In the still night by the vacant window,

wrapped in monk's robe I sit in meditation

navel and nostrils lined up straight,

ears paired to the slope of the shoulders.

Windows whitens - the moon comes up;

rain's stopped, but drops go on dripping.

Wonderful - the mood of this moment-

distant, vast, known only to me!

Ryokan

from the west mesa, sunrise Sunday 

The world in a horse's eye.

The void has collapsed upon the earth
Stars, burning, shoot across Iron Mountain
Turning sommersaults, I brush past.'

Zekkai Chushin
from Zen Poems

Thanksgiving weekend

thanksgiving day snow

Two days later in the Placitas open space, no snow!

Every single thing

Changes and is changing

Always in this world.

Yet with the same light 

The moon goes on shining.

Saigyo

from Zen Poems

ever

A zen path

the autumn moss grows over;

Icy windows bear streaks

Of rain.

The true mind

mysteriously integrates

Itself, but who appreciates

Good poem? Dew chills

Cricket noises muffle.

A light wind fans

Shadows of foliage.

As if intent, 

All day in the window

White clouds.

Jianzhang

 Sunday visit to the Jemez Mountains to see fall

cottonwoods along the river

cottonwoods 

60' tall ponderosa pine

red cliffs of the Jemez

Images of fall, Albuquerque Botanical Garden

Sweeping Leaves

Lacking cash to buy firewood,

I sweep up leaves from the road in front,

Each one as valuable as gold;

Piled up like gorgeous red brocades,

i cover them greedily for warming my knees

And to bring some comfort to my cold hear;

I'll take them back to burn in the hearth while i sit in meditation,

and return to listening to the rain dripping on the steps.

Ryushu Shutaku from Zen Poems

Silent and still: then
even sinking into the rocks
The cicada's screech.

Matsuo Basho

fall sunset at the cabin

Brazos Cliffs, northern NM

making of an artist

final post 

part one 9.22/two, 9.24/three, post 9.27

By this time I was earning a living as a production potter, and teaching classes to old lecherous men and rich dilettantes, mostly women. In Houston, a city of 3 million, there were only a few potters so we did quite well. And publicity we got! For some reason being a potter was big news, we were in the paper or on TV, or in magazines several times a year. We opened a gallery of handcrafted objects, pots, jewelry, weaving. It was the only store of its kind in the city and we could barely keep the shelves stocked.

I was good at it. I was a good potter.

I loved it. I loved it until I didn’t

Early in my studies in pottery making I refused to call myself a potter. That was a term reserved for a master, when I finally “mastered” the craft I no longer wanted to be called a potter. I did not want to be a craftsperson. I wanted to be an artist.

In 1982 I started graduate school to earn a Masters of Fine Art. I was bored with production pottery. I knew I either had to change the way I worked with clay or give it up altogether.

The first semester was hard. I didn’t know how to relate to clay other than through the potters wheel. I fought with the faculty about craft being art, but did so half heartedly and truth be told, defensively.  How many times could a potter invoke the Japanese tea ceremony to rationalize the artfulness of pottery making? The bowls I made that semester were fine-looking, but still bowls. It took me another semester to realize that I was able to work with clay in a way that was sculptural and interesting. But the most important lesson of those years was the opening of a deep reservoir of creative energy. The first time I experienced the joy making a work of “art” I was terrified. What if this is it? What if there is nothing else in here? I would ask myself. One chance only and now it is over. And then one day I was working in my studio and this sensation overcame me. It was the feeling that I had only tapped the very tip of my creativity. I felt it swirling and throbbing, although not articulated in an idea it was there as sure as I was alive. What I was feeling then, and I know to be true now is that creativity is not some force that belongs to me. It is outside me, and if I have enough grace I can access it. And most important it is infinite. And “grace” is how an artist friend described it “it’s like being in a state of grace” she said.  Creative energy is “God” for me, when it’s not present it is a separation from God, with its attendant anxiety, and sometimes despair. Graduate school taught me to trust the process and most of all trust myself and the river of creativity that invites us to take a dip. I believe this river is what I had briefly tapped into as a small child.

