Those Times When I Can't Get Motivated

In the last few days two people have asked if I'm working on any art projects. Sadly, I haven't been in the studio at all this year. I've been having difficulty getting motivated. This is odd for me. I think I'm usually pretty good about just showing up to the studio, motivation or not.

last year at this time I had work in a Nasty Woman show at Yakima Maker's Space

In fact, I keep telling myself that I just need to get in there. Lying in bed at night, I'll tell myself that tomorrow I'll just go in and clean. Or I'll just go in and take pictures of the work I glazed and fired in December. Or may I'll just coil build something--that shouldn't be too difficult.

Last winter I was making interesting changes to my hand-building class.

But the next day comes and I find that I really need to start the laundry, or clean the kitchen, or grade for class, or go for a walk with friends, and I don't do the studio work. My daughter, too has been highly persuasive. Last quarter I felt that I spent too much time on the weekends and evenings doing class work, so I've made a concerted effort this quarter to limit what school work I do at home.

Instead she and I read, play a game, draw, go for a bike ride (early January was fairly mild in Yakima), or do some other project together. Somehow, though, she often laments that we haven't "done anything" and then I feel guilty about how I've spent my time.

This weekend's activities have included sewing and making Valentines cards with her 4H club.

I'm a worrier. I can find something to worry about with little provocation. Before Christmas I worried about whether everyone would be upset about the presents I got them. I really worried that the Lego set we bought for my nephew without looking at the age recommendation would be too difficult (it wasn't). I worry all the time that I am not doing all I can to make my classes good enough. I worry that I don't exercise enough or I consume too much sugar. I worry that our house is too messy and our diet includes too few vegetables. I worry that I haven't been blogging twice a week though I used to post that often.

And, logically, I am fully aware that all of these are stupid worries. The most important part of Christmas is just seeing folks. My nephew is a perfectly competent Lego builder with a slew of family members happy to help him. I work damn hard on my classes and they're pretty good. The point of exercise is to keep my calm and reduce my impulse to worry and the point of the blog is to help me think through things that are on my mind. We should all probably eat more vegetables.

Or, as Newt Scamander (and a bunch of folks before him) points out, it's stupid to waste energy worrying.

There's a sign in the gym where I workout in the morning that says "if you've stopped being better, you've stopped being good". Which, of course, I interpreted to mean that since I haven't been in my home studio in a meaningful way since July, I am no longer an artist.

What you do everyday day is who you are (that might be an "inspirational" poster in the gym, too, now that I think about it). What I do all everyday is teach, think about teaching, think about our union, read, and hang out with my family. What I don't do everyday (or even every week lately) is make my own clay stuff, or even really think about making my own clay stuff.

I made these mugs this summer and even glazed some of them in December.

I've been trying to find this meme I saw late last year about women feeling exhausted trying to work, raise kids, be financially independent, go to the gym, have a perfect smoky eye, and all the things that seem to be expected of us. (Full disclosure: I've literally never thought about trying to have the perfect smoky eye.) I can't remember the punchline and now I'm wondering if there was one. The thing that resonated is the feeling that we "should" and the feeling that we can't possibly.

I have thought about making the perfect angry eye...in clay.

I recently came across an article about an author, Pat Barker, who says that a writer "must resist the urge to clean." I didn't actually read the article, but I think that's kind of the point, too. There's so many thing to fill my days, and so many things I'd like to do or have done. It seems like a good idea to have a clean house, happy family, healthy lifestyle, make good art, be the best possible teacher, grade submissions quickly, connect individually with all of my students, work out every day, read all the books, do projects with my daughter, attend her games and practices, go to interesting events in town, travel, talk to my husband, see my family more often, and blog regularly about all of it.

But it can't be done. Choices must be made. Having a clean house means taking time away from writing, or making art. (I've been writing this morning, therefore our house isn't clean today.) Making good art means making art everyday or at least a few days every week, which isn't compatible with maintaining a high quality, dynamic, and responsive online class and being an involved parent. I could probably do more of the former if I didn't teach online. But I do. I teach at a college that emphasizes teaching, at the obvious cost of studio time or "research."

As one of my colleagues pointed out the other day, looking at what happens to teaching at some research institutions, I'm where I want to be. But periodically I have to drag myself back through this  reality check about what I have prioritized and why. Looking back through my blog, the last time I wrote about this struggle was almost exactly two years ago. And in 2011 I wrote about having this struggle, and needing to pull myself back after comparing my work and my choices to other artists across the country. In 2012, I did a project aimed at addressing the difficulty of getting into the studio during the academic year.

Balance

If i looked harder, I could probably find more examples of the times I've moaned, or worried, or justified, or taken action to try to address this fundamental struggle. For now, I'll tag this post as "work life balance" and go hang out with my family, or maybe I'll clean the house.

Essay for M R McDonald's Catalog

A few weeks ago, I wrote about writing an essay for a friend, photographer M R McDonald. The essay has been finalized and published. You can view it here. The catalog is for McDonald's show at the Esvelt Gallery in Pasco, WA at Columbia Basin Community College. The show features his photographs and wood pieces turned by John Barany. The wood pieces include collaborations with other artists in various media including McDonald's photography, glass by Sharon Strong and others.

my catalog cover

The show opens Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 1pm. The reception is early to encourage CBC students to attend, but it makes it a bit tough for the rest of us to get there. (I have a meeting that will prevent my attendance). The photographs in the show include ones I discuss in my essay. The specific photographs I discuss are also included in the catalog itself, which one can buy online directly from blurb.com.

