Art of the Spirit

I finally got this one fired:

Next post from the tropics!

I got a lot done in ceramics today. I glazed the second in my series of woman cracked open like eggs and finished the sculpting on the third. It felt great. The teacher in the class asked me what my plan was. I answered her with complete honesty that I had no plan. I am letting the work flow through me. I’m working on letting go of control. I think she thought I was a bit cracked… maybe like my sculptures! (See here for the first finished piece.)

As I was leaving for the ceramics studio, everything was covered in ice. It was tremendous. Here are some pictures of my front garden:

Drooping tree

Ice-Coated Tree Berries

Red Twig Dogwood

Sunflower

Joyful for no reason,
I want to see beyond this existence.

You open your lips, laughing.
I think of a design for that opening.
-Rumi (trans Coleman Barks & John Moyne)

I love that poem.

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Picture of my newest sculpture in progress…

Today
my life is mirrored in
a morning Glory.
-Arakida Moritake (1473-1549, member of the Shinto priesthood)

Making art is such an adventure. Yesterday at the etching studio I thought my plates were complete but when I printed I was surprised that the images needed so much more work (see draft print below). It’s hard to know until you print, like a mystery unfolding.

Today at the ceramics studio one of my pieces was out of the kiln and ready for glazing. Once you fire your glazed piece there is very little you can do to change it. It’s scary & I’ve heard many people say they always ruin their pieces in the glazing. Glazing requires a blind leap of faith. So much can happen over which artist has no control: Dripping, interesting or unpleasant interactions of color or texture.

This illustrates one of the ways in which art is a spiritual path. In glazing, the artist must face fear. If this is done with consciousness and the intention to grow, the act of glazing is an act of spiritual transformation. By facing fear, it is released and then there is more space within the artist to hold and transmit the Light.

Halloween wore me out completely. Because of it, I’ve missed my etching studio time & my ceramics class. So what does an artist do when we can’t create?

I’m believe that for artists, the times we are not working are just as important as the times we are. When we are working, tremendous amounts of energy and information flow through us into the world. We need time to absorb and integrate that into our systems. Like perennial flowers, we need to rest between flowering. These quiet times are like winter in a garden. It looks dead and lifeless, but the roots are charging for the explosion of spring.

Anyway, that’s how I’m consoling myself for missing my working time this week….

I’m working on a new series of sculptures: here’s a photo in process:

I’m planning to do a series of women in different poses and then crack them open like eggs. I will fill their insides with cobalt blue, mimicking in coarse material form, the Divine light of creativity. It’s going to be a lot of fun to work on.

The next sculpture is going to be a pregnant woman laying on her back….