than their neighbors? I absolutely cannot answer this properly, but I can relay my impressions and conversations. My impression is yes, and on pure instinct, I think the reason why is the particular quality of people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Yes, Mandela started out as a terrorist, and Winnie, his wife for a time, came before the TRC for some horrifying abuses- and it's still a mess out there- but something extremely powerful did happen with the TRC. I read Country of my Skull by Antjie Krog, an award-winning reporter who covered the entirety of the TRC. Interspersed with her accounting of the peoples' stories themselves, she references such ideas as the "culture of shame" found in Japan, and how the defeat of the emperor in WWII is the defeat of a people because individual identity is submissive to identity with the leader. One story that particularly struck me was that of Winnie Mandela- she had no apology before the commission. testimony was heard, she was steadfast in its absurdity. Until Tutu, beacon of leadership that he is, stood at the conclusion and simply begged her to apologize. The TRC had no formal clout, it was an independent, mostly nonpartial body fueled completely by its moral authority. Tutu was, in some eyes, demeaning himself by begging her for an empty apology. But the author argues that it was a brilliant move because she did actually apologize, and though they were empty words, the clan power structure of which she was the leader in many ways collapsed when she, by words if not in sentiment, acquiesced. she was, in some ways, dismantling the identities of her clansmen. one example of subtle but important groundshift.

Krog contends that simply by entering the collected truth into the national consciousness, a kind of peace can be made. An admission of guilt on the part of the perpetrators was in many instances as difficult to give as it was for the victims to forgive. But in other instances, despite conflicting versions of the same story, the inherent imperfections of language, the subtle and strange ways that widely different cultures living in such close proximity interpret an event, and the twists in individual psychological composition, great catharsis was achieved by bringing enemies before each other in a forum of respect. My brief perception of Cape Town culture was of great cultural variety and integration at least in public spaces. As anywhere, people self-segregate- that was also evident. I don't know what the proportion of blacks is in the city- in the country it's 80%. In the city, multicultural is the word- muslim, jew, indian, black, british, afrikaner and trendy white all swirled around each other, night and day, though my perspective is limited to daily "safe" wanderings and downtown clubs at night. I did not stroll through the shantytowns where 25% are HIV-pos.

So what of reparations? Germany gave reparations to the Jewish people- Israel was in large measure, created out of the German coffer. (is it gauche to point at Israel's systematic apartheid against Palestine?) In South Africa, there have been no reparations- there was no governing body that organized it, and no money anyway. (there is, intriguingly, a suit in US court currently that would bring international corporations to task for their role in SA apartheid then, with the aim of reparations). In the excellent company of our learned family friends, I heard a joke that clarified one perspective. Tutu was unfortunately misunderstood in a q&a session after a speech he made here in the states. the question was about the gravy train. Wikipedia says the gravy train is a british rock band but originally the gravy train was the train that the parliamentarians travelled on inbetween their summer and winter government houses in Cape Town and Pretoria. Gravy, of course, referred to the whiskey and cigars they all enjoyed en route. In the q&a, someone asked if there were still problems with the proverbial gravy train. Tutu replied that it wasn't a problem anymore, now they all just had their own jets. Which is to say that what happened with the election of the ANC in 1994, the first free elections, a population-proportional representation was elected. But that meant that people were, and are still, elected based on affirmative action and not on merit. The leaders do not know how to lead, they are still operating out of a tribal-based mentality in which prestige is measured in blig- (oh, wait, maybe this is too familiar), so tax money is fundamentally misunderstood to be personal money and spent on such things as -private jets. Moreover, affirmative action measures effectively closed down trade schools because qualified teachers could no longer be hired beyond a certain quota. Education in general suffered mightily- the quality plummeted so steeply that students wishing to enroll in med school were so fundamentally ill-prepared for the coursework that they would fail out. which in turn meant that capable students found that school an undesirable name, and turned aside. Affirmative action has also ensured that small businesses is stymied because beyond a ten(?) employee limit, one must be population-proportional regardless of skills sought (or languages mutually understood, etc.) These are observations through one filter.

Me, Claude, and Noah

Another set of stories from the same visit focused on trying to set up a small fishing business in Mozambique. Claude relayed for us the wearying quantity of bribe money needed to get the proper permits to run a fish boat, as well as a insider's communique of the creepy clarity of Saudi Arabia's systematic anti-western education of the young and impoverished. In a related thread, I enjoyed the conversation of an american gentleman who spent some of his school-years in Saudi Arabia, and he told me of the conniving ways he and his brother experienced when they had won an engineering competition of building a toothpick(?) bridge capable of standing under so many tens of pounds. the next day their names on the placard were replaced by their rivals... he contends that the Saudis will squeeze every penny out of their oil fields regardless of the resources' destructiveness for the next fifty years and fight tooth and nail for power.

intermission for photo of me and Noah battling the skalliwags in their pool-

I digress, but here the thread returns- my seatmate on the plane was a Jewish businessman from Johannesburg (with these lovely shiny shoes...). We also were talking about resources, Africa being so rich in them, and his contention, if I read it right, is that although focused reparations may indeed be a good idea, the general attitude in the African interior is one of "tomorrow, I will do it. or maybe next week. perhaps next year". he happens to find the relaxed life highly attractive and dreams of retiring into it. My question to him was about climate reparations: If the "developed world" financially helped the developing world essentially jump into a whole other kind of sustainable infrastructure, could that particular form of reparation be well-received and effectively implemented? He did not hazard a guess. We talked about the enormous sums it would entail. We agreed that enormous sums are being spent on war. We spoke about valuable work in the world, leadership, ethics, and where revolutions begin (coffeeshops). I wondered how much worse it could get before it gets better, and he reassured me that there will be a second coming. By their calculation, I'll be dead by then (250ish years from now)- too bad, I'm sure it will be exciting.

Meanwhile, uptown: Pop and I were on a mission in wine country and ended up in a cellar.sorry you have to turn your head sideways That wall is a beautiful wooden relief of three monks tasting their wine.

and then kidnapped to Franschhoek Valley where some of the most exclusive wineries are, but on the way, ran into a fire
goodbye with photos of the ocean at Tsitsikamma Park well east of Cape Town- I've never seen Pop's jaw drop before, but it did as we first spied this drama

kirstenbosch gardens

2010-01-03T07:27:00.001-08:00

they are teasing me for disappearing into my cabin for so long to write this, but I have to share just a bit more, for I'm not sure when next it will be easy- I had a wonderful birthday- Sam and I hiked up Table Mountain, wandered around up top, and flew down again, landing in a garden. that's a view from lunch, and below, an idea of what it's like on top of this very unusual mountain- long, skinny, and flat on top, plants all dry and spikey, white rocks, hot wind- reservoirs stained tea- brown with the tannins of so much plant life.
and then we pass from such a craggy tumble to the highly manicured gardens of Kirstenbosch.
this is a place dedicated to indigenous plants of the wide variety of bioregions of South Africa, and it was so peaceful to me when I returned the next day- (on my birthday, I was just too wobbly-tired and trying to keep up with the long-legged Kiwi)
Gina, these photos are for you- you'd have an ecstatic fit in here
I spent the day drawing and writing.

we have also been meeting up with family friends from Florida- the son of which journeyed on the first Argo with Jason as they made their way around the world so many years ago. Claude met his wife Julie on that trip and is now the father of two sweet lively kids, and building a new ship for their next life- long adventures- Pop and i had a lovely long lunch visit with them in their home overlooking Hout Bay.. and we've had other social engagements that have taken the potter with the perpetually shredded nails and dirty mind nineteen floors up to one of the most posh places in town to taste the wine that tempers the tongue and eat the delicacies flown in that morning from who knows what corner of the planet. Before the steel domes over the plates were simultaneously wisked off, I saw my reflection- David de Rothschild came up in conversation- I'm not sure how, but I jumped- he's one of my favorite people, and I immediately saw a way to inject words like "climate change" and "desperate poverty" into the afternoon. slip it in, with excitement, with hope---- dead on arrival.... sigh

holiday mayhem

2010-01-03T03:24:00.000-08:00

Fair to say it's been a proper vacation when I've been doing instead of writing about it- we are lovely in the harbor, nestled in a corner along with other bigger boats of various descriptions- ratty rusty near-ocean fishboats, a two hundred foot chinease fishboat

, or at the moment, a norwegian research vessel. at the opposite side are the tugboats responsable for guiding the heavily loaded cargo ships that moor offshore. The tugs are the musclemen- below is a vid of one temporarily

stern to the dock as someone hops off or is collecting something from the office- we joke that even such a mass of machine can't move that concrete dock- they move with equal facility forwards backwards and any which way- they spin on a dime- Pop says its because they have their propellers in tube-shaped cages down below their center-point that can be pivoted in any direction, much like my wrist-joint, as i imagine. These ones are about ninety feet and we're guessing pack a few thousand horse-power. hot.

on the other side of the pier is a very large boat with an oddly-shaped bow and stern, designed for laying ocean cable.

We rest against a floating dock with a constantly creaking ramp. the dock itself was a favorite of the harbor seals until we bipeds invaded the territory. A standoff was described to us as we arrived: the big male (bob) and his harem were pushed to one end of it and a temporary barricade was constructed: turf. Bob was displeased with the arrangement and moved his coterie after a while, now smaller males compete for the right to lay in the shade and be pestered by chinese sailors shouting HELLO!HELLO!HELLO! at them. I sometimes wake to their honking and snorting. Then there are the various beeps and blasts of ships coming in, going out, going in reverse, the pirate ship tour that looks like it would be more stable upsidedown, the harbor tour boats who point us out, the deep bass of tugs, the distant wail of singing from the marine festival (I think I've heard sweet home alabama seventeen times now), planes, helicopters, police cars... it's never quiet and like living in a city, it all blends in after time. The harbor, though polluted, is far from empty of marine life. Of course there are the hordes of screeching seagulls that sound like something from Hitchcock. Flocks of hook-beaked cormorants swoop down in search of the occasional school of little fish that get trapped in here. Other schools may be chased by dolphins ripping under the surface, and corralled at the other side by the seals that swim in such playful spirals. We've even seen a sunfish on multiple occasions, one of those strange beasts that looks like a boney disk with a dorsal and lower fin- like a fish that got it's rear half bitten off. When the wind picks up, the waves move from gently tapping at the steel drum of the stern to actively smacking it, the rigging begins to rythmically bang against the resonating tube of the masts, whisting around the shrouds and lifting the sunshade tarps into sails until we roll them up again.

New Year's Eve was a night such as this, tending to the tension on the dock lines, delaying the enjoyment of the champagne, anticipating fireworks under the blue moon, which turned into ducking flares set off upwind by some passing jokers. Pop and I are here for the month as the captain and crew take their vacation time on various schedules. Fortunately, we are joined the entire time by the second mate, Sam, and when they were all satisfied that they'd secured the boat to a safe level, he and I ran off in search of parties. It's an unexpected treat to have an occasional partying companion, but after that night and last night, I am beginning to think that perhaps I need a guide for the urban safari as well as the wilderness one. Pop and I muse on the veneer of civility that covers the modern human animal. Partying sometimes brings this into stark relief- we ended up at someone's house in a rich neighborhood, strewn with liquor bottles and fashionable people. His comment was that it reminded him of high school and we left as soon as his question had been answered.

But they celebrate new year's twice around here! the second of the year is the day when historically, the slaves had their one day off. They took to walking through the streets in a procession of minstrels, banners, song and dance. Today it is organized into brass bands, a raucous surging energy that taps the African love of rythmn and dance. Each group is in their own polyester suits, from the older men to the little kids, and the colors are out of control- Often the little kids came along first, perhaps with a full feathered hat and baton, and dancing, always dancing- faces and bald heads painted in swirls and ribbons, then the full band, always playing something with great surging rhythm, and then a huge group behind them of people waving parasols. Invariably there were the stragglers- still dancing, blowing whistles, waving arms- frequently I got goose-bumps as their song blew into it's full volume and everyone erupted into movement. Especially in amongst the others were a few young people who were specially designated at dancers- those who roused the crowd with running flips, wild gestures, flapping tongues and wide eyes, a fay strip-tease style dancer, boys naturally moving as they would have centuries ago, now with rainbow mohawk wigs... and there were the ancestor-demons with rubber halloween masks and wooden axes that jumped up on the wire railings that kept the crowd on the sidewalk, frightening the kids as they pretended to steal their souls- the funniest moment occurred when a little boy ran away from one of these, into the arms of his mother who promptly, playfully, flicked off the demon. the little boy mimicked his mother and everyone burst out laughing...

Travel is always a mixed bag- it is bittersweet to me whose desires run deep- I wanted to follow the parade to where I knew they were going, move with them- these beats are the same as my canned electronica, but the energy was internal and palpable and not maintained by annoying laser noises and squealing women: the beats are the same as the plains indian sun dance, soaked in the spirit released by trance and ritual wounding. Something in me stirs when I am confronted by energy in this form, and I made a plan to rejoin the people that evening at the stadium when I learned they would be dancing all night. But I am in a foreign land and confirmation is not confirmation, and the veneer of civility is particularly thin in some places: I was a woman alone last night, wandering through places where white people are stabbed then robbed, and when I got the the party, it had moved- I was heartbroken. here I am in the center of the river, and even then I somehow get stuck on some rock- how? invariably i blame myself- what intuition is off? why does fate move in these ways? Pop quotes Einstein: "is the universe belevolent or malevolent?" if you accept the question to begin with, one can only accept what is as right and necessary. I lost the thread, so my imagination extends forward into evening- staid grandmothers shuffling with the littlest kids, portly fathers and their exhausted wives, girlfriends hanging on each other preening for the circles of boys in a metaphorical cockfight, their shiney band suits, elaborate metallic face paintings and clown wigs in various states of disarray, everyone and me dancing in the exuberance of the unvarnished spirit.

Kirstenbosch gardens-

road trip in ZA, day 4

2009-12-24T00:41:00.000-08:00

Day four of our road trip began in the Addo elephant park, at first light- it's a rare day that i'm awake before Pop, but when he joined me, he brought tea in last night's wine glasses. In the meantime, I drew an aloe plant and enjoyed the bird symphony. I am no ornithologist, so I identify them my way: kazoo-bird, jewish mother-in-law bird, dove, finch, clown-trumpet bird, whoot-whoot bird, etc. Just before we were to check out, a group of elephants came down to the watering hole around which the huts had been built, and the kids started playing....

Soon enough we were driving through the park again. And again, we had a close encounter with a family of elephants. Down at one of the watering holes where lions had been spotted the day before, was a group of elephants. Except this time, Pop took the pictures because I wanted to have as unmediated of an experience as possible. (I don't love taking photos, it's just not my medium). The day before, we had been nervous to be so closely approached. This time, I was all calm as Mama and young ones slowly walked towards us.

I had not noticed before that they're walking on their tip-toes, really, and the pad of their foot is soft at the very bottom- it goes convex when they lift the foot. Elephants dance- we saw them that morning- a jelly-leather funk, heads nodding, rump-a-shakin'... ... but the family that walked so close to us again was simply walking and in the walk was a slowing of time.

We drove on washboard roads for a while through the rust and sage-colored lands towards the Shamwari Game Reserve. This is a private reserve that contains within it five of the seven natural ecosystems of south africa. The reserve is explored by safari tours from the five lodges where visitors stay. I don't know what the other ones were like but ours was SHI-SHI! wow.. when pop was researching this whole trip, he looked at the numbers and converted the currencies, making a math error in the price by a factor of ten. A few emails back and forth with me and the reservation people and he ended up with a price a mere fraction of normal, and then we got upgraded somehow, so we ended up at this place called eagle's crag (which is semi-ironic because the eagles moved around the corner because the lodge's noise bothers them). It was over the top, really, a royal treatment- a spa, conference area, bar/lounge and full dining area all for six rooms- the kind of place where they greet you at the door with a champagne flute of lemonade and have a folded bathrobe on your bed with a very yummy nougat on the table. It all kind of made me uncomfortable, and i took to going around barefoot. I mean, talk about inequality- I think we were there on the friday the Obama addressed the delegates at Copenhagen and said hey, I know what's going on, and I'm going to let it happen. Amy's in the Bella of the Beast and I'm the white girl on the exclusive safari. I don't know how to juggle these things but there's only one reason why we were there- because we're here in Cape Town for a month living cheaply on a boat in the harbor and this was our one chance to hope to see the strange and beautiful beasts happily trotting through their home. I gave my ants a rest and ate their nougat.

This place never promises, but all the guides are coordinating with each other, and I think there's some kind of nerve center, so the chances are high. Between two four-hour safaris, sleeping and eating (like royalty), I actually didn't have time to shower until we were almost gone. Our guide Antoinette showed us the solitary black rhino with his pointy lips picking at the succulent branches,

a family of white rhino

, giraffes and lounging cheetahs

and the big male lion (Pop's comment was that his territorial call, which he is making in the photo, started off sounding like indigestion)

and impalas

and blesbok and springbok and zebras

and a sqirrely little duiker. Our jeep companions the first evening had witnessesed a "tennis match" the day before, when the mother cheetah and her young ones (about 1 1/2 year old ) had been hunting. But the young ones were far too eager and had started running after their dinner at a time that dinner was far enough away that it could outrun the cheetah's sprint. So back and forth across the broad plains they had gone, the boys chasing the herd, mom doing her best with the situation, everyone resting as the jeep bumped along trying to track everything, and repeat. Eventually they stopped the jeep and had a g&t instead of chasing everyone around, and watched from the middle. No dinner was caught that evening. In the morning, they caught something small- their bellies not full but not as thin when we saw them lounging in the evening.

Our companions did not join us at dawn the next morning. We set off into the wilds, found the male cheetah having just caught a baby something. He was breathing hard, recovering and as yet unable to eat.

With the smell of blood on the air, he is at his most vulnerable (hyenas, lions), and was keeping a very watchful eye. He had just begun to eat when we needed to leave (there is a guideline that not more than two jeeps be present at a location), but of course we were all amazed to even be able to be there in the first place anyway, so it's not like we were disappointed. We went off in search of the female and her cubs, returning to the place we had found them snoozy the evening before. (and on the way, we saw a big white rhino following the scent of a lady,

and a secretary bird, which Mom particularly likes- in the eagle family, but hunts by foot).

The cats weren't there, and there was a moment of sadness. But I borrowed Antoinette's binoculars and scanned around from where they had been to who knows were- and lo! off at the far edge of the field, looking much like a dead tree, were three cats sitting close together! Soon they moved on, and there begun our bumpy chase scene. there are roads that we mostly stick to- every now and then the guide will drive a jeep over a clump of low bushes, to get the best view of something but for the most part, we stick to roads. so we criss-crossed their path, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind them, and working together- Pop and I kept track of their motion as Antoinette managed her part- the gorgeous gatos strode, hopped and trotted among the bushes- so unbelievably graceful.

