VESSELS: Carpe Diem I (glazed)

Carpe Diem I

hand-built stoneware (ceramic) platter

1 in H x 11.5 in W x 18 in L

Carpe Diem I was glazed and fired back in May. I'm just now catching up on labeling and organizing a backlog of digital photos of my recent work.

The front of this platter is glazed with Cone 6 slate blue--painted on, not dipped--the back is olive light. Because slate blue tends to run we only use it on insides, flat or highly textured surfaces of vessels. A perfect choice for this application.

I'm very please with the way this glaze accentuates the textures and designs. Because it tends to run, it flows into crevices, darker where it pools, lighter and mottled where thinner over raised surfaces. This color variation gives the feeling of a shimmering fish just pulled from the ocean.

The body of Carpe Diem I is only 1/4 inch thick, much too thin for its size and the weight of the decorations. When I first rolled the slab for this piece back in April my intention was to make a platter using only the texture of hand crocheted laced for decoration. Then the clay began drying too quickly, cracking along the edges as I shaped it. It was clearly calling for fins and a tail.

As it dried, I struggled to keep it from warping and the cracks from reappearing. This battle was only partially won by the artist through hidden reinforcement and patience, allowing it to dry slowly, misted and covered, over several weeks.

It did warp some when the fins and tail drooped during bisque and glaze firing, but not so much as to ruin the piece. I just won't mention the small cracks near the tail, a defect that is more cosmetic than structural.

Carpe Diem II will be better.

I'm looking forward to playing with this design again.

Future fish, if made in any quantity, will have to be slightly smaller. This first one was 20 inches long when the clay was still wet, 18 inches end-to-end after firing and shinkage. It had to be fired at the community center because it was too large to fit in my 18 inch diameter kiln. They're willing to accommodate a large piece or two occasionally, but would frown on an entire school of fish platters swimming through at the same time.

Still, I'm glad I didn't let the proportions of this first Carpe Diem get in the way of experimentation on that day back in April.

I've heard it said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes. I would call this a successful failure. Or a failure turned success. Or just a success.

Lessons learned. Good results. That's a success.

(c)2010 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

VESSELS: Carpe Diem I (in progress)

Sometimes during the creative process, unforeseen problems can become the impetus to try something different from what was originally envisioned.

I didn't plan to make this platter into a fish, but a couple of mistakes while trying a new idea--slab rolled too thin, edges allowed to become too dry too quickly--lead to several unmendable cracks along the rim. Cracks called out for reinforcement. Fins were added (shhhhh, don't tell anyone why) and the crocheted lace texture became scales of a fish.

It's been a long time since I've been over to the community pottery studio to use the slab roller. The clay and I have to make friends with each other again.

I wanted to work on something start to finish today.

I decided that the small time I had would be enough. With just a few voice students this evening, they would have to understand if I wore my smudged pottery clothes during their lessons. They've all known me for a while and the quality of their lesson experience would be unaltered by a few smears of clay on well worn clothes. Perhaps it would even be an inspiration for someone to try an artistic pursuit, an encouragement to see that there are things more important than outward appearances.

Once a pottery project is begun, the clay only stays in optimal working condition for a period of hours. Even when carefully wrapped in damp towels and sealed in a plastic bag, the moisture begins to shift, the texture gradually changes. Once past a certain point, malleability is unrecoverable.

I've had the experience too many times of not being able to get back to something I've begun, losing momentum, and eventually losing the piece when it got to dry to be recovered and completed. Too many times I've had to break an incomplete object, already bone dry, into pieces for the scrap recycling bucket.

The title, Carpe Diem, comes from the movement I've been making toward working more directly on my goals each and every day, even if the time available is much shorter than I would like.

No more waiting for the right moment, for the convergence of mood and uninterrupted hours.

As Dr. Seuss wrote in "Oh! The Places You'll Go!"

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite.

Or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil or a better break

or a string of pearls or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls

or another chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

No! That's not for you!

For too long, I've waited for just the right moment to get started again making pottery just for fun, or writing songs, or recording, or working on my "big writing project".