Cleaning, Purging, Writing and Glazing

This week I finally got a chance to get back to cleaning my work office. I didn't make much progress on the floor (though I did give some hanging files a new home in the adjunct office), but I did clear some work surfaces. In fact, the desk and the table haven't been this clear in the entire time that I have had ownership of the office. Several of the jars of pens, pencils and Xacto knives came with the office, as did an old scanner. I felt pretty good about actually wiping down the surfaces of the desks for the first time in my experience.

clean office desk (I gave away the folder on the desk the next day)

When I came to the office, I brought my computer and printer, but inherited the scanner. I didn't know how to hook it up and Tech. Services didn't do it for me. After six months of stacking papers on it, I realized that I can't be bothered to figure out how to install it, so I finally moved it to a shelf. Since I can easily scan documents and images in other ways, and since I've only ever scanned about three things at work in my entire career, I don't think I will regret the move.

massive stack of books I don't need and, apparently neither does anyone else

I also tried to clear some shelf space in the office. A book buyer came by to buy old textbooks. I was optimistic that he would help me purge my office shelves in preparation for the move to the new building--and, let's be honest, in preparation for putting the things on my floor onto the shelves. Unfortunately, the buyer bought 4 books. The remaining stack is roughly the same height as the desk itself. Maybe I can use the books as seating for guests to my newly cleaned office.

editing process for my essay

I don't have much to show for my other accomplishment of the week. I finished writing about a friend's photographs for his upcoming show catalog. I don't remember all the details for the show and I can't really publish my essay here, but my part is now complete. I'll talk up the book and the show when the time gets closer.

oh, that's the second layer? looks a lot like the first

I did spend a bit of time in the studio this weekend (after the Pirate Plunder) applying underglaze. Almost all the work I built over the summer now has one layer of fired underglaze and another brushed on. The next step is to wash away the top layer to reveal the fired layer underneath. Both steps are tedious so I prefer to run in muddy races, read strange books about Danish cartoonists and do almost anything else before I start to glaze. I managed to force myself to spend an hour in the studio this weekend (with the help of a good audiobook about the history of education in the US) before I was called away. Somehow I will have to get myself in there for a couple hours a week if I think I'm going to finish anything this year.

they will all be yellow soon

Final Report vs Final Paper

My winter quarter of the crazy teaching load is almost finished. Next week is finals and though I usually finish my grading mere hours or minutes before the deadline for posting grades on Friday afternoon, this year I am leaving for a conference on Wednesday. Though I have more students and more classes, I have tried to arrange the grading to be done by Wednesday morning.

Actually, the final grading has been interesting. This quarter is a doozy because I am teaching three Art Appreciation classes (with 29-35 students in each). Most quarters I assign a written paper about a a contemporary artist for a final project and spend finals week grading papers (and tests and critiques and other assignments). This quarter I nixed the paper and instead built the same information into an oral presentation. Each student meets privately with me for ~10 minutes and talks to me about the contemporary artist they've been researching all quarter. The requirements are almost identical to the written report, but after they present (about 5 minutes for most students) I have a chance to ask follow up questions.

gratuitous picture of sabbatical work (from the last time I was allowed near my studio)

I was worried, at first, that the oral reports would be too easy or that it would be hard to determine who knew their artist and who didn't. I was pleasantly surprised by both how fast and easy the oral reports are to grade and how clear it is who knows, not just their artist, but the class terms and concepts as well.

I have always preferred a written paper to a final exam because the students have more time to prepare and are less likely to make silly mistakes like filling in the wrong bubble on the Scantron. The silly mistakes they do make, like forgetting to spell check or not starting until the night before, are entirely preventable and/or an essential skill for college and life.

My sabbatical work will be on display at Oak Hollow Gallery in April

I have always required a one-on-one meeting with me before the paper was submitted. The students research their artist all quarter long in very short, weekly, graded assignments, then write a draft of their report and bring it to class where they have short "writing conferences" with classmates. The idea is that the classmates can help point out errors or missing information. All the drafts can get read and discussed at least twice in 50 minutes, far less time than it would take me to read and discuss them all.

After the students have a chance to make revisions on their drafts, they schedule a "conference" with me. I read their paper and make suggestions to help improve their writing. I think the conferences with me are very valuable and fun, too, because I get a sense of what they understand and I can help them clarify things they almost understand (or don't understand at all).

So this quarter I rolled the paper and the private conference into one assignment. I kept the student "writing conferences" but had the students present to their classmates as practice before presenting to me. The classroom was pretty noisy that day, but I think the practice was useful and students got some helpful feedback from classmates.

The show at Oak Hollow in Yakima opens April 12.  I'll be posting more about the show later. 

About half the students have now done their official artist report presentations with me. Some were better prepared than others, of course, but what was particularly striking was how useful the follow-up questions were. One requirement I have always had was to use citations correctly. I have students quote and paraphrase and give the source information. In a written paper, a well-placed quote can be very helpful in supporting what the student is trying to say. It is hard sometimes, though, to know how well the student understands the quote they've chosen.