We lost them for a bit, but I found them again, peering out over the field. Then they moved forward again to a place that wasn't particularly protected but the few jumpy creatures in the field didn't see them, and there we all watched and waited. This is the part where I was most struck by how odd it was to be so close to them- that we could be literally fifteen feet from these amazing creatures and they just completely ignore us- I don't get it- we're this big rattly long-bed jeep and three cats hunting just don't care.... crazy. anyway, the two boys, one bigger and more dominant, stared off in one direction. Mom was focussed in a different direction. From our vantage point, I couldn't see quite what any of them were looking at, since no four-legged lunch target seemed to be anywhere close. off on the opposite hill were some zebras (too big for cheetahs), and there was a distant springbok. In with the zebras were impalas, so maybe that's what the boys were paying attention to. Antoinette noted to us that it seemed like a mostly impossible situation so far, and that's right about the time that the bigger boy took off. Mom loped after him, the humans, and she too, presumably, let out a sigh, and the smaller boy just stayed where he was, not moving at all. Not even vaguely paying attention.

As you might imagine, the rest happened pretty fast- Antoinette moved the jeep a bit so that we could see the rest of the field where they'd run to and then directed me with the binoculars to the movements out there- I found one cheetah moving, and a group of zebras and some fleisbok. It was Mom, I was pretty sure, since she has a radio collar that I could barely see. And she was moving all right, but then she was flying- everything behind her in the binoculars was a complete blur, even the zebras were kind of a blurry (I mean, I know that's the point, but..) and she was incredible- and then, POF, dust, and a little cream and white thing kicking. Antoinette said "brilliant!", and took off to where she was. Mom caught a baby fleisbok- apparently what had happened was that the boy had chased the mess of them into the corner of the field and they had made kind of a u-turn right about the time that Mom was coming along, not expecting success. Mom wasn't able to get any of the bigger animals, but in the mayhem that her son had created, a baby had gotten left behind, and she picked him off. We bipeds in the metal cage had just been lucky enough to watch. unbelievable. I still shake my head in amazement.

So we arrive at the scene, and Mom is doing as she does, suffocating the little one, and when she's done, calls to her sons, a high-pitched but very quiet tone. The bigger boy comes, and- HA, claims the kill as his own, taking it by the throat and walking off with it. The smaller son comes along, and I guess Mom just decided to get over her exhaustion quickly at the risk of going hungry because the boys sure didn't wait for her, and they all tucked in to the small meal pretty quickly. Hind quarters first. We were so close that we could hear the snapping of tendons and the whining of the competition amongst them for a fair share.

Antoinette called the other rangers with our whereabouts and as the second approached, we drove off slowly, passing through leopard territory (figured we might as well see just how strong this lucky streak was!) on our way to our own breakfast. She told us about the acacia trees- I had asked her earlier about symbiotic relationships and she told me about wasps that lay eggs in the acacia thorns, and the way that if one acacia is being eaten (since they are very high in nutrients, so a prize food), it will broadcast a pheromone that other trees pick up, all of them turning bitter as self-defense. fascinating...

warthogs and oliphants

2009-12-21T04:46:00.000-08:00

Thick fog has erased Cape Town this morning, and my mind drifts back to our recent adventures- may I begin with the soundtrack: O! Fortuna!- with the full chorus and kettle drums- some of what Pop and I just experienced was so amazing that a person thinks- is this some kind of setup?

We wanted to explore the shore and see what we could of the fabled wildlife. Addo Elephant Park is top on the list, with a herd of some 500 wild elephants that roam around a preserved parcel of land along with lions and jackals and all the little jumpy critters you see on TV. The park is huge, and they're trying to make a corridor to the sea (good luck, there's an interstate in the way). Most visitors drive themselves in an area about 400 square kilometers, the vast majority is 4x4 territory.

We start driving around and immediately come upon a young bull, female, and calf, relatively close, crossing the road. Cool! We watch them for a while, and Pop is content already as we move on. We see other creatures- turtles, warthogs with their mohawk hackles, a distant ostrich, some jackals- just cruising along, and then we come upon a few cars stopped on the road, two side by side, even, and a group of elephants somewhat close. Pop goes around the cars and stops 15' beyond. From there we watch. Grazing, snuffling, scooching around each other is a group of perhaps 20, including a huge bull and lots of babies, maybe 80' from us. Delighted, I use Pop's good camera also for its telephoto to see what I cannot approach. After ten minutes or so have passed, the elephants move towards us, slowly at first, grazing still, their noodle-noses picking among the acacia branches.

But then the bull starts moving a little more quickly, walking down the hill towards us in our tiny car. "oh boy" says pop in a nervous tone. Ambling along, the bull comes about three feet from me as the telephoto lense suddenly becomes absurd, his eye appraises my tiny face and I squeak a tiny greeting.

Mama and babies follow, passing us now, more than we had seen- quickly I count about 30 adult elephants as they shamble off into the scrub, with about eight little ones. Pop and I just sat there in shock. and then started texting excitedly with Mam and Jason.

That was day three. Four was even more awesome, and then five was off the bleeping hook. Meanwhile there are candlelight vigils all over the globe to send messages to the men in charge to create a fair, ambitious and binding treaty to combat climate change, and what happens? the US, once again! throws a wrench in the negotiations. oh, we'll just buy our way into the planet's good graces, hm? that's the answer! The collateral damage to the planet and her people cannot be paid for in worthless greenback, you greedy cretins. I am sick about the whole situation, disgusted by our administration's proposal, horrified to know that my country is leading the way to HELL. when, and how, can we overthrow this plutocracy? my fingers curl and my jaw clenches as I sit aboard this lovely schoolship, house of independant thinking and education about the sea, forum of personal growth and expanded vision through travel- and I sit in the harbor of a country that has experienced such horrible inequity, attempted to bring it to rights and somewhat succeeded. I'm reading Country of My Skull right now, written by a journalist who covered the whole Truth and Reconciliation process- intense doesn't begin to describe it. Twisted. highly recommended to anyone with an abiding interest in cultural psychology.

this little dude, by the way, is the rare african dung beetle. he rolls up a little roll of dung and pushes it with his hind legs as a gift for his mate. they copulate while feeding on the roll, and then lay the eggs in it. sexy, hm? (CAUTION: to next part is not suitable for minors) I remember when I was researching Japan last year, I ran into an odd fetish- word has it that there is a high-end club in Tokyo in which (hopefully just a part of) the evening's entertainment and meal is provided by a young lady who has been eating nothing but bananas for a week. She relieves herself on glass plate and it is passed around to the eager patrons. even if this isn't true, I remain fascinated by how the human species simultaneously could create this 20 oz computer I am typing on and fetishize the consumption of our own excrement. The dung beetle metabolizes the partially digested plant material, retuning the nutrients to the soil while creating more of its kind. What is the Japanese businessman doing?

I'm in South Africa

2009-12-21T00:33:00.000-08:00

first light of day 3 finds me on the porch of our round thatched hut looking up at the southern cross and Orion turning cartwheels in the sky. the light approaches as slowly as it faded last night- our proximity to the pole turns the ecliptic into an oval from our ant-sized perspective. Within two hours of arrival, I had gone from blue-ish to pink, and my head almost hurts as I breathe in the dry white light.

with staff aboard Argo, Pop and I are free to explore the coast for a few days, so we take off early one morning and head east from Cape Town. even on the interstate, junction points become bus stops. Over a pass and deep into quiet fields, a man is pushing his shopping cart up a hill in the slow lane. we don't ask why, we wonder how he steers on the downhill. By lunchtime we are at "the Heads" of Kynsna, eating seafood. the Heads is a natural passage between the sea and a large brackish lake- we watch a small sailboat come in, quickly between her full sail and the green water surging inland. after lunch we wander out to the point. The land is craggy and orange, clusters of black mussels cling to the rocks just at that tide line where the sea so constantly throbs. the rocks rip the sea into a white foam that settles into a filigree of lace laid over her aqua fingers. I hear my ex-lover's rumbling and snapping guitar.

That night we find a guesthouse by the beach at Jeffrey's Bay. Under the influence of three days of airplane naps and now with the ocean 100 meters away, I sleep as if in a womb. I sleep in the sea, I wake in the sea, and in the morning, I am romping among the rocks finding treasures. A black rock juts up in patches, creating the points of the bay that shape world-famous surf-breaks. The uppermost surfaces are eaten by the blowing sand and biting salt. closer to the tide live the limpets and barnacles. Then there are the smooth polished places that my feet love, below the low tides, the soft corals, seaweeds and fishies, and encircling it all, the sands and that are flipped and crushed to make them- iridescent oyster shells, pink and purple and sunyellow shells, and I, a little girl with my Pop.

EPA ruling

2009-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

So the EPA ruled that CO2 and methane are toxic, allowing the administration to regulate emissions without Congressional input. AWESOME. It sounds like the judicial branch lit a fire under them to get it done. the Mayor of Denver and the director of Greenpeace respond here. Within the discussion is an excellent reference to Lincoln's comments about public sentiment, as well as a much more mature picture of Obama's situation than I seem to be able to piece together... we're learning. thank you Amy! Democracy Now is the only daily global radio and tv broadcast covering the summit in Copenhagen.

war president

2009-12-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

Hi- my computer is having major issues, but I just have to sound off from someone else's box - more war, hm? more of the same when what we so desperately need is a major overhaul- I am wearing black today. I thought he was a student of history! I thought he was going to cut through bullshit! so much for the O rising in a new dawn- it's a sunset, this is the end of an empire, plant your garden, dear ones, because this war is coming home for the holidays.

In personal news, I'm great, other than the obvious. this year has been intense and wonderful- four great firings in two kilns, friends new and known, major garden work, more construction projects, body starting to have issues, and ongoing internal work. I had wanted to get a new website up and running by the end of the year but things fall apart. I'm looking forward to next year.

on the 11th, I fly to Florida for a day and then on to Cape Town harbor for a month. I'll be relaxing aboard the Argo with Pop as we "babysit" her inbetween her time serving as a schoolship for SeaMester. As yet, we're not sure what sort of maintenance or repairs she might need in that time- it is possible that we'll spend a fair amount of time in the industrial districts. Or she might be in fine shape, and we spend a fair amount of time exploring wine country. Either one sounds great to me! Pop is great to travel with- adventurous, not rigid, food hedonist, and well-heeled but downtempo about it. I've made a new journal, and I will post here of our adventures if I have easy access to the web. Hopefully with photos..

Here in Portland, the sun is shining and we have a few days of not very cold yet to go. I will likely be refinishing a friend's fir floor. Hope everyone is well-

C

Michelle on Sesame Street

2009-11-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

Look look! perfect!, and this on the day that I put my letter in the mail.

an today's Democracy Now hit particularly hard : a film about poverty hailed as was "an inconvenient truth",

and then the author of "confessions of an economic hitman" John Perkins on the structure that deepens that poverty

my letter to the president

2009-11-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

I moved almost all the rest of the horse shit today, fueled by wild rice cooked in orange juice, acorn squash from my mechanic, and yogurt on top. um, yea, and a little spiked truffle.. ..mmmm

about this activated charcoal business: all very new to me. but my friend is all nuts about its potential, and I'm paying attention - there are these material technologies that seem particularly applicable to a sustainable lifestyle economy- activated charcoal seems to be one of them, particularly for carbon sequestration. check out Richard's blog post about it. and here's the wikipedia on biochar. he had made some as artpieces, Japan-o-phile that he is, and I got to crush it up and add it into the soil as I was moving it to the bed. about a square foot of charcoal went into this bed, which is probably way too little.

and I was annoyed this morning, Clinton sidling up to Israel again and condemning the goldstone report, Obama discouraging me from expecting meaningful negotiations in Copenhagen. Bullshit. If not now, when? the time is now! NOW!! now for single payer, now for climate action, now for the end of war profiteering, NOW, NOW, NOW, FUCKING NOW!!! because if not, there will be no tomorrow.... I feel abandoned.

Dear Sir-

I write to you from the cold attic of my carriage house, two candles over there, dirt under painted nails here, as I have been out in the garden all day. You have a slow and steady way, and I do yet believe that you will manage to wash some sins of past administrations. I struggle with many of your decisions, aware that you balance daily a multitude of pressures and global needs. I do not agree with many of the positions you steadfastly hold, so sometimes I despair. Until I remember your wife. I look forward to the day when the news coverage of your organic garden extends beyond her fashion sense and gives greater weight to her statements about the sensible economics of your little victory garden. Could she speak a bit more about the way a body feels after a day in the garden? Tired but satisfied, with oxygen in the blood and the brain. Cheap health insurance. Perhaps I should write to her...

But I write you because you have the voice. May I introduce myself? I am a “maker of things”, a potter; I glowed to the praise of your inauguration speech. I am a young woman with a mind made keen by travel and high-quality education, a body made hard by labor. I have strong ethics about my consumption of energy, so when it came time to establish my own studio, I designed and built an innovative kiln that fires with wood and waste vegetable oil. I fire functional porcelaineous service-ware to 2300 degrees F in a kiln that is completely carbon-neutral. I am part of the scattered army of green entrepreneurs just dying to break into this supposed new paradigm of ethical consumption, and I clarified my position in an interview with the radio broadcast Speaking of Faith.

I have been trying to dance on the grave of bloated big business but it just won't die! Here's what I'm thinking- I'm not against capitalism, I'm against exploitation. Fair business practice without abuse of power is a must in ethical society. America has lost its moral standing? Well, we should quit being complicit in the abuse of other nations' people and resources (not to mention our own). The more effectively we can keep our sights on the acquisition of the materials, their construction and sale, the more accountable the business in question can be to the community it creates. In other words, make local, buy local. Or at least national. But it's a big nation, these United States. The wheels of change turn so excruciatingly slowly. Perhaps it is this that you encountered more forcefully upon ascending to the high office in which you are now find yourself. Congress is mostly in the pocket of lobbyists, seems to me. It is so painful to watch.

What can you do? You can risk it all. Everything it took to get you to where you are now. Mary Oliver says “Tell me, what is it you plan to do? / With your one wild and precious life?” (the summer day). I feel a great pressure in the world, but not nearly enough. We are teetering on the edge of calamitous climate change. Everyone is looking at America. You know it- they are looking at you. Well, you and India and China. But, You. And Me. Little me, with no voice, no press, no gilt-edged fingernails. I have nothing to lose by giving the finger to big oil. You, well, I'm not sure what you have to lose either, quite honestly. We all die someday- you could go down in history as the president who, in a time of great crisis, gave dirty money the finger and told the truth: we are running out of oil and there is no such thing as clean coal. Harness the tides, implement bio-char, rip up the lawn. Oh, it would be marvelous! Of course, the press would roast you. Ah, but the people would hear you again!- you could just say it over and over- fair, ambitious, and binding. Explain why it is crucial, you know the facts. Fair, Ambitious and Binding. All the way to one of my favorite countries where the sun shines at midnight and the bike lanes are ten feet wide. Will you? Will you help clear the rubble and let us build a sane, ethical and accountable future? What will you do with your one wild and gifted life?

With love almost always-

(and give Michelle a hug from me)

Careen Stoll

I'm feeling kind of iffy about telling the president to tell energy conglomerates to fuck off. I can pick softer language, or I can say "throw off the puppet strings", but what do you think? there's a big difference between expressin rage and acting autonomously, and I'm not trying to come down in favor of rage.

350

2009-10-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

please write your president.
350.org

this is the shit

2009-10-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

horse shit! after it's been used to grow mushrooms, and then mixed 1:1 with composted yard waste. seven cubic yards of it delivered in the driveway. .
I have no delusions,( well, maybe a few) about the possibility of farming under fir trees. But with a lot of soil amendment, maybe I can get a good herb garden going in the sunniest spots. I was scanning plants on Craig's list and found this group buy organized for those interested in permaculture.
I think Obama is brilliant, but I am struggling with many of his decisions. it is a vulnerable world. let's face it, guns are not protecting us from the possibility of death. it is blood for national insecurity, blood for an oil economy on life support. I'm looking at the first lady's victory garden and hoping that her husband's slow and steady ways will catch up. and with the money that I earned from the open studio tour, I'm getting that bike fixed once and for all! as if to drive the point home, my mechanic constantly brings me the seasonal harvest- this time it was fifteen pounds of beautiful butternut squash. (I gave him a large pot for his garden)

directly related, THE YES MEN STRIKE AGAIN!

The studio tour was very pleasant. I was open both weekends again, which allowed for a small stream of visitors. I could have good conversations with almost everyone, around the kiln or the wheel as I or others worked there. I enjoyed a small tornado the morning of the first day with large quantities of seconds at four dollars a pound growing legs. Also sold a nice collection of my best large work, putting the wind in my sails... the days were full of green-builders, fellow makers, friends and sundry redheads... really nice, with a great birthday party in amongst it all...

The photo lightbox is still hanging from the ceiling. It works great- I'll write a post about its design and include results. My problem of the moment is that either my camera isn't really focussing or it isn't translating into the computer properly. I suspect the latter because Richard took some photos on my camera and they look much more in focus on his computer.. riddle me that.

I'll be teaching a one-credit course this weekend and next, "Pots for the Table". three intensive days of making, returning a few days later to glaze and on that day, I will show a slide presentation of different firing methods and results. The college has asked me to teach the course again in february, so if you're interested, it's at Clackamas Community College. all ages and skill levels welcome. cone 6: really good glazes that Richard has worked hard to refine.

He also shared this delight with me...

.

fourth firing notes

2009-09-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

The fourth firing was blessedly free of major mishap. we might have missed a thorough body reduction in some areas of the kiln, we had a trouble spot as we made the transition to oil, and one of the crew fell suddenly ill, but other than that, I think it is fair to say that the Tin Man and I are in good communication. lovely!

