Something from Nothing

I’m just going to write today. I need a way out of the downward swirl. I want to feel good about something and stay away from all the bad out there. If I were my eight year old self again, I’d be sitting in the corner of my closet with a book. 

Reading saved me as a kid. It was an approved way to spend my time on a hot summer day. Sitting in the shade, on the neighbors porch, reading Nancy Drew. It still helps me, reading a ‘cozy’ mystery. You know the genre’, where the female character solves the mystery, maybe with the help of a few friends, the criminal gets caught and they all go out to celebrate. 

Oh, how I wish the world really worked that way all the time. Don’t you?

Now instead of escaping into my closet or the next door neighbors patio, I walk. I take my grandson to the park to play.  I lean on the trees in the woods nearby. I bake with my husband. I make things out of clay. And I crochet with no pattern. 

Right now, I’m in the ‘finishing’ phase in the studio. This is the part that makes my nerves all jangled. It’s not just that it’s the end of the making, which I love, but it’s the beginning of the booming inner critic’s voice. You know what I mean?

“Oh this will never sell.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Who is going to want a sunflower with a face?”

“It’s not a perfect flower, you know.”

“This is does not look even close to a real bird.”

Yeah. My inner critic is a nasty bitch. I really should fire her. 

Believe me, I’ve tried. 

But she just keeps coming back to work. 

And she gets even louder when I’m filling out forms to enter a show.  

That’s my next step. One I dread, too. Filling out the application form. Downloading the images. Hoping that my iPad will cooperate with the venue’s computer. Then, of course, is the wait. Acceptance or Rejection? It always feels like I’m putting myself into a revolving door over which I have no control. 

Sigh. Why do I put myself through all this, you might ask? Good Question. 

 I love seeing things in the sky, the trees, the flowers and letting my imagination flow.  

I love clay. I love painting. I love making something from nothing.  

I do it because I love what I see. 

And, I want others to see what I love. 

And I think we all need to see more love around us. 

 

Bloom

Things are flowering in my studio. I don’t know why. I didn’t make sketches or take pictures or plan or conceptualize designs. 

I got out my clay. Rolled out a slab and set it aside.The next day, I rolled out some more clay and started cutting it up. Leaves appeared. Petals popped up. Why? 

Ok, I do love flowers. I don’t buy big bouquets. Instead, I splurge on one small bunch of flowers every week at Trader Joe’s. Whatever is in season: Sunflowers, Dahlias, Chrysanthemums, Gerbera Daisies. And I get an orchid plant to put behind my sink and baby it until it goes, then I get another one. 

Clay Blooms. 

It never occurred to me to make flowers in clay, but they’re here and they’re growing. I have to wonder again, why? Is there something going on around me I’m not aware of? Some plant or flower fairy waving her magic wand?

I did three in a row and stopped. I thought that was it and that’s fine. 

A clay circle. 

I went into the studio another day,  got out my clay and cut it into a circle. Soon the circle had a nose. Then eyes. And lips. Ok, so I made a face. Not in the way I’ve ever made faces or sculpted clay. But there it was on my board, so I propped it up on top of a yogurt container, covered it and left my studio. 

So, I made this round face. It was an experiment. I’d never made a face or sculpture like that before, so maybe it was just a new challenge. I had no idea beyond just making a more abstract, round face. 

Flowers again. 

The next morning, I was admiring the 4 sunflowers I’d bought at TJ’s that week. Later that day, the face became a Sunflower. Then a ladybug came to rest on the clay. 

Again, no planning, no drawing, no decision. It just happened. 

It was fun. 

Then another flower face or face flower appeared. And more ladybugs. 

My mind shouted: what are you doing? And why? 

I truly don’t know. And maybe I’m not meant to know. 

Maybe there is no why. There’s only what.

Maybe somewhere inside me there was a need. 

After all the doctors and drugs and surgery and pain.

Maybe it’s time for me to trust my body. 

And like a flower: Bloom.  

Alive and Free.

 

It’s taken me days to start writing this piece. Well, years or maybe decades, actually. As a woman, a grandmother, a mother, a spouse, I’ve had many roles dictated by society, by religion, by men. I have been seen and unseen. Loved and hated. Embraced and abused. And it started when I was so young, I had no words for it. No context. Even if I did, I would not have been heard. 

So you can understand why this weeks press conference on Capitol Hill by the women who as girls were captured and raped hit me hard. They are so brave and I wished I could have been so brave, too. I tried. I was unheard. So I did the best I could, I shielded my children. I refused to let them be alone with my family. When I had to appear, my husband and I made sure they were protected at all times. Push came to shove and I had to say, NO. Stop the abuse and bullying. Stop the threats. Instead of listening to me, my mother disinherited me. 

The bullies got the money. 

I got safety.

Am I angry. Yes. 

Is there grief and loss? Yes. 

But I am free. I am safe. 