Just the right moment never comes. What we have is today.

So don't carp!

Carpe Diem!

PROLIFERATION: Photo CD

The most recent result of graphics work. Finished this morning. Disk burned and labeled, ready to put together with an application to send out tomorrow.

PROLIFERATION: Business Cards

Just finished this new business card design for Sacred Shards Pottery. Sent off to www.vistaprint.com just a couple hours ago.

It's layout was set up with the intention of dual use--business card and sales tag. To make a sales tag the card will be folded in half along its vertical axis (between the heart bowl and the snail spiral), hole punched in that corner and attached to the item with a piece of raffia.

Didn't pay to expedite printing and shipping, so the new cards will be arriving in about 3 weeks.

The Sacred Shards Etsy URL printed on the cards has been reserved, but yet to be set up as of this date. Now there's an incentive to get it going!

VESSELS: Ammonoidea I - SOLD!

Title: Ammonoidea I

hand built pitcher

14"L x 8 1/2"H x 5" W

embossed designs from handmade stamps & texture plates

stoneware clay, cone 6 glazes

SOLD 02/2010

I went down to the Mystic Art Center today to take pictures of the piece I have in my first members show and discovered IT SOLD!
I thought I had set the price high enough that I'd be bringing it home with me at the end of the show. A price high enough that, in the unlikely event it sold, I'd feel sufficiently compensated so as to not regret letting go of it. And IT SOLD! Whoever you are, thank you!
This was the first time I'd entered the member's show, having felt intimidated in the past by the quality of the work displayed there.
This year I said to myself, "What the heck! Might as well try." Glad I did. It's been a positive experience all the way around.

Story of "Ammonoidea I":

"Ammonoidea I" was formed during a summer thunder storm that gathered as I worked out in my art barn. It's slabs and textures were rolled and shaped entirely by hand. It holds for me the magic of that day. My workbench was a garden cart topped with a piece of plywood, lightning flashing, thunder rolling and rain falling all around as I worked.

The design on the "Ammonoidea I" was made with an original texture plate adapted from a photo of a fossil ammonite, an extinct marine animal, in the Smithsonian collection. I found the reference photo in a desk calendar sent to me by my mom.

The slab of clay used to make the texture plate had dried to the point that it was too firm for shaping into anything else. Rather than break it up for the scrap bucket, it became a useful tool for creating decoration on other pieces. Using a ball stylus and a sgraffito tool I drew the ammonite design into the slab, going over the lines until they were of sufficient depth. This incised slab was then bisque and high fired for durability.

The other texture plates used to emboss the designs on the pieces near the handle and spout were similarly inscribed on scraps left over from other projects, bisque and high fired.

All of these texture plates were made with no particular purpose or finished result in mind. I was simply playing with design, line and materials. The process developed over many months, long before the Ammonoidea vessel was begun.

Texture plates were selected, then slabs of wet clay were then pressed into the texture plates using a rolling pin. The components were cut to shape and joined. I continued to shape the assembled vessel as it dried. It was bisque fired, hand glazed (the glazes where meticulously painted into the ammonoid design by hand, painted, dipped and poured on other surfaces), then fired to cone 6.

All this was before I had my own kiln. Firing and glazing took place at the Stonington Community Center pottery studio, also know as the COMO, where I'm an independent potter.

Patterns for this piece were drawn with sharpie marker on durable plastic quilt pattern grids and cut out, used and reshaped to reflect the eventual outlines of the components as they developed. This will enable me to create other pieces based on this design.

When I glaze, I like to let some of the bare clay show through. I'm drawn to the raw, earthy quality of the unglazed surfaces as they contrast with the high sheen of the glazed surfaces. The unglazed surfaces are intended to extend the connection between the ammonite fossil that inspired this design and earth that sheltered it for millennia. It represents our own origins within the earth, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," our dependance on earth as our home. The blues and greens of the glazes are ocean, symbolic of the collective unconscious in which we all unknowingly swim. The spiral shell design reflects my understanding of the spiral journey of life.