Loading:
back stack. again trying to make the front as dense as possible and the back gradually looser. for this firing, I was not convinced that we would all bring enough pots, so packed in some flowerpots on the layer the second up. I used these as saggars to experiment with some localized smoking of celadons- Richard had left me some salt-soaked driftwood, so some celadon bowls are loaded under the flowerpots with the wood. there is in this firing a crescent-shaped gap running along the place where the wall meets the roof, where the best I could do is have a little line of cups and bowls tumble-stacked onto a tall bottle loaded on its side. there are three of these bottles, all of them greenware. can you find the potter's mistake? hint- it's a tumble stack. see that small shelf off to the upper left? one half of that is on a post, one half is on some bottles... it's all nice an flat in the picture, right? I anticipated the shrinkage of the bottles as I put that shelf in, but two days later after the whole kiln was loaded, I reached my arm in a spyhole and lifted the far edge of that shelf and put a taller wad onto that bottle you see there so that the shelf was pre-tilted away from the direction of shrinkage and hence lessening the chance that the large bowl loaded upsidedown would slide off the shelf as its foundation shifted. good thig too, because during the firing, I was watching the shelf gradually flatten, gradually tilt towards the wall...

and i forgot to snap a shot of the front stack, it is just a regular stack of small pots and plates, but off to the far right are two very tall bottles. so the load was more dense to the left side by far, from both the front and back stacks. as I think back on the firing itself, I think this is responsible for the way the different burners operated. the left side of the kiln was more turbulent in general, which backed up all the way to the flame leaving the burner.

this photo is looking down at the firebox opening and the bottom shelf. more specifically, it is a photo of what I'm calling a bag wall- a short wall of bricks that block the most direct path of the flame from the firebox to the holes in the floor that lead to the chimney. this wall with the roll of wadding on top is solid in the front stack ( and open at the part of the shelf facing the door). it is perforated at the back stack- with half inch gaps between quarter posts. I post the shelves regularly- the shelf does not rest on this "bag wall"

Candle and slow rise:

started at 11 am saturday in one bourry box and the base of the chimney. at about five pm was a six hour candle and the kiln seemed to be dry. increased at 75 an hour after that. the intention was to burn large chunks of wood, getting the next one warmed on the grates as the previous was about half-done underneath the grate. as the temp increased, it became clear that it was also very helpful to have an occasional super-charge of cedar in there to help "catch" the log that may be a little too dense or have too little surface area to carry on it's own really well. I also opened some more primary air in the bottom which was very helpful too. (I should note that these boxes, despite my hopes, do not function as a bourry box really should- perhaps it is the low temperature at which we use them, but the kiln does not "pull" the air from the top of the box, through the wood and over the top of the coals- the primary air is at the floor, and the hole in the top of the box is a chimney that we keep closed) (unless we're just making pizza, not firing a kiln) . we stopped using the front boxes at about eleven hundred, at which point they were sort of maxed out anyway, pushed the coals into the center of the firebox and closed the damper behind them.

Transition to wood and waste oil:

was a little iffy for a moment. I think what happened is that I had the air open so much that I burned off the coals before the whole area was warm enough to ignite the fry oil. we tried stoking the big chunks of 3x3 oak like last time, but they just rolled down the bed of coals and got in the way. so then we switched to smaller pieces of fir and then little bits of cedar, but after an initial jump of temperature (burning off coals), we had a steady slow drop (Pop reading the pyrometer like a death toll). I finally consulted the previous log and discovered that the air had been at about 1/4 to 1/5, stoking chunks of oak, so we went with that and had steady success. so! next time: air 1/4, oil 1 and a half, maybe push some of the coals into the kiln early, to warm the area, and then rebuild them in the box, to be pushed in again. perhaps do that and also don't try to do everything at once- just push in the coals and stoke wood on top of them to build a pile of wood in various stages of burn with a mild amount of blown air before adding the fry oil.... I like that idea..

also worth nothing: as I designed this kiln, I had originally intended to push in the coals and then push in a triangular target brick to force the flame into a nice smooth curve into the kiln. well, such a target brick would quickly get glued to the firebox by ash, as does the damper that I slide into place after we're done with the front boxes. but in this case, it gets glued by ash dripping off the floor above it- major issue, poor design. perhaps I could bevel the edge of that floor so that the melting ash drips to behind it

I will take responsibility for nervousness that led to quickly establishing what turned out to be two hundred degrees an hour gain. of course this is dangerous, and we gradually scaled back. In an effort to make completely sure that we had indeed gotten over the trouble spot, I kept tweaking things to increase both air and oil. scaling back brought us near the original settings to oil 1 1/2, air at 1/3 open, stoking large chunks of oak every, ah, there are no notes on this- seven? minutes, then letting the kiln chew on it for a bit, then resuming.

Body Reduction:

I will also take responsibility for totally forgetting to check the cones- 1400 snuck up on me, and by 1475 we had cone012 down or soft in most places. 08 was down in the hottest spot. fortunately I had noticed a heavier reduction starting naturally prior to checking those cones, so I am somewhat consoled. of course we immediately made the changes to put the kiln into a reliable reduction and continued as such for the next four hours. four hours is because the kiln is actually rather large inside, and the difference between front and back take some time to even out. in the third firing, we were going with the idea that one hour or 08 to 04 is a sufficient body reduction, but the short of it is that we had some pale pots in the back, so that obviously didn't work completely well. so, Tim and Jack took the kiln through this stage and well into cone 7. it looks like they began alternating which side to stoke, continuing with the dense wood, and averaged an easy 100 degrees an hour. Tim's note at 5pm/ 1800/ cone 1 to 04 is that he closed the passives (I had opened 2/3 of them), and that the kiln seemed to be running rich.

Climb:

"running rich, not climbing" writes Tim, and closes all passives aside from the one that marks the opening to the active damper and the place where we let extra oxygen into the chimney to reduce its smoke. Tim turns up the air to 3/4, left the oil at 2. saw that the flame was reaching about four feet up the chimney (one small passive out), and started treating it like a wood kiln, which it sort of is. namely, watching the flame in that "blow-hole" disappear and stoking both sides now a few(?) minutes after the flame draws back into the kiln. he noted that the coal bed looks better with this treatment. two hours later he increased the air to full, coal bed still healthy. also closed half of the bottom of the chimney opening. soon after that, he increased the oil to 2.5, in the range of cone 1 to 4, and began alternating sides again.

Glaze reduction:

by about ten pm/ 2170/ soft cone 7 in the hot spots, it looks like he tried to amp up the oil to 3 but it didn't work, and opted for a little active and passive damper and a little less air (2/3). this seemed to be successful, and after I'd helped out my Pop get some medicine, we began stoking boards wrapped up with gail nichols mix of soda every other stoke. about half of the soda went in at this point (cone 9ish). I opted to stop for a time until we had cone ten down in many places since eleven is the target cone, and then there's the soak after that..

Soda:

at 2210, I opened the air a bit to get a little more rise and drop some tens ( 2 1/2, air 3/4), and soon after, plugged 3/4 of the passives, to try to move as much of the flame to the back, for even cones. cone 8 is down in the coldest spot (right back, nine is a third in its left equivalent). other than that, we have tens a third in the hottest parts of the kiln (upper forward). thirty degrees later I resume adding soda and put settings for a mild soak (oil 2, air 2/3, active damper 2 inches in). one hour later, I have finished with the soda, and am alternating oak chunks enough to keep what I hope is sufficient reduction, every threeish minutes.

Soak:

at 2;30, we are hovering at about 2250 with the air at 1/3, oil at 2, alternating the stoking, and there are really not coals. the oak burns completely, and the air wisks the ash onto the pots. the left burner has massive clinkers obstructing (?) it's flame path- if not obstructing, at least severely redirecting. I am taking my trusty flatbar and doing my best to smash them out of the way but it seems like it's a lot easier to smack them completely off the walls of the channel once they get huge rather than shave them down as they build, if I can get the right angle on them in such a restricted space. I am confounded by how effective the burner is with such a jungle gym to bounce through. the right side is nearly clear of them. why? is it the loading? is it the way I beveled the edge of the burner block? mystery.

Hot note:

at 4;30, 2270ish (two hour soak), I make settings for a hot note- oil 3, air full, passives in. tens are almost down in the coldest back, and 12s soft in the hottest places. at these settings, and alternating a frequent stoke, it takes about a half hour to bring the kiln to 2320 with cones 11 at about a third in the back, twelves at about a third in the front. LOVE IT

Reduce Cool.

ya, you're not done yet. Pop, who rebounded remarkably quickly, came to join me at the wee hours of the lovely night, marvel at the glowing Tin Man, and be my scribe for cone readings. but I dispatched him to bed again, since I knew I would collapse in a few hours and need his or someone's help for real. I chinked up the kiln at about 5 and began reduce cooling, stoking alternately into the floor and the fireboxes. Since I have liner glazes (mostly gail's red shino), I do not want to reduce too hard, and practice the Simon Levin method which he calls downfire: reduce, reoxidize, repeat. kind of a mellow reduce cool- I remember the "sparkleplenty" pots that he made for a firing or two in his little cat kiln by reduce cooling "proper", and many examples of scum and crust at Utah- no thanks- for this firing, I basically waited many minutes after any wisps of smoke had gone before stoking mildly again. certainly no belching smoke higher than 2000.

as i chinked up the kiln, it became clear to me just how much oxygen was coming in the fireboxes, so I abandoned stoking into that space, chinked the spy, and stayed with the floor only. we'll see how effective it is. I was hoping to find a great little indicator down low in the door but had to settle for reading a place where the chamber meets the chimney- also low. my hope is that since much of the wood was towards the front of the kiln, and the indicator, low and towards the back, that it shows an effectively distributed flame. trouble is that this way, I'm stoking right below openings in the floor that are closed, so I'm not sure quite how to -- maybe make a trick brick again, just for reduce cooling.- pushing aside a k-wool covering over the front holes..

Pop took over in the daylight part of morning, I fell asleep in the bathtub and then got a chicken from my buddies at Diggin Roots Farm roasting in one of the pizza ovens, Allison came over, we opened some champagne, made some smashing good pizzas, holy cats, I was in heaven. of course it could all look terrible in there, but just to have another successful firing lightens my step...

at the end of that day, monday, Pop remarked that it was probably a really bad idea to leave those burners in place, surrounded as they were by radiating heat but now without the cooling influence of air passing through them- (the electric motor has a varnish around each copper strand- should it melt, it would short the whole thing out) and sure enough, I removed them but had a tiny heart attack (again) when we plugged one in elsewhere and it ran really irregularly. so with my last ounce of energy, I cleaned the innards as he disassembled them to find out if I'd killed them. I hadn't. thank god. I clean them every time, but only one of the parts. anyway, thanks pop.

ah, so we went through about sixty-five gallons of oil, fifty sticks of oak 3inx3inx3feet, about nine cubic feet of cedar fence boards and a pile of fir and other assorted large chunks of wood that would be about three by three by four feet, ish. so, about another 2/3 cord of wood.

thinking to unload on sunday, if anyone cares to visit...

oh ya, and as I was checking email and news, I ran into this

something

2009-09-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

windy today- stirring my blood, disturbing the cat. winds of change? Avaaz.org organized a global wake-up call- check out the blog here.

the fourth firing will occur this weekend, scheduled just ahead of the Portland Open Studio tour. I participated last year and liked it a lot. I much prefer helping people understand the context of my process by having them visit my studio and see the kiln.

on self-indulgence

2009-09-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

true to journal form, I'm working out this thought as I write: I've been thinking about some of the more esoteric forms of art that I've experienced with this TBA festival. Now I'm listening to a cd of Henri Dutilleux, contemporary classical, a concerto for cello, another for violin- I don't really love it, at first half-listening. How is that different from the performance by Miguel Gutierrez which was-- a spoof? not exactly, on the ways of theater and the affected life- I was sitting there in the audience thinking that this might be the worst thing I'd paid to see in a while, and then it started to make a lot of sense and become totally brilliant at the end. And how does this jive with the performance by Meredith Monk that I saw as an punky little whipper-snapper of a college art student- there was this part with arm gestures and I didn't get it, told her so in the q+a session afterward. was it un-get-able? or was it me? My Mam didn't really get Miguel's piece, and I still don't get this thing by Dutilleux. someone actually walked out on Meg Stuart, and I could have wrung his neck. her piece was so subtle, aching, so painfully beautiful- well, he didn't get it. or maybe he got it so well that he couldn't stand it and had to leave.

so what makes esoteric? that's the word that I used to describe japanese tea ceremony at some point- esoteric, to me, is the point at which seemingly comprehensible action or ritual has passed into the realm of code. it is only for the initiated, it becomes secret in its mystery, and that is the sad paradox about some of these performances- the message is beautiful, brilliant, timely, prosaic, incomprehensible, because it is delivered in this code that is known to the artist and the initiates but not to those dear people who would perhaps also love to participate- and it's not that the artist is trying to exist in this rarefied word, it's just that when you move so thoroughly within the medium, it begins to eat you. wonderfully, but still.

. my medium possesses certain qualities to which I must tend. I work by the ton, for example. (bricks, clay, wood...). ceramics studios don't move very easily. but I have salt in my blood and ants in my pants. I see these dance performances like "crushed" by seattle-based locust, and I am JITTERY with energy- I can't sit still! that could be me! what have I done, enmeshing myself into a medium that demands stability?! I bike home, hardly aware of traffic, I collapse on the couch- an entire facet of my body's urges finds no outlet in my chosen medium. I resolve to find a way to do both, even as I know I am an over-ripe pear of a professional dancer. fool, it is too late- and I love my life anyway, why turn it upside down just to think I could do everything? (but there are other ways- collaborations, installations, audience-participations....)

so, about self-indulgence- that's really the wrong word for it, but I will persist, because it addresses some other issue that makes me uncomfortable: of course we artists are self-indulgent. I derive intense pleasure from caressing the porcelain. I would bet money that despite all the active messaging that Gutierrez brought to the stage, and all the voices in the head, he also just really wanted to make some post-modern look-at-me chaos, cuz it's intellectually hot. and there are many channels by which the human animal inputs information. Mam "got it", even if she didn't "understand" on a mental level. I venture to say that successful art that is also esoteric is when the mystery is unravelled in a way that the audience can glimpse its inner workings. no great shakes, that comment, but who's to judge?

the serrated edge of art: interpreting culture, integrating, relevant, of service, which requires a whole set of psychological skills in addition to technical ones. All the voices in the head become overwhelming sometimes and I turn to my wheel with watery gratitude- I can be all intellectual in creating installation art and feel my ego making its joyous noises. but here's a plate. it can represent Emptiness, have a Message, be Important, be a work created by Careen Stoll. or you can eat your morning eggs off it and drop it into the sink where it gets moldy a few days later and maybe the cat breaks it a few years down the road and you buy another one for thirty bucks. When my head starts overheating, I find comfort in that kind of anonymity... . . my private esoteric ritual of wedging, centering, shaping the clay.

ok, that being said! it's a big world out there and I'm off to the next show!

(posting this after the show- I got to talk to that hot hot dancer that I so admired in crushed the other night- chicka's shit is tiight- her name is Ellie Sandstrom, and she was so kind and encouraging to my tentative ideas of making some more intermedia work- she said "every day, do something that you're a little afraid of"- I was asking her about the exhibitionism rush of being on stage, finding the appropriate venue for the urges of wild body expression- a club isn't always the right space- on stage, you are controlling the gaze in a sense, setting up a designation between audience and performer, a space that is like condoned crazy space- she suggested that I maybe choreograph a phrase and perform it at the club, maybe just a few nights, a few friends- a special moment- I'm trying to imagine actually planning it- well, it was great to meet her)

health care

2009-09-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

interesting, as I had heard that my dear president was thinking of dropping a public option for health care, I felt compelled to send him a letter. a few days later, my doc friend Dianne sends me this. get on the bus! but lets keep pushing for that essential public option- I follow his reasoning to hold companies accountable, but as I understand, he is still amenable to dropping the public option, which would take some serious guts out of reform. that info from the good peeps at Democracy Now!

on generosity

2009-09-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

today my potting friend Richard and I rented a u-haul trailer, drove a little ways outside town, picked up a cord of wood from a custom mill and took it to the kiln on the opposite side of town.where we cut it up, split and stacked it with the help of another lady on the crew. three people, six hours, 2000lb dry fir, everything swept up- I am pleased. In the bundle that we purchase was a wide variety of cuts- some were beasties of slabs cut from the round tree to make a square board, an eight foot piece might have weighed 150 lb before being cut.. other pieces were as thin as kindling, and a few were clean boards an inch thick- perhaps warped, perhaps too irregular, but aside from that the kind of wood that is sold as "rough-cut" lumber for so and so per board foot at the yard. nice stuff, for firewood. This I culled out and took home, and it is this small pile in the driveway that has sparked the blog entry.

potters who fire with wood as their primary fuel become connaiseurs of the qualities of woods: density and sap content, silica and mineral content, flame characteristics, moisture content, ease of splitting, odor when splitting or burning, etc. Some potters aren't too picky about their wood source, and some pay rigorous attention to type, quantity and timing of woods entering the kiln ( in addition to the host of other factors) in order to affect certain results. my lady Lindsay Oesterritter is one of those, and she reaps the benefits of knowledge by creating pots that are awesome and also reproducible- this is a tall order for a wood kiln. Point being, know your fuel to know your work. My kiln requires fry oil of course but also about half a cord of wood- some of it chunky fireplace stuff, and some of it no longer than ten inches, no wider than three. and I need a good few wheelbarrows worth of that size, which is not so easy to come by. I took advantage of the opportunity to select out exactly what I needed from the full cord (4'x4'x8') that we towed along the freeway today, destined for a different kiln that we will fire in two months.

My firing is in three weeks, and there is much yet to be done to prepare- I was relieved for the opportunity to check one off the shopping list of kiln needs, but it meant that I was taking some of the cream off the top of our work for one further down the road. I voiced my question to my friend and he, wise old dude that he is, said "so long as you get good pots out of the firing...." which immediately addressed the big question of the firing. and the bigger one than that: how exactly does one's intention work in the world? The man fixing my motorbike doesn't charge me for all his time. I say "these things come around", and I reminded him to give his wife my card and visit me someday. Certain friends always at least move to pick up the tab. My lover in MN helped me make my wheel, helped me fire my kiln, helped me collect wood for the brutal winters. We help, we love, and the intention of our action carries further than the physical work. Maybe that sounds metaphysical, maybe it is- to me it relates to that "economy of good juju" that I talked about in the interview with SOF. (except that I didn't say juju, or intention, but its all the same). Richard knows that I am not trying to skim some cream off our hard work today out of malice- I just need to get something else done too and I have plenty of time to make it up if a lack is perceived.

