ceramics, etc.
I can't believe it's only 11:35, this record will no doubt hold for the rest of the semester for the earliest time I've been home after painting and ceramics.
My project these past few weeks in my "Real major", has been cups and saucers. My painting prof at PSU, Susan, said that I have a very classical style like Hopper and Cornell. Indeed, sister, indeed. I find myself being at my most "classical" in pottery these days. My tea cups are elegant and the saucers are each nicely burnished and complimentary. Everything about them is polite. This is perhaps why, in the last four of the set of ten, I augmented most of the tea cups to fit inside eachother and tip awkwardly out of one side. I love how jarring their presence is: beautifully smooth then suddenly cut right down the middle. It all works somehow. The handles I pulled are my best yet (pat on the back) and perhaps the most handsome part of the whole structure. Still, they'll never be as good as Patti's...when I grow up, I want to be just like her.
Patti, now a widow for almost three years, has lived in a renovated southern-style sun house with a pottery studio downstairs, hand-made wares about the white-washed kitchen, and a driven high school daughter fast-scribbling her calculas homework. I am at peace in her house with warm colors, and a springer spaniel that out does any springer spaniel I've ever met (in countenance as well as energy). I remember eating her frittata and wondering how people get to live in such a calm nest of a house with everything they need/want. Everything was in its rightful place, and I just felt so in awe. I can now tell everything about her house in the way she pulls and finishes her mug handles.
I'm just about done with my personal statement for the Educational Resources Group application. I think it needs about 8 more read throughs to make sure I'm not coming off as too flowery or abstract (as is the complaint of my last two thesis proposals..hmm). I don't even know if it's all worth it? Who wants to teach the beauties of design to a demographic of the wealthy. Perhaps they're the only ones that can afford to be so "expressive". I was thinking about this the other day, if I had grown up without much means, would I have still chosen to become an artist? Or would I be slugging away at some kind of pre-med degree..or (whoamIkidding) is it all predestined? Could I be nothing else but an artist/teacher/something? Would money have determined nothing? Wasn't Leonardo DaVinci one of the most prolific artists/scientists/persons in our history and yet he grew up a farmer? Is it the ability to think to yourself "yes a lot of hardwork, no it won't be hard, yes it's worth it"? Haven't those who live comfortably still been foundational folks in their field (Emerson, etc). I don't know why I've been thinking about this so much lately.
I've started to draft my meeting for worship talk. Things I'll touch upon
1) the profound affect men have had on my religious life
2) the catholic up-bringing of right and wrong: if it feels good, probably not good for you; do what is hard/most difficult--on this point I can't help but think of Joachim Patenier's "Landscape with the Flight into Egypt" as it shows a craggy pass travelled by mary on a donkey and then the pristine--easy life--down below. I always feel like I'm on that donkey, trying my best to find the most difficult path.
3) varanasi india: lots of religion, little spirituality
4) art. eh, you know.
Lauren and jeff are back which means it's going to be loud in this place.
off for tea, headphones and some reading about Shakers.
My project these past few weeks in my "Real major", has been cups and saucers. My painting prof at PSU, Susan, said that I have a very classical style like Hopper and Cornell. Indeed, sister, indeed. I find myself being at my most "classical" in pottery these days. My tea cups are elegant and the saucers are each nicely burnished and complimentary. Everything about them is polite. This is perhaps why, in the last four of the set of ten, I augmented most of the tea cups to fit inside eachother and tip awkwardly out of one side. I love how jarring their presence is: beautifully smooth then suddenly cut right down the middle. It all works somehow. The handles I pulled are my best yet (pat on the back) and perhaps the most handsome part of the whole structure. Still, they'll never be as good as Patti's...when I grow up, I want to be just like her.
Patti, now a widow for almost three years, has lived in a renovated southern-style sun house with a pottery studio downstairs, hand-made wares about the white-washed kitchen, and a driven high school daughter fast-scribbling her calculas homework. I am at peace in her house with warm colors, and a springer spaniel that out does any springer spaniel I've ever met (in countenance as well as energy). I remember eating her frittata and wondering how people get to live in such a calm nest of a house with everything they need/want. Everything was in its rightful place, and I just felt so in awe. I can now tell everything about her house in the way she pulls and finishes her mug handles.
I'm just about done with my personal statement for the Educational Resources Group application. I think it needs about 8 more read throughs to make sure I'm not coming off as too flowery or abstract (as is the complaint of my last two thesis proposals..hmm). I don't even know if it's all worth it? Who wants to teach the beauties of design to a demographic of the wealthy. Perhaps they're the only ones that can afford to be so "expressive". I was thinking about this the other day, if I had grown up without much means, would I have still chosen to become an artist? Or would I be slugging away at some kind of pre-med degree..or (whoamIkidding) is it all predestined? Could I be nothing else but an artist/teacher/something? Would money have determined nothing? Wasn't Leonardo DaVinci one of the most prolific artists/scientists/persons in our history and yet he grew up a farmer? Is it the ability to think to yourself "yes a lot of hardwork, no it won't be hard, yes it's worth it"? Haven't those who live comfortably still been foundational folks in their field (Emerson, etc). I don't know why I've been thinking about this so much lately.
I've started to draft my meeting for worship talk. Things I'll touch upon
1) the profound affect men have had on my religious life
2) the catholic up-bringing of right and wrong: if it feels good, probably not good for you; do what is hard/most difficult--on this point I can't help but think of Joachim Patenier's "Landscape with the Flight into Egypt" as it shows a craggy pass travelled by mary on a donkey and then the pristine--easy life--down below. I always feel like I'm on that donkey, trying my best to find the most difficult path.
3) varanasi india: lots of religion, little spirituality
4) art. eh, you know.
Lauren and jeff are back which means it's going to be loud in this place.
off for tea, headphones and some reading about Shakers.