So are my children and grandchildren. 

Art Therapy. 

I can see now, clearly, that much of my art tells the story. Without realizing it I wasn’t just telling the story of my past, but the story of my present. The story of rising. The story of the strength it took to stand up and step away. 

Now with that pedophile in the White House, I put my feelings and needs into clay. I thought I was just playing around with a new way of making a bust. But without realizing it, I created a few pieces with women as walls. Women as guardians and goddesses.

These pieces helped me see the truth. I may feel shaky, but I am healing. Physically from major surgery this year where, as an older woman, I was tossed from doctor to doctor for a year before getting the help I needed. Mentally from the shock of major surgery. Emotionally from the wounds of the past both emotional and physical. 

And as my sweet, strong, supportive husband keeps telling me: it takes time.

 

Time to slowly find myself again. 

Working with my hands and heart and clay.  

I now have Goddesses to remind me:

I protected my love, my babies, myself. 

Now, I am alive and free. 

 

Relief

 

While the world swirls with ugly threats and bad news for their side, I am looking for beauty and calm and growth. I think we all need to look outside all of this crazy and try to find something that brings relief and helps us center. 

For me, that’s working with my hands, mind and imagination. I’ve worked in a lot of art media over the years: art quilting, beading, embroidery; oil, acrylic and pastel painting; throwing clay and sculpture in copper and clay. I’ve enjoyed the process of learning and creating in each media. But there’s something I’ve never tried: relief work. 

A new clay experiment. 

I’ve done repousse in copper but working on a clay relief is totally different. With copper sheets, you push out from the back of the copper to create the raised design.

With clay relief, you add clay to the surface of a slab of clay to make a design or image. During my surgery recovery, I got into painting again. I painted some landscapes and flowers. I like painting, but something in me wanted more. 

So I started rolling and cutting and shaping and soon one of my paintings turned into a clay relief landscape and another a flower. 

It was so much fun, I did a few more.

Now what?

I wish I could tell you I have a plan. I don’t. Like all of the art I’ve created and shown over the last 20 years, it was just something I had to do. Something came about because I needed to work with color and texture and shape. 

Some of the pieces tell a story, like this one, about a woman from Japan. (

(First picture-box closed, Second picture-box open, short story about Meiko on inside of door)

        

Some were masks make of window screening or clay.

. 

Some were just paintings.

 

Some were just cups, bowls and vases.

 

Art, like life, changes. 

What I do know is after the major abdominal surgery, I won’t be throwing cups or bowls anymore. But I still love clay and how it feels and how it forms and how it looks. And I can use underglazes to paint again which feels like a return to my creative watercolor ‘home’ but in a new way. 

Instead of putting myself down for not sticking to one art media, I want to let myself experiment. Embrace the fact that as my life changes and so does my art. 

And you know, to accept that, well it’s kind of a relief. 

Lessons Learned

 I’ve done a lot of different kinds of art over the years. Painting in watercolor, acrylics, oil and pastel. Fiber art including beaded embroidery, quilting and crochet. Clay sculpture. Copper repousse. Mixed media boxes that included clay, copper repousse and a story I wrote. 

In the last 10 years, I’ve been making functional clay cups, bowls, plates and vases. But sculpture snuck in, too. 

I’m either very versatile or I have a very short attention span. I’m not sure. One thing I do know: I like to try new things. Oh, I may argue with myself or someone else about that because learning does take time and can be very frustrating. Somehow, I do it anyway. 

Maybe the truth is simple: I like to learn. 

I failed at clay in high school so when someone tried to give me a wheel, I said no. They insisted and loaded up a truck with a wheel and a kiln. It was such an amazing gift, I could not turn down  that kind of generosity. Even as it scared me. But, maybe, it was a sign?

At the time, my husband was between jobs and we had college age children at home. My focus was on survival and making money. At the time, I was teaching after school art classes across town. I was never sure how many would sign up but that fall, exactly enough children signed up to pay for one term of clay classes at my local recreation center. So I took the fall class. My husband got a new job and I was able to continue taking the clay classes in handbuilding and throwing. Yes, I finally learned to throw. 

But the biggest lesson I learned, was that I was left handed. As a child, I’d been told to say I was ambidextrous but now I know that was old school speak for left handed. The truth is, I can use both hands but not for all things. Somethings my right hand likes and somethings my left hand likes. I’m still learning their preferences. 

See there’s always more to learn.

The question for me right now? What to learn next? Right now, I’m learning to crochet Christmas Stockings from a pattern. I’ve been doing crochet for years, but I never used patterns much, I usually make up my own. But these are not just for me but for a local women and children center, so I want them to be right. Right? 

I’m also trying to learn how to combine sculptural clay elements on a base with a watercolor technique using underglazes. Will it work? I don’t know. Will I be able to show or sell them? I don’t know. 

But not knowing is what learning is all about. And maybe that’s the most important lesson of all.