I had no idea how intense and exhausting a wood firing can be. We did 8-17 hour shifts each. A shift includes listening, watching the kiln so you know when it needs to be “fed”, (yes, like a child). Once it hits around 18-1900 degrees, this feeding happens every 5-10 minutes. Imagine that. 8 hours solid feeding 7 pieces of wood, 4 of pine, 3 of oak every 5 minutes, but the end you are one with a 2400 degree kiln. I opted for the fireman’s jacket. Being the only girl, I have no testosterone I have to prove of.
Out of the wood firing:
Tops-Again, wanting, making hundreds of spinning tops. Want a machine that will spin them within a large room-thinking like bowling pin dropping machines, or as dad suggested a spiral machine that spits them out, then they fall into a slight spiral within the floor, and then the come back around to the machine, so as to keep spinning. Love the constant spinning, however, want the sound of hundreds. The audio seems just as important to me as the visual. Wish to put a video on here for you to see them spinning. Anyone know who can fabricate a machine for me?
A salt-fired piece covered with a “skin”, then fired again in the wood kiln. I’m liking this effect and am doing more as you read.
When I was in Italy I bruised myself on a constant basis. Hammering my thumb, while chiseling stone seemed to be my favorite. I photographed these injuries. Here, burning myself seems to take priority to bruising. On heat guns, hot oil, no kilns yet. These 4 spots (2 a little hard to see) are from hot oil. The injury to the body and healing process are fascinating to me. I think photographing the healing process daily is next. Making a flipbook to watch the skin injury, then heal, scar, and heal more?
Body jewelry, in a way. It does not sit on you, as a bracelet or a ring, but is made directly from your own form. My fingers creating a negative space that is formed with porcelain. My teeth creating their own form. I have begun taking some of the boy’s forms, like Drew’s nice little cleft chin. Jewelry, because where the body does not touch the porcelain it is decorated with porcelain “spikes”? “dots”?-what is a good word for these small blobs with sexy little additions?
Have begun taking molds not only of wild animal body parts, but also human body parts. I’m amazed by the incredible detail (notice on the knee), and have figured out a way to keep these porcelain casts super thin.
Roxy has become one of my subjects. I cannot seem to get my camera to focus on these drawings successfully, but these give you some idea. The paper is not black, but rubbed with graphite, except for the halo of the dog. The found dead dog is a subject also. However, as of now, he will stay on white paper. The composition will stay the same, a small figure at the base of the page. But unlike the atmospheric, “hopeful” black, the lifeless dog will be on a somewhat glowing, lifeless page.
4 comments:
I love looking at your photos and hearing what's important enough to
you to notice. There's this amazing park, the Ethan Allen
Homestead, right in the middle of Burlington, that has a picnic
shelter and gardens and an old house, but also huge meadows and woods
and swamp and paths by the river, and you can really get away from
people and cars. I like it partly for being able to strike out on the
long walks like I'm in England, coming through the rye or something,
but I also love watching the trees and the fields change through the
seasons. I like coming in winter and seeing the meditative beauty of
bare trees, the patterns they make, just bare branches over and over
and over and all the intricate shapes they make. When things are
going crazy and I'm pissed off at the world, I like to come here and
slow down. I believe if I can find beauty and peace in brown branches
against a bleak gray sky, then I'm still here and things will be okay.
It's getting back in touch with the simple subtle things that are all
around. It's also keeping my rebellious fire alive. Imagine the
audacity to think a crumpled up coffee cup is beautiful. How dare I
be content with boring grayness of a six-month winter? It's like
having all that land in Virginia, and deciding to take pictures of
tiny ceramic pieces in the grass, or being surrounded by mountains and
trees and absence of humans, and instead being taken with old, ugly
silos, or loving what some might consider the ugly lumps and warts of
your friend's pieces.
As usual, your work astounds.
Thank you for inpiring us all with your gorgeous photos, your astounding artwork, and your thoughtful writings! We love you.....keep up the good work!
Chico de la Rio Grande
This is great info to know.
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