Holiday Art Sale

If you are in the Austin area on Wednesday, November 18, please stop by the Austin Community College Highland Business Center (behind Highland Mall) to see what all of my fellow artists are offering for sale. Students sell on Wednesday, on Thursday the instructors' work will be featured.

This sale gets very little publicity even though we have it every year. As a result, we don't get very many shoppers so we have to price our work pretty low if we want to move it out. This means our sale is a great bargain! You can never tell what will sell and what won't and that unsold stuff has to be lugged back home. One year I sold out of ceramic books, but last time I only sold a few. They'll go back this year for another try.

I'll be selling my ceramics work and a few of the pieces I made while I was still doing welding. The full-size masks above ("Parental Unit 1" and "Parental Unit 2", will be part of my offerings, along with "Birdman", "The Woman" and numerous heads (shown below). I do put some of my work with the gallery that is generous enough to include me in their group but I have a lot more work that isn't the style they are interested in. So this is where I sell it.

My Blog Wrangler has told me many times (and so have several other people) I need to set up an Etsy shop but so far I've resisted, mainly because she would have to do all the work on it. Without my permission (as if she'd pay attention anyway) she did register "Flummoxed" as an Etsy shop (empty now) for me, mainly because she found out my name was already taken.

Remember Amy? She was going to make 100 heads and probably has more than that but they moved out of the ceramics lab as soon as they were fired. Here's a look (below) at one bunch of them after their final firing. Click here for her blog. I've been making heads (none bigger than about 4" tall) for about 6 years now and they are scattered all over the yard and in the house and many were given away. I wish now I'd bothered to count them.

I'll Be The One With A Tan Umbrella

A blind date?

A love story?

The Metropolitan Museum, New York City, on a Saturday afternoon.

Remember: Veterans Day, Nov 11, 2009

Thalia Fields lies under a grey ceiling of clouds,

just under the turbulence, with anesthetics

dripping from an IV into her arm,

and the flight surgeon says The shrapnel

cauterized as it traveled through her

here, breaking this rib as it entered,

burning a hole through the left lung

to finish in her back, and all of this

she doesn’t hear, except perhaps as music—

that faraway music of people’s voices

when they speak gently and with care,

a comfort to her on a stretcher

in a flying hospital en route to Landstuhl,

just under the rain at midnight, and Thalia

drifts in and out of consciousness

as a nurse dabs her lips with a moist towel,

her palm on Thalia’s forehead, her vitals

slipping some, as burned flesh gives way

to the heat of the blood, the tunnels within

opening to fill her, just enough blood

to cough up and drown in; Thalia

sees the shadows of people working

to save her, but she cannot feel their hands,

cannot hear them any longer,

and when she closes her eyes

the most beautiful colors rise in darkness,

tangerine washing into Russian blue,

with the droning engine humming on

in a dragonfly’s wings, island palms

painting the sky an impossible hue

with their thick brushes dripping green…

a way of dealing with the fact

that Thalia Fields is gone, long gone,

about as far from Mississippi

as she can get, ten thousand feet above Iraq

with a blanket draped over her body

and an exhausted surgeon in tears,

his bloodied hands on her chest, his head

sunk down, the nurse guiding him

to a nearby seat and holding him as he cries,

though no one hears it, because nothing can be heard

where pilots fly in blackout, the plane

like a shadow guiding the rain, here

in the droning engines of midnight.

Brian Turner

From his book of poetry, Here, Bullet, about his wartime experiences in Iraq.

Remember also the family of James Clifford McKittrick.

They are still waiting for him to come home.

I'm still waiting to send them my POW-MIA bracelet.

Remember also Barry Lynn Brown. I escorted his flag-draped coffin home to his family.
Captain Barry Lynn Brown, Killed in Action, Vietnam, May 5, 1968

Remember also Joseph Ambrose, a World War I veteran, holding the flag that covered the casket of his son, who had been killed in the Korean War.

Looking Ahead

In these troubled times we must learn to do our own navigating.

Sorrow

13 dead and 30 wounded, by one of their own.

Fort Hood is the largest active U.S. military installation, and the only post on American soil with two combat divisions. Located in the heart of Texas about 60 miles north of Austin, the 340-square-mile post is home to more than 65,000 soldiers and their families - and thousands of civilian employees.