But this is the way that he expressed it to me as the day eased into a night of merriment, (he of Buddhist tendencies): he chafed a bit at being suddenly in the position when (yet again), he was assisting someone in acquiring something that they needed tanjental to the task at immediate hand. and then he remembered that it was absurd to value "his" time, "his" need, his agenda as separate or more important. I mused on Joel, my ex-loverman in MN, who was so generous with his time and energy that he found himself frustrated with a lack of reciprocation in like kind. He was self-observant, and would also say that one of the biggest things that he learned from his hitchhiking days was "pass it on"- that generosity is frequently not a two way street, but an unstructured flow of intention. ("and attitude!", my Pop would chime in at this point.

related, I am not at Burning Man right now. any spare cash that I have is going to the motorcycle that may take me there next year. I have never been to Burning Man, though I dearly want to. mostly I want to see the awesome art projects and of course dance all night. But I was telling a friend about how I am managing to trade my work for massage and food, and he says to me "you don't need to go to burning man- you're bringing it right here". Never having attended, I had forgotten that aspect of the big meeting of minds- it is an intention to a different paradigm of commodity exchange. and I must stress that, as with a marriage that lasts, the success of the endeavor hinges on an attitude of generosity.

Mama's in town, I'm off to meet her. Art in the Pearl art fair is this sorrowfully rainy weekend, and the Time Based Arts Festival!! for the next ten days.. kiln wood is collected and under cover, large pots are drying, my back is better, it's time for some visiting with the dear Mama.

money

2009-08-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just got the cash for my help last week: 200 clams for 20 hours. I tried to work hard and smart both but I have a big twinge in my low back, and my shoulder is off. I was a beast of burden, was it worth it? no. (I framed in skylights tho!) But it does illustrate my shifting relationship to money. Soon after college I moved to the woods of mostly rural minnesota and tried my hand at being a studio potter. my rent was 125/mo, because there was no incoming water, no insulation, no easy heating. I accepted money from my parents for a few months to get started and then I didn't anymore, finding instead a job first in a cabinetry shop and then as a carpenter. For a variety of reasons, I didn't want their money. I needed to see my spine, know what I could do alone. Those became the best three years of my life. I left MN not knowing the full breath of all my accomplishments or the depth of my love. But they were not years characterized by gallery-hopping, expensive travel, or partying with other young people in or out of the arts/ crafts scene. sixty-hour weeks were common. and then there was the winter wood to split.

I worked through grad school, of course. Utah is not as generous to its grads as many others, so my parents paid the room and board if not tuition. And I worked as best I could when I got here. 11/hour doing teck work at a community college, 11 dollars worth of gas to drive each day. easier work than roofing, but where are we going, kids? it's not that helping the ceramics department at a sweet community college is beneath me or some shit, it's this: I was a lively thirty, thoroughly educated, in a vibrant city, and ready to get a move on. I talk to friends whose parents do not have the ability to help them get established the way mine do, and they don't hold it against me. Why should I hold it against myself to still keep a low overhead but accept the aide so lovingly given? a sense of hyper-equality? the remaining shackles of a socialized money-based measurement of worth? because my Pop is such a successful entrepreneur, that I too should be able to live up to his example? or is it more oblique: in a twisted hypocrisy, I labor to create and propagate objects that fit into lifestyles only the affluent can maintain in this strained economy/cultural mentality. I refuse this paradigm! I refuse to think that my work is relegated to luxury! would it have helped to have moved to Holland when I was still semi-portable? who knows, now I must doggedly create the world I have in my dreams, and possibly die a frustrated visionary.

look at what Rachel Maddow says about it

my battery is dying, I know this post was a frustrated ramble, I'm going to go make pots now. I don't know what else to do with myself. bye.

high summer

2009-08-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

with the garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarela and basil. yumma!
so this is what's going on in my little world:

I was raised to be a refined lady. But I prefer dirt. So for a while there was some conflict. A friend pointed out that I can act the part in a surprising variety of social situations. That's a step up from many years of reshaping myself to belong somewhere. That might mislead; lets say many years of exploring different facets of my personality. (Assuming there is a core Self, which is a notion I can neither shake nor fathom). Well, so there I am writing informal essays about sustainability, and here I am helping the roofers. Both of these disparate worlds are comfortable now, and I'm figuring out how they inform each other. through the writing process. so here you go. this has not much to do with pots. It has to do with assumptions because it all got twisted one afternoon, and then straightened out again.

One morning, two weeks after I thought it would happen, I woke up to this. Soon after, this was my garden:wa- BAM! I knew what to expect in terms of mess. the big unknown was the nature of the crew- I would be joining them for this job and I was a little nervous about it. The two gentlemen I had worked with in Minnesota were exceptional, I knew I had been spoiled by their respect. But respect is earned, and I got to work. On the ground, slogging bins with me, was an attractive young man who sort of smiled once or twice. Cutting plywood and laughing easily was a grizzled and snaggletoothed older man with looong grey hair. Up above was an agile ripped little monkey of a dude who handled full sheets of plywood like some people handle flying pizza dough. He had a sort of vocal tag, "brrrra-ta-TA!" that he's call out every once in a while, mixed in with the jokes flying around with similar agility. He had a side-kick, much slower on the uptake, but kind to me also. And then the boss, another gnarl-knuckled grandpa who moves slowly and deliberately, careful in his decisions and very considerate in his manner. The back of his neck was oddly pale from where he had just recently cut the blond braid that he had worn for twenty years. Probably when it got to be 108 degrees recently and even I gave up and just lay in a hammock (detangling dread-locks but that's another hair story). Later, we were joined by the contractor's son, described as flakey. Small and energetic, with a very large red truck with tinted windows and a monogrammed tires. To his credit, he did not chafe when I called it "fancy-ass", leaning as I was upon my own dear beater (perhaps more to support him than me). So that's the crew, and me. motley.

Perhaps it's excessive to compare it to ballet, but there were moments when I was moved by the fluidity of motion that is achieved when it is repeated so many times that the body becomes tuned to the subtle shifts of weight that occur when, say, a 2x6 spins on the shoulder, or a sheet of ply balances in the crook of a hammer as it is set into place. In the shorthand of terminology and focus, quick work was made of a difficult task. Without word or eye contact, one dancer transfers a sail-shaped weight, another sallies through with a wheelbarrow, another launches a 2x6 ten feet away to the perfect spot, another hoists a bin that must have been fourty pounds over his head and onto his shoulder. again. I found my stride within it very easily, mostly listened to the fish tales at lunch break, it was all good. On the fourth day, they tore off the largest section of my landlady Susan's roof. there were two layers of shingles and three layers of composite and this is what it looked like when half of it had already been cleaned up:
At this point, we had a lunch break. I ate in the garden and quietly joined the others after a while. A question came up about a ho, and I swear I heard a joke in the corner about how she was waiting in the garage. (this being where I live). and I was not necessarily pretending to be asleep, but I was resting with my eyes closed, and I did not react, though I heard the side-kick snort a little. someone was talking on their phone and lost his train of thought. A silence fell over the group, the cell-phone conversation faltered and resumed, and a few moments later, we resumed work. I put on the noise-cancelling headphones and bent my head to the rest of the rubble. Yes, I know that some men can be grade A dickheads just like some women can become raving bitches. We are only human, after all. But what threw me off was to have another reminder of just how tenuous is the connection between my judgement of someone's basic character and their judgement of mine.. How amazing it is that we navigate this crazy world by leaping from one assumption to the next, constantly, one shifting log, one sinking ship, one fickle friend, a flick of the eye, one hug, two words, an omitted fact, a house of cards- how can we build trust at all? But we do. We are pack animals, we need each other.

So I thought about it, eyes smarting at the injustice, I wondered what to do, I imagined confronting him, oh the way my words would cut! and then I realized that the best thing would be simply to ask him why, and then I realized that I was going to let it go. The rest of the guys were being nice to me, extra-nice, it seemed. Fine, in two hours and three days they'd be gone, and everything would be quiet again. and then at the dwindling end of the day I asked the gentle old dude if I had heard right and he had no idea to what I was referring, walked off mumbling about how he didn't go in for that stuff. A minute later the boss comes to me and said he was referring to a pneumatic tool that helps remove shingles, and that if anyone on the job were indecent in that way, they'd be fired immediately. I was relieved. But between you and me, it didn't answer the question. Was I just stoned and misheard a joke? Or did I hear right, and through well-meaning but misplaced explanation, all offense was ironed out and we'll just finish your roof now, m'am, thanks for the help, how badly do you want the extra cash? The ballet is now suddenly some fucked-up mating dance between a monkey and a crazy bird. I'm going to know what I don't know, politely ignore him for the remaining day of this job, and decline the numerous job offers.

I took the opportunity to frame in some sunlight: these windows are nothing short of magic in the space!
(and then I got to clean my room with a leaf-blower!)

third firing results

2009-07-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Were awesome! Tin Man found his heart.

I was all packed up to take professional-quality photos and bailed at the last minute. We're getting the roofs re-done next week, so I'm pre-occupied with that, but after that and a workshop I'm teaching, I'll get back in the studio and get that taken care of properly. For the moment, I'm sorry, this video may suffice. Tim posted photos on his blog:
and here are my larger pots.I will focus on getting these available in an online store in November. In the meantime, if you see something you want, write me and I'll get you a better photo. Thank you for your inquiries and encouragement!

so, the results:

we used 75 gallons of veg oil and about 3/4 cord of wood, much of that wood was oak/mixed hardwood

for one thing, the loading was pretty good. perhaps a bit tight, but not bad. the innermost parts of the stack were too quiet for the porcelain, but the dark clay still looked lovely, and glazed ware would be just fine. the loading did seem to allow the flame to move to the back of the kiln more effectively, but it's kind of hard to figure out at this point which was more effective, the load, the placement of the flue, the length or timing of the soak, or the degree of perforation of the little bag wall that blocked the most direct flame movement from firebox to flue. these details will be the source of continued experimentation. As you read, my potting friends, I would love to hear your thoughts, on these matters or others.

cone 12 was flat in the hottest part of the kiln while 11 was 1/3rd in the coolest, the back bottom. I like this, I was going for this, because there was very little glaze in the kiln, and I wanted to make sure that the surfaces would be glassy and the clays vitreous. what I don't like is a super-shiny surface, which happened to the porcelain but not the dark clays. I will research how to reduce cool gently enough to avoid scumming the glazes (soda surface) at high temperature but early enough to matte them out before they've solidified completely. we were overly cautious this time about when and how hard to begin reduce cooling. also, the pyrometer had been moved and it started melting, so we probably could have started adding wood (soot) earlier than we did. as it is, I think we started in earnest at about 2000*F, lightly before then.

we added seven and a half pounds of soda to a 70 cubic foot kiln that had not seen soda before. half of that went in as a Gail Nichols mix with water and whiting, and half was sprayed in. the nozzle on the sprayer was set to "jet", and did it ever. there were little freckles of soda in the most inaccessible places, and almost too much soda on the most exposed plates and bowls. as in, pools of glass that, if they had been more, would run the risk of cracking out. se.e the plate on the right- that's soda glass so perhaps next time we will add soda only by solid, and see what that does. there was a problem with the soda that I gleefully sprayed in the top of the dome- it bubbled up under the shelf wash and glued the shelf- binder to the nearby pots that were not wadded on tall wads. unfortunately, I had thought of this as a coveted spot and put many people's work up there- my apologies for the unforeseen. we ground down the shelves very thoroughly and I put two coats of wash on them for the next firing.

Color: score! deep reds in the dark clay.
lots of orange in the porcelain, salmon and rose colors following flame lines on pots nearest the fireboxes- overall, it seems that the reduction was more thorough in the front of the kiln than the back, and of course most intense closest to the fireboxes. I didn't love the darkness of the ash speckles- perhaps this is the influence of the oak? where the ash really accumulated, it did melt together into a pleasant clear/green glass, a bit flat as far as ash goes, but green at least. I look forward to firing the kiln through the wall flue alone, closing the floor altogether, and trying to go for a more directional flame mark. as it is, there was a lot of evidence of interesting flame mark. but it's not an anagama, never could be.

and lastly, new forms: I do like the rather self-contained bowls that I have made for ten years now, and I've also been playing with a form-moulded open oval bowl that I like a lot too. (in that third photo) it's more "pedestal-like" with four little feet, more formal feeling. and I've made an oval plate version of it too, which I think I'll make into a full-sized plate now. those feet take a long time to get right, but I'm really loving the oval shape, so expect more of those in the future. the closed-in bowls now have divots in them for a fun sexy finger-hold. and the cups still have divots for either a thumb, or how I hold them with the middle finger. pitchers are still evolving. I really like making ones with a low indent, forcing the user to cradle it with two hands, one at the belly and one tilting it at the foot, but the customer's kitchen will be the best laboratory. now that I'm out of school, I need to seek critique. please know that I love and need feedback on my changing design ideas! function is still essential. I like pushing the user to re-think, but not to the point of interference with the essential usefulness of the object. I do finally seem to have nailed a good teapot- I have one matching set from this firing and one matching set from the woodfiring that I did with Richard- can you believe it- front and center in a small anagama, and a whole tea set survived! unreal--

big love, everyone!

third firing notes

2009-07-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

here's half of the crew of the third firing jst before lighting the fire in the left bourry box on tuesday july 7. Alyssa and Dianne. Tim joined us later after his day job. Jack was tending his dear lady and unable to join this time.

front stack.
back stack
wad gad
and once we were done with the bourry boxes, this was the first pizza. truly a delicious accomplishment's.

notes: analysis of results to follow in a few days. we will unload on thursday. peeking in, colors look great!

Stacking:
kiln was very uneven last firing, so trying to really force that flame to the back of the kiln with a tight stack in the front, loose pots in the back. the larger pots are much easier to load in the back anyway, so it was an easy plan to follow. I tried to load incrementally tighter as we moved to the door, allowing for staggering of shelves and groupings of pots so that there were some very tight spaces and also looser ones. there were six openings in the floor, three inches in diameter each, under the back stack. I rigged the trick brick in the chamber wall, and rested k-wool over two openings in the floor near the door, in case we needed more flue opening. There was a perforated bag wall of quarter posts that blocked the most direct route from the firebox to the damper. otherwise, no bagwall. stacking area is three feet wide by four feet deep by three and a half tall on average, with the firebox openings on either side of the four foot length. two days to stack

Candle and Slow Rise:
Candled for seven hours, in one box. one foot fire at the base of the chimney, to induce draw. increased temp 100* an hour after that, supposedly. But it's tricky, of course, because a small fire can easily be frightfully overstoked. so it looks like the night shift was safe and at an overly-slow rate of climb, bringing us to 742* by 6am on wednesday, when I took over. part of the problem is that stoking the boxes seemed to be very difficult because of the backpressure when the door is opened. I shut as much of the passive air openings as possible, a more thorough job than I had done before, and that did help somewhat. the shift changeover was bumpy. I thought I was doing exactly what the night shift had done, but the kiln suddenly jumped a hundred degrees in fifteen minutes. if there are cracked pots in there, it's probably from that moment. (same as second firing).

during this part, I was trying to get the primary air to draw from the top of the boxes, as a proper bourry box would do. I was not successful. basically, the kiln does not seem to draw hard enough at those low temperatures to pull air downward through the wood, through all the channel and into the chamber before it gets to the flue. perhaps it would help to chink every other possible air draw and passive damper. I suppose we could continue with the flame in the chimney to increase the draw, but that seems silly. Most likely, I will open a little more air space at floor level of the bourry boxes, and let the opening at the top of the box function only as a chimney for the pizza oven function. at about 800*, the coals began to clog up the opening, so I let the wood burn down, removed the front two grates, pushed the coals forward into the chamber, and resumed firing in the box. I did this on both sides but because the left box had been the starting box, it was significantly warmer than the right and so it "re-started" more easily than the right. Overall, there were a lot more coals on the left, which became an issue later. this did take care of some of the problem of backpressure at the door, but really, the boxes become maxed out at 1000*.

Transfer to Oil and Wood:
9 am at 1000*, I pushed the coals into the center of the firebox alley, closed the damper leading to the bourry-box, opened to the oil burner, and set the oil to fire at 1/5 of the available pressure. (* consider pressurizing the tank for better total pressure). this turned out to be too little, as Tim researched the old log entries to find that 2 had been the low setting in the past firing, with the air wide open. In this firing, I started out with 1/5 and 1/6th of the total vent open on the blower. remember to tilt the burner slightly forward or else the oil flows back into the burner and gets in the fan blades. I stoked short pieces of dense wood into the coal bed now at the center of the firebox to maintain a wick of flame into which the atomized oil droplets can fly. this firing, I did so with ozzie fishtail oak that had been used to separate shipping crates, so there may be some iron flakes on them. we'll see if it's a mess on the pots. I maintained a good bed of coals on the right while continuing to stoke the left bourry-box. temp hovered around 1070*. once I was comforted that the right burner was happy, I set about transferring the left side. this side was hotter to begin with, and had more coals. I pushed them too far into the channel and accidentally blocked off the opening through which the burner's fuel and air are moving. so when I went to turn on the blower, I had to leave the air on full for a long time to burn coals off, and then when the oil sprayed on them, it was more of a crust than a wick. eventually, I went in there with a flat piece of angle iron over the top of the burner port to break up the coals. it was half a day before the two sides seemed to burn hot and evenly.

questions- there was a lot of soot created between 400 and 1300* . too much? break an iron-bearing tile.
did the greenware in the kiln survive the rough treatment in this time as well?

Oil and Wood body Reduction:
by 11 am the kiln was settling into an increase of about 100*an hour. the pyrometer was on the right side of the kiln, and registered much more effective temp increase with stoking on that side of the kiln. (which was also the side on which the firebox seemed hotter in general). temp might spike as much as 100* in a stoke, nothing measurable from a stoke on the left firebox. Stoking two pieces of oak (3x3x9) and two pieces of cedar sticks every five minutes, watching the coal bed for a size that seemed healthy but not blocking air openings. at 1pm, Tim read up in the old kiln log and changed the air to full and the oil to 1 1/2, which led to a quicker cycle. the left coal bed began to catch up/ warm up. by 1:45 pm, temp at 1520, ^012 down top front. closer attention to maintaining reduction and passive dampers out to burn off excess smoke.. 3 pm 1675* , ^04 soft front right, ^012 down back left ( coolest place in kiln). by 4 pm ^1 is down the hot spot, pyro at 1800*, and a large pot has fallen into the left stoke aisle, occupying half the available space. but its position is such that it is acting as a bag wall to deflect the flame towards the cool spot. the doctor advises that perhaps there is not a problem yet, wait and see. every few hundred degrees, the oil turned up half a point

Evening :
Oil is 2.5, air open, passives in, active damper out, stoking

every so often (five to ten min). the general principle of the fuel situation seems to be that the kiln asks for a slowly shifting proportion of wood and oil, more wood at lower temperatures, just a bit later on.

the large pot in the stoke aisle didn't seem to be a problem at first. cones fell at the same rate on that side as the other. hot spots in the kiln were towards the front and middle, cooler at the very front by the door, and at the very back. throughout the evening there was a steady climb of about 80* an hour until cone 8 was moving in three places, at which time we commenced adding soda. oil down to 1.5, air at 2/3, passives out. six pounds total of the gail nichols recipe were painted onto small boards, and four pounds of baking soda was mixed into hot water into a sprayer in a dilute half and half solution. this makes seven pounds of soda going into the kiln. this is a 75 cubic foot kiln, about 50 of which is stacked, and no soda has been added before. the brick is high-alumina.

