Circumnavigating the Great Salt Lake

This weeks coronacruise took us way out around the west side of the Great Salt Lake, where we got to hit a few places that have been on my list for quite some time, the Sun Tunnels and the ghost town of Lucin. The Sun Tunnels are a 1970's art installation by Nancy Holt, the wife of Robert Smithson, the creator of the Spiral Jetty. Constellation adorned concrete tunnels that line up with the sun during solstices. Way out in the middle of nowhere (and I mean middle of nowhere!), what a crazy, interesting and beautiful (and remote!) place for an art installation. It would be really cool to go see this during the solstice...

Lucin was a bit surprising. I didn't expect to find a oasis in the deserts, but the ponds created by piping in water from the far off mountains were indeed an oasis. Lucin was a railroad stop, and back in the day they need the water to fill the steam engines. The train still runs by, but not much is left of the town, just a few root cellars and an odd concrete structure, which after doing some googling we discovered was actually a railroad company phone booth. The ponds make for a nice little wildlife sanctuary, ducks, lots of song birds ( I saw some beautiful warblers!) and a pair of red tailed hawks where living there.

Creative(?) Kintsugi

I wrote about kintsugi once before, and how I thought kintsugi is sometimes used in a manner a wee bit off from my interpretation of the traditional Japanese intention, and well, I think this may be another good example LOL. Kintsugi toilet... Found in a local, non Japanese, restaurant... It sure made me laugh though. Does this toilet tank really seem more beautiful for having once been broken? I kinda think not, how about you?

Quotations... Art Inspiration

There's a little Salvadoran restaurant that I frequent, and have become quite friendly with one of the waitresses. She's a gal from Venezuela, a recent immigrant, who, when we first met, spoke little or no English. She was working hard at learning, and since we'd become regulars at the restaurant we would chat and she could to practice her English.

We had a little start one day, when we went for dinner and found the restaurant shuttered and empty. We wondered how we would find our friend again. Lucky for us it turned out that the restaurant had not really closed, but had, quite suddenly, moved to a new location a few miles down the street.

When we finally caught up with our waitress friend again, we told her that we had been sad when had thought the restaurant had closed and we'd not get to see her anymore, so with the idea that someday we would meet for coffee or desserts we exchanged numbers. Unfortunately, I work days and she works most every night, so despite our good intentions, we never managed to make that happen, but we we've continued our friendship at the restaurant.

One night as we finished dining, she came over to the table, three deserts in hand, sat down at the table across from us and told us that since we never are able to coordinate schedules to have our coffee and dessert date, we would just do it now. She went on to say that her father had a saying... "The special moment is now" and explained that he thought it was silly how people are always saving things, like that nice bottle of wine, or the pretty new dress, or the special dinnerware, or whatever, for an off in the future special occasion, when the reality is that life is short and we should enjoy it now. So that night, even though she was working, she declared that "the special moment is now" and we all had a nice dessert together.

As a person who has always been guilty of saving things for the special occasion, I thought that really was an excellent sentiment, one that I really needed to take to heart. I decided that I would put that quote on few coffee mugs as a reminder, and make one for my waitress friend as a thank you for sharing her father's words of wisdom with us.

I threw some mugs and sprigged on little placard on which I stamped "The special moment is now", and a few weeks later, after they had gone through all the drying, glazing and firing steps brought them to my friend at the restaurant. She was thrilled with the surprise, and quite touched that I had remembered her fathers quote. She even cried a little. I always enjoy it when I can make a piece and share it with the perfect person and make them smile! I also enjoy getting new art inspiration. I can see a series of quote mugs in my future!

Tactilis

Juried show number two for the year... Tactilis. This show was at the community college, in conjunction with Art Access, an organization that provides creative opportunities for the disabled and disadvantaged. Tactilis had an interesting theme, showcasing art that was meant to be touched, so that it could be appreciated by those who are visually impaired.

I was excited when I received the email with the call for entries, as I had recently gone on a bender creating ceramic pieces that were intended to be picked up an touched, so Tactilis was right up my alley. I decided I wanted to create a new work, a multimedia sculpture covered with texture and moveable pieces made with my glass beads.