Yesterday, during the string of student presentations, I wrote down part of the quote, particularly if the student used phrasing or words I wasn't sure they understood. After their presentation, I asked the students to explain the quote or define the word. Some were confident and were able to clearly explain their quote and even elaborate. It was easy to score these students high for their reports. Other students fumbled and demonstrated that they only had a vague idea what their source was trying to say. I was surprised, though, that some of the students simply told me they had no idea what the quote or the word meant. Some sheepishly admitted they should have looked it up. One told me that she didn't know the word and it didn't matter because it was just a quote.

Listening to and grading the reports has been much more enjoyable than reading papers. Partly it is nice to listen, take notes and then ask questions. Partly it is easier for me to mark a low score after having given the student a second chance to explain, and partly it is fun to hear what the students have to say about their artist after they finish presenting.

The show in April features work by photographers, so I won't be showing wall installations

With several students, I would guess that I got more information out of the student because of the relatively casual format. One student, in particular, was able to tell me a lot about the artist's method, but might have left that information out of a written report. Several students revealed understanding of class terms when I asked follow-up questions but had left that information out of the report itself. And, as would have happened with a written report, too, some students didn't do the report or barely knew their artist's work.

Next quarter I move back to a more manageable teaching load with only one Art Appreciation class of 35 students. However, I'm thinking I might keep the oral presentation format for the final artist report. I've also been thinking about how I might incorporate the presentations into class time so that students might benefit from hearing their classmates present.

Maybe next quarter I'll be able to find time to get in my studio again 

Mine is a Top Pottery Blog of 2013!

The other day I got a Facebook friend request from a potter in France. I was surprised, so I checked my blog stats (something I rarely do because I figure most of the weird addresses are bots). I noticed a bunch of traffic coming from www.potterymakinginfo.com so I checked it out. And, surprise! My blog was listed at  #10 (tie) on their list of top pottery blogs of 2013. 

Recognition when you weren't actively trying to get it: pretty cool. Thanks for reading!

What it takes to be an artist and a parent

A lot of people who take sabbaticals go away for at least a portion of that time. Many travel abroad, others go to workshops, conferences or residencies in another part of this country. For what I wanted to do during my sabbatical leaving my Yakima studio didn't make a lot of sense, but last week I could understand the advantage of getting away.

Missoula Children's Theater was in town and my daughter asked to audition. After she made it clear how much she wanted to do it, we agreed to let her audition and she was cast in a small part. Yakima Schools so far haven't impressed me with their ability to communicate with parents, so I shouldn't have been surprised that the communication broke down between MCT and the school district. The directors scheduled practice during school (and inconveniently the play is happening at a different school than the one my daughter attends). When I pointed this out to the director, he indicated surprise that the kids had school at 2:30 during the week, but it was too late to adjust the schedule.

MCT backdrop

I'm glad my daughter got the opportunity to take part in the production. To my surprise, she loved just about every bit of her experience. However, because of the schedule, I had to leave my studio early three days last week and start my day late once to transport my daughter to and from the rehearsals. To be fair, I had a couple other commitments outside of the studio that interrupted my work time as well. My husband helped when he could: when rehearsal started after the end of his work shift.

The advantage of taking a sabbatical in town is that my time is flexible. I can transport my daughter (and others) to and from various locations during the day when other parents are working. However, the risk of having (and admitting to having) flexible time, is that it sometimes is interpreted as free time.

My pet peeve during the summer is the assumption that since I am in a room attached to my home, I am not working (and am therefore available to do other things). I cringe when I am asked, "Since you aren't doing anything today, could you...." I am doing something and am therefore not free to do something else, though I have varying levels of success getting other people to understand this. Because I view my art making as a job, part of my career, and not as a hobby for my spare time, I am pretty strict about setting aside hours for work and hours for not-work. During my sabbatical, I work from the time I drop off my daughter at school until she gets home. If I pick her up, my day ends earlier than if my husband picks her up. This has generally been my summer schedule as well.

When I am teaching, I try to keep work at work and not bring grading or planning home too often. Just the same, when I am working in the studio I try to be done when my daughter is done so I can spend time with my family. It is, of course, harder to work with my daughter home and tends to cause problems like forgetting to cover my work (so it won't dry out).

When my daytime work schedule is interrupted I find it frustrating because it makes the entire week less productive. If I can't get as much done in a week, I run the very real risk of the clay drying out too quickly. Early in the week I threw some work, but then I lost almost 8 or 9 hours of scheduled work time to transporting kids and other appointments. There are entire pieces I didn't touch all week. Friday I had to spray some with water and wrap them tightly in plastic in hopes that they won't dry out before I can get to them this week.

thrown work, unfinished

The missing studio time makes me feel a bit worried about getting everything done on time, but it is a passing comment from another parent that was annoying me all day Friday. The other mother assumed I had spent my entire day sitting at the school watching the kids rehearse. I'm sure the other mother didn't attach a value judgement to her assumption, but I am so accustomed to the attached value judgement that I am quick to react, at least internally, to comments about how I spend my time during the day on sabbatical or in the summer.