Night: at 11pm, kiln is hovering at 2060*, 31/2 lbs of soda have been added, and two gallons of water, in the process. the draw rings show a nice buildup, but of course they are right in the line of fire. the water cools the kiln about 100* as it is added. cones have been steadily dropping, but the right side of the kiln is notably hotter than the left and front, except for the pack stacked deep into the kiln, which is now equal to the right side. I am underslept, underfed, and rather nonchalant about directing the show. Richard and co show up with tea and good cheer, but it takes me quite a while to refocus on the fact that the kiln is not climbing as effectively as he could be, and I am not in adequate reduction. But I'm pretty dead, so at about one am, with Dianne's help, he takes over for a few hours as I catch some rest. They tweak little things and maintain about 2140*. the damper is a third closed, passives are out. oil at 3, air open about 3/4. there was little cone movement in this time.

Thursday Morn:
5 am. I close the passives and open the damper, turn up the oil and open the air, pull the trick brick in the back wall and push open the front two flue openings, all to no real effect. cone 8 soft at the door and far back of the kiln, tens at a half where they sit on the shelves closer to the center. I am able to get about a cone higher in the next few hours, but the oil at the left burner is leaking, unburned, where the large pot is pushing the flame backwards now. I break it with a piece of leftover flat bar snuck into a gap above the burner block, and manage to push the shards of it out the channel and into the bourry box. it did not seem to take out anything else in the process. yike!

for two hours, I notice no significant change. I'm still stoking small pieces, as my previous buddies had been, going with a less wood more often theory. but this kiln doesn't really run on wood at this point. I switch back to the large chunks of oak, building a coal bed, and the oil is now 4. I stoke one side and then the other, taking my cue from when the wisps of smoke leave the little cracks at the top of the kiln. this works well, and by 9 am, we are at 2222* with ^9 at 1/3 all around, 11 in some places. 9:30 is a whole cone hotter everywhere, almost two cones in the hottest spots. Chris Baskin highly recommends a three hour soak, at this temperature. we kind of soaked all night, at a cool cone 8. I would like to know how much more effective the soak is as the temp increases. Gail recommends a two hour soak after adding her soda mix ( which she does at cone 8)

Soak:
oil to 1 1/2, air 1/2. damper at half, passives out.
on a whim, I sprayed in the last two gallons of soda, which dropped the temp from 2250 to 2150. after the kiln regained only 20 degrees, I brought the oil and air up again, less than before (3) , and opened the damper some. kiln climbed in the next few hours to end on a hot note at 1 pm on thurs. I did a little experiment just before ending. Can the kiln increase temp on oil alone? I put the oil to 5, air wide open. the pyro rests at 2236 without change for five minutes, but as soon as I stoke one piece of wood, I get two degrees out of it. ^11s are down most places, 12 in one place. I'd say that's a hot note.

Reduce Cool:
shut all three dampers and pull the passives. done with the oil, and at first, tried to stoke just above the burner in that little spy-hole in the floor. wood got stuck on the clinkers. began stoking under the floor, where I had opened the opportunity of access to the sub-floor. I'm not sure how much smoke is too much until the glazes become solid. must research. a draw tile pulled at about 2100 revealed that we had not scummed the glaze. I did do a local re-oxidization for a mere 30* at 2200*, at the side-stoke holes, and the back spies. We began reduce cooling at 2030* , continuing to 1600*, which lasted 12 hours. Dianne did a fine job finishing off the firing. she stoked at the sub-floor and in the side-stoke. I popped some champagne, took a shower, and gave up on being intelligent.

the kiln cooled 1000* in the next 24 hours and then 200* in the day after that.

upon measuring what I have to offer

2009-06-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

start out by clicking here, and playing the second section, monkeytek's sub fm thing.

I've found myself deleting posts recently, which is a sure sign that my compass is wobbling. and so I find myself skimming every single blog on Emily Murphy's Pottery Blog roll. I'm about half-way through. this has given me some sense of how to measure mine. .....ahhh, so....... one of the interesting things is that I genuinely don't know who you are. And of course I'm writing for you, because fundamentally, I started this blog as a forum for information about my kiln in specific, but more broadly, firing with alternate energy. or just alternate energy in general, or the politics around energy use. or the ethics of consumption, apparently. or, it seems, the energy of bodies doing their thing. it seems that I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how my sensory body moves through culture. sometimes I manage to connect that coherently to the how and why I am a potter, but I think that for the most part, that connection is not fully clear and it seems like I'm just writing about why I want to tear up a dance floor every once in a while. and that's probably not why you visit my blog.

SO! I admit what you suspect already- this is also a journal, and writing is an important way that I give shape to my thoughts. . so it is a journal for me. why then, make it public? I think, because in the same way as Silvie says showing your work at an art fair is like handing someone your heart on a plate with a fork and knife, I can know that essentially, I am a naked little worm, but it means nothing to be a naked little worm writing in a private journal. But when I give you a glimpse of the life that informs my interaction with clay, I expose myself to your rejection, and to your love. and that is frightening to me, so I'm challenged. and challenge is ultimately what I seek..

how do I balance my desire for understanding with the stated mission of this blog? shall it be as simple as this?: if I write what I consider truly useful kiln information, I will label and tag it clearly, and you can skip the rest. I will continue to post about energy issues, for that is, at root, the reason why I fire like I do, why I live like I do, and what is essential to our evolution as a species. occasionally, I will link to something truly meaningful like the zeitgeist movie addendum, or its Wiki, speaking of evolution. . for those of you who really visit this blog to read about the queer girl in portland, hi there! I will not be writing about my bedroom activities, but I promise a steady trickle of this kind of hot, and this kind of noise. cuz that's what I'm dancing to when I get free. fair enough?

Hello, new readers! you catch me at an interesting time- I had to postpone my firing and as spring welcomed me outside, I found myself spending entire weeks doing major work on this property that has been left to all manner of invasive plants for at least a decade. And rebuilding parts of the kiln. and rambling around being debaucherous. pretty much not making pots. I had just gotten back on the wheel when I fell off again, kicked in the pants by this amazing man who appeared and then dissappeared. productivity eludes me at the moment, which has the pleasant side effect of diverting me into forms for which I ordinarily have little patience, oil ewers and other things with attachments. I spent all day today making one teapot. (and flipping through blogs). this is pretty different from what I see on lots of people's blogs- hundreds of mugs, thousands of bowls, monoliths of clay, giant people-eating kilns. Sweet Jesus. my energy for that volume of exertion is shifting as I grow older. I had a lovely day making one teapot.

but disheveled days will soon be over. these time-consuming pieces are going into the "nanagama" at Mt Hood College, where we will reduce cool next weekend.. It has been a pleasant process so far: we collected all the wood from a student's property in White Salmon,WA, overlooking Mt Hood and Mt Adams. the whole crew came out, and we got to know each other (and each other's work ethics) before being thrown together in a firing.

love

2009-05-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

for no good reason, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. but then I go through the morning routine- tea, lots of cream and sugar, a snoopje (dutch for cookie), the news, answering emails... last night a young man wrote me from Texas- I've received a few wonderfully warm and appreciative letters in response to the sof interview, and it is so sweet to hear from you, thank you! This one in particular moved me in return. ... .. . I just read it, and the words around my feeling are still forming.... it sounds like he grows food also, but mostly, creates a space in which he can share it with others, as a service, perhaps a devotion. and that is a beautiful thing in itself, but what moved me was the evidence of his struggle and that he can reach out to me, I can write him back, and we are not alone in this world. There are plenty of tangible and intangible obstacles to activating a our visions but certainly the burden of solitude must be one of the most difficult to bear.

For me, it is, anyway. Not to get all woe is me, I'm doing everything alone- I've had amazing teachers and wonderful friends, but I guess I'm just one of those restless messes out there who happen to have received a brush of loving contact just when I needed it. after two years of building and learning this kiln, with two firings that were less than sucessful (yes, this is normal for new kilns, and mine is particularly wacked-out), I often feel like I'm falling out of touch with my abilty to actually get the work out there into the world- my website is full of three-year old pots and there is no guarantee that the next firing will produce anything saleable either. what am I? just a dreamer? why am I still measuring my success on having an income? To me, this feels like trying to break into the Institution by bashing my head on the front door. no wonder it hurts. god damn it hurts! But that's what I'm saying in the interview, and what this man in Texas is writing as well, if I can just shift my thinking and valuing to a kind of faith in my value on the juju-meter, I can relax into the beautiful but laborious work that I do. it's the intangible nature of this form of sustenance that trips me up, and that's why a tangible little love note every once in a while goes a long long way. thank you, dear. that I am wind in your sails is wonderful. but without your sails, I am nothing but air moving around.

may 17, SOF on air!

2009-05-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

we paused for rain, and then completed the other bourry-box.

and I punched a hole in my attic
and this is the fig tree so far. two green hands escaped from the top of a stick, gulping light.

and!! so much for me shooting my mouth off: Speaking of Faith did a killer job editing my interview, and it seems that the long wait was because they put together this great map.
so I think my interview will be aired this evening at seven, around here. (there is a station listing on the site for other places) I somehow managed to schedule a date for that time- I think it's going to be a fancy barefoot pickanic, just like I'd described. here's the podcast.

much love!

holding pattern

2009-05-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

........sigh...... postponing the firing. a sigh of sadness and relief. I have no particuar deadline, so the date was an arbitrary goal. but a few on the crew were stressing out, and I could use a little more time too. the great thing is that this way, we're sure to have lots of ware to fire when my friend Dianne comes to town in july. She's a potter too, and I really wanted to fire with her but was feeling quite iffy about being able to fill the kiln again by that time, since I will also be participating in a woodfiring with Richard at Mount Hood college in June.... much going on...
so I can now reclaim the areas of my studio that have been appropriated by piles of tools, dusty towels over clay trimmings, and unpaid bills. and I can reclaim my hair, which has gradually looped itself into something that looks like it should be attached to a yak. A friend at grad school observed of another that a good indicator of the lad's state of mind was the condition of his hair, often helter-skelter. I feel it. In my case, I admit to being baffled that SOF didn't ever air my interview. in fact, they stopped the program altogether. they used to broadcast an interview a week, and they have simply stopped. and the parent program is doing reruns. it's like they can't find any moral people anymore- so strange. and of course I took it personally, while telling myself not to. I know that I write some non-standard things on this blog. and I am lothe to whining but I also try to be honest about myself. is it possible that I do not fit their definition of moral? and if so, what is that definition?
simultaneously, I read an article about a young adventurer, David de Rothchild, who is building a catamaran entirely out of recyclable plastics, including hundreds of litre bottles. he is going to sail across the pacific to disappearing islands and through a portion of the eastern garbage patch to raise awareness of this largely unseen GIANT PROBLEM. density in portions of the area show that plastics outweigh zooplankton seven to one. jesus christ. the ocean is a particularly delicate ecosystem, and zooplankton is the basic food unit of the whole chain. they are also highly effected by water temperature and salinity.we all know about el nino and la nina, bringing destructive weather to the land-masses- those cycles are created by abnormalities of ocean currents which are the generators of weather. this is what Al Gore keeps talking about. well, so is David. check out his website, and look for the link to the Plastiki, the name of this vessel, in a nod to Thor Heyerdal. he's really focussed on bringing the messages of his adventures to young people, sometimes through gaming of, say, a world in flood. trying to find creative positive messaging, not as much of the doom and gloom, guilt-ridden kind of messaging. more, I have much respect for his integrated thinking- trying to illustrate to corporations, governments, individuals all that new modes of operandi are possible and lucrative, in addition to responsible and necessary. someday I hope he meets Van Jones, who founded greenforall.org, bringing in a cultural revolution. oh, and carrotmob, another really fun way to affect change.
well, I wrote David de Plastiki a letter asking if I could sail with him. the voyage is close to my heart, and I am comfortable aboard ship. he seems to be interested in involving artists in his multi-faceted communication style, so maybe, maybe I could have something to contribute. and I promptly started having daydreams about what I would do beyond write. a few threads involved ceramics, and one distinctly did not. it would be pretty far outside my comfort zone, but I would consider, if he would think it effective, being filmed as a mermaid in amongst all this floating junk. horrified, pulling it out of my hair unsuccessfully. getting tangled in it, like so many turtles and birds do. dying in it, essentially. I think I could pull it off pretty well, even logistically- it would be frightening, but I am pretty comfortable underwater... but my hair.. my hair might not make it. how attached am it to my hair? pretty damn attached. in a buddhist sort of sense- I have a lot of Self invested in my hair at this point. so what would it be like to be a freaked out mermaid getting tangled in an ocean of junk? that video footage would have to be put to good use. well, it's all a daydream. if he ever got my letter, he's been way too busy to respond but in the meantime, I practiced non-attachment to my hair, and have let it snarl so badly that I'm not sure I can ever brush it again. we'll find out today, since the weather is fine and a postponed firing means that I can reeeeelaaaax.

turtle

2009-04-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

good morning!

I am ill, not sparking on all six cylinders. two weeks to firing time and many pots have not been made. but perhaps the kiln will fire more evenly if loosely packed- now is the time to find out! other aspects are coming together nicely, though- we have a new firing partner, Alyssa, who has been giving me some of her time to help rebuild the aweful bourry-boxes that I slapped together last firing to figure out an appropriate scale. basically, a "standard" bourry-box for a wood-firing kiln is a firebox exterior to the chamber which is the primary if not sole engine for the kiln. the basic idea is that the wood is loaded onto supports (hobs) from above, and the primary air is also above, so the air is warmed as it is drawn downward through the stack, on its way past the coals below, and on into the chamber beyond. it is a design that allows the potter to load the firebox pretty full and then rest a while as it burns down, controlling the rate of burn with the volume of air passing through, instead of the more demanding rythmns of other wood kilns. Kilns of this design include the one I've posted above, designed and built by Coll Minogue and Robert Sanderson, as pulled from Jack Troy's book on woodfired stoneware and porcelain. Linda Christianson has a bourry-box style kiln, and Neely's design of the train kiln also makes use of the bourry-box to very different effect.

I am making use of the design by mishap and default: in my very thorough design research and thinking about every little thing, I managed to completely forget about the essential first part of the firing, in which we use wood to bring the kiln up to a temperature at which the oil will ignite and take over. most people said this would occur at 1850 degrees farenheight, (it's much lower in my kiln) which does not occur in a small open tunnel under a large kiln.... for the first firing, I cobbled together a little structure which proved itself too small. for the second, I made something too big, just to find out what the limits were. so hopefully this version will be Just Right.... the deciding factors include primarily that they are not designed to take the kiln to cone ten. if they needed to serve this purpose, they'd probably be much too small, probably four or even five times too small, judging by the advice of Nils Lou. we are aiming for 1000 degrees comfortably. then we switch to a combination of the wood and oil, at which point they are not used anymore. then here's the other factor in their design: pizza oven! slide a clean kiln shelf in that big door, and mmmmmmmmm..

the images above show you what's going on- they show up in code on this editing page, so I'm not going to try to move them down here- sorry. the first one is the brick base, on which is placed the removeable grate bars slid into little four inch sleeves. we anchored the bars in place with bricks inside so that they wouldn't shift during the casting process, and then packed the top part with the clay soil to make a form on which the concrete would rest. put plastic over the form, and then castable over that. it's a hand-pack kind of castable, from the nice guys as harbison walker, and it's a little weird- it sets up cold. as in, it begins to set up pretty fast, but there's no heat generated by the reaction. threw me off, for sure, and I don't think we got a perfect seam in one place because of it. we made the castable three to four inches at the bottom near the grates and lower walls, and then tapered it up to two or a little less at the very top. (HW recommended four inches for best strength, but I'm going to risk it, given it's low demand setting).

another note on structural castable. in conversation with Bruce at HW yesterday as we picked up the goods, I got a better idea of something that had puzzled me. they had told me that it was highly likely that my dome would crack in places- it is a monolithic structure six feet in diameter, four inches thick , more at the edges, and it is subjected to 2300 degrees of heat. that's a lot of stress. the cracks that are there are a quarter inch at the widest, starting at the periphery. there are three of them, dividing the dome loosely into thirds, and they do not extend to the top. so they are built-in expansion joints, and this is the tidbit that I learned yesterday. they have cracked in this configuration probably because of the giant steel band that supports the dome from the outside. as the kiln heats, the steel heats, and radiates it back to the concrete, causing the edge to heat disproportionally fast. so it is expanding and seeks release. I did work a quarter inch expansion joint into the space between the steel and the skew-back that the dome lands on, but either this was not enough or the heating issue is unavoidable. either way, that roof ain't going nowhere, so I'm not worried.

oh, and Bruce said do not fill the crack. not only will it only fall out, but it will only make it worse, because then you have a solid object in an expansion joint, making the situation worse. he said leave it alone, it will not be a problem. i'm the guinea pig- I'll let you know if he's right (he's the man, though, so he's prolly right)

in other news

2009-04-14T15:59:00.001-07:00

we will be firing on May 9 barring calamity. the goals this time are an even kiln, a light even soda glaze, and a thorough reduction cooling. there will be no glazes (on my pots anyway) except sealed up tight in saggers so that the soot doesn't get to them. the weather will be perfect, the fry oil will flow like nectar from flowers, and the moon will be full (cue: howl)

Speaking of Faith

2009-04-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I have written before about the radio broadcast from American Public Media called Speaking of Faith they have an offshoot program called First Person, Reposessing Virtue, in which they are asking many of their past interviewees for their thoughts on the current economic recession. they also have asked listeners to send in their comments. I wrote in a lengthy statement, which I had posted on this blog, and some time later, they contacted me with an interview request. They asked me to edit my share to about a third, read it on the air, and then answer a few other questions. Of course I was very excited and exceptionally nervous- I have very little practice speaking in public. Fortunately, I had a few days to prepare my answers, and so I was feeling as ready as I could be come interview time. I'll just copy right here the words that I had prepared, and then carry on with my story.

this is my statement, edited:

I'm a potter. I live to make dishes. I love easing the porcelain into shape, the camaraderie and intensity of the firing, gathering veggies from my local farm, and then sitting down to dinner with friends ... to me this is a little 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 and value structure. So I think my work is extremely important in the world today.