But also in those 2 years, for the first time, I started looking at art. I started thinking about art and started understanding its power and wonder. The University of St. Thomas where I had attended undergraduate school had been connected with the de Menils, Jean and Dominique (both now deceased), whose art collections are world renowned. They built the Rothko chapel, the Menil collection Museum and the Cy Trombley Museum in the same neighborhood.  There I was introduced to the works of Joseph Cornell whose tightly constructed boxes contained the knick knacks and the detritus of society and transformed it into, if not profound statements, than poetic ones. The de Menils had amassed a remarkable collection of very fine African art, which they kept on permanent display in the Menil Collection Museum where I would stand for long periods of time examining the stone, wooden, metal and ivory icons of that culture.

I discovered the minimalists, Mark Rothko, Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin among them. I was and still am inspired by the works of Wolfgang Laib, Martin Puryear, Richard Tuttle, Blinky Palermo.  I learned about minimalist music. I watched whirling dervishes dance and spin in the Rothko Chapel while Steve Reich performed his monotone tribute to Rothko.

Where had I been? It was all intoxicating.

I looked at Egyptian art, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian  art. I studied early native American pottery making. A new world opened up to me in those years.

Besides introducing me to creative energy, both my own and others I started working outside my comfortable medium. First I started working with metal, then wood and over the years I added welded steel, bees wax, drawing, casting, even working with living materials. And of course gardening, that glorious task that is beyond rewarding, beyond creative. It is pure connection with the earth and all its gifts and pleasures. I never completely deserted clay and to this day will on occasion (every 2-3 years) sit down at my potter’s wheel and make bowls. A satisfying and rewarding activity. A skill that the “potters” body never forgets.

And creativity, that illusive muse that blesses me on occasion with a good idea, or completely eludes me for months and sometimes years is a healing gift. This is my most recent discovery.

I have grown accustomed to droughts. I have learned that over time I will re-awaken to a new vision. The first few times were terrifying. But as I’ve grown older I trust myself to recover or re-discover that river. My down times were so legend that I was interviewed for an article about creative blocks for a Santa Fe arts publication once. Sometimes they resurface with a quiet whisper other times more with freight train energy. In fact, writing this piece was one of the high energy impacts. I had just finished reading Life, by Keith Richards and just begun reading Just Kids, by Patti Smith. I was at the gym on the elliptical edge machine and it hit, inspired I am sure by those two books. I jumped off the edge machine, went to the front desk to borrow a pen and steal a piece of paper. I had to take notes, because memories and thoughts were streaming through my mind at such a pace I knew I’d never remember any of them. I wanted to get it down on paper just how I came to be an artist. Thirty- six hours later I was exhausted, completely whipped. That night I was sleepless, jumping up to write down ideas that now were dealing with visual art as well as my creative journey. Whew. I called it a creative hurricane. Personally I prefer the sweet whispers.

But I will take it however, wherever, whenever it comes.

“There are it seems, two muses: the muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, ‘it is yet more difficult than you thought.’ This is the muse of Form. …it may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”        

Wendell Barry

making of an artist

continued...

from September 22 and September 24 posts

Years later catholic imagery found its way into my art work.

The only art class I took, as they did not teach art in the parochial schools, was at the museum of fine arts one summer. It lasted one week. I made a linotype print, but don’t remember much about that other than the fun of cutting into the linoleum. The product of that endeavor did not survive but what did and is in our foyer today is a lumpy clay bowl, crudely hand built and fired a murky green color. Mother told me to make sure I put the date on the bottom and so I carefully carved out

AC

THUR

No indication from that project that I would ever have a skill with clay. 

In college I chose to major in English literature. This was at a time when a woman, even with a college degree had little opportunity if not in the fields of nursing, secretarial, or teaching.  I just trusted that something would come along. English literature was great because of my love for reading, but also, as I discovered later all the “arty” students were in this program. And I yearned to be “arty”. This was the heart of the 60s. From 1963- 1967 I was at the University of St. Thomas, a small liberal arts college in Houston. During these exciting years radical change was like oxygen in the air, it was everywhere, it was consumable and life giving. I drank it up. The music, sexual revolution, hippies, beginnings of contemporary feminism, radical political movements created a euphoria of collective bliss, but the Viet Nam war (with its attendant death of acquaintances, and friends terror at the possibility of being drafted)  and the loss of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King and such gut wrenching violence swept us up in shared sadness. And of course, there were the drugs. Lots of them and everywhere. Being alive and being a young adult in these times was a gift I have often, over the years pondered with gratitude.

