Water, Wind, and Time

 

Sunday, March 10, 2013
Women's Art: A Conversation with Elizabeth Ostrander and Shanna Wheelock
3:00 p.m.at the Eastport Arts Center
36 Washington Street, Eastport, Maine
Click here for Shanna Wheelock's website.
Click here Elizabeth Ostrander's website
Click here for the Eastport Art Center website.


Thursday, March 21, 2013
Machias Women's Forum
5:30-8:00 p.m.
Helen's Restaurant, Machias, ME
Presenters: Shanna Wheelock, Elizabeth Ostrander, and Sherry Ashby Cunningham
Topic: How Spirituality informs and inspires our artwork
Save the date and check back for more info.


 Click here for a recent article about the marathon and my artwork in the Bangor Daily News

Check out Maine artist Kenny Cole's blog about his current project "Parabellum".
Chris is collaborating on part of the project. Very cool!
 

 

Factory C (or Columbian Canning Plant?) Located behind the old Columbian Store , Lubec, Maine

I have been photographing these ruins for a current art project.

Click here to see photo of what it once looked like.

 

Another shot of the factory ruins.

 

 

I collected bricks from the American Can Factory site, North Lubec, and am experimenting with pulverizing the fragments and embedding the dust into clay.

 

 

Just a few days after winter storm NEMO, our big boy Bello Shroom was outside enjoying the sunny day melt-off.

 

 

I found a recipe that clued me in on how to fry tofu perfectly. No batter involved - just straight up tofu and sesame seeds in olive oil. It is so yummy that we have eaten a version of this three times in the past four or five days.

 

 

2013 Bay of Fundy Marathon

 

Click here for an Article about the marathon and my work in the Bangor Daily News

 

Awards are coming along for the Bay of Fundy Marathon. I am giving my wrists a break for a week before tackling the next group of pieces which will be the most intricate and complex of the bunch. These are the tumblers that will be awarded to the teams in the 10k and marathon.

 

If you are traveling to Lubec during the marathon be sure to book your accommodations sooner rather than later. I know that as of this morning, Away Downeast still has a couple awesome and affordable cottage available.

 

For a more comprehensive list of B&B's and motels, etc, check out the VisitLubecMaine website.

 

If you still need help finding accommodations, contact the Bay of Fundy Marathon organizers for suggestions.

 

 

Thinking maybe I should change my blog title to "Food, Cats and Art." That seems to sum up most days here in our little nook in the far reaches of the country. The past couple weeks have been fulfilling on all fronts. Chris and I have our super busy times where we find ourselves on the road to various readings, exhibits, meetings, or family events, but other times we are able to find these stretches where retreating to our respective work spaces is unfettered by outside distractions.

 

I set aside one week to (almost) fully dedicate to the beginning stages of a new art project. Most weeks I am juggling a little bit of "this" and little bit of "that" but this week I wanted to be able to solidify some ideas. For an artist to have that time without outside distractions is worth the weight of any hefty item in gold.

 

I had been waiting for the right conditions to visit the ruins of an old factory site here in Lubec. On Friday I finally had the opportunity. I needed compliant weather, tide, and Chris. I had never been to the site before and was unsure how approachable it would be. It is not a safe space by any stretch with the massive deterioration but was in better condition than I had expected. I snapped over a hundred photos that have been filed and later this morning I will begin printing them to use as inspiration in both clay, conte, and encaustic.

 

I am excited by my level of excitement. When I got to the ruins close-up, I swear my heart skipped a beat. Something resonated with me so strongly on such a deep level. With some things in our lives, we don't always understand our reactions, but over time, clarity begins to come forth presenting the bigger picture. For me, with this site visit, I started to understand some of the images that had been emerging in my work over the past couple years. At the time of creating those works, or even recently seeing images in my mind but not being able to translate, this one afternoon allowed all kinds of connections to be realized. The images, understandings, and connections is only in the most infantile stage but at the precipice of unfolding in a most profound way. I can feel it.

 

It is amazing to look at these ruins and to know that this is not a war-torn village and that these walls and ceilings are not collapsed because of bombs. Merely, it is water, wind, and time that has eroded the structure. Such awesome power in the elements.

 

Looking at these ruins, even though used for a period of time and when no longer profitable abandoned and left succumb to the elements, there is beauty and reverence. The energy is still. In some ways, a ghostly still. But also, a reverent stillness. Pier stubs emerge from the sand like gravestones. Columns, broken, and slanted, lean against one another like Stonehenge dolmens. Slabs of concrete hang from steel rods exposing an opening in the ceiling that is a gateway to infinite sky. Every square foot guards a memory or story.

 

At the moment, my mind is buzzing with ideas. This part of the process takes a while for me to decipher. Images snap through mind's eye and it is an art in snagging the right one that can carry and artist through from conception to artwork. My cave is warming up now, waiting me to begin this journey.

Rhythm and Repetition

Set-up and ready to start encaustics on the sequential pom/grenade sculpture series

Fusing the first layer of green encaustic medium onto the ceramic form.

Not quite done, but has three layers of green applied.

successful glaze firing unloaded today.

I've been thinking about some of the common themes that link all my work as an artist together. There are overlaps in concept that show up time and time again: mythology, war, feminism, spirituality, culture. I have also been thinking of the more concrete connections in my process and technical aspects of my work.

It seems that repetition is a common theme. I don't know how many times I have said to folks "I am not a production potter." It is true, I don't consider myself the typical potter who spends several hours a day cranking out fifty mugs for mass sale. However, I do work at the wheel and have been known to repeat the same form over and over again. It isn't so much that I have to do that, but I am finding that the process of repeating an action over and over is meditative for me.

I have been to plenty of retreats and workshops where I am told to "clear my mind and focus..." Oh, how I try. As well, there have been several attempts in my own private space. I have used 33 RPM records with speakers "guiding me" into that far-off space, or I have tried deep breathing methods, looking at the same spot for....hours? No, probably minutes. Okay, maybe seconds. But my mind always wanders. Ten minutes a day of meditation is supposed to be fabulous for the blood pressure. Why can't I do it?

It never fails, I hear that little creak in the floor in the other room, then my mind starts to wander. Next thing I know my quite un-focused mind is planning out a sculpture or thinking about what to make for dinner.

But there are times when my mind feels completely focused and balanced, when minutes turn into hours and time passes without me being aware. It's when I am working at the wheel, forming a sculpture, drawing, or weaving. These tasks, which all involve some sort of repetition, consume me and transport me to what feels another plane.

The latest fascination in my artwork is with industrial and military images. When thinking about this today, I remembered seeing a movie a few years ago with Bjork as the lead called "Dancer in the Dark, a Dutch musical about a factory worker who is going blind (set in 1960's Washington state). She is saving money for her son to have an operation to prevent the same hereditary disease. Bjork's character, Selma, goes into a trance or dream-like state where she fantasizes being in musical skits.

I thought I would share the video of one particular scene that has stuck with me - emphasizing the rhythm of the machines as she and others dance through the factory.

And while you are grooving to the industrial sounds of factory machines, I am off to grab dinner and sleep, and hope that I can adjust to the new time change with some degree of ease.