There is this perverse bit of mommy guilt that I think a lot of moms today experience. This nagging voice tells me, "since I could be watching my kid, I should be watching my kid." The logical part of my brain (the part that knows what it takes to craft work and to keep on schedule for an upcoming show) reassures me that I need to put in the hours in the studio to get the work done on time. However, that little sliver of guilt rubs at the surface, speaking in the voice of older parents who assure me that "this time goes by so quickly." And annoyingly, frustratingly, against my will, I notice that sliver more each time some other parent or friend or family member assumes that my studio time is less a real job than if I walked into a different building at a set time. There seems to be an assumption that time spent in the studio (in anything besides an essential, daily, hourly JOB) is less important than any hours or minutes I could spend with or near my daughter.

some work I did finish last week

I wrote this post out of a sense of frustration. Ironically, once I had written that last paragraph, I felt much better, having just gotten it out there. I haven't cut the cathartic paragraph and I now include this self-reflective epilogue (of sorts) because I find three things worth sharing in this post: 

1) Other moms (and maybe dads) may share my feeling of not being "allowed" a life outside of the kids. We need to allow ourselves to be individuals separate from our kids, even if just for a short time.

2) Writing about  frustrations can be cathartic. Whether it is for an audience or not, the process of writing has helped me identify what is bothering me and brainstorm a solution (on more occasions that this one). Writing is good for us as artists and as people. (Students, I'm talking to you!)

3) Future artists and friends and family of future artists, please try to be aware that making art takes time. If you want to be an artist, you must allow yourself time to make the work, as well as time to plan and fail and try new things and think about your work. If you want to truly support your artist friends, acknowledge that their work takes time to make and accept that they cannot blow it off, even if no one is watching. If you pressure them to abandon their studio time, it is just the same as pressuring them to skip class or call in sick to work. The result may interfere with their ambitions and their career opportunities.

Sabbatical

This week, my sabbatical officially starts. I am not teaching at YVCC this quarter, but instead am working in my home studio, exploring a relatively new direction with my work (sorry, if you've been reading a while it may not seem all that new), and doing some writing. I have been meaning, for some time, to post about what my aims are for my sabbatical. My official sabbatical proposal was 5 pages long, and I don't expect anyone wants to read all of that, so I have here included an edited version of the proposal. The timeline has changed a little since my first proposal, so I cut out the specifics, but my goals are pretty much the same as they were meant to be.

summer "sabbatical" work

Sabbatical Proposal

I have three objectives for my sabbatical time. I plan to extend my studio practice, developing a body of work that addresses issues of media integration and technological or man-made support of biological forms. I plan to create this body of work to show as a group in an installation setting both in a traditional art gallery and in a less traditional gallery setting.  I plan to use some of this time to write and develop an article for publication that discusses my integration of technology and mechanics into my sculpture and art making processes.

This past summer I was invited to participate in something called the SRAM pART project. This project was a fundraiser for world bicycle relief. Artists were given a box of bicycle parts and were asked to incorporate the bike parts into their artworks. The works were then auctioned as a fundraiser for World Bicycle Relief. The bike parts project came at a fitting time for me as I had already determined that I wanted to spend my summer studio time concentrating on the problem of incorporating different media into my work. I had been easing into this incorporation for some time and the impetus reaches back to my graduate experience and was urged along by questions from my students.

SRAM pART Project 2012: "SRAM Supported Botany"

Students often ask me about incorporating other media into their work. Ceramics students are generally interested in what happens to metal or glass when it is included in a piece during firing. Since glaze includes glass-forming silica, students make the assumption that glass can be used in clay, but shrinkage and fit prevent regular glass from adhering permanently and safely to raw clay alone. Students also ask regularly about planning for and adding non-ceramic elements into ceramic forms after firing. Clay shrinks during firing so measurements need to be adjusted to incorporate unfired elements such as handles, attachments and inclusions that will be added later. I am able to help them understand shrinkage rates, but I have more limited experience including less regular elements after firing.

This past summer I was spent some time test firing non-ceramic elements to determine shrinkage and fit, but I was not able to experiment with firing non-ceramic elements as intentional inclusions in ceramic structures. Through the SRAM pART project, I was able to experiment more extensively with non-ceramic inclusions added after firing. I executed three bike part pieces, one of which I donated to the project, the other two I kept. 

I have an exhibition lined up for January 2014 at the Esvelt Gallery at Columbia Basin Community College. This venue is an unconventional gallery space that will be an interesting and challenging space to utilize. However, I would like to develop this show for installation in a more accessible space with a larger audience. I would like to spend some of my sabbatical time finding and arranging for a show in such a space. My plans at this time are for the exhibition to be family friendly, encouraging visitors to interact with the work directly.

"SRAM Gears"

I also plan to write about my work during this sabbatical experience. I feel that the SRAM pART project in general and my mixed media work in particular is interesting and worth expanding on in a more formal venue. I have been keeping a blog about my studio practice, my teaching and my thoughts on both. I believe it is time to expand my writing into a more professional and accessible venue.

The writing process, writing about one’s own work and one’s own process, is something I try to encourage in my highest level students. I have required my independent students to blog about their work, write artist statements and discuss their work verbally. I always encourage critique discussions for all my clay and design students because they discover something about their work by putting their visual ideas into words and presenting them.

