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Hand Forged Vessels
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Monday, June 28, 2004 |
Today at lunch I began reading a scrumptious new library book called Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, by Steven Johnson. I noticed that when Johnson started writing about gender differences in the brain, my enthusiasm sank. He wrote as if all men have brains different from all women, no cross over. The author's credibility dropped a lot at this point.
Still, I was interested by then in learning exactly what was happening in my brain when I read this - the rise in anxiety, the distrust, the "here we go again - only men can really excel" flash of thought.
So I read on. Thanks to google, I found some of the online tests Johnson mentions. Here are links:
Reading the Mind in the Eyes (a test of how well you perceive someone's emotional state by gazing at their eyes)
Autism Spectrum Quotient (looking at autism as a graduated scale, rather than as a discrete category. I concluded this must be the case after reading an autobiography of an autistic woman.)
Empathy Quotient (how "female" is your brain?) -
Systematizing Quotient (how "male" is your brain?)
The above two tests plus an article on "what type of brain do you have?" are also at the Guardian UK site.
When I took the empathy and systematizing tests, I found that on both I'm more like a man than the average man.
But the two abilities are about even for me. I'm less empathic than most women, and a bit more systematizing than most men, which leaves me with both about evenly balanced.
Of course, years ago Gilligan argued that women and men have different developmental trajectories that converge as both become more mature. In other words, men learn to become more empathic, more concerned about relationships, as they mature. Women learn to become more objective and more self directed as they mature. So perhaps it's not so surprising that my first career dealt entirely with human relationships, and my second is much more concerned with nature and art.
Along with scoring slightly less empathic than the average man, I scored pretty low on the test of ability to read someone's emotions from looking at their eyes. I guess it's lucky that communication is so easy online now. This doesn't keep me from reading and writing.
So far, Steven Johnson is right that understanding more about how our own brains work can be useful in practical life. Now that I know that I don't know what someone else is feeling, I won't be so quick to draw conclusions. Knowing that I don't know can really help. Hey, I might even ask!
1:50:01 PM 
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Friday, June 25, 2004 |
For years I've thought it was just respectful of my ideas to keep all of them. There are notebooks and notebooks of them, plus loads of file folders full. Then there are notebooks of reference material on various media and techniques. Today it suddenly dawned on me that all these notes are a burden. Furthermore, they're a burden I could shed.
I've known that the bowls don't like really to be in the same room as my books. By "the bowls" I mean my vessel sculptures - iron, paper, mixed media. None of them seem to care much for books.
So it has worked out fine to have my books in the cabin where I live, instead of in the studio. If I need a book for reference, I can always take it to the studio. But I kept a lot of notebooks in the studio, thinking I needed them.
Today I moved them out. Haven't exactly found a good place for them yet, but I can make space in the cabin by moving books about. Now there's more room in the studio for work in progress. This is space I've desperately needed. What a relief!
Now I don't have ten years or more of bowl ideas weighing me down. That's a lot of ideas! I'm good at generating ideas. But all these old ideas are bogging me down. I just didn't see it till today.
I'm not tossing them - not yet anyway. But I can look at notebooks of ideas just as well in the cabin as in the studio. This frees the studio for - oh - for actually making new work! And it frees my mind for working spontaneously again. That's the way I used to make every bowl - completely spontaneously, starting wtih whatever "seed" was at hand. I've imagined myself working that way again, but it hasn't been happening. Now, with a clear studio space - just materials and tools - it looks much more possible.
10:26:14 PM
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Thursday, June 24, 2004 |
So much of the pleasure and success with any art or craft work depends on choosing the best batch size. The size depends on the item, the artist, and sometimes other factors like available space. If the batch is too small, the setup and cleanup time is disproportionate to the results. It hardly seems worth the work. And the artist may never really get warmed up, so the artwork itself may not reach the artist's potential at the time.
If the batch is too big, the artist "peaks out" before finishing and some of the resulting work isn't so good. Also the artist is tired of the work well before it's over. The result is not really wanting to do any more next time.
A good book for writers called A Writer's Time advised picking the length of a writing session carefully. If it's too short, you don't accomplish enough and just feel frustrated. If it's too long, you get tired and end up feeling depressed. Frustration or depression: take your choice! A session the best length for you, the individual writer, leaves you feeling satisfied and wanting to go again soon.
