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The last few days of finishing our show and getting the last bits and bots finalized has been a whirlwind and a slow down at the same time. Most of my ceramics have been created, but due to the weather, Mark moved his construction inside the space I am working in as well. So now we are a whirling mix of skill saw, drill bits, scrap wood, wet clay, dry clay, and the meticulous piles of organized scraps I have formed. I have tried to tuck my clay bowls and vessels into the corners of the space, but they still remain spread out in a crazy wave of yellow and red and grey forms. Mark works between them like a giant sea monster, stomping and swearing and grunting and whooping!
Because I couldn’t place my ceramics on the unfinished wooden foundations Mark was building, I began to organize and sort the small remnants of scraps around us. This started just as a curiosity, a way to look more closely at my surroundings, and also at the remnants of our creativity. But this simple curiosity soon turned into multiple days of sorting, arranging and really understanding that collecting the small items in our space, and around the places we had worked and walked, was in fact a way of creating a visual journal of our experience. Like words in a sentence, these found objects, the discarded remnants, when collected and put together, created a larger story and a beautiful picture.
I also realized that normally I would have been “done” once my ceramics were finished. If I had been at home in my Portland studio while I waited for my brother to finish, I would have simply moved on to a different project or a home chore. But here, at AQB, I had the time and space to just “be.” While I waited for my brother, time opened up, arms wide. I had nowhere to be. I didn’t have a list. There were no meetings, or piles of laundry. Just me, scanning a room filled with empty vessels.
At that moment, I was forced to slow down and simmer, surrounded by clay. I started to notice the piles of sawdust from Mark’s sawing. The cut off plywood. The large clay scraps and dust piles. The window sills in my work space had little piles of dead bugs. Outside where I’d rolled out clay, there were dried rose hips and deep red leaves. Little broken sticks had left a trail from my clay tools to the doorway. There were white rocks and yellow rocks, tiny brown stones and broken concrete. All of a sudden I was aware that I had made all of these vessels of varying size and capacity, and they were meant to hold these things. I wanted to collect the physical landscape and leftovers from our time and project, and physically capture them.
In this way, the direction of the show changed greatly. Instead of thinking about Mark's machines breaking all the objects I had made, I focused on creating a collection of organized items that were the footprint of our time here. I filled bowls with perfectly piled sawdust, and large vessels held plywood cut offs. Tiny bowls held stones, organized by color and size. Leaves and sticks and dried flowers were picked and plucked and placed in vases.
As I organized the scraps around me, a beautiful table scape started to emerge. I was struck by the collection and the chaotic beauty. Imagining a chef’s kitchen with tiny bowls of spices, I was creating the recipe for this show. Over 3 days, I sorted and searched. I created piles of “keepers” and discarded rotting leaves. As the vessels filled, I was completely satisfied with sorting and filling them. I could hardly believe I ever imagined leaving them empty.
My brother and I will finish setting up today. We have created a world and experience that is adaptive and flexible and weird and gorgeous. I fully gave myself to this process. I trusted myself, and kept moving through and forward, even when I thought WTF am I doing, how is this going to work out?!!
The excitement I feel about the work I made for this show is profound. I have surprised myself. And, I am deeply proud of myself.
