Gladysthebrave's Blog

Heresy

gladysthebrave — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:18:53 +0000

This is a first for me in this project… I have three bottles I threw on Friday night, the first of the 5-pound size. I am not going to trim them. I am going to put them in the reclaim bucket and call them practice. The clay was a bit too hard. I was too tired to be sitting at the wheel. They aren’t worth spending any more time with. But it’s a start even as they sit in the bucket.

I glazed the bottles from my Haiku bottle/box/book project today. I added a few bottles of various sizes that were calling out for jewelry. They will get more attention this winter, when it gets too cold to throw again.

During the second week of school, I hope to develop some rhythm to my week so that clay can be wedged, thrown and trimmed.

getting ready

gladysthebrave — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:47:04 +0000

I did some celebrating for hitting the 500 mark and now am gearing up for the next round. I think I have decided to go to 5 pounds… thinking that I have 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4 pound sizes now. Five makes sense to me. The stall is thinking too far ahead. I would end up at 9 pounds. Not that 9 isn’t an exceptional stretch, but so different from the originally ridiculous idea that I would double each step. That makes 9 seem too small.

If, however, I skip to 6 and follow that line of thinking, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 pounds, then I am talking some real heft at the end.

This is the kind of thinking that can be categorized as over the top and crazy.

So now that I have seen it on the page, I can hear myself saying, “Cut the crap and just begin.”

So, I will begin.

visual

gladysthebrave — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:32:54 +0000

This what 500 bottles look like… I don’t believe they can be viewed from space or that they will fill up an ark, but I think they are about to invade the living space (don’t tell)

lesson at 500

gladysthebrave — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:47:52 +0000

I finished my 500^th bottle today.

Yesterday, I was using a green scrubby to clean up the rough edges on some bottles before I loaded them into the kiln for a bisque fire. I realized the green cloth must be stored in a container with my art critic. I am most disagreeable during this stage of the bottle work. The foot on this bottle was in the wrong place and it was the wrong size. The underbelly wasn’t trimmed enough. The carving lines were crooked. “What was I thinking when I threw these? When I trimmed these?

I wasn’t there, I realized. I was with the count, not the bottle.

I have considered myself to be a “good”, but not “master” potter. I accepted this because I know me; I have stories to tell, and lots of ways to tell them. Pottery is one way. I can’t master it, but it’s been good enough. But, when I get the green cloth out, I want to be great. I want the bottles to be perfect. I was ready to throw every bottle I had made so far into the reclaim bucket and start over. I was mad at myself. Shouldn’t I be better than this at the 500 mark? Why am I such a slow learner? What’s the point?

Then I picked up the next bottle. Her weight was perfectly balanced. The lip, neck, belly, and foot were all flawless and the line along her edge was stunning. She sang.

I took a deep breath. If there is nothing else for me to know at bottle 500, I need to know that the journey is the point. It is not the point to finish. It is for sure not the point to just crank out bottle after bottle chasing that next 500. And it doesn’t matter what happens to the bottles when I finish if I haven’t learned to be present each baby step of the way for each bottle.

So this morning I set out to trim the last 15 bottles and I really saw them. They didn’t all come out perfectly, but some did. And I can say that I make a very good bottle when I look.

If at the end of this project I have 100 very good bottles, what a satisfied potter I will be. If I can learn to be present and pay attention more times than not, that is the point. This day is the point. Not the next 500, but just the place I am today.

499 argh!

gladysthebrave — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:39:19 +0000

I thought I would be celebrating the 1/2 way mark of 500 tonight… but I have been trying out a cheese grater during trimming and ruined three bottles in the past three days, so alas, 499.

I will throw 4-6 tomorrow and shoot for a celebration by Tuesday.

How does one celebrate half way?

bottle necklace

gladysthebrave — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:19:14 +0000

They don’t all want dangle down earrings, some want necklaces. Beth and I spent some quality time figuring out how to design our own chain with jump rings. I like the effect. I have to say its kind of ruined my eye for using a pre-made chain though.

Dangle down earring please

gladysthebrave — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:40:13 +0000

From the first bottle that whispered, “I want dangle down earrings.”, there began the chorus of insistence that I treat each bottle as it comes, listening to the requests (they often sound amazingly like demands) for shape, form and accessories.

Here is the first attempt to finish and honor a request. It was very fun to do. I am refusing to think what it could be like to pay this much attention to 1000 bottles. Of course, they are not all asking for this much detail. They are often asking for different things, necklaces, skirts, hair… all sorts of things I am going to have to stretch out to solve.

That is the point isn’t it, to stretch, to listen, to grow.

360 and trying not to focus on the counting too much…

gladysthebrave — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:23:43 +0000

Here are the babies. They are going to be egg sized when they finish since my clay shrinks about 10% from start to end. There are 48 of them now and they chatter like a playground full of swings and slides.

Trimming little ones is a bit problematic, so they get a flat foot, which is how most babies walk anyway.

It feels so good to get my hands in the clay again on a weekly basis.

showing up

gladysthebrave — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:25:58 +0000

Today, the beginning of a four-day weekend, I felt inspired to throw some little bottles. Six of them are drying and will be ready to trim tomorrow.

I want it to mean something.

I want this to mean that I am beginning the big project again.

But I am only showing up.

I shouldn’t say it like showing up isn’t a big deal, because it is.

Showing up IS the deal. It’s the only deal.

When my inspired self can sense that my physical self is to be trusted to show up again, I will receive my marching orders. This has proven to be true over and over. So tomorrow I will show up to trim. And in another day I will show up to wedge and I will keep showing up.

That is my job.

the girls

gladysthebrave — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:20:18 +0000

I couldn’t sleep the other night. So I was flipping through one of my new jewelry books, looking at the jump ring chains and admiring the intricate designs.

Then the girls started talking. At first I wasn’t sure who they were, just a lot of jabber, oohing and ahhing about the pretty necklaces. Since it was the middle of the night, and I had never really heard them all talking at once and no one had spoken to me since Thanksgiving, it took me a while to realize what was happening.

The girls were talking. The bottle girls. The ones who were demanding dangle down earrings, necklaces and draped fabric made of clay. The bottle girls are back. They are ready to get dressed. It sounded a lot like a bunch of girls in a department store dressing room trying on prom gowns…

I still don’t know how to drape clay to look like fabric and I am not sure how to inset the glass beads into the clay around their necks, but I will learn.

I will learn, because the girls are back and they are asking to clothed.