Similarly, for artists, a good batch size leaves you feeling satisfied and wanting to do more soon.
For me, eight acrylic paintings on 8x10" canvases is a perfect batch. By the time I've done something on the eighth one, the first ones are dry enough so I can add more to them. Out of eight, at least some will look good to me. And I have the space to dry them and later to varnish them.
I can forge two dozen iron hooks in a nice batch, but six cooking forks is about right. Two iron vessel sculptures is much better than one, three is ok, and four is about the limit. Two is pretty much ideal for iron bowls. There are times when I need to let the hot iron air cool. While it cools I can work on the other. I can do three, but it can start to cramp my spaces. Five is definitely too many. I only tried that once. I got way bogged down.
I used to paint Strathmore cards with gouache paints. The blank cards were packaged in sets of 20. That was a perfect batch. I often finished one batch and then did another right after.
When you start a new kind of artwork, there's no way to know the best size batch for you. You have to feel as you go. The work can bog down at either extreme. If the batch is too small, each piece is just too, too important and it's hard to take risks. If it's too large, you can get distracted and bogged down. Each step in the process can take too long because you have to do it with too many different works.
But this is a crucial factor. Just watching, paying attention is a big help. Be aware that you can change the batch size midstream. Start some new pieces. Or if the batch is too big, set some of the pieces aside to finish later.
And of course, it's an individual thing. Someone else may prefer to paint twenty 8x10" paintings at a time. Another artist may prefer to work on three at a time. Only you can know when you're really, really enjoying the work.
9:48:10 PM
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It has long puzzled me that I find fascinating, stimulating art magazines at bookstores, then seem to lose interest when I get them home. Oh, I read them, but the spark is gone. Why is it different at home?
Today I think I stumbled on the answer. It's so simple: time of day. When I'm at a bookstore, it's on a daytime trip. It's an excursion. I sit in the bookstore cafe and look at a pile of books and magazines, picking out the ones that really do something for my art.
When I look at art magazines at home, it's usually at night. I'm tired. No wonder there's no spark - it's like trying to light damp wood. The spark is still there in the magazines, but it won't catch fire.
Today I happened to be alone in the cabin at lunchtime. I picked up a Sculpture magazine I'd started to browse through the evening before. Wow! How stimulating! How exciting! It was just like being in a bookstore cafe.
So if I want that home bookstore cafe, I'd better stop by during the day.
6:28:07 PM
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Tuesday, June 15, 2004 |
You can tell that "Love Letters" was originally a stage play. A lot of the lines have that "zing" that you hear in a good play. So it's a bit different. It's a quiet film, but heart wrenching. We liked it a lot. Acting was superb. Characters pull you in. I recommend it.
9:44:00 PM
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Monday, June 14, 2004 |
Another dud. I thought "Uncovered" was based on a novel I'd read about two years ago, but it wasn't the same book. "Uncovered" is mildly interesting because it's about restoring a painting, but the plot is contrived and the acting under par. If you have anything else to watch - or something else interesting to do - I'd give this one a pass. I'm just giving it one star.
I think I'm grading "harder" these days, since I used to reserve one star for films we didn't even finish. What will I do with those now? Give them a zero?
11:25:02 AM
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Saturday, June 12, 2004 |
This is another private holiday for me - the day I sold my first iron bowl, back in 1987. It was an openwork bowl called Spiral Dance. I sold it from an invitational exhibit of ironwork at the Madison-Morgan Museum in Madison, Georgia. The exhibit opened at the start of the Southeastern Conference that year, of ABANA - the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. That was also the first time I was asked to demonstrate at a national ABANA conference. (I wisely declined, to wait another two years.)
Back then I had no idea I'd end up specializing in vessels. Or that my openwork iron fruit bowls would evolve into sculptures. I was just making what interested me most. That's what I'm doing now too, so who knows where it will go?
11:21:32 PM
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We may have seen worse - and there are plenty of films of which we didn't watch more than a few minutes. So maybe "Shrink is In" deserves 1.5 stars instead of just 1. But really, it's pretty asinine. At the end, we wondered why we had kept watching it.
It must be more difficult to make a good comedy than to make a good thriller or even a good drama. The outcome of this one is pretty obvious early on. It's just a question of working out the details. The acting isn't that great. No one's all that attractive. So - why not skip this one?
