Again you’ve reminded me of the delight we all have in our work. Tomorrow I will go out and find my joy. Thanks for the reminder!

I’ve explored at some length the art vs craft debacle on my own blog. I’m not sure how the whole thing got started but I’ve never been comfortable with it either. In a working definition of art I devised a couple years ago, I pointed out that all art has craft, something some people seem to forget. I’m not sure that all craft has art, though it’s much too early in the morning for me to be thinking about that *yawn*

The pods in a vase remind me, off-hand, of a work by one of my favorite ceramic artists, Amy Smith. She was doing her graduate work at UNL when I was getting my BFA. The work in question was part of her MFA show and is actually for sale here: http://www.modernartsmidwest.com/collection/33758/Amy.Smith

Michael, I’m so glad. Please, show us what you make today! And congratulations on the show at AKAR, I shall mark the opening day in my calendar and peruse online.

TAE, thank you! A friend recently commented that the making of beautiful objects for the sake of making beautiful objects has been scorned for the last twenty years or so.

I looked at Amy Smith’s work - some of it is quite lovely. Her selection of the word sensual is apt. In some ways we might work from the same ideas, inspirations.

Some of Amy’s newer stuff doesn’t excite me as much as the platters she was doing in grad school. She developed her own beautiful glazes that belied their own subtlety, if that makes sense, over her thrown ceramic forms. I’m blessed to own one of her vases, which a friend one at a raffle and gave to me for Christmas with a stalk of bamboo in it. For some sad reason, the bamboo died this year.

Ah. Craft vs. Art. A European conceit, it seems to me; it serves to create a “professional” cadre of artists that excludes art in the hands of everyone else. I HATE the impact that has on our souls! Art is a human need, and it isn’t sufficiently satisfied by being an observer. (end of rant)

I absolutely ADORE both jacks and pods. Pods remind me of seed-savers that are made by Native American’s in the Taos area: fecund. A symbol of Abundance. Jacks? reminds me of both balance and precariousness: how the “chips fall” and how balance is always restored.

Do you sell either of these types of objects? I’d love to have some of both…. totemic reminders, for me, of parts of my life I’m learning to change my responses to. I’ve learned that gazing at totemic objects solidifies my intent…

(perhaps that, too, is a value of art-in-everyone’s-hands, it helps us learn to short-circuit the given, the assumed.)

TAE, the glazes do make sense, and the vase sounds lovely. Platters are difficult for me to approach as forms rather than surfaces; my interest is increasingly in more “closed” vessels - cups, steep-sided teabowls and bowls, bottles.

Hayden, thank you! I’m glad you enjoy them. I just heard of seed-savers in a modern sense, but didn’t know of their long history. I’m working on a piece that involves many more of these pods, but they’re white, off-white, gray, porcelain; hopefully you enjoy that one, too. And, yes, I am continuing to make both objects, so will be selling them. Would you expand on your last statement, say more about art-in-everyone’s-hands?

Delightful discussions for a sunday eve!

Oh, and I DO highly appreciate the work, craft can be art without a bit of problem.

Picasso said that Art (capital A) is always a LIE. Whoever tells the best one, wins, in the marketplace.

Craft is not a lie.

oh dear. I haven’t thought this out, really, just shooting from the hip. Or a bit of a rant. There is something about bending ones’ own hand to an effort that changes/expands perceptions -maybe permanently. I read recently that art is the history of ideas, and all else is decoration. I’m not part of that discussion, I don’t really “get it.”

Recently, learning to beat out a very simple rhythm has completely changed my ability to hear - suddenly I’m hearing drums and beats that simply never registered before.

or perhaps it has something to do with the plasticity of “reality” - we see only what we are prepared to see. by bending a lump of clay, by learning to sketch an outline I change what I see.

this has always been much of the appeal of writing (for me) - by digging into the specific moment so as to properly describe it I see more texture and depth than I otherwise would. By teaching art - by example, by exposure - entire worlds are cracked open.

I have 3 seed savers I bought from an artist near Taos years ago. Of course it used to be a one-shot deal - you made a pot with the tiniest opening possible (the better to preserve the contents) fed the seeds in after drying, then broke the pod in the spring. That didn’t stop them from decorating the pods beautifully with symbols of rain, sun, growing corn.

I have to go away for maybe a week, when I come back, I would like to comment relative to Haydens thoughts. Rant on Hayden, I thoroughly appreciate what you say.

I mean “rant on! Hayden.” Lol, pardon me.

History of ideas, decoration. I think I lost my train of thought, maybe later.