My work is all about connecting past with present: unearthing artifacts within ourselves, finding beauty and meaning in unexpected places, then shaping a vessel within to hold these. For me, this piece captures all these elements in one unified whole.

SACRED SHARDS: Work Play Work Play

I've been working at play, playing at work, working and playing at clay for the past several weeks. Putting in many 9-10 hour days doing something I love to prepare for two artisan shows coming up:

• Stonington Village Fair: Saturday 8/1/09, 10 AM-4PM, Stonington Village Green, CT
• Mystic Outdoor Art Festival: Saturday 8/8 10AM-6PM & Sunday 8/9/09 10AM-5PM. Look for my SACRED SHARDS booth in the parking lot of "You've Got to Be Beading" near the Mystic Post Office, Mystic, CT.

These are TOUCH STONES from my WORD WISE collection, ready to go into the kiln for a first firing (bisque). Then they'll be glazed, high fired and packaged for the shows.

Each is a little mantra to hold in your hand, wear around your neck, put in your pocket, hang from your rearview mirror or use to create something of your own. There will be dozens of words to choose from. Or you can combine several to make a unique statement.

Each comes with a length of colored cotton cord, a small organza bag, and a tiny card with quotes inside.

In the photo above are prototypes at several new items: hand built bowls available with Om symbol, chai (hebrew not tea), or hearts; spiral-design napkin rings; and tiny nests to wear as pendants or display close at hand. The nests can be customized with initials on the eggs to represent those who share your home nest and a small inscription on the back.

After working out tricks and details for putting these items together smoothly and consistently, I've made more. Each item is hand built and individually signed. No two are exactly alike.

The first wave can be seen ready to bisque fire in the photo below.

The photo above shows the bottom shelf of the kiln loaded for bisque firing.

Two more layers of greenware (dry unfired ceramics) to bisque fire in the same load.

Drying shelves hold 9 vessels and a stack of napkin rings awaiting their turn in the kiln. 75% humidity has slowed drying to nearly a standstill. I'll probably not be able to have these ready by the first show, the smaller of the two. With luck by the second.

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg, a small representation of the work and play that's part of making things I care about to share with others.

SACRED SHARDS: Documenting Recent Work

Too long I've been making things and selling them or giving them as gifts without taking pictures or making sketches for future work.

Today I set up a make-shift photo booth in a well illuminated part of the house, got out my "good-enough" cheap digital camera, and started documenting my work.

This heart shaped bowl and matching ladle will be a gift for a family member and his bride, getting married this weekend.

I'll be making more in the coming weeks for sale on Etsy, in local shops, at LUNCH shows and in my art show booth. Wanted to make sure I could remember what these looked like since I won't have them on hand as samples.

Taking and editing these photos was also a useful practice run for the things I need to do for my Etsy online store and for my own website. They will go into my file of potential work samples to use when approaching retail outlets and and artisan shows.

A bowl made for a baby girl, now a two-year-old and feeding herself. Took me a while to finish it and photograph it before giving it to her. Bad Auntie Kay. Still, it's great for finger foods and reheating little portions.

A couple of adults have told me they wanted one for themselves--customized with their own name or a special word--so I'll probably be making them in a variety of sizes and colors.

This one is about 5 inches across and 2 inches high.

A similar bowl was made for a baby boy family member, but I didn't take a picture of it before giving.

I also made sketches and took measurements today so the next go around will be easier. I jotted down notes on glazes, processes, and where the JPGs of these images can be found on my computer.
All this was time consuming, but I'm hopeful that by honoring past effort in this way--by documenting it--the process of making many more will go more smoothly, and perhaps lead to new ideas that otherwise might have been lost.

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

SACRED SHARDS: Completely Glazed Over

Look what the kiln elves did overnight! Pretty colors!

Some sale-able items for this summer's craft shows. A few gifts. Lots of experimental stuff (mugs, etc.). And a couple of keepers.

Batter bowl (upper right), Peace Dove ornaments, Word Wise bowl with hearts (peeking from under shelf), ... and hiding on the bottom shelf where I can't see them, surprises!