Judging from the reactions of the visitors to the show, I think my foray into touchable art was a success. Even though I couldn't 'read it' thought it was really cool to have my label for the piece printed in braille!

The Alfred Lambourne Prize

I entered an art piece to a show, The Alfred Lambourne Prize. This is a show dear to my heart as is all about celebrating our relationship to the Great Salt Lake, a place I love. THis show is extra interesting in that it showcases many genres; visual art, literary art, movement and sound. The piece I made was a fun experiment, I used clay from the Great Salt Lake Lake bed as a glaze on my ceramic pieces. Many pieces representing the diversity of experiences at the lake. I was pleased with how they turned out.

My asty fartsy description of my piece and it's inspiraton...

Salty

Dead sea

Oddly industrial

An artist's canvas

Fluctuating water levels

Clouds reflecting on water

Sunset skies paint horizons

Wind whipped sea foam

Remnants of the past

Pink microbial waters

Patterned salt crust

Vibrant wildflowers

Swarming insects

Essential habitat

Birds overhead

Rocky shores

Moonshine

Snowfall

Solitude

Wind

Rain

Sun

Every day, every season, every visit is new experience.

Always intriguing

Breathtaking

Inspiring

My submission for the Alfred Lambourne Prize embodies the diversity and uniqueness of each Great Salt Lake experience

. Each ceramic piece is glazed with slurry of Salt Lake clay, allowed to run and puddle randomly when fired in a cone 10 kiln where the clay glaze freely reacts with it's own inherent impurities, the reducing atmosphere in the kiln, and colored slips applied below the glaze.

Just like every visit to the Great Salt Lake offers a nature lover an unpredictable, unique and interesting experience, each ceramic piece glazed with lake clay emerges from the kiln as a surprise to the artist; unique, organic, different than the other.

Mounted on weathered "Salty Fir" lumber that was commercially reclaimed from the waters of the Great Salt Lake.

Found Art!

I've not posted anything about art in quite sometime, but I had an experience a while back that I thought I should share. This is not about my art, but about found art and delightful surprises.

Living in Salt Lake we are lucky to have the Sundance Film right in our backyard and for the last few years I been able to see a few movies and spend an afternoon or two wandering the streets of Park City checking out the festivities. There's always some fun things to see and interesting people watching.

At the same time Park City is also host to a second film festival... an 'alternative' film festival, Slamdance. While wandering through town we stopped at the Treasure Mountain Inn to see what Slamdance had to offer. There we found a table covered with post cards for all the different offerings. Amid all the glossy, professional postcards we found of a couple ordinary paper cards, but they were hardly ordinary, they were actually hand printed with original designs, signed and numbered, and had a sticker on the back directing you to the website of Gabrielle Kash, a young animator living in Brooklyn, NY. I thought the hand made prints were a pretty cool marketing idea!

There were not many prints left, so not wanting to be greedy I just chose one - "Lizard" 37/50

"Lizard" is a character in the movie she was advertising; an animated short called Lorem Ipsum which asks the following 2 questions:

"What is difficult about making art?"

"Why keep making art?"

Now those are some questions I can relate to. The movie is done in stop motion, which I adore, and one of the characters was making jewelry. It turns out that 'lizard' breathes a little fire. Could it really be a dragon? I like to make ceramic dragons. Totally up my alley. The Lorem Ipsum page also has nice series of photos showing how she makes her stop motion puppets and I love it when artists share their process!

I was pretty jazzed to randomly find a cool piece of art, so I went and bought a little frame and it is now hanging in my living room. Thanks Gabrielle for the gift! I wish you well in your career!

If you want to watch Loren Ipsum, it's here.

Art, business and culture...

After several years of trying to convince myself to do so, I **finally**, after a very long hiatus, started listing some of my beads and pottery in my long neglected Etsy shop. Hoarding beads is easy, lots can be squirreled away in a few bowls and boxes. Pottery, on the other hand, takes some serious space to store, so rather than continue to decorate my house in 21st century craft hoarder style it seemed to make sense to give Etsy a try.

