Catherine Jo Morgan: Blacksmith training

Working Loose

Sat, 03 Jul 2004 00:06:59 GMT

I'm gradually making space - both in my inner being and in my outer work areas. It seems to go back and forth. I make a little more space in my mind/being, and then I see how to make a little more space in my studio. That extra space in my studio opens up my inner being more, so then I can make even more space in my studio. And so it's going.

It's really helping to get all the extra ideas out of the studio. They're going to the storage room. They were scattered everywhere in notebooks and file folders, so that as I did my work I'd keep running across ideas from years back. I'd feel a bit guilty and ashamed - uh oh, another great idea that I haven't yet done. Finally it dawned on me that having all these notes and sketches wasn't helping me! They'll be there if I ever need them. Meanwhile, I can just make what I really want to make right NOW.

Getting Up In the Morning

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 20:56:09 GMT

My new routine is working. The evening before, I get my clothes and breakfast ready, with coffee ready at the touch of a button. My breakfast is portable - oats, raisins, cinnamon, flaxseed meal and sliced almonds - with a container of unsweetened applesauce ready to mix in before I eat it. When I get up, I push the coffee button, get dressed, pick up my box and head for the studio, coffee in hand.

All I do when I get to the studio is do an Effortless Mastery meditation. I push the button on the CD player, Kenny Werner's comforting voice begins, and I enter a new psychic space. After I do the meditation, I make a second cup of coffee, eat my breakfast, start my daily report, and start making my new sculptures.

It's the Effortless Mastery meditation that makes this work. That, and going to the studio first off, before any distractions or requests appear. When I first wake up, I realize that all I need to do is go down and do the meditation. After that, the day will take care of itself.

This is a big difference from waking up and thinking about "what I need to do today." That was too big, often confusing, often scary. I can walk to the studio and do the meditation, thanks to the CD. So I wake up with things I know I can do.

After I do the meditation, I also know I can do my artwork. I can't recommend Effortless Mastery more highly. If you only buy one book this year to free your creative process, this is the one to get.

The Burden of Old Ideas

Sat, 26 Jun 2004 02:26:14 GMT

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.

Batches

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 01:48:10 GMT

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.

The New Home Bookstore Cafe

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 22:28:07 GMT

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.

Sold first forged iron bowl

Sun, 13 Jun 2004 03:21:32 GMT

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?

Another story about Brigid, the Little Giant power hammer

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:15:02 GMT

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.

Brigid, goddess of blacksmithing

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:08:50 GMT

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.

An Emergency Circle

Wed, 02 Jun 2004 02:58:36 GMT

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.

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 22:25:55 GMT

An interesting thing happened today when I was adapting some heavy duty cartons for shipping my new sculptures. I was applying packing tape to the edges of some carton flaps with the idea that this would minimize the cardboard dust. About halfway through doing this on the second carton, I noticed that I was cutting strips that fit the edges exactly.

It was just by feel - or some unknown brain activity. I was holding the tape applicator in the air with one hand, pulling some tape off with the other, and then cutting it off against the serrated edge of the applicator. I wasn't looking, just letting my hands do it.

I wasn't holding the tape applicator along the edge of the carton flap, or measuring, or even thinking about it. I'd decided that it didn't matter how long the strips were anyway. I could overlap them if they were short, or cut them off if they were long. But suddenly each strip was exactly right.

It reminded me of Louise Nevelson saying with some disdain that if you had to measure, you weren't really doing sculpture because you didn't have the feel of it. You should be able to make everything fit by feel, just knowing what was right. Sorry I don't remember the source of this. It was either the video on Nevelson, or her autobiography.

This experience also reminded me of the Inner Game books by Tim Gallwey - plus the Inner Game of Music written by Gallwey and Barry Green. This was Self 2 cutting the tape the exact length, by its own mysterious means. Of course, as soon as I realized what I was doing, I became self conscious and my accuracy rate decreased some. Gallwey would say that Self 1 was back in the driver's seat, trying to boss Self 2 and thereby keeping Self 2 from doing what it can do so effortlessly.

Barry Green has a new book out. Maybe I'll get it. It might keep Self 1 busy thinking about something besides giving Self 2 directions.