Going now to unload the kiln and see what I've got!

SACRED SHARDS: Glazing Over

The little kiln that could. She's an L&L kiln. Needs a name. I'll call her Lana, as in Lana Lang. Powered by meteor rocks.

Finished glazing and loading this afternoon. Firing initiated at about 3:45 PM.

Here's what's inside. There's another layer below the one visible at on the lower right.

And here's what it looked like just a little while ago, glowing amiably in the darkness of the basement. Alien Power Source at work.

Temperature read-out on its way up, with the glow under the kiln lid showing through.

The glow under the lid and between the kiln's sections projects onto the basement walls in stripes of yellowish orange, but my camera's shutter speed doesn't go slow enough to capture this.

The picture above was taken over an hour ago. By now, it's probably reached Cone 5 and is on it's way back down.

I'll be able to open it tomorrow. It's always like opening a surprise package.

PREPARATION: Clearing Clutter

Clearing away clutter provides the physical and mental space to spark the next creative explosion.

SACRED SHARDS: Body Wisdom Displayed

My first ever torso sculpture, "Body Wisdom" above, was fired in the first load in my new kiln.

Last Saturday morning I put "Body Wisdom" into the Hygienic Art Gallery's thirtieth annual Salon des Independants Show. This is a sort of art free-for-all whose motto is "No Judge, No Jury, No Fees, No Censorship." What better place to break some rules and break new artistic ground for myself.

It was the first time I'd shown my work simply to make a statement, as opposed to displaying work with potential customers in mind.

I designed a display card using Photoshop to place with the sculpture.

The display card repeats the words encircling the top and bottom of the vessel. Between these it adds words taken from my song "El Dia de los Muertos" for a reflection on the relationship between body and spirit.

Beneath the title the card reads:

STRENGTH WISDOM PATIENCE

Doctors diagnose

with speculum and stethoscope

take blood in vials

make patient files

Look within!

I'm more than these.

BALANCE PASSION HEALING JOY

"El Dia de los Muertos" was written several years ago, but I feel the linking of its sentiments to an earthen vessel made by hand just a few months ago to be grounding, healing, hopeful. The words in bold type stand guard between my own physical vessel of Self and the practiced guesswork of MDs.

Other elements of the display are equally emblematic.

The pink scarf is wrapped around the display box as an expression of solidarity with women engaged in the fight against breast cancer. By extension, it is also symbolic of the power of a caring embrace to ease human physical suffering.

[Lest some worry about my health, let me say that I'm generally in good repair.]

The brown wooden box the sculpture rests upon represents the sturdy structure of medical knowledge, a structure left empty inside to reflect the medical community's traditional neglect of the things beyond the physical.

We are not simply body or spirit. We are both. We are an integrated whole.

Health and illness are equally mysterious.

I am more than these.

We each are.

Look within!

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Sharpie Luggage

2 hours to wait in an airport + 1 silver sharpie marker + 1 cheap carry on bag = TADA! Art on Wheels

Would have done more but the sharpie was already mostly used up and ran out of ink. Will pack a fresh one for next time.

As it was, I so focused on what I was doing that I nearly missed the boarding call for my plane.

While I worked (played), the public address system intoned repeatedly:

"Attention airline passengers. Increased security measures require that all passengers maintain close personal contact with their items at all times. Unattended items will be promptly removed by law enforcement personnel. Additionally, report all suspicious items or activities immediately to airport personnel. Your safety is our priority."

Close personal contact with my items? Hmmm.

Though I certainly was attentive to my carry-on bag, did this qualify as a suspicious activity?

Got some funny looks as I sat on the floor scribbling on my bag, but no one reported me.

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: Sustainable Happiness

The pursuit of happiness has been transformed into the pursuit of consumer goods and energy hungry lifestyles that damage our planet.

Visit HERE to browse a large selection of articles about pursuing lasting happiness while consuming fewer resources and reducing your environmental impact.

It's a lot more fun than it sounds!