After college I had to face the hard reality of not being employable. I couldn’t even type. I took a job at Eastern Airlines and traveled the world instead of teaching, nursing or getting coffee for my boss. Not a bad trade off for awhile. Although other then the fringe benefits, it was deadly boring and when my boyfriend, Ron suggested that I meet his friends Peggy and Barry because Peggy was a potter I jumped at the chance. Peggy had a kick wheel in a side room of her house. The shelves there were covered with her thrown mugs, bowls, tea pots and plates. Some were freshly made, dark, moist and cool, some bone dry waiting for their first firing, looking dusty and pale and still others were flesh colored after being bisque fired ready to be glazed.

Now Peggy and Barry were interesting. They had an open marriage and asked Ron and I if we’d like to participate in a foursome.

No thank you.

Kinky though they were as a couple Peggy’s pots inspired me. She suggested that I take a class at the art museum, a pottery class taught by Gary Huntoon, who amazingly is still a production potter in Houston. This was 1970, many years ago.

I walked into that class and took one whiff of the clay and it was all over. I was hooked. I was a perfectly terrible potter, but I improved over time.

So throughout the 70s I was a potter. I loved the process, the wheel, the slick, sensuous feel of the clay centered in my hands. The grace of pulling up a wall for a bowl, the satisfaction of a lid that fit perfectly or a teapot that poured without a drip. I loved making my own glazes, building kilns and most of all I loved firing those kilns.

As Keith Richards says “I am not an arson, but I am a pyromaniac.”

The pots would be glazed; this process took a day or two. Then the kiln was loaded. Kiln shelves are heavy, really heavy and often you’d have to cantilever your body over the door of the kiln and gently place the shelf on top of the bricks that were stacked on the lower shelf. No pots touched or they would glaze together forever. But you wanted to have them as close as possible without touching because kiln space was precious and the gas used was expensive. When the kiln was loaded the door was bricked shut, gaps would be stuffed with a high refractory cotton like fiber called kaowool to hold in the heat.

Early the next morning I arrived at the pottery and candled the gas flame. I opened the flue, but kept open the peep holes in the door (where you were able to look into the kiln to watch the “cones”. The cones were small cone shaped objects that were calculated to melt and bend at certain temperatures; we fired our stoneware and porcelain to cone 10 or about 2000 F.) We left these open for the first few hours so moisture could escape the kiln. If this was not done than there was the possibility of pots exploding as the moisture would blow out of the pots too quickly. One blown pot could destroy and entire kiln load of work... 80 -100 pieces.

As the day progressed and the flame was increased the kiln changed from a dark, black interior to dull red to finally a white heat that was like looking at the sun. This took all day, into the dark of the evening.  Oh course the gas or wood kilns were built outside away from anything combustible, like fences or trees. At the very end when the final cone fell I pushed in the damper (flue) in a process called “reduction”, reducing air flow and the fire starving for oxygen would send out orange tongues of flames from every crack and crevice. In the darkness of night this created a dragon-like image. The kiln was alive with a magical energy as it roared and belched fire.  It was almost erotic. In the process of seeking oxygen for fuel it robbed the glazes and clay of its oxygen molecules and only then could I get oxblood red, or celadon greens, iron temoku, or unctuous creamy whites, rutile blues and pinks. And stoneware clay would turn a warm, nutty brown.

to be continued....

 Datura aka moonflower closing with the sun.

making of an artist

 continued from September 22 post...

I loved reading and I was good at making up stories. I told my adopted sister fairy tales in exchange for her woeful remembrances of the foster home where she had lived from the age of 5 to 7, that is until she moved in with us. I had an endless supply of fairy tales for Michelette. My imagination was a place of escape and pleasure for me. My mother chided me, “you have an overactive imagination!”, as though that were a shameful thing. That did an excellent job of suppressing it during those early years.