It seems like a huge part of our current problem is the lack of human connection across cultures- the system of cause and effect is global, so unless we take the time to really find out, we would have no way of knowing the consequences of our personal actions on the people of other countries. Put a heavyweight on the table: consumption of petroleum products: collectively we fail to connect the hamburger to the wars and decimated ecosystems. We are not given the tools to gain perspective. There is nothing wrong with consumption per se, but who made the product, what materials were used, where did they come from, what are the hidden costs and are they ethical, is there integrity to the chain? Global capitalism rides on the back of cheap, plentiful oil, and that particular commodity is largely used up. I firmly believe that cottage industry is uniquely poised to dig its roots into the crumbling walls of bloated big business.

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. 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 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, so we must make choices with greater awareness. The collapse of our market only illustrates this more conclusively- this is the death blow. I'm excited!

What I'm really talking about is the economy of energy transfer. Good respect. Everybody loves massage, and it shouldn't 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, I form the container for the transfer of the nutrients. The transfer of physical energy carries with it a transfer of respect energy. CSA farmers tend to really care about what they're doing. Good respect, good nutrients. Monsanto: Bad respect! War in Iraq 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, and we consumers don't even know the story behind the goods.

I have settled myself into a situation where I live simply, in my studio in progressive Portland, Oregon. My landlady is awesome and let me build a kiln in her garden. It runs primarily on waste vegetable oil. My fuel, for the moment, 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. My neighbors know me and have no problem. So I am poised to provide the kind of product that speaks to a new paradigm of ethical consumption. Great! Now what?

Well, we're working the kinks out of the system. New kilns have steep learning curves, and mine especially so.. but just as an orchard takes time to fruit, so too does a labor of love. Every day, I learn, teach, write, read, dream. As the ground shifts beneath our feet, new paradigms of leadership open up. I can create this product, but I can also work with others to create the cooperative studio and educational center of my dreams. So many systems in our country seem broken, but never have I felt that the opportunity to change them was open to dirty rebels like me. I can lead workshops, my kiln could be a testing ground for biofuels. In his inaugural address, Obama praised the makers of things. I feel needed! To think that I could enter into an interdisciplinary educational space is exciting and empowering. To know that finally, at the eleventh hour, research into alternate fuels might get some real funding is like rain in the desert. And so the economy of respect converges with the economy of means and hopefully we all feast together

and this is a copy of the Q & A:

1. In what way(s) do you consider this a moral or spiritual crisis?--Of your own? Of our culture's?

My own shift consists now of finding ways to step into new paradigms of leadership and artistic outreach, and somehow relax into the constriction. I had a turning point when I realized that I could not, in a very physical way, continue to consume as I had been. It became uncomfortable under my skin- to think that I lived in country where gluttony was the norm didn't make it right. I traveled a lot, maybe that's how it happened, and I saw how little some people had. Because of the expanding global population and the pressure for the earth's resources, that greed is now assisted by technology and so its exponentially destructive. I can have anything I want, supposedly, but for the longest time, I didn't understand the ramifications of my choices. And it's hard to get that information, so our ignorance isn't entirely our fault--- decimation of ecosystems or how the wars are about control of energy is not hot topic for the national media. in fact, it's too hot- the media is not going to speak truth to power because they are part of the power structure. I don't see some grand evil design, but I do think big business got out of control and now there's a complicated network of opportunists that capitalize on the people's fears, which is horrifying to me. Cases in point are the military and prison industrial complexes. I get this visceral recoiling reaction- and despair.

I think the delusion at work is much greater than consumer culture alone, but senseless consumerism is what I focus on as a person that makes objects. The interesting thing though, is that if we the people could just make a separation from that which drives us to consume in such quantities, it would take the edge off . I think it's completely valid to choose products that reflect an aspect of how I want to show up as a person, but I keep thinking of a snake biting its' tail: at what point do I own the product, and a what point does it own me? It is entirely possible to find products that show off me as my fabulous self, and are also responsible to environment and other cultures, we just need to make that conscious choice. ---screw this dizzying rat race of one-up-manship- the sleekest car, the most bling, the tightest game, the but we all rot and die. we are all fragile and naked. clever marketing conflates commodity with youth, happiness, leisure and meaning, but its nonsense. there is no elixir of life, money is literally immaterial, so what is there? there is the question of how we teach the children, how we treat our neighbors, how we make the little choices that make life on this planet comfortable for all. I call it the economy of respect.

2. What moral and spiritual resources, what virtues, do you bring to approaching it - in your own life, with colleagues at work, in your family, in your religious or other community settings?

I just try to walk my talk- and I'm not perfect- I hate fluorescent lighting, I buy processed clay, I fly around in airplanes. but I have this thing about petroleum. we're past the age of the plentiful oil that has fueled the easy transportation of a global economy and the dominance of suburbia as a viable form of urban planning, and we can't be fighting wars to support those ways of being, it's absurd. So I used to run my truck on waste vegetable oil, and had some great adventures with that. when I moved here, I designed my kiln in such a way that I could take advantage of this particular fuel. It's a great fuel for my purposes- it burns cleanly with low emissions, it requires no pressurization, so it's low risk given the the 2300 degrees I'm firing to, and the icing on the cake is that it's free. so not only do I know I'm significantly reducing my carbon footprint, but I'm also doing my pocketbook a favor. it allows me as a maker more space to experiment and fail but it also allows me to pass along the savings to the customer. so everyone wins.

more broadly, I ride my bike and take the bus. I try to buy local organic and from small businesses or individual craftspeople. I'm a big fan of Community Supported Agriculture. If I need lumber, I make sure it's been sustainably harvested or recycled. I love goodwill, There are lots of those kinds of choices in my area which is part of why I moved here but I think those choices would be widespread around the nation if we voted for them with our wallets.money talks,ya?

3. What are you doing now that is different--how is it different, and why?

for the moment, I'm giving myself more time to read and write, be social with friends and neighbors, look for teaching jobs, tend a garden. I feel like I've been scrambling to make a living as a potter which is kind of like trying to push a string, it's really a ridiculous and archaic proposition-- if all a person wants is something to eat off of, they can get it cheaper at the pottery barn. me- I'm selling a little piece of my soul, the real value of my work is in the nature of the energy behind it, - how do you put a price tag on that? I've been stuck thinking that I have to get my work out through the usual channels of the gallery and art fair, and they still have validity for sure, but pots in that setting are a little out of context. the real context is sustenance, not pedestal art with a capital a. the context is sharing food- these are sturdy everyday dishes, they are both useful and an elegant presentation for the energy that keeps your body moving. the appropriate setting is a table, with bread and wine. It's serviceware, but it's artistic. and art is the first to go in a recession.

So I am looking again at other ideas- I think it would be fun to have a big raucous dinner party and then the guests take my dirty dishes home. maybe a fancy barefoot picnic. My peers and teachers have some great ideas that use the web to it's creative capacity, and I definetly want to expand my web presence. and I have this big dream of a cooperative studio/ residency educational center with sustainability as it's keystone. But I really love cooking and eating and sharing food grown with love. To me, it's right next to interactive art,-- installations that activate with audience participation- handmade pots in general and my pots for sure are really touch-friendly, so as much as I can allow contact between the buyer and the object, that's great. But what I am actually sharing is the message, the respect, embodied in the object. and I dare hope that as people come to value objects created with green technologies, that my work will be more attractive to a wider audience, and I won't have to give it away.

4. What kind of wisdom and leadership are you looking for at this time, close to your life? Where are you finding it?

Democracy Now kicks tail- they help me understand the world. Van Jones is brilliant. I'm looking at people like him who are synthesizing education, environmentalism, and long-term social justice. I'm looking for leaders in education who teach to the whole person, right and left brain, heart and body, in cultural context. I think there is tremendous value in interdisciplinary approaches and taking the class outside of the room. movements like urban farming are timely and exciting, and I keep my ears open for science and teck firms that are working hard on the solutions within alternate energy- geothermal, wind, harnessing the tide and current. In my field, there are wonderful essays in the studio potter, and many of my peers also dream of a shared studio. In the arts, there's a brand- new collaborative MFA program here in town that has enormous potential. Portland hosts the time-based arts festival, and whitebird.org for dance arts- I really gravitate towards the visceral wisdom of interacting bodies: Vancouver's Kidd Pivot and choreographer anouk van dijk. I listen to this broadcast, and Bill Moyers Journal. I read the new yorker, and poetry magazine, and of course, I'm looking pretty hard at my president.

so I am writing now before the interview is to be podcast at the end of this week. I did my best, but it was very difficult for me, and I spent many days afterward lamenting all the ways in which I could have expressed myself more fully and accurately- maybe someday I can be brilliant on the spot, but for now, all the words just fall through the hole in my head. I stammered, I scattered, I felt remarkably incoherent, and I had only one shot. well, so it hurt, and i wish them well turning it into something good.

but i did want to expand on a question that i did not anticipate and that I thought was really excellent. Trent, the web producer, asked me a very specific question that seemed implicit in my writing, but I had not thought of it in such a way- he percieved a new vision, he called it the new american dream. I said something about being poor, which is sort of a distraction from the issue at hand. I'm not even all that poor. I mean, my income from studio and teaching is abismal, but I have my awsome parents behind me until I get on my two feet again (how do you think I ended up in japan). But my choice to poverty is a personal choice, that I made back when I understood that my business model would not fit into the dominant paradigm competitively. but his question was fascinating, he observed, the times are changing- I think thatthe new american dream doesn't have to be anathema to ambition and prosperity at all- we just need to use the resources, material and intellectual, that exist in this country already-- we've shipped all our jobs overseas- if we could recreate american industry with the materials at hand, people in such need of jobs here and now, that's what I'm referring toas a shift of paradigm, on my scale, it's cottage industry, and if others were to assume ethical business models, my operation would be more competitive. I'm ambitions, I'm just not ambitius for money. I want to affect change, be a leader, show a new generation that it's possible to run a small successful business doing something deeply meaninful. my miniscule income is temporary, because I am in that same transition point as the rest.

so this is what I wish I had said. and since this is my blog, I get to say it, though the audience be tiny in comparison. how many of you even made it to the end of this post? hello dear reader! who are you anyway? I'd love to know- neighbors? potters? professors of ethics? hello, everybody out there! I hope you understand that this blog is information about my wacko kiln, but it is also rapidly becoming an exercize in putting myself out there for the world to see, since I struggle with such things... I'd be delighted to read your comments- or feel free to write me directly at my email (on the website- treadlehead (dot)com). much love to you- Careen

bodies/miss steak

2009-03-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

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...

personal story for SOF

2009-03-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

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."

hot but distant winter, so far

2009-03-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

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?)

bikes are the answer!

2009-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Two wheels, a healthy heart, and jobs.
simple math.

insomnia

2009-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

in which I am not expending enough energy during the day, happily sitting on my butt tending to the (very few) needs of my Pop who has just had a rather large but benign tumor removed from his neck. It was getting in the way of his arm mobility, and having wedged itself between the major arteries aiming for his brain-muscle was now conquering the uncharted territory of his spinal cord. we're at the Mayo Clinic in MN. yesterday the surgeon was peering at the filligree of nerves and the wet membranes of spinal fluid. today Pop, having previously fortified himself with kayaking and broccolli, is still, as always, walking faster than me through the hallways.

otherworldly. the hospital bed ate him for a day, with its teeth of dials and switches, it's vacuum attachments, it's rails of buttons, the sheets that blended to his gown and the crease of semi-recline that sucked the trunk of his body into a voluminous white nothing, just his toes at one end and his brown speckled hawk nose at the other. How he substantiated so quickly is a mystery to me, but here he is again, eating fish, peering at me over coffee, just like in Thailand when we rambled around in the opposite climate. In the six am morning of, he sips at his cup and says well, of course there's practically no risk of death with this operation, but all the same, I've lived a very full life, done everything I want to do and much more, and if I were to die, it wouldn't be my choice, but I wouldn't be afraid...

i've been reading a collection of native american prose and poetry. often a life is just and meaningful when it is lived in accord with the messages of dreams. dreams and vision are compulsive. directive. I was reading and article about insight, the neurochemistry of it, and how it occurs usually after a prolonged impass. the surge of beta waves that register on the cat scan within a space of alpha (often associated with an unclenched state of mind). How the region behind the forehead is like the conductor, but the regions that register activity at the moment of insight are all over the place and particularly in the right brain. where do dreams come from? I was at the "Bodies" exhibit in Seattle- I asked one the the docents where was the seat of the soul. He said, to my immense astonishment, the pineal gland. (since it has no other known function, apparently) . On the body diagrams of the nervous system at the hospital, the pineal gland is missing. (so was the clit from the bodies exhibit). Why is my soul not located in my appendix?is that reserved for soul food? that's where the hungry ghost is.

all I know is that the fucked-upnest thrill seeker I've ever met in person wore a pfd when he jumped off the bridge. I know that I still dream of him. and he is not the only one I dream of. I know that the one I dreamed I was marrying has forgotten me. I used to dream that I could fly. I have dreamed that I led the revolution. I dreamed that ropes let me float below the wide blue sky. My father had a moment of intense insight at an est training session when he was about my age: he had voluntered to get more involved and so the trainer was insulting him and berating him for his density in answering this simple question: where am I? there. where are you? here. nononono, let's try again- where am I? there. where are you? here. we're not getting through, are we? where are you? ... . . . . there. he says he could feel the synapses in his brain all firing at once. ... where am I? here. you are here and I am you.

it is 2:20 in the morning, and he, over there, is blowing feathers into the air- exhale, inhale. pho, whistle, pho. and I, over here, feel no closer to the next dream, but I will try again, all the same. oh, to sleep like an old man jest a tich worn out from surgery. He rustles, what is he dreaming?

good night, you over here.

sustainable usda?

2009-01-22T13:35:00.000-08:00

petition here for healthy roots to our food systems- get off the sauce of high-fructose corn syrup as one of the many reasons why this country is fat, not phat. have you seen "supersize me"? remember all those dots that he connected? here's a beginning of how to disconnect them and get our bodies and minds healthy again--

ding dong the wicked witch is dead!

2009-01-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

(and I scored a paying job for two months) Oh it is such a beautiful day!! can you just feel the air clearing up? oh yes, there are storms, but the man at the helm says you can do the difficult thing, you've done it before. Harry Belafonte says without you, the man will fail. You!! Me! I am needed! My man praises the makers of things!! Me! Baby, talk to me! I am on this ship! I am not hiding in the anchor locker, curled up in piles of rusty chains. good god in heaven, I have been so depressed for the past eight years, you have no idea. Why do I take these things so intensely? Maybe because that murdurous administration seemed both unstoppable and condoned? I made serious inquiries into the viability of studio work in North Europe. before that, I investigated graduate school in Australia. moving to Portland lifted my spirits for a time but still, it has taken years to settle into a measure of emotional security. I've been living on the fringe of reason and teetering at the brink of willful self-destructive obscurity ... forgive me, I am young. passionate. exciteable, depressable. I thought our trust could not be restored. I thought consumerism had a death-grip on our country. I feared the military machine would decimate everything I hold dear, with the media cheering on. And purely personally, I have bemoaned the gradual devaluation of elegant craftwork in all its forms. No, Rome was not built in a day. Barney Frank thinks the recovery will kick in six months before the next election. but I believe that this dear man has arrived in the nick of time to give us the straight jive on what we need to do. The system of destruction is so vast and so rooted in our assumptions that it is an astronomical task to bring justice to the earth, other countries, cultures, creeds, but I have nothing better to do with my little life than to engage. Damn the torpedoes, Captain! Full speed ahead, and I'll throw the pots!

"and since it was already the mount, it didn't need the sermon"

2009-01-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

- John Gilgun from his poem Clay right there on page ninety-four of the newest Studio Potter in which I too am honored to have a published little bite. (they didn't publish my website address, though, so if you're looking: treadlehead.com is where it's at, but it's almost a mixed blessing that they didn't print it because the site is in such need of remodel that it's embarrassing.)

it's a gorgeous issue- Chris Gustin's belly wrapped in opaque vellum- yum! Gwendolyn Yoppollo breaking it down like I never could, and I'll be chewing on Hunt Prothro's anti-treatise for a while. And here's a kiss for Denise Gackstetter, who is an excellent yoga teacher, I can attest.