Getting Unstuck

Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:57:46 GMT

For quite a few years I've been saying I need more space. It's true. But for all this time I haven't gotten any more space. I've just been stuck.

Once I rented a studio in town but backed out when I discovered that the flaking paint on the windowsill was full of lead. I even got a building permit to add a portable storage building next to the studio. Then I wasn't sure what size....

Two or three days ago, I thought "OK, there's something else going on here underneath. By acting as if I can't get the space I need, I'm acting out some feeling. If I can acknowledge the feeling, I can get unstuck." I explored it a bit in my journal but didn't seem to get anywhere. Maybe...just the feeling that I don't deserve more space?

Yet...I got unstuck. I opened the Yellow Pages to find out how much an 8x12 building would cost, delivered and set up. (Answer, in case you're interested: $1466 including tax, plus building permit and electrical inspection for about $50 more - plus an electrician to make sure my panel is up to code, and whatever it would take to do that.

Saw in the Yellow Pages, a big ad for a new climate controlled storage building. Climate controlled storage is even better for artwork, slides, paper, etc. Temperature stays around 60 degrees F., and humidity in an ideal storage range. I can do this in a portable storage building but it would take a lot of work and expense: insulation, extra wiring, air conditioner and electricity. It's a long term solution when I need a solution NOW.

Rates are reasonable, security excellent. It took two days for my insurance agent to work out the way to get my contents covered at a rental location, but it got solved. Today I'll rent some climate controlled storage space.

Now, for the first time in many years, I can make new bowls without dealing with "where on earth can I put this when it's done?" What a relief!

And...if I can get unstuck about SPACE...I can get unstuck about anything. I grew up never controlling a square inch. I had a bedroom, but it had to be arranged and decorated to suit my mother. She had very good taste but...sometimes it's good to be able to make one's own mistakes.

Making sculpture is, of course, all about space. Ironic, isn't it? Probably no coincidence at all.

Effortless Mastery

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 02:32:25 GMT

I've been holding off writing about the book and CD set, Effortless Mastery, thinking I'll write something profound. Maybe it's not going to happen. Meanwhile, I don't want you to miss this wonderful book. So while I'm still working up to getting profound, why don't you buy the book and read it for yourself?

I kept it on my amazon.com wish list for quite a while. Wish I hadn't waited! It's probably going to be my "best book of 2004."

My "best book of 2003," by the way, was Effortless Living.

Guess you notice a certain trend here...

By the way, the CD that comes with Effortless Mastery consists of guided meditations. The book is written by a jazz musician, for other professional musicians. But it's applicable to any art form - and of course, to life.

I'll be writing more about effortlessness - and ecstasy - in days and weeks to come. Meanwhile, I hope you'll be exploring it for yourself. This book and CD set is radiant. And until you get the book in your hands, you can read some bits on the author Kenny Werner's website.

President Bush proposes an increase in NEA funding

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 23:37:49 GMT

According to a New York Times article online, President Bush is proposing a modest increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. The increase will probably be bitterly contested. Even if it passes, the NEA will still be drastically underfunded compared with the period before the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. And it will be underfunded compared with the support given to the arts by other developed countries.

Sometimes I've wondered if the drastic change in 1995 was one of the things that made it difficult for me to go on making art. Quite a few things happened around that time. I lost the clean studio/gallery space I'd been using. Congress declared art irrelevant and of no value to society. My beloved dog died. I felt each of these as a major blow - but I believed I was moving on despite them. Still, for me, "moving on" means making my bowls. So which do I believe? My mind, saying "I'm fine" - or what I make or don't make?

What I make or don't make, for sure. It's good to be reminded of that. The bowls don't lie - not even little white lies.

Motivation

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:05:04 GMT

What motivates me to work is a sense of curiosity. I want to find out something. It's the sense of adventure, discovery, and wonder that I enjoy. Without this, the work loses its glow.

When I feel a simple impulse to go to the studio, it's because I'm curious about something specific. "What if I..." or "How does that look this morning?" or "What does that bowl want next?"

My motivation isn't better or worse than anyone else's. I know some artists want to express something, or just like to make things. There are lots of different motivations for making art. For me, as for most artists, more than one motivation comes into play.

