Week 10 - So. Busy.
Between work, life, and the studio, this week has been one of the top 10 busiest weeks of my life. Last night was the first night I’ve slept more than 4-5 hours since last weekend. I’m not sure how other people function on less than 6 hours of rest; I’ve not felt fully present until today - just been stretched so thin juggling all I need to do on so little sleep. I’m grateful to have some time to chill today, because the next couple days will be a scramble to prepare for my (+Jooby and Emma’s) joint Spacelab show opening on Wednesday. Despite the overwhelming list of to-dos before then, I’m looking forward to our installation, which we’ve decided will be all outdoors, along the campus walking trail. I haven’t formally installed my work outside before and am eager to see what I discover in the process.
On Wednesday afternoon, I fired off my large sculpture in Big Bailey. I programmed it so that when I got off work at 2am, it would be nearing temperature so I could switch it to manual for the final bit of the firing. But when I got to the studio after work, one of the pilots had blown out and the kiln was just under 300 degrees. This sucked. I was so exhausted but had to make sure the pilot didn’t blow out again so I set up next to the kiln and sculpted rocks until I reached my limit at 8am. When I returned to the studio around noon, I’d miscalculated the timing and the kiln had already automatically shut itself off. So it didn’t get as hot as I’d hoped (got to a soft cone 08), but despite my initial sleep deprivation induced panic, it’ll be totally fine. And from what I can tell, no cracks!
I’ve been making in silence for the majority of this week, really sitting with my thoughts and contemplating why I am so stuck on making rocks at the moment. I keep returning to ideas of time being relative and subjective and my impulse to physically hold onto moments/capture the present in tangible objects. I feel that I’m going through a personal breakthrough of sorts, focused around the notion that the only thing that I truly own is the present as I experience it. I appreciate how clay forces me to slow down and disconnect from all the stimuli of my phone and the society humans have fabricated. I watched a video on how technology is evolving impossibly faster than us and effectively numbing our brains/dopamine receptors, and it has changed my perspective on everything. I don’t want to waste my life away on my phone. I’m frightened by how dependent we are on our devices and how effective algorithms have become at feeding just the right amount of tailored content to keep us scrolling. In general, I am scared of where, and how quickly, technology is heading. This is a spiral, but I think there’s something with gradual, steady change vs rapid evolution sparked by sudden events that my work is conceptually concerned with.
I loaded ~1/3 of my rocks and some test sculptures into a soda that Jooby is spearheading. The remainder I plan to fire tomorrow in my first solo raku. I’m a little nervous, but mainly excited.
I also worked on my monolith a bit in the early part of the week, but it’s still in the ugly “middle school phase”:
In terms of non-studio stuff, a handful of my cups were accepted in the Filled Up 5 Cup Show in New Harmony, IN and the Good Earth Pottery Winter Warmers Cup Show in Bellingham, WA. I was also asked to write a testimonial for the Livingston Center for Art and Culture winter newsletter, which was an honor and some good writing practice. And NCECA rejected me from their student juried show. Maybe next year.