I hear the politicians talk a lot about "getting our economy moving again." Does a "healthy economy" automatically mean, by definition, that they expect us to resume our old habits of consumption? If so, we need to rewrite the definitions. We need a new vision.

We've grown used to a world bulked up on the steroids of excess consumption. Like a weight lifter who's steroid built muscles are damaging his liver and heart, we can't expect to keep this up over the long term.

Someone needs to rewrite the economics textbooks and redefine the tools by which we measure the health of our economy to take into account the long view of things.

I wonder: Can we find a way to shifting our world economy and our individual lives toward a more sustainable and equitable model?

What would that look like?

QUOTES: Done with Great Things

"I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride."

~ William James

Random Discoveries

RANDOM LUNCH EXPERIMENT, a grilled cheese sandwich tastes really good with dried basil and cayenne pepper sprinkle on the cheese before putting the lid (top piece of bread) on and grilling it.

RANDOM WEBSURFING brought me to Instructables.com "The World's Biggest Show & Tell," with photos and step-by-step instructions for all kinds of interesting, strange and creative projects. Looking is free. Also free to sign-up for extended features, like printing, and to post your own instructions.

RANDOM READING in the February issue of "Gourmet" magazine while sitting under the dryer at the hair salon today, I came across the following quote from conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll,* "The interesting thing about being an artist, though, is that you can only learn if you are willing to fail." Architect Charles Ranfro, who is working with Carroll on a project in Houston, said, "Mary Ellen's investigations are fueled by a kind of childish curiosity, but combined with a very sophisticated adult's resourcefulness. That makes her slightly dangerous."

*Tried to look at MEC's own website, but it was a blank white page. Is this the conceptual artists way of making a statement? Instead, I've given a link to a google search on her name.

SACRED SHARDS: Organized & Spontaneous

I’ve been happily busy this past week or so getting my pottery inventory organized and finishing up designing the photo sheets to submit to additional shows (once I've got enough inventory built up).

I will be participating in the artisan show in Nov and Dec at the art gallery in town. When I took my application and photo sheets down to the gallery manager, she hardly looked at them. She had seen my work before. :-) Had bought one of my necklaces at an outdoor show this summer. (I'd hadn't remembered who she was at first, when she made the purchase.)

Though I needn't have worried so much and the sheets weren't important in this case, I'm glad it served as a motivation to get this piece of promotional material in order.

As an extension of this, I also came up with and executed a workable idea for organizing all the various pottery things I've been making to sell.

I bought a bunch of comic book storage boxes (expensive but just the right size) and affixed stick-on plastic pockets to the outside of each. Then I cut up my photo sheets and glued one picture each to the blank side of a bunch of 3x5 cards. The 3x5 cards slip into the plastic pockets to show what's in each box. Works really well.

Now I can see at a glance what's stored where AND how many of each I've got. I put a post-it note on each card with the quantity in each box. As I sit in my work area I can see what I need to make. The back of each 3x5 card can be used to record in-flow and out-flow of goods, to track what's selling, when and where, and how long things have been on the shelf. Spreadsheets just don't do it for me.

Now I finally feel like I have a handle on all this stuff I've been making and selling, not a huge volume so far, but the potential seems to be there to do much better with a more organized approach. Now I can make more, have a place to store it and find it again when I need it. The 3x5 cards can be moved around if I discover I need to reorganize the goods in a different way.

Because labels weren't stuck permanently to the boxes, I didn't feel I had to do it perfectly the first time or figure out in advance any possible change I might want to make in the future. The flexibility to just get it done and see how it works got me past the procrastination and inertia that often accompanies a project like this.

This preparation has freed me to be more spontaneous with my clay play. I spent 3 hours yesterday up at my work table upstairs, making things. First time in about 2 months. Part of the time was production of 13 "spiral drop" pendants, like the one shown one of my previous posts in this blog. (I'd only made two of those at the time, to test how well they'd sell, and they both did.)

Then I played and made a primitive serving spoon with shell impressions on the handle to go with a confused and lonely serving dish I'd made about a year ago, but hadn't used or sold. Now it has a companion to give it purpose and meaning. :-)

The spoon was another off-shoot of organizing my inventory.

