(no subject)
I'm thinking about my old ceramic-sculpture teacher. Man, he was cool.
See, there's this idea in show-quality sculpture that you have to stick to the Old Ways -- namely, always glaze, never paint, and if it breaks you're done for.
Mr. Regalado didn't go in for that shit. He was what I call a genuine artist -- he cared more about making things look cool than he did about keeping to some fictional unheated-garrett standard. He gave us an entire three-day lesson on mending work so no one can tell it ever broke. (The end of the lesson was, "If it's absolutely cracked beyond repair, raku it. Raku will hide anything and it's cheaper than throwing away your clay and kiln time.")
My favorite piece of his -- now shattered to pieces, sadly -- was a caterpillar in a fez, with a face that bore a mildly alarming resemblance to the Cheshire Cat. He was a cat-erpillar. He had three sets of arms (legs that he didn't stand on, anyway), two of which were folded. Of the top pair, one twirled his Fu Manchu mustache, and the other held a cup of tea. The tea in the cup was formed by a dab of hot glue, which anchored a thread-and-paper tag which trailed from his tea bag (presumably). His thick semi-segmented body sprouted toothbrush bristles. Since he was part cat, his thick tail curved perkily up, revealing a ... realistically-placed ... airhole.
The Cat-erpillar (I always pronounced this CATerpillAR) was painted entirely in acrylic, and no all-glaze traditional piece will ever replace it for sheer wicked whimsy.
I believe this post stemmed from a vague existential guilt I occasionally feel, because as a writer I'm supposed to be living in the infamous unheated garrett, using my drug addiction and hatred of my parents to fuel impassioned, foodless three-day writing sprees. I mean, I live in an attic, yeah, and I once had a mild Vicodin dependency which I still maintain was not a pain-management problem but a pain problem (let's play spot-the-reference!), but I like my parents, despite the fact that my mum's OCD and my dad is descending into grumpy alcoholism, and the very idea of missing meals for the sake of My Art causes me to laugh wildly and go make myself a low-fat peanut butter sandwich.
I don't know what I'm talking about. This is when I usually go to bed and I just got up, so ... yeah. Nothing to see here folks.
See, there's this idea in show-quality sculpture that you have to stick to the Old Ways -- namely, always glaze, never paint, and if it breaks you're done for.
Mr. Regalado didn't go in for that shit. He was what I call a genuine artist -- he cared more about making things look cool than he did about keeping to some fictional unheated-garrett standard. He gave us an entire three-day lesson on mending work so no one can tell it ever broke. (The end of the lesson was, "If it's absolutely cracked beyond repair, raku it. Raku will hide anything and it's cheaper than throwing away your clay and kiln time.")
My favorite piece of his -- now shattered to pieces, sadly -- was a caterpillar in a fez, with a face that bore a mildly alarming resemblance to the Cheshire Cat. He was a cat-erpillar. He had three sets of arms (legs that he didn't stand on, anyway), two of which were folded. Of the top pair, one twirled his Fu Manchu mustache, and the other held a cup of tea. The tea in the cup was formed by a dab of hot glue, which anchored a thread-and-paper tag which trailed from his tea bag (presumably). His thick semi-segmented body sprouted toothbrush bristles. Since he was part cat, his thick tail curved perkily up, revealing a ... realistically-placed ... airhole.
The Cat-erpillar (I always pronounced this CATerpillAR) was painted entirely in acrylic, and no all-glaze traditional piece will ever replace it for sheer wicked whimsy.
I believe this post stemmed from a vague existential guilt I occasionally feel, because as a writer I'm supposed to be living in the infamous unheated garrett, using my drug addiction and hatred of my parents to fuel impassioned, foodless three-day writing sprees. I mean, I live in an attic, yeah, and I once had a mild Vicodin dependency which I still maintain was not a pain-management problem but a pain problem (let's play spot-the-reference!), but I like my parents, despite the fact that my mum's OCD and my dad is descending into grumpy alcoholism, and the very idea of missing meals for the sake of My Art causes me to laugh wildly and go make myself a low-fat peanut butter sandwich.
I don't know what I'm talking about. This is when I usually go to bed and I just got up, so ... yeah. Nothing to see here folks.