I have been enjoying a silent retreat for the past twenty days. No phone, no news, not much email. minimum contact with people, little music. read Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind by Maura "Soshin" O'Halloran early on and didn't really end up reading much more than that and new yorkers, even though I had intentions of doing nothing but read, write, meditate, yoga, make pots and cook a little. At first I was all rigid about it- up at 6, yoga till 7, sit till 8, tea, work, clean, lunch,nap, read, all planned out. HA! maybe I was jet-lagged but I was dreaming wild dreams, waking up at 1 am, wide up till four, then falling asleep sitting up. In the studio, I had this great design idea for evolving the lickable plates, but quickly found that I needed to do a lot of recycling and deep cleaning which turned into making saggers and flower pots out of old messed-up clay, and then the weather was suddenly 50 degrees and sunny so I was outside hacking away at the garden, and in the process I decided to turn my filthy attic into a living space so I scavenged ship-lap fir boards for that project and up-ended everything - everything- yesterday found me upstairs in a tool belt squatting beneath the rafters heaving stepping-stones of teeter-totter boards encrusted with a century of dirt around so that I could walk on something so that I could lay out, at long last, a permanent floooooor.

how did up at six, yoga till seven, sit till eight turn into fir floorboards flying in a windstorm?

at a certain point, I found a phrase to describe what I was trying to do- "clean the filter". of my noggin, that is. all the noise, the analysis, the fears, the ethers. all the self-ness. all this energy that I've been spending trying to Figure It Out and using crutches to walk through mud-bogs. dumb. not regret-dumb: in the video game of life, you have certain tools, certain points to cash in, certain handicaps, and I did my best with what I had. I'm just saying I think I'm through the worst of the marsh, and ready to resume kicking ass. who knows, maybe at this level, I have to battle Kafka's cockroach, but hey, embrace the man within, right? no, I think I'm done with existential crises. I'm not an intellectual, and I don't really want to be. I am happiest when I am making things. material things. not idea-things. I am happiest when I am bringing the material to its beauty- a vision that I had of myself in the attic was sweeping a belt sander over the floor for hour after blissful hour, watching the grain come back to life. and then rolling the urethane over it, aaaaah- rain in the desert.

it's part of a much bigger question- what kind of a leader am I? how and when do I step up? I think it is inevitable in the coming years that there will be a watershed moment (maybe tomorrow on Inauguration Day!) when we as a people need all those capable of leading to really step outside their comfort zones and do the thing on peril of death. Even the ones outside The System, like me, and the ones with monkeys and the pirates and the queers- everybody. I don't know how many people have described me as bold. I'd say bull-headed to the point of stupidity, but hey- I love to make things but I have other gifts as well. what I'm trying to do is make the space, physically and metaphorically, available. scrub the brain-filter. scrub the floor. dust off the charisma, iron the forehead, shake out the soul, lets roll, baby, lets roll!

japan part the second

2009-01-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

I have been remiss in my writing duties. Please forgive me- I have been ignoring my computer. I hope everyone is well and looking forward to the new year and particularly to a change in the weather in DC. Hopefully this global warming will effect some contructive communication between Isreal and Palestine as well. Ps, if anyone is looking for a potent global advocacy group, check out Avaaz.org.

more about Japan. Well, let's start with Thailand, where I met up with my Pop for a few days. We bonked around like two kids without a care in the world. Knowing that he plans on retiring there puts thailand in a whole other perspective. He bought and remodeled a little shop-house. One of those very narrow four-story affairs with the wide open shop below, and space for untold multitudes above. So now these garment workers are his new neighbors, the pepsi-bottle washing station next to the ferry dock that you get to by walking through the park where the usual couples and bums hang out will be familiar territory to me. I will grow accustomed to hearing him respectfully and firmly tell the cabbie to turn on his meter. I look forward to the short ride down to the local seafood place with three servers for every table who hover from the second you sit down through the minutes it takes me to figure out which perfectly prepared delicacy I will have today. But I don't mind because they are so sweet, and one little ahh, lady? In his pink polo shirt, is always helping me pour my beer before I'm ready. What is it today pop? Deep-fried shrimp with melon and mayonaise? (I'm not saying this one was good). The constant green papaya salad? Or my new favorite- a whole cracked crab the size of a dungeness baked in a big earthnware pot in the juices of some dark green vegetable, chunks of bacon, and glass noodles. There's probably tamarind or something in there too, it was sweet and fatty and green and deep and we ate it twice in the five days I was there.

Then we ran off to Pattaya, to visit with our friend Lo who is working as pr manager for this unusual hotel called D2. Check it out if you're going to Pattaya- great architecture, but it wasn't open when we were there. (not to mention tourism was down 70% because of the protests). I had an interesting adventure that evening involving licking icing off the birthday girl at an SM club. They don't do SM very well in Thailand- it doesn't jive with Buddhism. They don't fundamentally get it, so they look great in their cheap plastic clothes but it's just like the strip teases, not much in the way of soul. Think of all the high-heeled boots- some ladies (and it's this way in Japan too) look like they own the place, but a lot of ladies just can't figure out how to walk in heels- they're all wobbling around on the stilletto, or duck-footed in Japan. Very incongruous. As an aside, my friend Isaac has a great theory about why the ladies develop a duck-footed walk: they wear these boots, right, and last year it was all about the legwarmers up on the thigh, and then really short skirts. But then half the time they're on a bicycle, and it's cold there in winter, so they bicycle with their legs together... to protect the parts, I presume.Together we went hunting for a mercedes- at some point, Pop had taken the bus from Bangkok to Pattaya, dozed off, and awoke just in time to see a building with a glass front flashing past the window, with a really sweet old mercedes looking forlorn inside. He made a quick note of where he was, best as he could, and we boarded the same bus together this time, with a map and a notepad. Down off the interstate, he thought way too early, but there it was, a creamy yellowish green 1955? sedan. We took copious notes of major landmarks the rest of the way (“20' plastic chicken”), and retraced in a car the next day. There she be! Dirty, flat, tired, and stuck but in pretty good shape considering. Better than the 1930something jalopy outside that had the nests of many different creatures protruding from panels and torn seats. The owner was a kind man, an enthusiast who ran the tire re-treading place next to the dirty old showroom, and we ended up following him to this other place where there was a slightly newer almost as sweet chocolate brown one with a cream top. That actually ran. My brother would have been loosing his stuffing with excitement. Pop and I daydreamed about taking that car on a road trip up to Laos. In Japan, my fantasy extended to a full-on trip through Laos, China, and Korea. Then a ferry across to Japan, then through Japan, all the way exploring strange subcultures and writing a book. So that's what I'm saving up for next!

And you know one of the many reasons why I wanted to do that road trip slowly that way at some point in the future? Because I was hurtling at 300 km/hr on the Shinkanzen, which isn't even the fastest train in Japan. It's kind of like that rushing loudness in a jet plane just as it is about to take off. But for hours. But then you're at the whole other end of the country, and it's only just barely noon. But then I was trying to get to these tiny towns famous for their ceramics, right? So then I'm on a bus, or a slow train, or a subway and then a slow train and bless their hearts, most of the conductors were as thorough as possible in directing me, showing me timetables in Japanese, enthusiastically repeating the same word that I still didn't understand, but I'm sad to say that the usual travelling mishaps applied and I rarely had enough time in the places I visited. Somehow I had to balance time alone looking for great pots with time in Kyoto with my friend, not to mention that sleeping on his futoned floor was free, and sleeping on a bed of rocks in an empty youth hostel dorm in Hagi was fourty-five clams, and the museum was still closed the next day. But somehow I had an absolutely wonderful time, pretty much everywhere I went. From Tokyo to Hagi to Karatsu to Nagasaki and home to Kyoto, I met such warm welcoming people everywhere. A couple that I met there invited us to their house for dinner the night before I left, and what a delightful eve that was- It was them- she from Oz, he Japan, Isaac and I, and another couple, she from Japan, he Canada. We got to know each other, prepared food, snacked on prosciutto and drank plum sake, talked, listened to excellent music from etherial to jazz, and talked some more over a meal of oden (and long afterward too). (this is the 7-11 version of oden, which is full-on scary: Oden is a wintertime meal that involves a stove in the center of the table on which is placed a big covered pot of broth. In batches, there are a wide variety of items thrown into the simmering broth- tofu, veggies, bits of fish and oysters, that hard jelly stuff, bits of leafy veggies, and then you fish it out into a medium sized bowl in which you have put a little ponzu (citrus sauce), and in this case, shredded diakon root which is a mild radish. You put all your yummy things in the sauce, and eat it, making a pit stop at your rice bowl. Isaac and I cooked this at his house too, less fancily, and also had pickles- I love it- I am going to do it here for a dinner party sometime really soon. I have many specific memories of that night, but I think the sweetest memory is thoroughly of the heart- I was, quite honestly, a little bit shocked at how strong and unburdened the love was that evening. Within the nugget of each person was contained the paths of life that led to their presence there in that room on that night, as is so everywhere at all times- wherever you go, there you are, ya? But something about the chemistry of those people at that time was right on- a little node of energy along the path- zzzt! I carry on but it's a reference point- the way he laughed, the way they ribbed each other, the gentle question, the long warm goodbye- group hugs, and the way she held me so long, looked into my eyes like reminding me ....

so here are a few photos more: a painted door within a painted room the door to the anarchist bookstore and the store called "maps n porn", tokyo

a wall in Hagi

this was the most breathtaking art I've seen in a while- way down there at the shrine are some glass steps- they look a bit like they are ice. and then you go around the side of the hill off to your right, and the guide hands you a flishlight. one by one, you pass through a tunnel in the ground about 18" wide, straight, smooth concrete. this tunnel is about 30 feet long and the second you enter it, you hear a thrumming sound. then you emerge into a dirt cave, completely dark aside from the light glowing down from glass stairs ascending ahead of you up into-- into-- well, you can't get there, but you can imagine- the temple? what's in the temple? white light--- and thrumming.

I must write you about another fantastic exhibit that I couldn't photograph. In Tokyo, I went with my new friend Nevena to the something opera center which is a fine arts center, and they had an exhibit devoted to light called light insight, and another called open space. So among the pieces was a dark room with an orb inside it- after letting your eyes adjust for a few minutes, you could see the light emitted by cells impoding. and there was a room in which you put on 3d glasses and could operate a CAD machine projecting its image onto a large screen that curved around you. and there was a little eyeball stencil thing that flash-burned the word LIGHT into your cornea, and a special camera in room that took a photograph of your eyeball, projecting it on the screen, and then supposedly through an analogue it could read your thoughts, and people responded to the image in real time via the web. but my favorite was a 50 square foot gravity pad, which read your gravity/mass as you moved on the panels and then projected via GPS how your gravity was effecting everything around you. this is a tombstone from this amazing huge cemetary in Tokyoand this was not in the cemetary

these are for the clay dorks: this is Takashi Nagesato's woodsplitter- that disk rotates around in the bearing clamped around it, bringing the chisel business end down every second- looked like I worked very well, in the right hands.and this would be a filter press in Bizen, but I got chased away from the area and a very tidy kiln in Bizen- I have a bajillion photos of this kiln, if anyone wants to see them

Kyoto, Japan. with pictures now

2008-12-26T06:55:00.000-08:00

either I'm getting smarter about how to travel out of the country or I'm getting mellow with relative age. I can't remember the last time I planned something to death and it all fell through, only to find that what is happening is much more enjoyable than the alternate. I certainly did not plan on editing the short application from the director of the Hagi museum to have his town accepted as a cultural treasure. I did not invite myself to macha tea in the tiny tin shack of the keepers of some obscure temple.
I can't anticipate talking about "god" with a yellow-fingered acid freak at the epicenter of the bomb blast in Nagasaki, nor happily suffering a crush the night before on the shark sent to me by the bar-maid to play out a few rounds of billiards.

No amount of cajoling or subtlety could get my college friend in Kyoto to guess his travel budget three months ago so I had a clue of how far we would venture together or for how long. nor could a simple sentence reveal his state of mind at this time, so different from the tattered hat under which he found himself the last time I saw him. And I could not guess that I would find such kindness in the hands of one couchsurfing host in Tokyo, and dislike the other as much as I did. I did not expect to spend such a lusciously large portion of my time here meeting new people of all colors and creeds, relaxing with them, eating, enjoying more, and again, invitations unfolding like so many wrappings on the secret contents of bento

boxes on the super-fast trains that I take from Kyoto to everywhere.

Japan is not all that beautiful in winter. The heavy lines of all those roof tiles, the stubble of fallow fields, the milky gray pollution, the pallid, ubiquitous concrete. at least the weather has been kind to me. sun in Tokyo and many days besides. only in Hagi was my umbrella blasted inside-out. only today, december 26, are my hands so cold as they grip the handlebars of a bicycle that I feel sure that I must stop or they will fall off. But here we are, warm among friends at Christmas. The dessert selection says it all- marzipan from Barcelona, rum balls from Isaac's mom in Minnesota, intense fruit cake to impress the Brit, macha suger-bombs, dutch licorice, a soft tiramisueish custard from the neighborhood baker..

I have seen many amazing ceramics, of course.
even though I end up in Hagi on a monday (museums closed), and the two around here that I most want to see are in winter renovation... bah-... but my eye is not so finely tined as to see a difference between museum quality and the kind that sells at high-end antique shops. it's still not my personal aesthetic inspiration, but my appreciation expands..

Not to mention awesome wooden creations of all sorts, boxes, tools, lacquerware, temples, faceted glass, silk kimono, tranquil gardens, beautiful women (geishas in the streets!), food-art, mirror-shine wooden walkways for socks (surreptitious running and sliding), paper lanterns in the doorways, and a man who still walks through the neighborhood tapping sticks to remind people to extinguish their hearthfire in this town that has burned so many times..

feathers flying

2008-12-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

the vacation I had planned started five days ago when my plane didn't take off. Pop and i had been in contact, he in Thailand, I in PDX, about the situation with the rebels in the Bangkok airport- they took it over to protest the puppet government of a man they had ousted a few months ago. for a week, a few ten thousand travellers were stranded trying to come or go, shipping came to a halt, millions in revenue was lost each day.

I was kind of excited for a revolution occurring in the little country that I love, until I talked to my Thai friend- it's useless, the government will just reform under a different name. He was right. and once again I am thwarted from sailing on this lovely school-ship whose construction plans beckoned from the wall of my concrete and flourescent studio in grad school as I left a term early to join the sailing journey from Thailand to France. two years later, the King's Cup off Phuket (west side): 200 sailing vessels divided into 34 classes racing each day for 5 days. Pop says come aboard. Rebels in the airport say not this time either, honey.

I went back to my studio- all tidy, no food, bills paid in advance... and opened a thick book. Dogs and Demons, by Alex Kerr, recommended to me by Mr Neely. I had asked him for a book that would clarify for me Japan's remarkably opaque culture. he said don't be scared, but here you go... it effectively debunked all assumptions I, and apparently most of the world, made about this golden string of islands. Culture in shreds, economy full steam towards the rocks, environment decimated by the cake make-up concrete. Education nationalist propaganda, borderline pedophilia, etc. Horror. He traces it through the psyche of control, militarism, and the amazing ability to shift vision away from reality (delusion, in my book)... and to give every last drop of blood to be the best. it's bitter, for sure. I devoured it with side-dishes of various periodicals.

The rebels are gone now, along with the prime minister. Pop calls me every night. they won the first two days of racing, easily, with their long waterline in heavier air (basic hydrodynamics says that the longer the waterline, the more efficiently a deep-v hull will move through water given x power input. this is different from planing hulls that don't have to cut the water but skim over it). on the third day, last night for me, he calls with a slightly quavering voice- he rolled his ankle on something loose in the navigation station, and was now pop on ice. I told him that I had managed to change my ticket and would see him in Bangkok in a few days.

In the days of my vacation in portland, I spent a delightful one making pots! what a joy! a studio just over there, six feet from where I lounge on the couch dreaming of geishas... I have all these ideas that had been shelved in the interests of dishware for the big kiln... two earthenware bottles grew out of my wheel- one more top-heavy, one low in the belly. low boy grew a pendentum out his head. she in turn, a receptacle. they leaned towards each other, soft, and indented each other. His spout hovers without giving. she can just barely stand without him.

this morning I wake in the sun and wind, spend hours writing in my journal. catch the news, as ususal. and purchase two tickets. a two-week train pass on the Japan Rail line, and ticket to the place to be on new year's eve. in college I had travelled new zealand for a while before meeting an art exchange group from my college for a semester program. I flew from NZ to rarotonga, cook islands on my birthday, crossing the international date line. when I woke up, it was my birthday again. I woke up in a little cabin run by a swiss woman. the air was much thicker in the pacific jungle, and the flowers were out of control. there was an oven, and I decided to make coconut bread. I vaguely remember that the thing wasn't plugged in or some such, and I remember the bread was good. but I couldn't figure out how old I was. anyhow, for this trip, I thought the smartest thing in the world would be to party like a banshee in Tokyo on new year's eve, fly across the date line to San Fransisco, and end up here the next day, which would be new year's eve! I could have if only flights from NRT to SF left in the morning... but they don't. try to tell me that isn't brilliant- I don't think my knees could have handled that much dancing!

why would I want to be in the us when i could be in mad japan? why would I want to party with my own kind when I could have a wild unusual experience in such an amazing place as japan? believe me, the decision was long before dogs and demons... what are we really talking about here? I didn't go to a lot of raves when I was in college, but I remember one in particular- an art group had gone to chicago for the pier show, and I being the smoking self-described reject or some such rot, had collected a few of the group to go separate in my little vw fox. we wanted wheels to hit a party. we found one. chicago, south side, in the basement of a bowling alley, 1997. House was big by then but breakbeat was just finding it's ahh.. jump-track? It was hot, it was messy, it was the razor's edge. there was a fight in the girl's room, there were boys breakdancing in the back, it was grit-fabulous. I was just an overgrown girl on acid wearing someone else's wide velvet corduroy, and the lady dancing in front of me was kicking ass. Her moves were all right- not amazing except for these quick drops all the way down and up again like she was a rubber-band puppet. but she schooled me in how to go like I meant it. after she left, I danced so hard that one of the b-boys smiled and ran his finger down my sweating back as he walked away. yum.

that was my taste of the underground. there were maybe twenty of us that went till dawn- mostly jungle-style breaks. we knew each other as we passed, watched each other's smoking styles, curious at a distance about the other, but sort of not really smiling much. we obviously didn't live there, but that was all right. in the parking lot they invited us to breakfast at the diner. we couldn't hack it, got lost trying to find the interstate, got followed by some boys in a hoop till we were out of their hood, and somehow made it home. so,...what happened? an odd little community. we were outsiders invited in. I mean, we paid our five dollars but that doesn't get you IN. you're in when you give, when you appreciate what is given. you're in when you enjoy/ interact with what is so vibrantly there, whatever that means to you, just don't hit the crack pipe and blow the smoke at me as if you think you could cool me off, loser.

so, .... why do i want to party in my own country when I could be jumping around in Tokyo? both are going to be a ruckus. But I want to make some noise, and I ain't talking about my mouth. in the years since that party in chicago, I ended up at other raves, other clubs, but not often. when I saw the kids sucking on pacifiers I realized it wasn't my game anymore. MC's started babbling over the flow of my favorite drum and bass, and by then I was in the woods, later, in the also metaphorical desert state of utah (can you fucking believe they threw so much money behind the CA ban on gay marriage- oh, it just boils my blood, after all their polygamy, telling people how to live and love-rrrrrg)... thailand full moon parties were fun ...

so I moved to portland, a stray cat. hungry for love, action, movement, culture, life! give it to me now!! I'm thirty years old- and the breakbeat scene is small to non-existant in this town of ragga and teckno. not enough critical mass to support the community. community. the kids dance, sort of, they're all so much younger than me. they're into the eighties. bah! terrible. I have no interest in the revamped eighties. But Bassnectar's good energy and noncorportate nonego attitude is infective! not to mention the breaks, his lovin genius for break. and Thievery Corporation embodies a movement for social change that it so so very necessary. ...oh please, oh please, after all this searching, I want to be a part of this, I want IN, I want to give this all my wild energy. I know it's just dancing. but just try to tell me it's just dancing. tell my mangy boney body it isn't conjuring revolution.

it's my little energetic delusion. can i have one? we did it, you know. how many years have so many people fought and despaired that we were all going to hell and the big boys in charge were just going to ride us to the ground. NO! Fuck no.. let me be the crazy artist, high on love and visions of a new tomorrow. I'm ready to shed the anxiety, the attachments, the drunken despair. I'm ready to be shamelessly in love. and I know that so many people out there are right with me- I want to be in the throbbing heart of them... all of them dancing... all of them... in my tribe, my community, my country, my vision of the world. NOW! GO!

ya!