I was about 6 when my brother David told me that there was a colony of fairies living in poverty, without clothes under our screened porch. In retrospect this was probably some weird sexual fantasy/fetish for him –these naked fairies running around- but for me it meant freezing cold fairies.  I loved sewing, at which both my mother and grandmother were quite accomplished and mother had taught me rudimentary sewing skills. So I immediately set to work making skirts and blouses and pants for the little ones. I loved the project. I continued to sew and as I grew a bit older mother taught me how to use her Singer. All throughout high school and college I made most of my own clothes. In college I made my own patterns as I found the commercial ones to be so dull. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a fashion designer.

The most popular marbles in my youth were cat’s eye. They were clear glass with an oval shaped colored center in red or yellow or blue. However my favorites were the occasional clear colored ones and I worked hard at obtaining a tiny bowl full. One was a rich amber another favorite was blood red. I loved holding them in my hand, looking through them at the tree outside my bedroom window; distorting the tree to a bizarre elliptical shape with an eerie colored glow. Or I would rub them gently against my cheek, as they were so cool and smooth. After remembering these special marbles I visited an artist friend in Houston. I wanted to go to the Hiram Butler gallery (http://dbhbg.com/). Mr. Butler has remarkable space just made for art, with high peaked ceilings, lit with intelligence, the lighting designed by the famed artist James Terrell (a friend of Mr. Butler’s). On the south wall of the gallery is a 10’ high glass pane window. Framed in the window is a lush green garden of Louisiana irises, with their pale lavender flowers blooming in the dappled shade of an ancient live oak.  Deceptively cool and inviting looking. On the floor of this exquisitely lit room was a spiral sculpture made of marbles – three feet across. On closer inspection they were all there – the cat’s eyes and the opaque ones colored with random shapes of color like tiny globes of far distant planets. But there, on careful examination was a clear ruby red one and a few inches away an amber one. An artist’s treasure. I had to restrain myself from plucking them out of that tightly wound spiral and putting them in my pocket.

They reminded me of a rosary that I had been given when I made my first communion. The crucifix and chain was silver and its beads were red crystals. The wonderful feel of those faceted beads in my hands was unmatched even by the Hail Marys I was saying as they passed through my little fingers. I kept it in a silver chain mail purse along with another smaller sterling rosary.  The purse and rosaries were stolen from my room when I was 10. I mourned its loss for years. I still think of that rosary.

I found beauty in so many things back then but along with the rosary there were other Catholic images. I never paid much attention at Mass; the sermons were dull and flat. I never believed that Jesus Christ (whoever he was) was really there in that golden chalice on the altar, but I cherished the icons of the church including that chalice, the Gregorian chants, Latin hymns and the Latin prayers, especially the incense, the somber, even bleeding statues of Jesus and the saints, the holy cards that I collected. The Catholic Church has a macabre collection of relics, finger bones of saints closed in gold armature, or pieces of palm leaves “touched” to the true relic of Jesus’ cross, and an endless assortment of holy body parts.  All so mysterious in a creepy but lush and sensuous way. It seemed to feed my “overactive” imagination.  And of course, there was the array of votive candles that were displayed bleacher style in their red glass holders. If you had a quarter you could drop it into a slot by their stand, light a candle, kneel down at the altar railing and say a prayer for your very special need.  And as a bonus with the purchase you’d also get an “indulgence”, time off your punishment in purgatory. The flame flickering display gave off a delicate waxy fragrance, so much a part of the whole liturgical experience.

The purple cloth used to cover the statues Easter week; the wooden clackers used in the Holy Thursday service were all exotic and thrilling.  But the best part was accompanying mother on her weekly church chore. Mother was a member of the Corpus Christi Parish altar society. The only women allowed at the altar were members of the altar society, and only for the purpose of cleaning.  In the sacristy she would gather the used linens from the altar; richly embroidered and often slightly stained with the red wine used in the transubstantiation. She’d bring them home to launder and lovingly iron. They were cloud white and smelled of fresh air, as she would dry them on the clothes line.  She then packed them in crisp white tissue paper to transport back to the church. But my two favorite chores were changing the clothes on the Infant of Prague statue and replacing the candles. The Infant of Prague was doll like in size and his wardrobe was varied with golden brocades, wine colored capes all covered in jewel like stones. The color of clothes he wore was dictated by the liturgical season…purple during lent, gold at Easter etc. The clothes were made by the skilled hands of women of the parish. But by far the most fun was when mother let me open the box of bees wax candles to replace the burned out tapers on the altar. The heady scent of that wax would make me close my eyes and moan with pleasure. And it still does.