I write about my work and my process on my blog and encourage students to use the blog as a supplemental resource. I discover new ideas about my work and my approach by writing and I think it is healthy for their artistic and intellectual development for students to see me do this and try similar approaches in their own work.

The next step is for students to see their instructor write a more formal account of a more formal process. I still have students tell me about seeing my Faculty Lecture because it is a new way for students to see and learn from their instructors. 

"Big SRAM"

The entire project, from the conception and execution of the work to the written account of the process and ideas will provide students and the campus at large with a view of art as problem-solving. I believe that art which tackles technical and engineering problems beyond the standard throwing and forming, and artistic and conceptual problems beyond the pretty and functional, gives students a new way to think about what art can be.

I have long viewed art as a framework and grounding for exploring information from other disciplines. I understood chemistry better when I applied it to glaze formulation and testing. I see my students go through the same cognitive process when they recognize and explain the glaze recipe they are testing in chemical terms from another class.

I try to give my students a grounding in physics as they learn about ceramic shrinkage rates and the firing process. I see them return to me with information from their math and geology classes. The technical aims of this project are further explorations of those interdisciplinary connections that I can then share with my students to enhance their art and academic experience.

IBEST Linked Classes

This week was finals week. In a grading break this morning I met with come colleagues to plan for the linked classes we will be teaching next quarter.

One of the exciting things about doing a class with other instructors is how much the experience improves one's own teaching. Just going through the process of planning the class helps me improve. Today I was trying to explain why I do particular assignments the way I do. My initial reasons for the assignments were good and I still feel confident in the assignments, but just articulating the intent of the assignments helped me identify a couple pieces of the assignments that could be streamlined or altered to be more clear to students.

The class I will be teaching next quarter is part of an IBEST model. It's too late at night for me to remember what IBEST stands for (Integrated Basic Education Some Thing), but it means that we are putting a cohort of students into a set of classes that includes developmental and college-level classes. My Art Appreciation class is the college-level class and my colleagues are teaching developmental reading, adult basic education writing and study skills. The same group of students who are taking these classes in the winter will move on to college-level drama, developmental writing, and ABE reading next quarter. The idea is that by the end of the two quarters these student will be at college level in their English and will already have 10 college level humanities credits. Most of these students would not yet be eligible for my Art Appreciation class because of their English scores.

Another exciting element of the IBEST class for me is that I am able to give some of the non-art related teaching tasks to my reading, writing and study skills colleagues. My usual Art Appreciation class requires students to be at almost-college-level English. Because they are not college-ready, I cannot expect them to write a college-level paper with citations. Since I think that writing this type of report is a reasonable expectation for a college-level Art Appreciation class, I help them build the writing and the citations throughout the quarter. This coming quarter, however, I will not be required to teach them to do citations because my colleagues will do that part.

I am also looking forward to my colleagues helping the students learn to navigate their textbooks and build their non-art vocabulary. I don't really have time to help the whole class understand what is meant by the word "describe" as opposed to "identify" in a test question. I also don't have time to make sure they understand all the terms from their research. Today, while reading a paper, it became clear to me that at least one student did not know what it meant to "impersonate" someone. But I don't think that my class time is the appropriate place to develop that vocabulary. When I have to decide between teaching the content of the class or trying to build the students skills and understanding up to college level, something gets lost.

Next quarter will be an interesting opportunity to discover how much content I can move through if I don't have to spend time with the other stuff. It will also be interesting to see how this cohort of under-prepared students does in the class compared to my typical group of slightly more prepared students who are not taking the set of connected classes.

Working Alone

I don't know if this is the kind of week in which I can handle a change in Blogger's interface (Where is everything? Why is it not where I think it should be).

Trying to Work
Today there was no class, which was a welcome break, but I had to go in anyway because I was pretty far behind on my grading. Quite a few other faculty were also in today, though we officially had the day off.
I was able to work in my office with the door closed and my music on during the early morning, but by the time I started hearing other voices and seeing shadows walk past my door, I got nervous and tense and couldn't stay still and grade. I think I was afraid that someone would find me and interrupt me and I would have to "deal" with something. In my office my desk chair rolls and when I get anxious or uncomfortable or ready to leave, I start moving around and standing up and kneeling it in at rolling it around. I suppose this doesn't help.

I went for lunch (because it was lunchtime) thinking I could grade a bit or read a bit as I waited for my lunch. Unfortunately I was seated uncomfortably close to a pair of young women who wanted to talk about their boyfriends. I am sure they didn't appreciate me so close and I certainly didn't want to hear their conversation, so, though it might be rude, I dug out my iPod to block their gossip. I tried to grade but the chair was very low and soft and uncomfortable which also made it hard for me to sit still. The table was too high to eat or grade comfortably.

I had a couple errands to run and then ended up with my computer, a sundae and some iced tea at McDonald's. McDonald's was actually the perfect place to get some work done. They had on music I couldn't hear because of the machines beeping and grinding. People were chatting and ordering and calling out instructions, but so many were doing this at the same time, I couldn't make out anything but a dull grey haze of sound. For a short while a mother yelled at her kid from the 50's car-shaped booth across the aisle from my plain booth, but the grinding, beeping hum all around us prevented even this from being clearly audible enough to be annoying. Also, my booth seat was wide and hard and stationary and the table was at the right height for sundaes and for typing. Also for large iced teas.