Still, I think it's a good idea to know your main motivation. It's something to nourish and amplify. Worst would be to fight it - a sure road to creative block.

What if you applied your main motivation to the business of selling art, as well? For me, I could breathe a sigh of relief. Instead of estimating the best or correct way to establish new gallery relationships, I could find out things. I could ask "what if..." and do some exploring.

What if...excuse me, I need to go work.

Dream Interpretation: Someone has driven through my studio

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:58:49 GMT

Dream: Someone has driven through my studio.

I go in my blacksmithing studio. I'm shocked to see tire tracks right through it! They go through to the back door and then stop, as if someone expected to be able to drive right through the whole building.

I'm horrified. I feel so invaded. I must have left the front doors open, and someone drove right in.

I go out the back door to see where they might have been trying to go. (I may be skipping a part where a couple, or maybe even three people, want to see my studio and I show them, apologizing for the tire tracks.)

I go out the back door. Sure enough, right behind the studio to the east, is some kind of active business - an auto repair place, maybe. I go around my studio to find someone there. I want to ask them if they know who drove through my studio.

Their building is a metal building with an open front. It's sopping wet - deep puddles on the floor, rain streaming in through too many leaks to count. I'm amazed at how awful it is. I remember that a neighbor put this building up - what a bad job. My roof
is metal but it's much better than this.

Interpretation:

When I wrote that I found a business to the east of my studio, what popped to mind is "east is the direction of ideas, of thought." The dream tells me that my "east" has been taken up with some man's business, and that's why my studio, my artwork, has been invaded. In other words, I've been entertaining patriarchal ideas. It's true, I haven't guarded against this or evaluated ideas this way for years. So I've probably "learned" all kinds of patriarchal ideas. This includes the things I "must do" and how I must do them, to make art and to earn a living as an artist.

What popped next to mind was Alice Walker's "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" and how it put the ground under my feet back in 1983. My impulse is to go straight to the library and find that book! I'll do that next.

What about the rain streaming into the empty building behind me? "Patriarchal ideas don't hold water?" Flooded with emotion? In the dream I feel some pity for the owner of this building because it's useless. Perhaps the dream is telling me not to worry about tossing out patriarchal ideas, since they're useless anyway.

(Note: The dream isn't suggesting anything bad about men, or that I reject men - it's the patriarchal ideas. Patriarchy is a system based on "power over" - certainly in a completely different direction from the kind of effortless living I want. Women usually entertain and live by patriarchal ideas as much as men.)

First anvil and forge

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:52:38 GMT

Today starts another personal holiday. December 9-10-11 are the days I celebrate the anniversary of buying my first anvil and forge. This was back in 1979, so it's been 24 years. Nothing can be more exciting than having one's own workshop, no matter how bare and primitive.

Mine was a 12x12 foot open pole shed, with a metal roof and sides that came half way up on three sides, front open completely. It was dirt floored, of course. Before setting the posts, I'd dug and leveled and smoothed the dirt.

I built a workbench along the back side, stored iron along one other wall, and had my anvil and forge along the third wall. We lived in south DeKalb County at the time, on about an acre of land. My forge was in the back yard, a few feet from the house, with a nice view of our woods. It's great to be standing by a hot fire, looking into cool green woods.

Two women friends had helped me build the shed. Where to find a good anvil and forge that I could afford? I found them in that one three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday, through ads in the Georgia Farmer's Market Bulletin. This is a weekly newspaper sent free to anyone in the state who requests it. Blacksmithing equipment is often listed under "Misc. Supplies." I looked at several anvils, then picked the best. The going rate then was $1 a pound, so I paid $150. The portable forge and hand cranked blower cost another $150. I had a bench vise from Sears, along with a cross peen hammer also from Sears, so I was all set.

I still have the hammer and vise, but the anvil and forge were sold long ago. When I had my current studio built twenty years ago, I bought a new Pendinghaus anvil and a better used forge with an electric blower, along with a great post vise and cone mandrel. Still - I have good memories of that first anvil and forge and workshop. It was a big step for me to equip a space for new work I only dreamed of doing.

Can I do that again? If I did, it would be to build a glass studio - for fusing and slumping glass to incorporate into my iron and mixed media bowls. I came close back about three years ago, but backed off.