Years later catholic imagery found its way into my art work.

to be continued....

This writing about my journey to becoming an artist will be published in several posts, as it is too long for one post.

making of an artist

This account will not be long. Nor will it have any dramatic moments of awakening, only slow remembrances of beauty and attraction, longing and a slow wide-eyed wonder at art that unfolded for me.

It was mid 90's and I was at a party, I can’t remember the occasion but it was a party full of artists. My friend Marge was the hostess. She is well connected in the art’s community so everyone was there.

The music was loud Latin, as she and her then husband were passionate tango dancers. It was festive. I was in her living room sitting on the couch next to RH.  R is a successful painter but somewhat of a shy fellow. His paintings had, at least for the moment, fallen out of favor and he was busy supporting himself by making sterling jewelry. (His minimal silvery shapes are like thin slices of the moon unlike the traditional busy twists and turns of most hand made jewelry. Just lovely.)

I had never really spoken to him, as I thought he was a bit standoffish out of conceit (after all he was quite successful), but on this occasion I realized he was just painfully shy. What a happy revelation that can be. We were talking about when we first realized that we were artists. He said there was never a time when he didn’t know; he had started drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil. Being an artist was never in doubt for him.

Puzzled, I told him I had come late to that discovery. As a child I did the usual coloring, drawing and writing.  And there was little encouragement from either my parents or teachers. To be honest I probably did not show any great talent. Pondering this that evening I remembered a seminal experience I had had as a child.  I still felt its pull and creative power.  So I told him this story.

I was 6. My grandparents lived in Victoria a small town 120 miles southwest of Houston. We visited them there often. On this particular visit I was playing with Nancy and Janice, twins who lived in, what we referred to as the Offer’s house. They were close to my age and the house was only 2 down from Grandma and Grandpa’s. We were allowed to roam the block without supervision.

Nancy and Janice taught me to play canasta. My parents didn’t play cards (other than that adult game of Bridge) so it was always fun to visit with them. But on this particular day someone (maybe me) suggested we build a house.  We chose the front yard as the location. We gathered twigs, branches and small stones from the earth. That was all we needed.  With sticks we drew the outline of the structure on the dusty ground. On each side of the sidewalk we pushed our branches into the dirt defining the shape and using stones delineated the walls. We somehow attached branches across the top to make a ceiling. My memory is that the twins lost interest whereas I was mesmerized by the process and the endless possibilities afforded by our chosen materials. I worked on it until evening. That new thrill of creativity was gripping. And the expansive nature of that creativity was like a sparkly bath of joy to my tiny and inexperienced psyche. This was new… the vibrant pleasure of bringing into life a thing of substance, beauty, worth or was it simply the satisfying miracle of creation? It left me longing for more.

I thought about it for years. From this distance in time I now see that this was pure creativity, unfettered, untamed and lacking self-consciousness. Although in years following I never reproduced that virgin experience try as I might. I built many more forts, houses, Christmas tree houses throughout those early years, but never was I able to recreate that wonder. Nor did I ever forget it.

That evening on the couch with RH I realized that was my first sculpture, my first truly creative act.

Now in thinking back over those formative years I can see whispers of my creative spirit emerging. If not truly gifted, I found beauty in many things and had developed a personal aesthetic. My creativity came out in collecting, writing, sewing and even cooking.

Absolutely the only thing I remember about kindergarten was learning perspective. I can still picture the teacher at the blackboard drawing a hexagram with a peaked top and then putting angled lines from its corners and joining them with a straight line. A house!  I was 4 years old and only attended for a month or two, because the nuns at my Catholic school terrified me and I begged not to have to go. But the concept of creating the illusion of 3-dimension in a 2 dimensional field was born.

to be continued...

They come about on their own-
the principles of all things.

Water need not think
to offer itself as lodging
for clear moonlight.