My Etsy goals are hardly lofty, I'd just like to start earning enough money with my hobbies to start paying for my hobbies. It would be nice to self fund my supply closet, pay for studios fees and maybe even the occasional class of workshop....and maybe the travel to workshops, like the one I just took in Japan, but that would be more of dream than a goal..LOL Etsy is easy. Take few pictures, write a few descriptions push a few buttons and voile' you are an Etsy seller. Or should I say, an Etsy lister. Listing on Etsy IS easy, getting views and sales not so much.

To get started again I decided to to do some price checking to get an idea what to list pottery bowls for on Etsy. As I'm scrolling down the listings I spy a a bowl... I know that bowl, it's my bowl. Well, not a bowl I made, but one just like my everyday kitchen ware, but in shades of brown, rather than green like mine. This bowl however, was broken and repaired with gold in kintsugi style.

Kintsugi is an traditional Japanese repair method where broken pottery is repaired with with lacquer and gold. While the practice likely has roots in practicality, it also is well known for it's message, that things can be even more broken for having being broken. When I was at John Dix's studio in Japan he had a quite beautiful example of kintsugi on his shelf of sake cups as pictured below.

But this etsy seller? After looking at his page I would say it appeared that he bought lots of thrift store pottery, broke it and repaired it kintsugi style. Not even really good kintsuge; kind of rough seams, and I'm guessing epoxy and gold paint, not lacquer and powdered gold. He had quite the business going, thousands and thousands of sales. Repaired broken junk dishes at $35+ a piece. Sigh. My vision of kintsugi would be that it is a repair one might do to a precious object, say, Grandmas favorite teacup, or a favorite one of a kind pottery bowl. Not something you would do to some cheap broken dishes.... and by cheap, I know, because my green bowl, a different colored twin to this kintsugi piece, is from a set I bought on sale at Shopko for $20 for service for four. Truly nothing special. Hhhmmf... but he's built a very successful business, lots of sales, and judging from the comments lots of satisfied customers who were quite happy to buy into the Zen of things being more beautiful for having being broken. While I have to commend his success, it leaves me wondering about the sales success of my fellow potters, who often have a hard time selling a beautiful handcrafted bowl for $35. I guess there is something to be said for marketing... and the fact that we artists must need to do it a little better...

Ebau Kintsugi

Dish from my cupboard

Kintsugi sake cup fromm John's collection

Northern Adventures I

Sarah and I had a weekend adventure up north to SE Idaho for a memorial for our dear friend Mabel. A sad reason for a road trip, but we decided to turn it into a fun weekend of camping and exploring new places. I'm always happy to have an excuse to visit Idaho as it is an beautiful state. Many years ago, back in the '80's I think, I read a book about a guy who walked across America. In his book he described Idaho as "America's best kept secret". After moving out west and discovering Idaho for myself, I have to agree. Even the farmland of south east Idaho is beautiful!

We spent a little time walking around Idaho Falls, where somehow I forgot to take pictures of the falls, but had a lot of fun taking pictures of the cool park benches we found around town. I love it when utilitarin items are turned into works of art! Anyone who know's me knows that I'm a hot springs freak, and like to try out new ones any chance I get. Idaho has a lot of hot springs, so I decided I should add a new one to my list. A google search turned up several in the vicinity of where I wanted to camp, and Green Canyon Hots Spring, which is located kind of in the middle of nowhere in between Rexburg, ID and Driggs, ID was the one I picked, mostly for it middle of nowhere location. As hot springs places often are this one was old and run down, but in a beautiful little canyon. Maybe I'm weird but I kind of prefer the funky, old places to opulent, fancy resort hot springs. There was a small outdoor pool, a huge indoor pool, a kinds funky shower house, and a concession where they were also selling tomatoes from their geothermal greenhouse. Even though it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere apparently people drive the 30ish miles from Rexburg and Driggs to take swim lessons and water aerobics classes there. We were given a lovely spot next to stream to camp so after our nice relaxing soak we were lulled to sleep by the gurgling stream.

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