Maybe remembering my courage back then, buying my first anvil and forge, will help me build a glass studio. I have all the equipment I need - just lack the building. What happened to that brash thirty-five-year-old Cathy? Did she get wisely cautious? Or foolishly scared?

Let's assume she got foolishly scared, and make a glass studio.

Giving Up on Art?

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 15:00:06 GMT

A kind and concerned reader made a thoughtful comment on the post I made on Giving Up. I had wondered after I posted that message, if I should have clarified that the "overwhelming project" I was giving up was a computer database project for a client, not an art project. (Although giving up an overwhelming art project would also be OK.) Anyway, I don't associate giving up effortful living, with giving up making art. The reverse is true. Effortless art is very appealing!

Friends have often told me I seem to fear things being too easy. In that case, do they mean anything? They don't count towards earning a place in life if they're "too easy." What I'm giving up, I hope, is the effort to earn a place in life. Why not accept life as a gift?

This is not the first time I've said that I intend to accept life as a gift. I've said that, then slipped back into trying hard to earn it. So we'll see what happens here. If I find myself trying hard to accept life as a gift, that's just another way to manipulate myself.

Art that comes from effortful living, from self manipulation or an attempt to manipulate others, lacks something that I believe is essential. There's an energy, a spiritual force, that's missing. So "effortless art" can be much more meaningful - to me at least.

Georgia O'Keeffe's birthday and Freedom Day

Sat, 15 Nov 2003 12:44:56 GMT

Today, November 15, combines two personal holidays for me. One is Georgia O'Keeffe's birthday. She wasn't a saint by any means. But I've had many of the same conflicts and obstacles. It has helped me to learn how she worked through them or at least survived them. Just knowing, for example, that she felt like throwing up if someone saw her work in progress, has been a comfort to me. She needed to work in privacy.

Privacy is hard won for any person, but especially so for a woman. A woman is expected to be nurturing and available. This is the "good mother" archetype. When a woman demands privacy and time for her own work, she suddenly seems like the "bad mother." Here is where goddesses like Kali can be useful. If the "bad mother" can be a goddess, maybe she has some legitimacy in life.

The "bad mother" and Kali played a role in creating my other personal holiday for November 15: Freedom Day. This is the date back in 1990 when I said "no more" to doing commissions for ironwork. I'd been trying to balance commissions with making bowls, and the bowls always lost. The commissions always took priority because they had deadlines or target dates, people writing or calling to inquire, live people for whom I had a lot of caring. I was a sort of "good mother" artist-blacksmith.

Yet I was very far from my own path. All I really wanted to make was bowls. Every day I betrayed myself. Every day I did violence to my soul.

On November 15, 1990, I summoned enough courage to say good-bye to commissions for anything but bowls. I "gave myself a grant" to start making bowls. This led to the Creative Power series of openwork iron bowls.

So my Freedom Day is about "freedom from" but even more about "freedom to" - freedom to make the bowls that most want to be made by me.

New Slower Rhythm of Making Bowls

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 14:11:27 GMT

On the drive to Atlanta Monday to get slides processed, I realized that the best work rhythm will be to complete a bowl, then photograph it. Do this before beginning the next one, so that I’ll have truly contemplated the first bowl. There’s a way in which making a really good and true photograph of the bowl helps me know it in a deeper, fuller way.

This is completely different from my inclination to push myself to do two or three or even four bowls at once, for efficiency.

Now that I’m writing this, I start to doubt my recognition. It’s a little scary. It threatens my confidence in being able to produce enough bowls to earn a living with them, to work fulltime.

This new rhythm would emphasize dialogue. The whole process is a two-way conversation between the bowl and me. The new rhythm calls for me to listen more than I’ve been listening. When I emphasize productivity, it’s as if I’m intending talk talk talk talk talk. I think of high productivity, fast productivity, as an ideal to reach. But if I think of this same thing as talk talk talk talk talk, it doesn’t look as ideal.

Yet it feels weird to think of deliberately slowing down. All my life I’ve been the one to “run ahead.” I’m impatient to see around the next curve, to run over the next hill. “Come back, stay with the group,” my fretful camp counselors would call. Even when I was the assistant counselor, I could not stop myself from running ahead of my group instead of patiently shepherding them. (Certainly I was a disappointment as an assistant counselor.)