11:16:15 PM
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Thursday, June 10, 2004 |
Since this is the day I celebrate the anniversary of changing my legal name, I'll tell how this came about. The year I did it, 1982, was the year we moved from Atlanta to the north georgia mountains. I'd had a career in Atlanta as a human relations consultant, working mostly with nonprofit organizations on conflict resolution and team building. I'd done a lot on racism. Also I'd designed and led a lot of workshops and groups for individuals - on personal cycles, vocational development, assertiveness training, visualization, and more.
All that was about to change. I was coming to the mountains to do homesteading, blacksmithing, and writing. It seemed to me that it was time for a new name.
I consulted the I Ching about various options combining the names I'd accumulated by then. I could go back to my maiden name, Catherine Bowman Sterrett. My father had been an artist, so that might be appropriate. I Ching said "stagnation." OK, moving on...
I'd been married twice, so I had several names and combinations from which to choose. None of them "worked" when I checked with the I Ching. So I began to imagine a new name altogether. As a teenager I'd wanted to become a popular singer named Cathy Morgan. Why not try Morgan? I don't remember how I got Jo - I suppose from Robert Burns.
The I Ching said, in response to Catherine Jo Morgan, "Creative Power."
Done.
Doing the legal part was easy. I went to the courthouse and asked to see copies of name change petitions. They all followed the same format. I copied it down, inserted the appropriate information, and filed it with a very small fee. The judge approved it and that was it. Oh, I think I had to pay to have it published in the legal section of the newspaper too.
But I certainly didn't have to pay a lawyer. Legal advice is essential for some things. Changing names isn't one of them.
I still remember sitting in the back of our VW camper, parked up here on the ridge in the woods, with the I Ching on the table before me. I knew I wanted to live in such a way that the right side of my brain would be dominant most of the time. To do that, I needed a break from the past. The new name helped with this. I'm still grateful - still celebrating.
1:26:32 PM
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Still celebrating bringing home Brigid, my studio power hammer, I'll tell you another story. Back in 1986 I went up to Indiana to pick up the power hammer. Another blacksmith, Steve Wooldridge, had met me at an ABANA conference and offered to rebuild a power hammer for me for a reasonable price. We made our arrangements and my "new" Little Giant power hammer was now ready.
Steve loaded her onto my pickup truck with the help of a front end loader. Covered with a tarp, the power hammer was just a big heavy lump back there. I was set to drive home.
I stayed overnight at a motel in Kentucky. My room overlooked the parking lot where Brigid lay under the tarp. All night long, I kept waking up. A car out there...noise in the parking lot...maybe someone is stealing my power hammer!
In the morning light, I realized how absurd were my fears. What were the chances of someone coming to that motel, that night, interested in a power hammer, equipped to transfer it from my truck to theirs? Hmm...pretty small, actually.
Now if I could just remember this story when I wake up in the night and worry about something else, wouldn't that be great.
1:15:02 PM
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Today I celebrate two private holidays: the day I bought Brigid, my power hammer, in 1986, and the day back in 1982 that I changed my legal name. Brigid, as you may know, is the Celtic goddess of blacksmithing. After I came home from teaching at the Campbell Folk School in 1996, I painted Brigid more as she deserved to look.
There's a story behind that. At the folk school I taught a small class of blacksmiths "Expressiveness in Iron - Finding Your Own Way With Iron." (Part of this name was copied from the wonderful book by Paulus Berensohn, Finding One's Way With Clay. On the first day of class, I asked each of us to let a name come to mind to use during the whole week there, a name for the artist self in us. We called each other by these names all week. It had a tremendous effect.
When I came home, my newly named artist self came with me. Entering the studio, she was very critical. "I won't work here. Clean up. Paint Brigid." She had a long list of demands.
I obeyed. Brigid got painted. And my artist self began to work.
1:08:50 PM
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This is just a first impression, the morning after watching "In America." I say that because this is the kind of film that stays in the mind and may grow there for a while. It's a story about death - how a family recovers from losing a child, how a man dies of AIDS. (At least I gathered it was form AIDS. This isn't made explicit in the film, but is very much implied.)
