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