grey with white line

home(outsideof)town

The first two are from just outside the town I grew up in.

These next are from the cowfields I spent my childhood. Visiting makes me wish a camera was in my child hands. How would I have captured this place then?

Behind me here I found the nearly intact skeleton of a cow who died birthing her calf with tiny tiny split feet, her pale ribs and spine still arched above the ground picked clean by coyotes and the sweet white curve of her little one's ribs scattered across the forest floor. Hawks left behind tail feathers as a tribute to their meal. A persimmon tree nearby, laden with astringent orange fruit, attested the bitter view.
At the marsh below, I'd sing to the frogs and crickets when there were more, our voices rising and falling in the afternoon, nonsense and mostly out of tune, bovine bones and turtle shells dug from the black muck adorned a chickee fort.

A red hide dried tight across the skull pulled back thinned lips and once chased me away, the opened jaw in a haunted bellow followed me home and to school, until the idea to tan the skin pulled me back. Mud sucked at my shoes as the dried skin cracked from its bones, the stiff thing clattered behind on the way home. Soaked soft in a bucket with oak leaves and forgotten, until putrid and foaming it produced retching in those too close, the poured out the liquid tainted the ground and attracted the dogs until the next thunderstorm washed it down.

When the water rose changing the marsh to a pond, bits of logs were lashed together as an ineffectual raft, the patch of cattails promising tasty treats stayed forever just out of my reach.

Another day a calf lay quietly alone in the shade hidden in foliage, concern flooded my chest when it didn't rise at my approach. As my hands ran over it looking for an injury, my eyes watched for its mother. Its red coat ever so soft rose and fell under my hands and thrilled me. Its eyes still unconcerned, I sat a little longer and left it.This past week found the pond field closed to cows, overgrown with dogfennel, and the shade of the oaks tilled by feral pig snouts. Most critters tend to ignore dogfennel because of the poison harbored it harbors, but orange wooly caterpillars munched without reservation.

The pond's adjacent field held the first crop I've ever seen planted there; a white pipe at least a half mile long snaked across another field to irrigate the watermelon vines, cows congregated along its path grazing the grass made greener by its leaks. Curious groups of calves watched us pass by before bolting away heels kicking gleefully in the air.

black swallowtail larvae

The blur has been sighted here before.

freeze

Many times I've wished the development of a polaroid could be halted in those hazy moments when the image is soft and blue. Other Polaroid photographers suggest slipping still developing film in a warm pocket on a cold day to assist the image, instead I slipped a still developing photo (after about a minute) in the freezer to slow it down. The one on the left was frozen.

remnants

of a missed emergence

looked in cracks and corners for brown or grey
wings at rest
peered in the lamp's inner sanctum for a caged thing
to no avail
they were but smoke

glass bird

old sketches. . .
My friend found this unfortunate little bird underneath a glass bridge; he had flown into it.
These little drawings developed from the first. From flight to two to fish.

graphite, gesso watercolor, transfers

in queue

All of these little white bowls and cups await attention as my glaze investigations continue. Attempting to etch lines in bisqueware, fill it with a grey underglaze and dip in a satin white glaze, unfortunately those beautiful etched lines are obscured by the opacity of the glaze. Other ideas include mixing some of the white and some clear glaze to get something more translucent or attempting a black underglaze instead. Another route would be to use a very fine squirrel or deer hair brush over the white glaze. There is some deer hair somewhere in my studio waiting to be unearthed and made into brushes, but the place to look escapes me just now.
I'm saving these two pieces shown last week, now bisqued, till I figure out my method. Any suggestions? Today also found me a bit irritable after finding several of my white pieces splashed with black glaze. It was of course an unfortunate accident, but still . . . uggh. Wiped and then scrubbed them off, just hope it won't show up later, especially if I go with a clear glaze. Perhaps I'll take the hint and splash a few intentionally.
This little accident of someone's errant pencil line pleased me though.