The best part about McDonald's, though was that I could be alone in public. I wasn't working at home because my mother-in-law is visiting. She wouldn't try to interrupt me, but she would probably just have one thing to tell me, and then one more, and one more. Or, she might have brought my daughter home from day care and she would certainly interrupt me. Even after promising not to. But even if noone else were home, I might interrupt myself by "just doing a little bit of laundry" or just fixing a little snack or just taking a quick break for...whatever.

To adjust the intent of the Cheers theme song, "Sometimes you want to go where no-body knows your name." In a place where no one knows you, they can't possibly have something they need you to do, and politeness will prevent them from talking to you if you look like you are working. There's also no other "work" you can do except the work you are supposed to do. Also, Hot Fudge helps with writing. Everyone knows that.


Why I Was Writing
The thing I was trying to write was an application to be part of the Humanities Washington Speaker's Bureau next year. I don't have any idea how competitive it is, but someone suggested I try and so I did. The application was a series of short answer questions about what I do and why. They also asked for a video of a 5 minute sample of my presentation. It had never occurred to me to record my presentation, so I gave part of the presentation to a room full of empty desks one afternoon.

Giving the presentation to a room of empty desks wasn't that strange to do, since I sometimes practice out loud--usually not in an actually classroom--with no audience. But filming it was odd. Rather, filming it made me realize how ill-suited my presentation is to filming from a stationary position. The presentation is a PowerPoint with images of me working and I also do part of the demonstration on the document camera so people can see my sprigs up close. So I filmed the screen with the Powerpoint and I talked over it. What a strange video to watch: a series of still images with a disembodied voice-over.

I don't think this is a flaw in the presentation, however. I suppose I could add video or animation, but then the real me ends up watching a video of the digital me in real time with the audience. I can't figure out why I would present that, might as well e-mail the video and save the gas. But in real life, what the stationary video camera can't capture is me walking around, gesturing, reacting to people, being alive. (It is especially hard to capture audience interaction with not audience.) I tried to capture we walking around pretending to talk to people with video, but the camera can't get wide enough to really fit me very well. The view then had to include empty desks and ceiling lights. It was dark and small and, not good.

What I Was Writing
Besides the video, I had some questions to answer about my work and the presentation. One of them got me thinking beyond what I expected to think. Usually artist statements are pretty similar and I describe my work and my plan and my inspiration, etc. But one of the questions asked why I like to do this stuff (my words, their meaning). I started to answer that I just have to do it. It is late April and I am ACHING to get into the studio and work and be alone. But "this stuff" is also the teaching element. Why am I going through the trouble of applying to be part of this speaker's bureau? I like teaching. No, that's too weak. I need to teach too. I once tried to "just" make art but I ended up teaching anyway.

So I started thinking about the contrasts between teaching and making art. Making art, as I said above, is a solitary undertaking. At least it is for me; Dale Chihuly may disagree. Teaching, on the other hand, is necessarily a social and cooperative effort. Perhaps some proponents of teaching through online modules would disagree, but I don't have much faith in solitary teaching methods.

It is interesting to me that in April (or May or June) I start to get antsy for alone time in the studio, but If I were able to be alone in the studio for an extended period, I would have the urge to talk and share and... well, write to a wider audience as in this blog.

Writing Assumptions and Voice

I've been spent some time over break writing and revising my artist statement, teaching philosophy and other writing. The process of revising writing causes me to fluctuate between feelings of accomplishment and frustration. Revising with family nearby makes it easier for me because I can read it out loud and get an immediate second opinion from someone in person (instead of over e-mail or phone). Sometimes reading it out loud to someone just causes me to recognize errors I've made.

Revising my own previous writing also causes me to realize that the sorts of regular errors I make are pretty similar to the regular errors I expect to see in students' writing. Its funny, since I have been writing artist statements and artist philosophies for a while and I assumed I was pretty good at it.

At the end of the quarter I meet with Art Appreciation students who are writing reports on an artist. One of the things I most often tell them about their writing is that they need to write how they say it. I ask them to explain what they are trying to say. They are often perfectly able to explain clearly to me, but when they write, their speaking voice is lost.

The other day, I read someone else's teaching philosophy (Jason Briggs, I linked to his website in a previous post but didn't take too much time to actually look around then) and was impressed by his conversational tone. He was saying many things that I say, but his writing sounded less formal.

It wasn't until I read this other statement that I realized that my own tone in a similar teaching statement is not particularly conversational. I read it out loud, I have people read it over to give me a second opinion, but still it was hard to recognize how it would sound compared to other similar writing.

I was also interested to discover that Jason Briggs' statement, though it didn't say so, clearly assumed he was teaching art students in a 4-year instituion, whereas there are elements in my teaching philosophy or other writing about teaching work that assumes that I am teaching students who don't intent do continue in art and who, often, are only going to take one art or one clay class.

In both cases, these assumptions make sense, but I wasn't able to see my own assumptions until I read his statement and recognized his assumptions. In my case, I think I tend to argue for the value of art in a general education degree because I have spent most of my career at YVCC arguing for the value of art in a transfer degree. Most of my regular students don't intend to pursue art as a career. I don't spend most of my day-to-day or quarter-to-quarter efforts concerned with art majors. I know and have experience with art majors in various institutions, but my current position is different.