In making my bowls, I’ve been fretting that I work “so slowly.” I envy artists who are more productive, who work faster or more steadily or for longer hours. Of course, in my own way, my slowness is still about “running ahead.” If I learn a new technique, instead of making twenty more bowls using that technique, I want to “run ahead” to learn another. If I try one thing with a bowl, I want to try twenty more with the same bowl before deciding. And sometimes I try to skip a step or two, which takes more time because eventually I have to come back and do what I missed.

That’s one thing that’s happened with the photography. I was trying to skip the steps of looking at each bowl carefully. What view lets the eye move naturally around the bowl? What is the focal point? And most of all – what view shows the bowl’s spiritual power?

Shooting film without taking time for this step has allowed me to learn a lot about lighting, exposures, warming filters, backgrounds, and more. But it’s not going to show me how to take really good slides of my bowls. Only this first step of careful contemplation will do that.

So I must dare to go even more slowly.

Craft Photography School

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 02:22:55 GMT

Had a photo session this morning with absolutely no tears at all! Then I lost it after lunch when I had to decide quickly whether or not to drive almost 2 hours to get a piece of equipment before the photo store closed. I also needed things locally - and badly needed to wash my hair - so I felt pulled in three directions at once, just paralyzed. The clock was ticking....

The odd thing is that in a real crisis - a medical emergency, say - I can act quickly and rationally. (At least it seems rational at the time.) It's just these minor deadline decisions that seem to turn my brain to mush.

Finally my partner calmed me down and I realized I didn't want to make the long drive just for one thing. I did some local errands and washed my hair. Ended up having a good day.

Film photography - taking slides of my artwork (or anyone else's, for that matter) has usually involved some anxiety on my part. Everything has to be just so, or the slide isn't good. To make matters worse, my standards are much higher now than they were the last time I took slides.

When I had some enlargements made for Dona Meilach's book, The Contemporary Blacksmith, the photo lab people made comments that showed me where my shots could have been improved. And I've been collecting books and articles on photographing art, even a book just on the fine points of product lighting. I've studied on the internet and printed out many articles from there too. This is all well and good, but right now it's led to feeling overwhelmed - too many ideas, too high standards, too much knowledge - and too little experience. I need some time for my practice to catch up.

This has happened many times before, of course. When I was researching finishes, including their Material Safety Data Sheets and the chemicals in the finishes - and their environmental impacts, too - there was a period when I felt completely overwhelmed. There was too much information, too little practical solution, plus the enormous emotional impact of what I was finding out.

It happened again when I was learning SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) This is the art of matching a website's writing and descriptions, to the words people actually search for on the internet. It includes submitting the site to search engines and directories, as well as arranging links with other relevant sites. There's a lot of information available on this too - so that by the time I finished my first project I'd studied about 4 inches of single spaced printouts.

Of course, some of the information contradicts other information, in any topic. So there's that to sort through. And some sort of logical framework for the information has to be created - and finally, some practical action steps to follow. My project usually end successfully - but there are periods when the chaos does overwhelm me.

This morning as I started the photo work, still learning about what lighting arrangement will work, I tried to take some of the pressure off. What's the worst that can happen? What's at stake here?

The answer was that I could invest a lot more time, energy, and money and still not end up with good slides of my new work. Is this likely? Not really. I'm going to end up with good slides.

And I could miss the deadline for showing these new bowls at the next local gallery show, so I'd miss the holiday shopping season. That would be disappointing but not tragic.

So tomorrow - another day at Craft Photography School.

Great technique for learning skills

Thu, 09 Oct 2003 20:07:26 GMT

Tough day so far. First, it was harder to cut the background paper than I'd expected. Cutting off 5 or 6 feet of the paper isn't difficult. But cutting it from 53" wide to 42" wide is hard. When I did it day before yesterday, I put one end of the roll over a cardboard storage tube I had, and cut around the roll with a blade till I'd cut all the way through. It left a ragged edge but that didn't matter. The problem was, the tube was shorter than 53" and somehow the end left an impression - a long vertical line that showed. OK for a trial piece to figure out how to hang the paper, but not ok for a real background.

