The shop dog, Izzy. Don't worry, she doesn't always look that sad and depressed. She melt your heart when she begs for your bacon at breakfast!
So after 6 days off from teaching, I was afforded the time to work a little. Not really in the mood to crank out production yet, I'm still feeling a little burnt out after the Cottage Sale push. What I feel like making is...something...new. Things are percolating in my head, and it's a slow drip coffee pot right now, but that means it will be a deep robust lusty "pot" when it's done.
Thursday morning, while my mother was baking the turkey and the asparagus was waiting for me to pan fry it up with almonds...I was in the studio making pie plates to clear my head. (I thought it appropriate on pumpkin pie day to at least make the pie plates, if not the pie.) Sometimes, to get my brain to the places it lusts after, I need to do something that requires a no-mind set. Pie plates and pie plates, already to the kiln....then onto teapots. They challenge my brain in so many directions- what's the body like? fat spout? graceful spout? handles??? oh yeah handles. I enjoy the challenge and the time needed in between to make it all work. The creative process is a continual lateral spiral for me. I revisit forms and surfaces over and over. Pete Townsend said musicians play the same four songs. I believe artists, like Paganini, play "variations on a theme" all their lives. Sometimes the themes change, but the connection to something that came before is hiding deep in the subconscious.