The installation's troops have borne some of the heaviest burdens in America's wars. Thousands of soldiers from the 1st Cav and other units at the sprawling fort have served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What Rhymes With Angst?

This has not been a very productive fall semester for me. Yes, I've produced a lot of pieces but in the end it has turned out to be a lot of activity and very little accomplishment. What happened? First of all, my life is too short to bypass great ideas and different techniques. As a result, I try everything I can, textures, clays, glazes, underglazes. And sometimes all on the same piece. You might call that "Going in different directions." I call it "Farting in a colander."

Second, the Kiln Gods were not cooperating with me. Some glazes faded out. Some turned green. Were they contaminated? In the wrong place in the kiln? The wrong glaze? Bad technique? More than likely just plain bad luck. Every ceramics artist experiences this, whether it's his own kiln or not. It's just the way life is.

So where is my new work? Most of it went in the trash, which is something I've had to really work hard at doing. Susan reminds me that putting lipstick on a pig never really makes the pig look any better.

Slash Your Fashion Statement

The Museum of Art and Design in New York City had an exhibit called Slash. The photo above is from the poster in their main window and is the head of a life-size figure in the exhibit. I thought everyone in the city wore black, like the guy below.

Guess I was wrong.

Susan Speaks: Living With An Artist

Charles Schulz, 1970.

Guy Stuff

Sometimes it seems like a lot of mixed-media artists who blog do a lot of ... pink. Girly stuff. Pretty stuff. Feminine stuff. I think it's because a lot of them are women and pink stuff comes more naturally to women than men. I'm not being sexist here, I'm just making an observation. And it seems like a lot more women than men have blogs where they talk about the process of making art.

When I go to art workshops I'm usually the only guy in the class. Wait! I'm NOT complaining -- being one of only 10 men in a group of 400 people is a very nice situation to be in.

[Susan speaks: This is what I hear all day long, as women read my nametag:

"Oh, you're Don's wife."
"Your husband must be Don. He's in my class."
"Tell Don I said Hi."
"Oh. I didn't know Don had his wife with him."
"Where is Don?"

Trust me on this fact: No one ever says to Don, "Oh, you're Susan's husband."
Does this bother me? Not in the least. The man is so oblivious to predators that he had to ask me if a woman inviting him to her room for a drink after class was coming on to him.]

About a year ago Susan made a connection with a woman via this blog. They started out as strangers exchanging email about something they found in common only to find out that they had a lot in common and they now refer to themselves as Evil Twins Separated at Birth. When we were in New York City last spring we met up with her, and she and Susan and I all felt as though we'd known each other forever. The two of them are very much alike and yet very different and I had fun watching them interact with each other.

This time in New York City we met up with an artist we'd connected with via this blog. He was an artist who understood what I meant when I talked about the "pink" stuff. A guy! A guy who makes art! We talked about metal and rust and dirty, worn stuff and it was easy to talk to him, as though we'd known each other a long time. It was a very, very nice connection.

[Susan speaks: It was cool. He is very much like Don -- a gentle, grounded soul. The two of them are very much alike just as they are very different and I was delighted that Don found someone he could talk to. They are in the picture above.

As for the pink, feminine stuff.... I had to remind Don that although he may call his ceramic pieces "dudes", they could also be considered dolls. So now, once again, he is fully flummoxed.]

late edit: blogger is messing up paragraph breaks, resulting in awkward stuff. sorry.

Is This Upside Down?

I took a one-day class from Kathleen Murray called "The Basics in Chinese Calligraphy for the Mixed-Media Artist". The picture above is the cover of the book I made at the end of the class.

These are the pictures of the book, both sides of it. I took one set of pictures and was ready to post them when Susan thought maybe they looked wrong, like they were upside down. How should I know? An accordion book can go both ways, right? Anyway, I re-shot them and hope this is the way they are supposed to be. Somewhere in my notes I have the translation of what I wrote but all I know is that it does not say "Bite my boxer shorts", despite Susan's threats.

I learned a lot about different ways to hold the brush and how to grind my own sumi ink. It was an intense class, a long way out of my comfort zone, but also very relaxing because I didn't feel any pressure to "make something". I gave all the cool practice papers to Susan.