So today I cut it narrower with scissors. Aargh. I had a lot of trouble getting it the right width. I hope I did. At one point I yelled, "I HATE having to do something that's impossible!" Then I settled down and figured that eventually I'd find an easier way.

The yelling reminded me to start a "6 months from now...." list. I learned this technique from The Inner Game of Music, by Barry Green and Tim Gallwey. (The book applies Gallwey's "Inner Game" sports psychology, to improving skills playing music. It has great application to craft skills as well.)

So I headed up a blank sheet of paper, "If I were hanging background paper 6 months from now (April, 2004), I'd expect to...."

Then I started listing the things I'd expect to do better. Some items had to do with preparation - little helpful prep things I hadn't thought to do this time. Naturally my list includes "have an easy way to trim width of paper."

This technique never fails to calm me down. I'm acknowledging that this is the first time I'm doing this - at least in this space. I'm giving myself permission to make mistakes. I'm expecting to learn from them. Whew.

I've applied this over the years to a lot of things - specific blacksmithing skills, specific bowls, building projects - everything that I've had trouble doing the first time. Often I review the list before the next time I do the same thing, especially if it's been a while. This technique really does help me learn.

After I cut the fresh background paper and hung it, I started assembling lights and light control accessories. This went OK although it was sometimes puzzling. The hardest parts, I'd figured out when I first bought the lights. It does look as if a 12" reflector light will not be too heavy for my mini-boom light stand. It it does work, that will save me some significant money.

Unpacking some of the accessories was disappointing. They all work, but wow, what dust! I was amazed that a photo equipment company would pack their stuff so dirty. I mean, really really dirty! So it took quite a while to clean it all up. I'd planned to store each thing in the box it came in, but abandoned that idea. Every box was full of dust. So eventually I'll need another storage solution. That could be a long time from now, at the rate I'm going.

Well, tomorrow morning I should be able to start trying lighting arrangements. Will take digital shots to learn the best views of each bowl, and to compare lighting arrangements. That means the earliest I can get slides developed is Monday, but I've accepted that. Patience, Cathy, patience....

My idea of painting while slides are developed had to be abandoned too. The space for drying paintings got taken up by photo light accessories. But - I can work in the forge on non-photography days.

It got so stressful today that I put on the tape of Pachibel Canon and other baroque music, that I've used for many years when I do bodywork and stretching. It did help. Still, when I left the studio today I could feel the tension. This "photography stage" of the work is going to be a challenge to my stress management techniques. Maybe I'll learn some new ones.

Ten days now starting first in studio

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 02:35:47 GMT

This is the tenth day in a row I've gone straight to the studio after getting up. It's getting easier. Starting to feel normal. Once I get there, I'm glad.

Just sort of checking in. Reporting on something I announced here I was starting. My plan is to go 28 days in a row to really get this habit established.

Painting on Iron

Sat, 02 Aug 2003 13:07:36 GMT

I think I'm stretching out painting the iron on these two pieces. Yesterday it dawned on me that it's because I love painting with acrylics and don't want it to be over. The next stage, after letting the acrylics dry, is clearcoating with varnish. That's not nearly as much fun.

So it seems as if I haven't really absorbed the fact that I can paint with acrylics any time I want to. I have canvases to paint. I have archival boards to paint. I have watercolor paper. And I have paper I can play on, to use later for collage.

It's a little tricky to make space to paint two-dimensional work while painting sculpture. There must be a way, however. The main thing is to believe it's really ok to do it.

The paint looks wonderful on the iron. I'm amazed at how beautiful the iron is becoming. It was ok as just plain iron. But now it's becoming more than ok. And the colors I'm using are a result of lots of experimentation with the paint on paper as well as on iron test pieces. So there's a synergy here. The painting on paper - the play with color - helps the sculptures. Do the sculptures help the paintings on paper and canvas? Yes. The sculptures are a kind of anchoring, a centering, a grounding. Iron keeps me practical enough to live on earth.

