I spent more time this week wrapped up in the everyday rhythm of working and wondering, making a living and living to make what I want to make (clay today, colors tomorrow, some sort of magical object every day), and keeping on the lookout to help people all along. People call me with questions all day and even if I can't give them an easy answer (the easy answer would be that there is no money in the arts right now, these are foolish pursuits we take when we endeavor to train for vocations in art, and even as avocations this paint and clay and metal stuff is 'spensive and complicated), I try to give them an answer.

I'm working on a tattoo design for a good friend as a memorial. It's easily the trickiest and simplest thing I've done in a while and I find that even when I'm not thinking about the design, I will doodle something that connects. Here's the latest if only because I haven't shared much visually in a while.



My breakthrough on the potter's wheel on Tuesday turned into an off-center spinning mess on Wednesday, so I'll be back in the mud again soon. Clay pictures are a long way off.

And I'm still savoring the style and content of John Berger's latest novel. A thoughtful John Berger essay on appreciating Van Gogh .



John also talks with Michael Ondaatje and in that interview was this little bit:

BERGER: It seems to me that at a certain moment — when one’s writing a work that is taking months or years — but at a certain moment, when perhaps you’re very tired, life begins . . . well, normally life is absolutely opposed to the activity of painting or to the activity of writing or to all, all creative activity. I mean life has a total continual conspiracy against creativity. We know that and we have to fight for it all the time, but there are certain moments when life, just everyday life, comes and helps. And you never know when it’s going to happen and then it’s amazing, because you just do the same things that you do every day, you go out to do some shopping or you look at somebody on a train or whatever, and it speaks and it contributes an actual idea, an actual image, a colour or something, or a whole sequence of things, to the story. Does this happen to you?

ONDAATJE: Yeah, I think that happens a lot. I think that conspiracy against writing or painting does exist but for me it’s to find that kind of accidental occurrence in the real world that can enter the story in a way and kind of double its value.

BERGER: Yes. An accident is very important, isn’t it?

ONDAATJE: All my writing is hopefully based in an accident . . .But the art of drawing, the pleasure of drawing, which you do all the time, the pleasure of painting and all the different structures you find in painting that you don’t find in fiction, I would think would be important to you. I tend not to learn from fiction. Perhaps I do, but not consciously.

BERGER: But now, because you asked me what drawing was to me . . . when you are drawing, anyway when you are drawing something which is alive, you are drawing the traces of what has happened to it until that moment at which you are looking at it. I mean, the traces of how it has physically become itself.

That's all for now, but take care and keep up your fight against the conspiracy, your attempts to connect all the parts and pieces,
see ya,
Rachael

Ah! It worked. I made a bowl. I made a small cylinder. I centered my clay tonight, remembered all the bits of advice I'd gathered, coned up and pushed down, and had a series of small successes. Now most of my experiences to this point have been mucking around with sloppy lumps of wobby dirt on a spinning wheel, so when the forms came together relatively easily and without much bloodshed, I was (and am) giddy.

When I was studying art history and looking at endless catalogue raisonnes and collected works and big fat books full of big glossy pictures it occured to me that no artist is flawless. The best painters, sculptors, potters, clowns and fireman (for that matter) make the most people laugh, save the most lives, and have a good solid batting average. Not that you (or I or anyone I know) is or will be Babe Ruth (damn good candy bars, though) but getting a good solid hit is a delight.

goodnight,
Rachael

It's the tail end of my day off and I'm back to day jobbing tomorrow (a pile of projects on my desk no doubt) but I'd feel remiss if I didn't share my simple confidence with you before I head to bed. I talked to a handful of good friends today (most far away, but one here in the flesh) about the kind of nutty projects we take on.

My friend Kenny has talked about teaching for a while and in the fall he'll be at the front of the class making sure the kids find the kinds of connections to stories, to the worlds outside (and within) themselves that he's found in stories and music. In a perfect turn of events he'll be in the same school that formed him. Lucky kids 'll get a kickass english teacher.

Lisa's thinking about a blog and I sure hope she does because her artist's perspective, her aesthetics, her desire to connect, her smarts, and rooted in the kudzu history all need to be heard. She's a keen and funny writer too and so here's hoping she jumps into the blogosphere. Here first perhaps?

Nancy has jumped idea first into curating her first show in November, a perfect blend of art and science completely consistent with her own work and while scary and quick, completely do-able. The show of her own work is still up at Atlanta's Fernbank museum, by the way.

And forgive me for stepping into the land of self help by saying it but I am a firm believer that your project is do-able too. Sure is. Of course, there are obstacles. But every excellent new job, new blog, new show, new painting, new novel starts with a dream. It's the dreams that refuse to be shut down that become real. The dreamers who take some steps, talk to everybody, close their eyes and jump who stop being dreamers and become do-ers. Worst thing that could possibly happen is it hits the world half brewed and you learn quickly, but I admire and have the good fortune to know a slew of hard-working, creative, smart and persistent project people.

And my next project? sleep.

goodnight troublemakers,
sogni d'oro,
Rachael

If I could time travel as he imagines his dead mother can in his latest, I'd go to London last week. I'd see some talks by John Berger, soak up some of the collaboration, creativity, conscience and culture. See the plays, reread the essays, wonder about the others who show up. Make new friends and start new trouble. I've been excited, inspired, jolted, comforted, and kicked by Berger's writing since I first picked up a copy of A Painter of Our Time.

Honest invention doesn't seem like invention at all, sometimes fiction is more true than fact. The latest (Here is Where We Meet) seems as true a reflection on a life as any honest novel can be. I'm slowly savoring it. Taking a moment here and there to discover the images.

It's a pleasure to see the celebration of John Berger's work while he's here to enjoy it. Not in memoriam but with an eye to connect the troublemakers who light on the idea that art can be democratic, that all voices can be heard, that problems can be fixed.

Found cat sleeps next to me, paintbox sits open at the next table, open book waits. More of Berger's thoughts about how stories can matter are here...

see ya,
Rachael

Phew! Thanks to great neighbors and her vocal chords, our little skinny kitty was retrieved today after a few days of adventuring. She's stinky, hungry, skinnier than usal, sunburned and scraped up but she isn't talking.
Now, I'm ready to paint and draw and read and think.
While she was missing it was hard for me to not think about a white cat. The only one preoccupied now is the cat (trying to take her new tag off).
So, off to paint but I won't be too silent for too long.
Take care,
Rachael