Works in Progress

Bisque-fired pieces to be glazed. The white clay is Longhorn White, the other is Longhorn Red. The plan is to put pods in some of the figures. Sometimes the plan changes once I get started on the glazing. The long skinny pieces were supposed to be snail-like nudibranchs but each one had a little feeler broken off in the kiln. Firing your work in a kiln at a community college is always an interesting challenge.

Getting A Leg Up

I can't help it -- they were on sale, 50% off. So I bought some more dolls and ripped them apart. Someday all these parts will become something really cool. When I came home with these Susan just said, "Please tell me that no one I know saw you."

Amy's Heads

Amy and I have been in several ceramics classes together and this semester she decided she just wanted to make heads, 100 of them. She is very creative. Once she has all 100 made I hope to be able to get her to gather them all up for a group picture.

Terra Cotta Warriors

While I was in Houston I saw the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the Natural Science Museum. The $24 exhibit fee was pretty steep but I'm glad I spent the money.

The picture above is of a reconstructed set of limestone armor from the First Emperor's tomb mound. The Terra Cotta Warriors were made to accompany the Emperor in his afterlife. Obviously, stone armor would have shattered on impact, not to mention being way too heavy. In fact, the complete sets of armor weren't even on the terra cotta figures, they were on stands in the tomb mound. But some of the terra cotta figures did have partial armor sets shown as part of the detailing of their figure. In reality, the actual warriors had armor of lacquered leather.

The overlapping stone plates are joined with flat copper strips threaded through holes drilled in the stone. It was interesting to see that the upper parts of the armor had the plates overlapping in one direction, then at the waist, where a person would bend, the plates overlap in the other direction.

The picture above shows how the armor looked before it was reconstructed (great patina!) and the picture below shows a Warrior.

Not Your Grandma's Quilt

Earlier this week I was at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Above is a section of Units 1 by Benedicte Caneill and below is a section of Leaves of Grass by Betty Amador. I enjoy looking at art quilts because it often triggers an idea of colors or patterns I want to use in my ceramic work.

Not My Art (for a change)

Susan's art. She has learned how to cut her own stencils. She is the Blog Wrangler and won't bother talking about herself. Sorry about that.

P.S. It's not always about me.

The Big Cheese

The top picture is a mid-stage (unfired, unglazed) of The Big Cheese, which stands about 2 feet high. The second picture is The Big Cheese in all its final splendor and glory. I'm really happy with the glaze effects I got. Originally I called this The Big Pod but Susan had other ideas. There may be one or two more companion pieces made.

Other Worlds

Often I find someone else's blog photos inspire me to stop focusing (so to speak) on the technique of photography and just take the damned picture. The photos on Magpie's blog are one example of "Just do it."

Test Tiles

Lately my clay hasn't been talking to me. I've made a lot of pieces but just wasn't feeling very enthused about them. After a lot of mental struggles (and advice from my Muse) I've found a new direction to head in. Coincidentally, a pile of test tiles I planned to throw out suddenly seemed like they should be given a second chance. Once again, blog posts from Robyn have helped me find my way.

Another Sunday Bike Ride

I head out early for my bike rides to the Turtle Pond. One of hidden secrets on the University campus is the old Greenhouse by the Pond. Today it looks the same as it did 45 years ago when I was a student and I hope no one ever tries to fix it up.

Paige Adkins Shelton

Paige Adkins Shelton has been making a living as a potter for her whole adult life. Susan and Paige met when they were both teenage Air Force "brats" in San Antonio and since then we often see Paige at local art fairs. Several of her bowls and a butter dish are in constant use in our kitchen.

I am lucky enought to have bought some oddly different pieces from her at an earlier time, when she was doing more ceramic sculpture than she does now. Unfortunately, she doesn't do pieces like these anymore. These little guys are each about 2" long and the amount of detail she has on each one is incredible.

No, I Didn't Make This Up

Appearing in my newspaper:

Pasadena, TX -- A Houston-area woman who was angry at her former husband fried their seven pet goldfish and ate some of them. The man reported Saturday that he and the woman had argued and that she later took the goldfish from his apratment. Police officers went to the woman's home and found four fried goldfish on a plate. She said she already had eaten the other three. No charges would be filed because the dispute is a civil matter.

This item has already made "News of the Weird" and their take on it was: Good thing they didn't have a dog.

Illustration from "My Goldfish" by Stephane Barroux.