In the process of cleaning up upstairs, I went through a pile of magazine and catalog clippings I'd been saving and taped them onto loose sheets in a binder. Each little scrap of paper represents an idea for a shape, pattern, theme, etc. that can become the jumping off point for creative play. The binder has dividers made out of file folders, cut up and 3-hole punched, so I can organize the ideas into categories. Sometimes I'll scribble notes around the pictures in pencil to remind myself what my original intention was when I saved them.

Though my "Ideas Binder" already contains enough scraps of inspiration to last a lifetime, I continue to gather clippings that catch my fancy. These pile up in a pocket folder until I get the chance to sit down with tape and scissors, and stick them into the binder.

When I want to tickle my imagination, I can leaf through the binder to see what I might like to try that day.

In the case of yesterday‘s primitive pottery spoon, I stumbled upon a picture of several interestingly shaped spoons printed off another artist‘s website. That said, I never, ever copy another artist’s work directly. There would be no fun in that. Instead, my habit is to combine ideas from multiple sources, then allow each project to unfold in it's own unexpected directions.

Like the pockets and movable 3x5 photo-cards on my storage boxes, I use a 3-ring binder with loose-leaf sheets so I can organize and reorganize as the ideas shift and regroup in my mind.

All the materials in my “Ideas Binder” are cheap--scrap paper, clippings from discarded magazines and catalogs, photos printed off the internet, plain manila file-folders, and scotch tape--so my stingy side can't object and short-circuit the process.

I honor the muse by respecting her desire to collect and sort without demanding to know exactly why or what the outcome might be -- and inspiration usually follows.

I thought as I worked on the organizing and creating, that maybe some ideas would be useful to others. Let me know what you think. :-)

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

GAIA LUNA: By Design?

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Gaia Luna, my art garden, now has its own logo.

I constructed its elements from a scanned and altered image of one of my "Spiral Drop" pottery necklaces.

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

During the summer I had designed new packaging for several new necklaces. The "Spiral Drop" is one of 8 new designs that grew from a whole new set of handmade pottery stamps I'd created this past winter.

The scan above was turned into the black and white graphic below using Photoshop.

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

This simple image, in turn, became the germinal design element of the Gaia Luna logo. Each shape, each curve was derived from this basic form.

Stamps created just for fun lead to new necklaces, which lead to new packaging, which unfolded into the garden logo. I like the way it all interrelates and unfolds organically.

This logo combines symbols for the cycles of earth and moon, the cycles of the creative process, and our connection with these as co-creators of life. This image grew from many years of sun drenched of contemplation. It emerged as the culmination of a wonderful, peaceful, abundant summer just past.

The image grew more from a desire for artistic and spiritual expression than from necessity.

I envision painting it on a sign to hang at the garden entrance, printing it on canning labels for jams, relishes and pickles to give as gifts or sell along with my pottery and CDs, ... and who-knows-what else.

The idea is to create what seems right at the time then discover where it leads.

Gaia Luna is the reason I took the summer off from blogging. I've been too busy harvesting armloads of veggies and berries to spend much time at the computer.

I've been busy digging through cookbooks from the library, collecting recipes, and teaching myself to make jam and pickles, can, freeze, and dehydrate piles of produce. I've been busy weeding and composting, watering and petting the cats out in the summer sunshine.

I've been consumed with painting 25, 8-foot sections of purple picket fence to provide more substantial protection from animal intruders for the garden. We'll put up the fence early next spring as soon as the ground thaws. Plans also include an arbor.

I've taken lots of pictures of the garden this summer. I'll begin to post these once the flurry of gardening activity has subsided.

This is a celebration of summer's end, an anticipation of things to come as the seasons turn another time around.

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Meditation

~ excerpts from today's journal writing

Deep breaths
Calm body
Still mind

Over the years, I've asked for advice and permission far more often than I really should. I need to give myself back the authority I've handed over to others.