Maybe I should say it's a story about taking death in, embracing it, and finding hope and life thereby. Yes, that's a much better description of the film. I'm making the film sound very heavy and actually, it's not. It's mostly lively, active, and engaging. It's not light comedy but it's not at all depressing.
I think this is because so much of the film is about the children - the two daughters who have lost their brother - and about how the children really pull everyone back to life. They're vibrantly alive, active, and interesting. They keep the story from bogging down in tragedy.
Certainly I recommend this film. I'd like to see it again sometime. I'll give it 3 stars. Why not 4? Can't explain it. Maybe I'll come back later and change it to 4.
12:14:43 PM
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Wednesday, June 09, 2004 |
I'm not sorry I watched "Love Actually." There are some scenes I really enjoy remembering. And Hugh Grant was as endearing as ever, even in a story with very, very little plot.
Did have two problems with the film. It hangs together very, very loosely. It takes a long time to find out how all the people are related, why they're all in this film. The film has a theme really, rather than a plot.
One of the subplots, if you can call it that, involves two people meeting at what are apparently pornography shoots. (My innocence is showing, since I'm not positive about this.) Anyway, it's supposed to be funny because they're chatting about this and that while they're supposed to be doing various sex things. It's a little funny, but not THAT funny. And it's pretty disgusting too, which cancels out quite a lot of the amusement.
We've seen films much worse than this. It does have its good points. The actors and actresses are some of Britain's best. It's fairly fun. So I'll give it 2 stars.
5:50:27 PM
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Sunday, June 06, 2004 |
I had read the novel a year or two ago and liked it. Girl with a Peal Earring is a beautiful film. It builds amazing suspense with lighting, glances, and gestures. It's a subtle story.
It's set in 1669 or thereabouts - very close to the 1668 time the PBS show "Colonial House" tried to replicate. It was odd to watch "Colonial House" first, getting a close look at what a new colony was like in the New World - then watch "Girl with a Peal Earring" set in the Old World. In both films, we see the world partly through the eyes of servants.
"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is certainly a film no artist should miss. Anyone interested in history, western civilization, art, or sociology will enjoy it too. Oh - and if you like a good, subtle story - Henry James style - you'll love this film.
The documentary on making one of the scenes is also very interesting.
9:22:40 PM
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Friday, June 04, 2004 |
As a story, Calendar Girls probably only rates 3 stars. But it's so rare, sparkling, and uplifting that I've got to give it 4. Starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, and many more, this film is guaranteed to make any woman smile - and most men too.
Eleven rather proper Women's Institute ladies in Yorkshire make a nude calendar to raise money to fight leukemia - in memory of one of the husbands. Really, that's the gist of the story. The movie elaborates it and gives it various twists and subplots. But the fact is - the women are glorious. The calendar is glorious. Words can't describe it. So - if you haven't already, see the film.
8:55:20 PM
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Wednesday, June 02, 2004 |
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004 |
Today I panicked because I was trying to redo some iron bowl sculptures I'd started ten years ago. I looked at them and felt at a total loss. It was like meeting strangers who are supposed to be family members. I felt no connection.
As a last resort, still very unhappy, I tried something that has worked in the past. I set up a small "bowl circle" in the Nest - the tiny "clean studio" room - arranging the four bowls and myself on the floor in a rough circle, as if we were sitting in council together.
I gazed at them. Perhaps they looked back. At least I was calm now.
I stood up and tore a little red square of paper. I've been wanting to put a little red square of paper on one of these bowls for years. I laid it in place. Ah. Good.
We sat together a while longer. I stood up and got out a box of soft cords. Maybe cord could go through these holes? Yes, it could. I liked that.
We sat a while longer. Gradually all the bowls let me know what they really wanted. I noted it down. I saw that it was all doable. It hadn't seemed doable before, but now it felt easy. OK, I'll say the E word. It seemed effortless.
I don't know why the bowl circle works. I have no idea if it would work for other artworks, in other media, for other artists. Today it rescued me, and rescued four bowls too.
I believe that sitting on the floor is an important part of this. Chairs and pedestals wouldn't work as well. It would be like a business conference, not a sacred circle.
At the end of today's circle, I didn't feel all lovey-dovey toward these bowls. But I felt enough connection to want to do the work. That's a lot. And for it to feel effortless - now that's really a lot.
10:58:36 PM
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