A fun little frog bowl that I made from a gourd and polymer clay.

Escape to Mineral King!
With the valley temperatures running about 110-112, we spent Tuesday night and Wednesday at 9000 ft.  It was food for my soul to sleep out under the stars and Giant Sequoias.

 Jasper                                      Artist: The Creator

Internet Island Topic Post #15.00

Is what you do who you are?
Is what you eat who you are?
Is what you wear who you are?
Is what you read or what you watch who you are?
Is what you think who you are?
Is what they think who you are?
Is being on the right team who you are?
Is what you believe who you are?
Is what you say who you are?
Who are you?

 A string of questions such as this is sure to create more questions than answers.  I can say a few absolutes and then a whole lot of paradox.  (what's the plural of paradox?)

Is being on the right team who you are? 
Most definately not.  The "right team" is a relative term anyway.  In my mind, clubs and sects exclude and make members feel that they're better and more special than others.  I wonder if there's a serial killers' club??  I don't think they have an organized membership (but who knows?) and they certainly don't seem to have any uniforms that I've seen.  

Is what they think who you are? 
That would be a stab in the dark for others to define us, wouldn't it?  It's challenging enough to find truths about myself, real truths that only I can know, without allowing people to define me.  Even if I agreed to allow others to define me, it could not be true definition.  If I believe what others think, I may fulfill their image by acting in certain ways.  But is that who I am?  No.

I think that the ways that we think, eat, read, speak, believe, and wear can be manifestations of who were are.  Can be.  I don't always act true to myself; I don't eat the things that are best for me, read or watch the things that are good for me. 

What to wear?  I wear what is comfortable and keeps my body temperature where it needs to be.  At times, I feel like I want to play and say something  through the things that I wear.  Unfortunately, what we wear is used more as a statement to other people.  "Don't judge me, I'll just blend in".  Or, "Don't approach me, I'll hurt you".  Or "I can afford the best so don't approach me if you're beneath me".  Those may or may not be true messages but I'm just throwing some out. 

 So who the hell am I??? 

I smile at this question because at this point in my life and for some time now, I know that this question is not one that can be defined in words.  It is such a profound and spiritual question.  We can make statements that are true about ourselves and what we like, what we prefer, what we believe, but how can we expect to define a spirit that we can't even see? 

I think that striving to make art (visual, verbal, musical, performance; any kind of art) is one way that we seek to express the definition.  Real deep striving.  I haven't done any of that yet.  Maybe someday I will.

Defining the self is like defining love.  Do we know that it exists?  I believe so.   Most of us have experienced it.   Good things happen.  Kindnesses are shown.  Those are actions but what's the motivation? Sometimes love is.  What is love?  Who can define it?  Who am I? At this point in my life, I don't need to define it.  I am. 

 

Just a few show and tell photos from this past semester:    

And some pendants that I made recently from gourd shards:

Like the Ocean,
A creative tide 
Washes through my home
Displacing everything
That I had so carefully arranged.

Groups of pendants
Scattering of books
Pine needles floating on a sea of carpet
Beads strewn about like pebbles
No longer gathered into groups of color.

Slowly, the tide recedes
I look at the expanse of objects
That are left randomly...or purposefully
And I see again what I might arrange them into.

_____________

I wrote this the other day after watching a video about Andy Goldsworthy (a brilliant artist in my opinion!)

 

Still Here, Still Working

The color of clay; the color that my hands are tinted after I've been throwing for a while.  The iron in the clay makes my hands reddish.

I completed my second semester of wheel throwing last Friday.  I made some pretty big leaps in my form and evenness of the walls of my pots.  Pictures to come soon.

I have only been really happy with a few of the pieces that I've made since I began on the wheel but I'm glad that I threw all of the other forms.  I learned a lot.

I went to Cherokee at the beginning of June...met Doris and her family.  More huge leaps in my level of inspiration.  I like to say I went back there to BE Cherokee for a while.  I had visions and felt the land.  I met wonderful people.

The family is doing well except for Jim's back which may have another blown disk.  It's wierd...seems like we know how to live in this situation more than in a pain-free one.