I believe in what I do now. In considering whether I want to be at YVCC or at a similar institution long term, I start to wonder about these assumptions and habits of working and thinking. My values are unlikely to go through major shifts based on where I am, but the assumptions of students and other faculty around me may be different. I may be "fighting different battles" in another context.

Though I would like to give this post more thought, perhaps read it out loud to check if the voice is appropriate, my efforts are currently required to color a house with my daughter.

Artist Statement: From the Ground Up

Apparently the artist statements for this winter's clay show, From the Ground Up at Larson Gallery are due tomorrow. Here is my (illustrated) statement.

Clay seems to me to be the perfect material; it is immediate and tactile. I can create directly and modify in all dimensions. As an expressive medium, clay has always seemed to "fit." Clay gives me the freedom to squish and shape, add and remove, with my hands touching the clay I don't need to use tools to translate what I want to say. Some of this sense of freedom comes from familiarity with the medium and techniques, but even from a young age, I felt comfortable squeezing modeling clay into the shape of a person and then manipulating that human form in expressive ways.

forming a sculpture by hand

Today my ceramic work is primarily abstract and sculptural. I encourage an open interpretation of my forms. I like the viewer to become involved with the work, either by physically handling it or because I have forced them to interpret the work by leaving the subject ambiguous.

My work is inspired mostly by local and exotic plant forms and aquatic flora and fauna. The biological forms I look to for inspiration are at once familar and strange. Nature repeats similar forms in different organisms and in different ecosystems. Though I may not have seen a particular plant or seedpod before, I have seen seedpod and plant forms in general.

plant forms collected for my studio

Similarly, my work is both familiar and strange. Out of context, the subtly or subconsciously familiar forms of my sculpture might be hard to categorize or identify. Direct inspiration for my sculptural forms or surfaces might come from seeds, blossoms or the surface of an orange. I combine these influences into new forms that are essentially abstract and non-representational.

sprig (mold) made from the surface of an orange

People have often asked if my sculptures are meant to represent human anatomy. I don't often draw inspiration from these forms, but the forms I do look at, like the soft bodies of a sea cucumber or cnidaria (like jellyfish) are subtly similar to organs we see in the human form. Biological forms, whether human, animal or plant-life, have complex structures very different from the manmade structures that surround us everyday. Often the complex structures are unfamiliar to us because they are too small or hidden from view by skin or shell or other protective layers. My intent is not for my audience to recognize the forms or surfaces I represent and explore in my work, but to recognize, consciously or subconsciously, that something about the work is familiar.

finished form with shell sprigged surface

I also hope to attract my audience to look closer or spend more time with my work. I use vivid hues and saturated layers of color that are reminiscent of tropical flowers or fish found near a coral reef. The bright, layered colors, complex textures and contrast of shiny and satin surfaces are meant to be eye-catching and appealing. Once I have drawn in my audience I hope to encourage them to question the meaning of the work or what it represents. I want them to recognize, or almost recognize, forms or surfaces they have seen before, but I want the process to be a search and I don’t necessarily need them to discover the same connections I envisioned when I created the work.

finished form with orange sprigged surface and sprayed and painted underglaze

Identity

I was reading my new Ceramics Monthly magazine last night. They have a "yearbook" this year as part of the annual buyers guide. Usually this yearly supplement is just a bunch of ads for new tools, some reviews of materials, tools, etc and some information on technical ceramics. Occasionally some of the technical stuff is useful; I read about the changing formula for G-200 feldspar and why it has changed and that's kind of interesting.

But the yearbook stuff, well, it actually annoyed me. Ok, it is possible that the simultaneous argument between my husband and my daughter regarding the finishing of her dinner vis-a-vis watching more Caillou (Caillou=the current most annoying kid's television show) had something to do with my frustration. Anyway, the yearbook included an article about the "ceramic artist of the year," remembrances, collections and shows, like SOFA. The bit that got under my skin was the page spread on "Transitions." This is a page of 20 apparently important people who are now teaching somewhere else or running a different ceramics program. I was annoyed because I only recognized 2 names and I couldn't figure out why I was reading small bios of these people as opposed to any other people. The US ceramics world isn't so small that these 20 people changing positions matter to everyone, is it?

But the question of why these 20 people warrant a page in CM's yearbook, mirrors some things I have been contemplating lately about identity: defining one's identity (in the real world as well as the art world) and cultivating one's identity.

I mentioned, before, my various roles: mom, teacher, artist; but I also have been thinking about what is important to me within, between and through those roles. I am not, for example, a teacher. Though I teach, teaching is not the full definition of me.  But in considering "identity" I am not interested in defining my identity or listing the pieces that make it up. What I have been thinking about lately is how to maintain and develop those pieces of my identity that are most important (or that otherwise balanced might begin to turn it into something else).

Why is it important to maintain the various roles I see myself in and how much effort and time and thought do I put into maintaining these various identities? I periodically find that reading about achievements of other artists of a similar age (or in a similar position to mine) make me question why I am here and they are there. But I need to remind myself to ask "Why have I cultivated this life which is different from the one they are pursuing?"