Sogi
from Zen Poems

Prickly Pear Cactus ready ripe and ready to make into jams and jellies. Photos from my Sunday morning walk in Bear Canyon, foothills Sandia Mountain.

With the true emptiness of nonaction, 

I nap on a stone pillow among rocks

Do you ask me what is my power?

A single tattered robe through life.

Naong 

fruits ripening in our yard

Mostly I am an artist and I sometimes write stories of my life. I've decided that occasionally I'll post these short memoir stories on this blog.
The events that I write about below actually happened. The night visitation might have be a lucid dream, but I suspect it was real. Whatever that is.
Believe it or not.

Vermont, summer 1980

Waking Up

Sarah told us where in the Simonville Cemetery we’ll find her grave. And we did spend most of last Sunday afternoon looking for it.

Pat and I are anxious to get back in touch with her to let her know we were unsuccessful. It’s Friday evening. We are teaching at Bennington College. Pat’s teaching painting and me, well, since I’m a ceramist, and the resident potter doesn’t want anyone messing with his studio (I don’t blame him)  I’m teaching kite making. We’re here for 6 weeks and Pat owns the 160 year old Rowell’s Inn in Simonville Vermont not far from Bennington. We stay in the Inn on weekends. A break from the spoiled,  entitled teenagers we work with during the week.  It’s the July Program that a friend is running and that’s exactly how we got this gig. Well me anyway. Pat’s a successful painter.

Soon after we arrived this evening Pat opened a bottle of white wine, poured us each a glass. But what we’ve been waiting for all week, is to get back on that Ouija board and get in touch with our disembodied guide.

Pat wants to know who built the Inn and our questions to the Ouija have conjured up a child who calls herself Sarah. She claims to have lived in the Inn shortly after it was built and died here when she was 6.

The Inn has a full production kitchen with a large pine plank table and an 8-burner stove. We sit briefly at the table, sipping our wine before I head to the east living room to retrieve Ouija.  Where we last spoke with her.

“Pat, do you know where the Ouija is, it’s not here?” I holler back to the kitchen.

Pat appears, glass in hand and we both start the search. The downstairs has two formal living rooms, a sitting room with an old upright piano, dining room and the kitchen. We each take a room. Without success, desperate by this time, we stand shoulder to shoulder in the sitting room wondering where to look next.

And then something most peculiar happens. The lamp on the piano turns on and then off. We look at each other and again it blinks on and off and then again. We are across the room and walk over to see what’s up. A short perhaps?

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Pat chortles.

Directly under the light is Ouija.

I’ve already had an eerie experience with our supernatural probing. Two weeks ago, we stayed up late talking to Ouija and once I was good and freaked out by our conversation with the ghost realm, we decide to put her away for the night and go to bed.

Pat’s sleeping quarter is off the kitchen where there is a tiny apartment that she locks herself into each evening leaving me alone in the Inn. The bedrooms are upstairs and on the third floor is a ballroom.

I make my way up the creaky stairs. My bedroom is right next to the stairwell and across the hall from the bathroom. I leave the light on in there for obvious reasons.

‘Anne’, a voice wakes me.

‘Anne’ it says again without intonation or gender even. Just ‘Anne’. At the foot of the stairs is the foyer and  the front door. That’s where the voice seems to come from. And immediately I sense someone/thing coming up the stairs. The steps groan slightly as it approaches and there’s a sudden chill in the air.  I can feel its energy nearing.

I’m frozen in fear. I open my mouth to call to Pat, but nothing comes out.

And then it’s in the room with me. Every hair on my body is erect, a cold paralyzing terror creeps from my gut to my heart as this ‘energy’ sits next to me on the side of the bed and without a pause rolls over me like a bag of soft cloth… or a small child. No sharp edges, no great pressure, just a gentle motion. And then it’s gone.

Once again alone, just me and that old Inn.

Cliffs south of the Jemez Moutntains. From the truck on the highway to our cabin.

 Crossing El Vado Lake heading north

This old one lane bridge spans the dam at El Vado

At  the cabin!

View to the west from our meadow

My family in the meadow outside our mountain cabin 8500'

Sophie

Dick

Finn

My week in pictures.

Sunday AM walk in the mountains

A visitor on our deck this week.

Cleo, my donkey friend's beautiful back