Strange Luck and Negative Space

Perhaps you recall the long arms falling from the sides while this was drying? Well they didn't fall off. When I took this piece out of the kiln after it's final firing I noticed the long arms are just touching the level surface just like the bottom of the body. Apparently the body shrank more than the arms but just short of making the long arms pop off. Sometimes luck is strange.

before firing

Now look at the negative space in the top. Do you see the head of a person with their hair flipped out? Or is it just me? Notice the long arms before firing aren't touching the bottom, that's what I call strange luck.

My blog posts haven't been feeding in the blog rolls properly, nor in a timely manner. Posts are taking more than eight hours to feed. Apparently I had too many labels or tags. I have deleted many tags from earliest posts and hope that fixes the problem. So if you missed the two previous posts with all my new work, please check those out. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

The Fells, Newbury New Hampshire

Come along with me on a tour of The Fells, an early 20th century summer estate overlooking Lake Sunapee. The Fells was the summer retreat of John Milton Hays and his wife Clara. Hays was the private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war and the Secretary of State to President Theodore Roosevelt. The Fells is named after the Scottish word for rocky upland pastures.

The colonial revival buildings were designed by architects George Hammond in 1891 and Prentice Sanger in 1915.

This season the gardens are filled with numerous outdoor sculptures.

This sculpture looks exactly like a granite rock suspended by the poles. The same artist created the sculpture below.

The Fells is located in Newbury, New Hampshire. More than eighty acres are filled with gardens and hiking trails throughout the pastures and forests. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Listen to the Clay

 Listen

6 1/4 x 4 inches

When I opened the kiln this morning this sculpture said, listen to the clay. I have a hard time forgetting things. I try but sometimes the problems of life, the slights, or negative thoughts pop into my mind.

I need to keep moving forward; I need to listen to the clay. I need to chant, Listen to the Clay, Listen to the Clay. I unloaded this piece at 300 degrees to show you; the rest of the work is probably cool enough now to unload. Thanks for reading and for all your messages.

Process and Development

Yesterday I mentioned a few ideas were percolating in my mind. I thought I'd show you glimpse into my process and development behind the scenes. Here's some initial work on a couple of my ideas. The circle bowl or basket came to my mind's eye, so I decided to make it. I have a few more of these open bowl or basket shapes in my mind's eye. This one won't even be fired because the circle shapes ended up uneven which wasn't what I had in mind. That and I don't think the seams are going to hold, but it's a start. Many of the pieces I work on never show up on the blog or make it to the kiln. Still others are fired  and sitting in the cabinet waiting for further development, but have only been seen my me.

This piece developed without an idea or shape in my mind at all. I happened to cut the wavy strips in a slab but not all the way to the top. Then the idea popped into my head to try and form the whole together into an enclosed form. There is no bottom or top. As I looked at the form it reminded me of a grass skirt I might have seen in Hawaii as a kid. I could also envision a top to the form in a vague human shape. I also thought of adding a tray under the bottom but I like the curved up bottom and wouldn't want to obscure that from the eye. I'll be working on these thoughts and ideas.

Next I tried adding handles to the top of a similar form. Not sure about this, maybe just a single handle across the top. Although this form reminds me of a skirt being held up with suspenders. Ha. In order to come up with something feasible or acceptable to my mind's eye I sometimes work on several forms intuitively. Later many of the forms are tossed out, completely rejected. Sometimes these intuitive workings lead to something and other times not. Some of these ideas may stimulate me to develop another form. I might not think of the new form if I didn't make the attempt at the rejected forms. What about your process and development, how do you work. Do you draw an idea first, do you work intuitively, do you reject forms or ideas about surface treatment. Thanks for reading and for all  your comments.