2008-12-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

hey- look at this!
good. if anyone out there is equally interested in this exact kind of technology and knows of a company in which to invest PLEASE tell me!

raw rxn to garth clark

2008-11-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-19T00:40:00.000-08:00

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!!

avaaz.org

2008-10-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

an excellent organization asking us to vote!

love -C

good credit, good loam

2008-10-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

"In return for its infusion of new money to bolster bank balance sheets, Treasury will get preferred shares paying a 5 percent return initially and warrants to purchase common shares, allowing taxpayers to benefit once the banks' recover. However, Treasury does not get any voting rights with its ownership stake and will not be able to have a say in choosing the bank's board of directors.

Treasury has also given the go-ahead for stronger banks to use the money it receives in the rescue program to acquire weaker banks, drawing criticism from those who say the government should not be financing the consolidation of the banking system _ in effect helping to choose winners and losers." huff pots

so I am educating myself. and I don't have time to write a lot, but I'm reading more about how everything is going to hell BUT, within this mayhem, any good news is great news, so they mention it when they might not have before-- they mention today that there was a slight increase in single-family home sales in sepember, assisted by so and so deal on new construction whatever, and of course that was before the worst of the crunch crunched but it got me back to this place- ok, everything slows down if not grinds to a halt. that means people stay where they are and make do. maybe they make do by stealing my truck (scrap metal on wheels), or maybe they realize that we've all got to pool our resources to pull ourselves out of this mess- what did Mark Twain say? "buy land, they're not making any more of it"

I'm thinking of a community garden. yes I know this is an absurd amount of work. I've been doing this kind of work on rental property for years now- might as well do it on a piece of my own land. but more than that- how are we going to start reshaping our vision of a healthy future? SOIL! nutrients in the soil. education of the children.

I really have to get back to work- more later

OPEC slashes production of oil, has little effect

2008-10-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

"This slowdown in demand is serving to exacerbate the situation in a market which has been oversupplied with crude for some time." (OPEC statement)
the news was not well-greeted by the white house, as one might imagine."It has always been our view that the value of commodities, including oil, should be determined in open, competitive markets, and not by these kinds of anti-market production decisions," -don't get me started, you panderers to the monopolies
so OPEC shows its stripes, if we had not noticed before. but slowing production will only postpone awareness of peak oil. the lifeblood of easy global consumerism (and commuter culture) is cheap plentiful oil. .I wonder how long and in how many ways we will resist the inevitable. we must scale down, buy local. it is not difficult but it is far outside of our paradigm. thank holy god for Obama- oh, I know, he isn't a magician, reality still applies, but I tell you right now, I will be dancing in the fucking streets on election night! I may even invest my hard-won dollars in alternate energy and engineering geniuses- genii- genies-- we got to get some clay minerals back into the roots of the system.

In other news, I'm a little dizzy. Immediately after the firing, some potter friends and i drove up to Seattle to the Seward Park Art center to meet and hear the tales of Mister Al Tennant, who lives on Bainbridge Island and used to teach at the university of Alaska. man, did he have some doozies. I mean, I've heard some good stories in my day... -- get this visual- those of you who work in school clay studios know that there always seems to be a plethora of (unfinished student pots) bisq-ware at the end of each term. One evening Al and his TA had a mite too much whiskey and played baseball with the bisqware, havign taken precautionary measures beforehand. namely, duck-taping a bowl over their heads in order to protect themselves from the projectiles. Al managed to remove his helmet before passing out in his office. the TA snoozed on the table. in the morning, the janitor nearly called the police until she saw the TA's feet. I tell ya- they just don't make schools like they used to. - sigh -

Then I unloaded the kiln, and you know all about how that went. I must apologize for any horrified gasps you may have emitted upon reading that I lost most of the load. A large proportion died. however, I was able to re-fire the serviceware in a kiln at Mt Hoodie (!thank you again, Stephen Mickmaster!), in a soda kiln, so they are pretty close to the look I'm going for. I have decided to abandon the reduce- cooling for the next firing. The dishes got messed up because I relied on an old standby glaze that I used in Utah- wrong answer. it was fine in reduce-cool there, but not here. odd. I will focus for the moment on a good soda-fire, since my interest is more towards functional work. So inbetween weekends of that studio tour, I re-fired. which involved propping open a back door and dodging security so that I could sleep in the warm classroom and wake up every two hours to baby through the first part of the firing. this is just after I got some great press, so thank god, I was able to salvage a good bit of the load and have more confidence in presenting my work to the public. It was really excellent to welcome people to my studio. Here there is context, people see the intention of the maker and her space. My action is evident all around me, so I can simply gesture in a direction instead of stringing together a mess of shy words.

With the seconds of the firing, I made an installation among the delicate money-plants that volunteer to rattle in the wind under the stately fir trees:
.

At the end of the last day, we dismantled the installation and the people who had lingered over it returned to collect larger pots for their garden. I am delighted to have met so many of the people who came to visit- from potters to shrinks to mathematicians, this is truly the stuff of the good life.

And Mama came to town after that. We went out to the ocean, and along the Gorge. We had fresh oysters and sweet dungeness, and shoe shopping. she's a good egg, my mama. my biggest fan, and loving patronesse. what would I do without her--

so next up is a workshop with Lindsay Oesterriter, a fellow grad of Utah State. I have to say, of all the people with whome I went to school, Lindsay is top on my list of those I want to see again. she is high- energy, big love. and talented too. we'll be firing the small anagama at Mt Hood. reduce cooling, of course.

and? Halloween. my favorite ruckus.

hope all are well. I'm going to Japan for a month over xmas. any suggestions?

Second Firing Results

2008-10-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

I just lost about four thousand dollars. no, not in the market crash, just trying to make real things, for chrissake. I made a lot of mistakes for this firing, simple ones like trusting a new idea, gambling ones like praying a trusted glaze will react well with different color, stupid ones like not washing plates before glazing them, but I felt confident that the big pots would be all right. Tested clay, well-constructed, no glaze, all that. My dear friend and firing partner took them out at about 500* by suddenly going 200* an hour. Every single fucking one has the surface stress cracks that might look great on the craggy pots that get hammered in long woodfire but on my simple forms- unacceptable. I am sick about it. They were going to go to the only gallery that sells my work- a good one in the art district.
There's nothing to do but let go. It is all gambling, the first few firings of a new kiln, we're firing greenware, and cooling in reduction, there are many places where it could all go to hell. It is life on the high road.
The most important thing is that not only does the kiln fire BEAUTIFULLY but that Tin Man out there just lavishes affection all over the bare clay. I am delighted to report that the scum problem seems to have been solved by Joe at Clay Art Center by re-pugging the whole ton of it in Barium water. Thank you, Joe! Really, the kiln is a great pleasure to fire, most of the excitement of woodfire with a fraction of the work. You don't experience the wild intensity of stoking the front of an anagama, it's more like side-stoking, but it's lots of fun. Basically, we figured out in the first firing that the coals built up in the first part of the firing, done this time in little bourry-boxes, get shoved into the heart of the long firebox and act as a wick for the oil. With the pyrometer reading about 1000* this time, I turned on the oil and kept the coal bed healthy by side-stoking. The oil droplets sprayed into the coals and it was quite simple to find the right balance of oil, air, and amount of wood. It helped a lot to have the coal bed good and hot, though. To experiment, this firing, I established a good fire in one half of the kiln first, good hot coals, but then on the other side, I pushed in a few paltry coals and turned on the oil just to see if it would catch. It did catch but not very well. That side limped along for a while, the oil burning poorly with an acrid smell. I was worried about too much reduction, actually, but of all the problems, carbon core doesn't seem to be among them. I will rebuild the bourry-boxes a little smaller and with a proper door now that we've figured out how big they don't need to be...
As far as even heat goes, the back is still cooler by a few cones. This time I built a trick brick in the flue so that I could open it more. At cone 7 in the hottest spot, I pulled it but I think it was too little too late. Next firing I will have air openings in the back of the floor only, none towards the front. And as far as reduction-cooling goes, I think it effected a small area of the kiln, the front, and closest to the firebox, even though I had flames reaching through all upper parts of the kiln and few low places in front. The celadons show a surface puckering only there, and the same eggshell glaze that I used with success in grad school foamed in the front of the kiln but not the back. (even on the inside of boxes, interestingly). I think I do definetly need to tune clays to this kind of firing- Timmy had some gorgeous test tiles showing the black and iridescence with yellow and red reflashing that I remember from my best firings at school. I put a large bowl of "coot" clay in also, and it showed the same potential.
What else to say? I'm going to refire the dishes in a soda kiln. Pdx open studios is coming up this weekend. I got written up in the Portland Tribune, the article will come out in a few days. ironic, eh? well, with my sick sense of humor, I popped a bottle of champagne last night and shared it with Jack and April.
and the world keeps turning.

good morning backache

2008-09-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have just found my body's limits- I knew I was pushing too hard. but it only proves, somedays, you just shouldn't get out of bed: I lifted my head one inch from the pillow and immediately let it drop as a pain shot through the entire back of my ribcage. ok, don't panic. I can breathe, mostly.

so it's a big kiln!, especially without any bag walls. the footprint of the stacking area is three by four feet, and that goes up an average of three and a half feet... that's 45 cubic feet when you count the nooks and crannies! I would not have dared build a kiln this size if I hadn't been given free materials. but there it is, and it's in my backyard

this is one half of the pots. Jack and I will finish the rest today. notes on stacking.. the kiln was very uneven last time- why? I had opened most of the openings in the floor at the back. two at the front. I think the front was less densely packed, for one thing. it was all little pots on shelves, whereas the back was tumble-stacked big things. this time it'll be more symmetrical. I have made a few other changes. Olsen's "runaround" fastfire kiln has a low bag wall integrated into the shelving- he blocks the most direct path along the floor from firebox to flue. so see those little square bricks on the floor of my kiln- those are serving that function. maybe it ought to be extend higher. He makes a stong point about the need, therefore, to leave adequate gaps between the shelves to allow for that flame to move- an inch. so I was careful about that.
The other thing is that I figured out how to make a trick brick to open the flue in the wall during the firing if need be... to move heat toward the back, and will cover floor holes in the front with fiberboard instead of plugs so they can be pushed aside if heat is needed in the front....

I consulted with Nils Lou about bourry-boxes. He thinks a two by three foot area is necessary, with a little over half of the space below the grate bars. This would be needed for bringing the kiln up to temp with wood. But we're not really trying to do that, exactly, so I went with two smaller boxes. hopefully enough space for the wood to burn well. if these are indeed the right size, I imagine that I'll rebuild them nicely. as it is, it was a two-day slapdash affair, enough to test it and get by with wombly red bricks made by hand in the 1920's.

Candling tomorrow! I need to buy some food for the crew-

pins and needles

2008-09-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

entropy. broken saw, broken bike, broken economy. batten down the hatches, me hearties! there be a red sky this morning-
actually, I'm really looking forward to a barter economy. I put in an honest day's work. it's worth something. what's it worth to you? I might even make more "money" in a different economy, getting away from this evanescent green paper would sure make a lot more sense to me- we need food and shelter, companionship. I make dishes, you grow food. lets talk. let's not haggle over who's worth more, that's an old paradigm. Let's break bread over a well-worn table, laugh and trade. trade stories, trade goods. trade real things for real things, not annuities and fisa-fickle options for fizzyfuzzy nothing paper. of course, I'm sitting pretty, with no debt, no kids, and mad skills. but we are a resourceful creation, we humans. I'm sure we'll do our god proud.

where have I been? sorry, those of you that have been wondering- after the firing, my social life (hey! i have a social life! fan-fucking-tastic!) decided that it was feeling neglected and for a while there it seemed like i was out just about every night- craziness- did I mention that I am in love with pdx? I am in love with pdx. it did take a while to adjust to life in a city. I had to learn all those genteel languaging things, all those mello make-nices. layers of the onion, you know. it's still savory. and I was looking at the calendar at the timing for the next firing- I'm a part of the pdx open studio tour- link http://www.portlandopenstudios.com/ actually, I seem to have become the little poster girl for them this year, being interviewed for the city paper and all that. (I did some work for the publicity comittee and the woman in charge decided I was a peach). so I wanted to fire before the tour (so I have something to show for all this work). which means I had to get a move on. pronto. it's been working- I would work most of the day, party at night. then the Time Based Art Festival happened. www.pica.org/tba/
and this is Exactly the kind of event that pulled me to sunny pdx. the time-based art festival is this fabulous ten day breathtaking extravaganza of international performance art. brilliant. they publish a small book as a guide to all the happenings, there are so many (on the radar. I also attended one that was sort of off the radar- link here- http://hexhexhex.blogspot.com) .
conjuring: "mamalian diving reflex" "when will we learn that time is a set of training wheels (we don't really need them)" "Derrida '...at the end, we know, all this will end very badly! there is no way to reach the absolute good. presence is always divided, split' " ... these bits are from the handbook and website... "dark heart of america, in search of the answers of what it means to be secure, and the price we are willing to pay for it" "explanation of the world as if for (or by) a child, a psychotic, or a martian" "against all odds, exposes the human experience behind hip-hop" "disinfromationalist storytelling", and the one that moved me the most, a dance duet by Leesaar the Company- a tense, riveting performance of a new relationship. she, gripped by fascination and frustration. he, with similar gesture that fit better on her body. open and close, open and shake... I saw many powerful performances. I'll try to imbed a video of a site-specific performance done at the keller fountain, designed by an architect whose wife is a dancer- Anna Halprin. one special sunday they turned off the fountain and the dancers emerged, moved, splashed, played, and submerged again.. Pica filmed it- I'll try to get it to you- I was jealous of those (albeit cold) dancers- I would do that- I would love to get involved in this kind of art- maybe next year.
so that's what i did for a while. and pretty much after that I holed up and finished my clay-working time. thats' over, now I'm glazing and building these cheap but kinda un-aesthetic bourry-boxes on the kiln- they look like weird red-brick mittens on the front. I don't love them, but what's a girl to do? I didn't think through the wood-fire part of this kiln at all. now I'm having to deal with it- maybe they're way too big (asked Nils Lou for advice)- we'll see- maybe I'll re-make them later..
So life is great, life is flippn busy at the moment- going to fire early next week (oct 1), then seattle for a wkshop with Al Tennant, have to buy a bisq kiln cuz mine is about as dead as they get. (entropy, anyone?), and hopefully get to visit with some friends up there, and then unload, and the studio tour for two weekends, and a cash job repairing gutters and clambering around on a roof, and then Mam is coming to visit and we'll go out to the ocean (!!!!!!), and by then it will be raining constantly, so I'll be making pots again. and STILL not riding a motorcycle. good things come to those who wait, right? (my sweet ride has terrible compression, apparently, so it's not worth the many hundreds needed for an eletrical fix- sad sad potter with itchy feet)

much love-
C

skuzbucket

2008-08-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I unloaded a little before I remembered to snap a photo. the kiln was loaded pretty much as tight as possible given the way the dome curls downward at the arch- which is a slight pain in the butt but not horrible. certainly I was able to sneak pots put tight to the arch even at the top of the front stack... so there were two distinct sections to the stack- the back half like this:

and the front half composed 2/3 of pots on shelves with those two tall pillars off to the side- the front was the portion that got the most hot- was it stacked to a similar tightness as the back?- I pretty much think so, but the nature of the spaces was totally different- lots of choppy ones instead of tall columns as it was in the back... anyway- the front was massively more hot than than the back- cone 12. the back top was at about cone 8, bottom more like six.
this is so you can see what I'm talking about with the flue openings- lots in the floor, and a lot in the wall- so for this first fire, I had all the wall closed off, and most of the floor open. it was closed only on the right side near the firebox, because I anticipated using only one side of the kiln's potential fireboxes. but that's another story.

so it is clear that simply having most of the floor openings open in the back is not enough to move the heat back there-- ok, now we know. you can see what was open in the second photo. and remember that I yanked out the bag wall, which was a triangle-shape, taller in the back of the kiln. this would have been even worse, in hindsight. Stephen Mickmaster came to the unloading and suggested a small bag wall at the opposite of where I had had it even temporarily- a little deflector triangle at the front of the kiln- I may do that yet, but I like the rest of his suggestion better- open up some ports in the wall portion of the flue- and figure out a way to slow the flame- more of a skateboard of a target brick, or a rubble by Richard's idea, and of course more focus on air to the back in terms of flue openings... What I'll probably do is load a super-dense load of pots at that place where the bag-wall should be-

But here's the current bane of my existance: SCUM!! scum started when I asked my clay company to ad 5% redart to a "takamori" blend of porcelain. I had done this in grad school without problems.. big disclaimer there- so I had no qualms about ordering half a ton of the special blend from the clay company. they mixed up 2800 lbs for me, which I should have noted to them at the time... as it happened, something about the redart is causing a migration to the surface of the soluable calcium- as the pot dries, any oils on my fingers are making - not a resist- the opposite- a magnet for a scum to form. it shows up in the firing as a thin but distinctly gray layer. flowerpots below are from this firing. color is a little wacked but unintentional surface design is evident.

Below is a pot from a previous firing at Mt Hood college- in a salt kiln, and reduce-cooled, as this one was. Neely thought that perhaps the salt was aggravating it, essentially giving a light tacky surface on which the soot would settle and integrate with the surface. (I hope I got that straight- it was over a year ago). but there was no salt in this kiln... may I draw attention to the orange flashing at the center of the frame- I sanded some of these pots before firing them, to see what would happen- that orange is the most clean clay. then there's the scum, and an inbetween zone.

one photo shows the marks from my rubber rib- there at the top of the left-hand pot is where I pulled the rib upward. lower on that cylinder is a big gray band- why there and not elsewhere? anybody??

so here's the left hook: while I was at Penland, a friend used my studio, making pots with her own porcelain. here's one of hers:

there's no glaze on that pot. there is pretty much no chance for soluable soda ash or any of those quirky elements to be responsible for that mark. turn the pot right-side up in your head- looks to me like water dripping from the lip, absorbing into the clay, like she had washed the rim (with water from my tap...!), and then trimmed it- trimming off the bottom half of the "active ingredient"-- anybody? does this make sense? clearly, the marks on her pot are not scumming but flashing. but is is possible that the minerals in my water are reacting to the redart in this batch of clay to create an unusually subtle problem?? comments, please?!
I'm going to throw with distilled water for a while and see what happens-
next firing scheduled for the end of september.