Clearing spaces

Sat, 03 May 2003 15:45:40 GMT

Here's an odd thing. For most people, it seems to work best to leave a work session in such a way that it's easy to pick up where they left off. For example, some writers stop in mid sentence and leave the page in the typewriter. (OK, this is a pretty old example. There must be a word processing program equivalent.) Theoretically, it should be easier for me to start a new work session if I've left everything out on the table, ready to pick up where I left off. If I have something half forged, why not leave it on the anvil, with the hammers right where I can pick them up? If I have paper partly molded, why not leave out the gel medium, the pieces of paper, etc. so I can just sit down and start working again?

It should work, but it almost always backfires. I avoid the work instead of picking back up with it. Or I wake up with a fantastic idea to pursue, but in order to do it I have to put away all the things that are cluttering up my work space.

What actually works for me is to clear my main work spaces when I quit work for the day. The next morning, I start fresh. It means some setup time, but at least I do start.

I have no idea why this works better for me. Perhaps someone reading this can explain it. And I haven't met anyone else for whom this works better. Oh wait - I do remember someone. The great artist-blacksmith, Tom Joyce, said at the 1989 Penland design conference that he had all his employees put everything away not only at the end of the day, but at lunchtime too.

Now that I think of it, this might make a difference when I have to come up to the cabin for lunch. It never occurred to me before I wrote this now. I'll give it a try.

Helpful Voice

Sat, 03 May 2003 15:02:44 GMT

I've noticed that after negative thoughts are more or less banned, a new voice appears. I call this Helpful Voice. I'll be moving along, and out of the blue a new thought will appear that's genuinely helpful. It gives something of the sensation of someone looking over my shoulder and saying something helpful. So I call this Helpful Voice.

What distinguishes Helpful Voice is partly the calm tone. It always offers positive advice. It's always encouraging. And it's practical. Helpful Voice never makes philosophical or theological comments. It's very down to earth, helping me do something that works.

It's easy to distinguish Helpful Voice from any sneaky comments by the Critic. Helpful Voice is never sarcastic. Helpful Voice never recommends giving up or committing suicide. Those are big clues that the voice is really the Critic, no matter how sweet the tone.

It seems as if one has to make space for Helpful Voice, or it doesn't get heard. And if the overall emotional tone of thoughts is negative, it seems to stay away. This makes sense. If someone is raging or screaming or sobbing, there's no point in going over to say "I think a quarter of an inch to the left would work better."

So the first step in inviting more Helpful Voice comments is to make space. What's worked for me in the past is to use the standard rubber band technique. I'd wear a loose rubber band on one wrist. When I caught myself thinking or speaking a "detour phrase" I'd snap the rubber band, say "cancel cancel" and substitute a positive version.

For example, if I were working in the studio with iron, a usual "detour thought" would be "Oh no, I have no idea how to do this!" Cancel cancel. Substitute thought would be "I need to find out how to do this."

I also made a rule that if I insisted on indulging in detour thoughts, fine, but I'd have to leave the studio. I could go outside. This sounds absurd but it worked.

These procedures developed after I realized that "detour thoughts" spiraled. One led to another. "I have no idea how to do this" never led to finding out, only to thoughts like "How did I ever think I could do this work?" and "Mother told me my spatial visualization wasn't up to three dimensional work." At that point, Helpful Voice didn't have a chance.

So I started noting down the thoughts that tended to start things going amiss. I called them "detour phrases." They're like sign posts. Their roads are always detours, never getting me where I wanted to go - or at least, taking me a very long way around.

Once I had my list of detour phrases, I could identify them right away and do my cancel cancel substitution trick.

There are other little tricks that help when things start to go wrong in the studio. One I learned from Tim Gallwey's classic, The Inner Game of Tennis, is to respond to any mistake with a long, appreciative "Ah!" (It works in playing table tennis, too. It breaks the chain of one mistake leading quickly to another.) Rosamund and Benjamin Zander (in The Art of Possibility) recommend raising both arms and exclaiming, "How fascinating!"

Both "Ah!" and "How fascinating!" make a little calm space in which Helpful Voice can appear. Ideally, of course, all of life is open to Helpful Voice. But it's quiet most of the time, speaking only when it has some practical little observation that would really help.

Just hearing it is encouraging. I welcome the practical help. More than that, I welcome the sound of a truly encouraging voice, focused on exactly what I'm trying to do. What more can I ask of a voice in my head? Well, maybe I could ask for more about the meaning of life, but that's a different story.