This cup carries that lovely white glaze. This glaze is one I had been hoping for all semester and finally saw someone else's piece with it, the glaze bucket is a bit hidden. It's white but the texture is skin. Other than the glaze, it's not a favorite, being too bottom heavy and having a slightly awkward silhouette. Still I proudly brought it home, filled it with water, promptly dropped it and chipped the lip. Some days are just like that.

spin(dle)

Everything is spinning these days. Living in a college town means feeling its pulse quicken at the end-of-semester, exam stress and excitement of summer plans reach through all of us and quicken our own, regardless of our associations with the school.

Taking a tiny break this week from watching the wheel spin to notice the caterpillars on my snapdragon flower arrangement consuming only the blossoms, decided to raise them up to see what kind of butterfly they'd be, feeding their voracious jaws more snapdragons from my garden hoping they'd spin too. Instead most of them disappeared, save one, who mysteriously declined to make a cocoon and burrowed into some cheesecloth near the flower vase, laid there for a few days bloating until I looked again and it had cast off it's soft green skin in exchange for a hard brown one. When touched, its tail wiggles an ineffectual protest. Looked up this mysterious behavior of digging and it seems it may becoming a moth. Apparently butterflies tend to make cocoons while few moths like to burrow.
Hopefully handling it this way won't kill it. Strange isn't it? The deep black eye stares, and while that delicate strand of antennae and wing veins emboss the shell. Fully self-contained and carefully packed, its wings grow, pleating and folding, perfectly aligned parcels. When it exchanges this skin for the next, it will pump nearly all of the body's blood into the wing's hollow capillaries stretching them out until dry, when it will pull its blood back into the body and swim in the air. Until then it lays buried, sleeping, changing; meditating on what it will become as it's cells respond.

Thoughts dwelling on my little moth drawing I made after my mom died- moth(er).

Finally started spinning the wool washed and carded in November. The staple of the wool is short, maybe 2 inches and my tendency is to spin it thin, not yarn but thread really, its thickness wavers a bit like some of the powerlines I watch so carefully, both undulating heartbeats whispering stories about the creation of civilization as we know it. This beginnning from the most raw material building toward the destination, even when unknown, suits me, I love knowing and controlling every step. My tiny garden now includes cotton and flax seedlings to explore this more. The cotton seeds are from cotton bolls I picked in Georgia in November, the flax are from my local grocery store. They were planted on a whim, so a bit late on the cotton and maybe the wrong season for flax.
cotton seedlings 3 1/2 weeks old
flax 3 1/2 weeks old
white acre peas 4 days old (not destined to be fiber, just food)

greenware bonedry

because of this little plate with an accidental mark.

tried some glazes today, fingers crossed.

off 3O1

A road trip find perhaps only fully appreciated when it requires pulling off, navigating a field of pines and palmettos eyes narrowed to watch for rattle snakes, two sets of railroad tracks, and navigating a couple of water-filled ditches while grasping our camera straps between teeth to scramble through thick underbrush. We only stuck around a few minutes, but the sheer scale was astounding. Logs stacked stories high, curved into a stadium whose purpose was closed to us. We felt like sneaks.

The black and white photos are Tommy's and the polas, mine.
I particularly love the sculptural quality in this last image: a smidgen Martin Puryear, a lot Tim Johnson.

Assuage

click image to view larger

for not answering sweet, thoughtful comments
posting with more care
more often

here but far away and finding the computer clumsy and an imperfect medium at the moment. Sometimes it'd be nice to arrange to sit down with each of you for coffee and carrot cake and enjoy the sunshine.



To Alleviate, Mitigate, Assuage, Allay. These words have in common the idea of relief from some painful state; and being all figurative, they differ in their application, according to the image under which this idea is presented. Alleviate supposes a load which is lightened or taken off; as, to alleviate one's cares. Mitigate supposes something fierce which is made mild; as, to mitigate one's anguish. Assuage supposes something violent which is quieted; as, to assuage one's sorrow. Allay supposes something previously excited, but now brought down; as, to allay one's suffering or one's thirst. To alleviate the distresses of life; to mitigate the fierceness of passion or the violence of grief; to assuage angry feeling; to allay wounded sensibility. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.