Not surprisingly, I enjoy aspects of all my chosen roles. (Of course each one also has downsides and must-do's that are essential but not so much fun.) If it were possible, I would wish to spend more time on aspects of each of these roles. If I could, I would spend more time playing with my kid (obviously), I would spend more time in my studio (ditto), and I would also spend more time developing and prepping classes (true, if less obvious sometimes).

Of course, obviously I don't have more time. And even if I got a bonus lotto win of 50 more hours in a week (BTW wouldn't that be a great lottery? Do you think you'd have to "pay to play"? Would you give an hour for the chance to win 50?), I wouldn't be able to do all the things for all the extra time I wished.

But back to the real world (and days that include sleeping and weeks that have 7 days in them), we juggle, eh? We fit in as much of all the good bits and as few of all the bad bits and also eat and sleep and drive to things and do laundry. All of the juggling and squeezing and maneuvering (I like spelling that word) are meant to balance us out and do all the things that make us into who we are.

I see myself as an artist, even if I do spent most of my waking hours teaching and parenting. I value spending time making art and I value the time spent thinking about art. Writing this blog regularly has felt like a tiny thread keeping me attached to my role as an artist (and occasionally also to my role as a mom or a teacher). Each time I write, I put in a stitch connecting the fabric of my teacher-mom life to the fabric of my summer-studio life. And, of course, when the mom fabric bleeds into the artist fabric and the  teacher dye bleeds onto the artist cloth and I write about it, the whole thing becomes, I guess, a sleeping bag. Or maybe a Snuggie.

I teach about what I already know and I make work based on work I've made and work I've seen, but there is a gap in my knowledge and my experience. Everytime I pick up and read a book about art criticism, art theory, art history, I feel like I'm filling in this gap (or, to maintain the metaphor, darning a hole.)

I intentionally developed this life I live. I've made decisions that build on each other and have brought me to where I am. I sometimes wonder if I could be on that page of the Ceramics Monthly yearbook.  I sometimes follow a train of thought that brings me back a couple years (or further) and wonder what I did wrong that I am not there. But when that annoying Caillou is not playing in the background, I usually remember that I started making choices at least as far back as when I chose a college, that steered me towards where I am now. I didn't always have the end "goal" in sight, but almost every step along the way has been about doing things that make me happy and make me whole.

One of the reasons I am not on those pages is that the "whole" of me can't be defined so simply as to be a page in Ceramics Monthly (no offense to the folks on those pages who, I am sure, are interesting and complex people).

Writing as a Generative Process

Classes started today at YVCC. Last week while I was updating syllabi and trying to determine whether I have work study support in the studio this year, I was also been thinking about changes and improvements I can make in my classes this coming quarter. I finally got around to reading some course evaluations I gave my students last year and I got some good suggestions from them.

I plan to have my independent clay students keep a blog about their quarter's experience in clay. I suspect some of them will not be thrilled about the writing element in a clay class, but I have a background in writing as well as art and I think that an essential skill for an artist (or anybody) is to be able to talk intelligently about their work. 

One of the things I have noticed about keeping this blog regularly--even for the short amount of time I have been keeping it regularly--is how helpful the writing process is for how I think about my work. As my mother likes to remind me, "writing is a generative process." 

As I sit down to write, I don't have a fully formulated plan. I keep a notebook handy in the studio and jot down a few ideas as they come to me. When I sit down to write, I pick the most interesting or promising idea and start to write about it. I often don't know where I am headed when I begin to write. A few times I have found myself on a tangent or in a slightly different place that where I expected to be when I began writing. A few times I have made a connection in writing that I hadn't really thought about before writing it down.

The fact that I end up writing something I wasn't expecting when I started is what makes the whole process interesting. Keeping the blog has reminded me of sharing a studio in college. Obviously one doesn't script a whole conversation ahead of time. Conversations with a studio-mate or conversations in a more formal critique move you from one understanding to another. In some ways having a conversation with a blog is like talking to a very neutral studio-mate. 

I also like Blogger's save and edit features. I try to step away from my blog before posting it because, as is happening right now, I might get distracted in the middle of writing. I can get the basic ideas down and return later (say, when my daughter isn't trying to talk to me about her owies) and read the post through to be sure that I didn't muddle my phrasing.

But a blog also doesn't require formality expected in a classroom setting or an artist's statement. Blog authors can use slang and incomplete sentences as it suits their style, just as long as it makes sense. One of my favorite examples of this relaxed (and funny) style of writing is the Books I Done Read blog. 

Another advantage of a blog is that the writing can be sparse and the images plentiful. The Larson Gallery Guild blog uses a lot of images combined with writing (and the images and writing come from a variety of sources). Other artists' blogs use almost no writing and focus entirely on images of work. One of my favorite blogs that relies heavily on images hasn't been updated recently, but Hyperbole and a Half has excellent stuff if you search past posts. 

I believe that keeping a blog will force my independent students to formulate more thoughtful ideas about their work. I hope that it will also encourage discussions between the independent students. Of course it will allow me insight into what students are doing, thinking and talking about. 

My independent students keep different studio hours or work outside of the studio. I can force conversations by holding a required critique, but the discussions end up being somewhat formal and are hard to schedule.

Of course I also like the idea of having students present their work regularly and perhaps even interact with people who are not in the class. Several local artists keep blogs of their work. Fostering a discussion or connection between students and artists could be a good experience for all.