summer’s end soda firing

Here I am at the passing of the equinox, surprised at just how quickly summer has gone. It’s a little bit cliché. And I am not a person who fetishizes busy-ness. In fact, I hate rushing. Slowing down has always felt like my natural state. So it’s hard to say what has the time passing so quickly, but I have carried on exploring my glaze and clay combinations longer than intended. There have a been a few bumps: I adopted a new local stoneware, only to learn that it will be discontinued as the clay deposits in the mine have dwindled. And I am still tinkering with a good liner-glaze that will not craze on my current clay body.

However, this month I took a small detour and did a soda firing workshop at Cobb Mountain. I brought simple, functional forms, avoiding preciousness because I mainly wanted to stress-test my materials. I’ll need some time to metabolize the results. The pots feel foreign to me and I don’t yet recognize what’s “mine” in the process. But I learned a ton and I got some fun results that may be interesting to explore further.

Because of my painting background, I have always chosen to midfire in oxidation, as I usually had very specific intentions for what comes out of the kiln. I felt many artists fetishized high-fire work, and relied too heavily on the surprise of atmospheric firings to manufacture what is interesting about their work without much intent. But as I learn more, I am appreciating risk more—the injection of surprise more. Is there something here for me? I still believe in a real distinction between randomness and improvisation. I’ll need to take a beat to reflect on what feels most relevant from the experience of firing this way.

spring glaze development

Working with some new mid-fire clays, glazes, and oxide washes.

exploring functional forms

small moves in a pandemic summer

There's ash on the leaves of the hedge beyond the window. So fine and light between the fingers. The rancid stench of smoke is everywhere. Even after the fires are done, it will linger, they say. For months, they say. My late-spring vegetable starts stay too long in their containers and wilt. Between April and July, I do no painting or drawing or writing or sculpting. I become very, very still. Like prey camouflaging itself in tall grass, waiting for the threat to pass. Chris changes jobs. I obsess over the news: the numbers that keep rising, and grief so large and so hot—processing it feels like trying to swallow the sun. I do the laundry. I try to track down TP and soap. I brush the dog and think about what to cook. But it's still there. The sky becomes so clear, so quiet, and everything feels dangerous. A primal need for water seizes me. I fantasize about the ocean, swimming out, boundless. I watch countless shark videos on youtube. I learn yellow is the only color sharks can see, but am otherwise not reassured. We start making pizza at home every Friday night. I pour wine and turn the whole thing into an elaborate affair. The neighbors gather for their happy-hour and I hear their chatter outside, but I never join them because they don't wear masks and it is too much to listen so intimately to the problems of strangers right now and that makes me ashamed. I bring home a box of Japanese vegetables and then I cry. The owners of the farm where it came from are in their nineties. I wonder if my hair is falling out again. Christina pours half her wine bottle into a mason jar and delivers it to my porch with our favorite truffle potato chips. We share the wine and chips and spend the afternoon together on zoom while she bakes and I look up ingredient substitutions and we do our best lopsided impersonation of Summertime. I am washing my hands so often. I am worrying about fascism so often. When a friend's twin boys leave home for college, I dream about lending her a blue suitcase. The stifling heat of August arrives. Our old walls rumble and creak as a storm moves through one night. Chris thinks we should sleep downstairs, but I reassure him and we stay up late to marvel at each crash of thunder and lightning. Later we eat breakfast on our tiny stoop, intoxicated by the dewey breeze. The sky drizzles and clouds groan distantly, lazily. The world looks greener. I feel a sharp mixture of relief and longing. I realize I haven't hugged my friends in 6 months.