My creative work is both hopeful and haunted. I have both strength and weakness and can hold these two, one in each hand, as I work. Passion and detachment. Independence and interconnection. The synthesis of opposites necessary for growth.

Life is filled with unresolvable contradictions. This is fertile ground for creative work.

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Connect the DOTs

My theme for the next few months is "Connect the Dots". I tend to work on things in isolated islands of intense activity. One day one thing, the next another. I have so many areas of focus that it all becomes rather disjointed. Like dots on a page with only hints of a picture around the edges, and no numbers to tell how to connect them.

I've named the clusters of dots, like constellations, to help me make more sense of them:

• Heart and Spiral - my songwriting, performing and recording activities
• Sacred Shards - pottery work and sales
• Effusive Muse Publishing - my writing project and workshop development
• Sound Krayons Music - the teaching studio, vocal and songwriting workshops
• Keys for a Cause - social activism (related to our non-profit LUNCH, Local United Network to Combat Hunger)
• Gaia Luna - the garden that's more than a garden

Then there are the dots that are just splashes of me, that don't necessarily fit in anywhere.

Constellations, all, clusters of light in the sky over my head, for navigation, telling of meaning and stories, connected through imagination, through action. Right now, though, mostly just dots, disjointed fragments of accomplishment and infrastructure.

How about this? DOTs: Disjointed Organizational Tools

Sounds so corporate.

Sometimes, if I let myself become distracted by a troublesome person, I find I've connected with dots that don't belong to me.

In the past I would let these things hang in isolation in my mind, not allowing myself to see a pattern and it's impact on me. This takes it's toll. I'll never know how many hours, how many days I've lost with thoughtless words and actions reverberating in my head.

I've begun to see the ways I've allowed other people's dots to become part of my design. I've started to recognize where I've drawn lines connecting with their dots instead of my own.

Seeing this, I can choose when to use my eraser and make changes.

I hope I am better equipped to consciously choose to connect, or not, in the future.

My dots. Their dots.

My job in this life is to own my dots, to add some of my own choosing, to draw in the lines that transform dots into meaningful pictures, then use them to navigate toward my destination, whatever that turns out to be.

(c)2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

SACRED SHARDS: Fresh Slabs & New Directions

I went to the pottery studio late yesterday afternoon. It was the first time I'd gone in many weeks, because I'd been sick.

It's amazing how doing something you love can be so energizing. I dragged myself over there yesterday, feeling tired, but knowing that I'd feel even more disappointed and frustrated if another day went by without working on my pottery. I ended up working there for nearly an hour and a half, wedging and rolling out 5, 1/4 inch thick slabs, (3 white, 2 red) working slowly and methodically, enjoying the stillness of the studio and the company of another woman who'd come there to glaze her pieces.

Rather than using cardboard scraps to transport the slabs as I usually do (see photo above), this time I took several small 14x15 inch squares of drywall I'd prepared by ceiling the edges with thin strips of duct tape (very bad to get plaster in clay--it explodes in the kiln). Each slab was transferred from the SlabMats onto a square of drywall then slid into a 16x16 inch square zipper bag purchase from the Uline catalog. I've used some regular drywall, some waterproof, to see which will work best.

When I got home, I was re-energized enough to work for about 3 hours before calling it a night. I sat at the kitchen table, near the woodstove, playing and stamping designs using my most recently fired hand-carved stamps. This morning I have 13 new pendants and 11 new Christmas ornaments ready to go over to the studio for bisque firing, all from just one slab of white clay. These are designs I've not tried before.

Usually, I work almost exclusively in red clay. I like the natural, earthy look is gives. By experimenting with the white clay this time, I began to look at my designs differently, to feel free to try new ideas. I'm hoping to shake myself loose from the things I've already done, to build in new directions.

The pieces that have been selling well, the button box pendants, are things I began to develop nearly 2 years ago. Of course, I'll still continue to make these. They have a story that continues to resonate for me. At the same time, I'm ready to find an artistic direction that reflects who I am in the here and now. I'm excited to discover what that will be.

©2007 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing