Ceramics Western NY Landscapes #13, 14, & 15

5" x 3"

3 1/2" x 4"

3" x 3 1/2"

ceramic reliefs

What would I do without NPR? A recent story about memory and time aired, enlightening me to the science behind the feeling of time speeding up as one gets older. My recent move, my son's transition to adolescence (evidenced by his wishing to say "crap" and "pissed off" as well as keeping me out of sight when the bus picks him up) and the appearance of new wrinkles make perfectly clear that time is marching on. We begin saying things we heard adults say when we were children such as "Where does the time go?" and "They grow up so fast." A friend from high school Facebooked that she knows she is old because she and her husband were falling asleep watching t.v. with their fifteen-year-old and her boyfriend. It was 8:00 p.m.

Back to NPR. The story is Why Does Time Fly as You Get Older by Robert Krulwich. Warren Meck, a psychology professor from Duke University, and a neuroscientist, David Eagleman, from Baylor College of Medicine provide the research. Essentially, when you are experiencing something new your brain takes in more details, more information. Repeat experiences don't do this and seem shorter. One might remember taking your new puppy on her first walk but a regular schedule walks in the same neighborhood with your grown dog may blend together. The flip side is that as one enters the "golden years" the moments become more precious and can again have the detail of youthful new experiences. The article has a great Simpsons clip called Homer Every Day which is so worth a look. [If you are trying to improve your memory (a decline starts at age thirty), one effective way is physical exercise.]

How does this relate to my work? The first two reliefs are continuations of work with side panels relating to the view from a kitchen window as well as the stage. The bottom piece is playful with its description of snow in the form of snowballs. I like their shiny quality that contributes to the sense of reflected light. The majority, if not all, of my ceramic landscapes are like memories. They aren't done from life but either from a specific place and environmental situation or from layered experiences (even Shrek says he is a complex individual, layered like an onion). I'm looking to do some paintings of the nearby bay from life as soon as it gets above forty-five degrees and isn't windy enough to blow my easel over - some new experiences to add to my layers.

Western NY Landscape Ceramic Relief #10, #11, #12

Western NY Landscape 10 Ceramic Relief 3 1/2x4 1/2_2009

Western NY Landscape 11 Ceramic Relief 3x5_2009

Western NY Landscape 12 Ceramic Relief 3 1/2x7_2009

Here's a little summer for you in January. Our move from the Rochester area to Rhode Island had eventful weather. We hit white out blizzard conditions and needed to sleep just off the road from three to six a.m. Our new town had an uncharacteristic six inches of snow, while back in Rochester a friend reported snow up to mid-thigh. While I like the snow, dangerous driving conditions and salt and dirt tracked through my new house by five movers makes me less than appreciative at the current moment.

The bottom two reliefs remind me a bit of the landscape paintings of the 18th century Rococo artist, Jean-Honore Fragonard. Landscape with Three Washerwomen has the pastel coloring that makes me consider the comparison. His work is exuberant which I think is another quality these reliefs share. I see my reliefs as not only objects but as images. Despite their solidity and material resistant to deterioration, they carry a fleeting moment, and particular weather conditions. Not made to look fully illusionistic, "real", they are somehow hyper-real. I used to hate Fragonard and Rococo art for its frivolity, regarding it as "foo foo". It seems that some points in history disdain others but appreciation comes around eventually. I never heard anyone in art school going around saying how much they were influenced by Rococo art, in keeping with the style's initial dismissal by art critics as "frivolity". These are as close to it as I get and I admit some discomfort at getting so close, but I now see subtlety, light, space, and passion in this time period and would like to claim those qualities for myself.

Western NY Landscape #7, #8, #9 Ceramic Relief

3 1/2" x 5"

4 1/2" x 4 1/2"

3 1/2" x 4"

ceramic relief

I'm very happy with the painterly quality in the ceramics I've been doing. I use a combination of glazes and these underglaze chalk crayons/pastels. There is my secret. Not everyone is willing to share recipes. I heard of a couple getting divorced and fighting over the exclusive right to a special glaze recipe. I don't feel like the medium here is a special trick, though. I have my own sensibility, vision, and way of handling the material.

The top piece is very physical and seems like a setting for a fairy tale. Dusk is the time of day, late fall or late winter/early spring the season.

The central piece is spacious. A big sky with lots of transitions and a raised, dark green hill with a contrasting edge. I like the organic tilt of the all-over form.

The third piece has an array of greens; it has been tricky to get the right brighter ones. The trees have layered, interwoven color that I see in foliage. A bit of the feeling of a sky arching overhead is created by a curve.

The uniqueness of handmade things makes for memorable gifts and I found a great site to list some of my older work and for holiday shopping. Etsy is an enormous site where one can by directly from artists and craftspeople. Everything on it has to be handmade or vintage. You can find art, clothes, jewelry, household items, and many other things. It is nice to buy from an individual rather than a chain as well as things made in the U.S.A. I found half of my gifts there this year including cool etched monogrammed scotch glasses for my father-in-law and custom t-shirts.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Western NY Landscape #1, #2, #3 Ceramic Relief

Western NY Landscape 1_Ceramic Relief_3 1/2 x 5 1/2_2009

Western NY Landscape 2 Ceramic Relief 3 1/2x5 1/2_2009

Western NY Landscape 3 Ceramic Relief 3 1/2x6_2009

I'm really loving making these ceramic reliefs. The layers provide a new way for handling space that is literal as well as perceptual. The clay is physically in different points in space and the glazing and overall reading of the image work like painting. I think I'm hooked. I like the shape and edges of the clay slabs, my "canvas", to be irregular. They feel natural like a stone worn by water. I don't want a machine edge because landscape imagery is about the earth.

Ana Medieta (1948-1985) is an artist whom I greatly admire. She worked with nature in a more physical way than I. Exiled from Cuba living in America from the age of thirteen onward, she felt the loss of her homeland and had a keen sense of identity and personal connection with land. This as well as gender became the content of her art, performances and photographs in which she interacted with nature by making body prints, for example, often nude. For any of you readers who think this is silly and anyone can do it, you are missing the point. She created poignant metaphors by doing things that were physical, real, and dreamlike enough to dramatically convey her feelings. The art goes beyond a narrative to convey experiences that are powerfully wordless.

I'm involved with nature and the nonverbal and I look at her work and think that maybe I should make something like that because I intensely identify with it. The thing is that I love to paint/make things that I see around me. It doesn't matter how abstract they end up being, the impulse starts with something I see. I notice light, color, space, scale throughout the day but certain situations strike me and become the impetus for work. I might use a particular situation and go directly from that but also it is the accumulated perceptions in my visual memory that are called upon AS I work. Combine these visual memories with what is happening on the canvas/slab of clay/whatever medium, and art happens. It is kind of like cooking a favorite recipe you know by heart. The particular freshness of the ingredients on hand, the cooking utensils, and sometimes humidity like with bread, can effect the outcome. You remember the seasonings and look to create the same smell, taste, and texture you remember. There is a lot going on. This isn't Hamburger Helper I'm talking about. Then there sometimes is the frustration that the thing you are making doesn't resemble what you remember. Take the Twinkie. Stay with me here; I'm not digressing. I recently had a Twinkie for the first time since I was a kid, i.e. a LONG time ago. It was not the fluffy, fresh, amazing cream filled cake I remember. It tasted like it was from a factory, a plastic packing-peanut excuse for cake. That is like what happens on canvas when the art magic isn't happening. I can only hope I am getting a little magic into these baked paintings. I love Ana Mendieta but I also love my EASY-BAKE-Oven, my kiln. May chocolate seven-layer cakes, not Twinkies come out.

The White House and House with Black Roof

oil on panel

36" x 24"
PRIVATE COLLECTION

ceramic relief

6" x 4 1/2"

The ceramic relief was done after the painting. Circles are made by pressing the end of a tool into the clay; some look convex but they are all concave. They define planes but also float.

There are trails leading your eye around, dictating a specific speed, tempo, like most painters do. The book Cezanne's Composition maps the directions Cezanne takes the viewer, like arrows painted on the floor for learning dance steps. Cezanne is often somber, intense and a lower key than Van Gogh. The Plain White T's have a song I like similar to this mood, Write You a Song. "I will write you a song; that's how you know our love is still strong." I've said it before - I'm a romantic.

In my mind my painting and relief aren't just depictions of houses but are about making a home with someone. Crosby Stills and Nash's Our House and Billy Joel's You're My Home does it for me as does the new kids movie Up. The part of the story that takes Up beyond the pat endings of many animations is the relationship of the elderly man and his wife. He has a loyalty to his house because of his memories of her together with him in it. He has a very hard time letting go, to say the least. A house is a house. A home is the love inside. Pass the tissues.

For Christoph who wrote "I love Nicole" in sharpie on my arm.