Fall 2013

This is what the Tin Man looks like now.

A week after my last letter introducing the Tin Man as a tool for education, my landlady asked me to leave.  Ostensibly her daughter wants to live in the studio, now that I finished making it cozy.  We had an excellent and extended 14th firing, and then I was blessedly distracted from my hurt and disillusionment by a long string of visits from friends and family.  And beautiful things unfolded: I had already begun a friendship with a gentleman in the country, and he fast-tracked a renovation so that I could have a sweet new studio in time for me to meet a deadline.  Other friends offered me their homes.  My friend Dianne would lift my spirits with the slightest comment and helped me remember that wonderful feeling of partnership in a time of duress.

hi-alumina bricks after 14 firings, most of which involved soda

But the most poignant day for me was the dismantling of the Tin Man.  It took me a year to build that kiln with some excellent help, and it took about 30 people a day to take it apart.  I sent out an SOS to anyone that I thought might be able to help or spread the word and people from every part of my life showed up.  If I hadn’t been zooming around leading the happening, I would have just collapsed in tears of amazement, gratitude and sorrow.  I feel people’s love in little ways all the time, but never have I experienced anything like that: so many of my friends, their friends, my students, even my neighbor, all sweaty and filthy and smiling, helping me with this seemingly insurmountable task of moving 8 tons of Tin Man away from that sad dark place.  Dianne described them as ants- everywhere you look and each focused on a task.

Sandra, Rob and Pate helping with the dome rubble

We had a bucket brigade going at some point, to move the dome rubble into the truck.  We had simultaneous projects, people offering to help rebuild the kiln later, people thanking me! for the chance to participate, new friendships that extended past that event, and of course, burgers that Richard joked were pate.  This is what community looks like in force, if we ever wonder about that increasingly vague word.  To all of you who participated, and everyone who would have were it not for other commitments, you are beautiful people.  I can’t thank you enough.  I wish I had more pictures to share, but we were all so busy.  If anyone else snapped any, please post to the Tin Man site on facebook.  That day is in my memory as a peak, though poignant, life experience.

The two weeks after that were just me keeping my head down and my eyes focused on getting out cleanly and gracefully while active in the creation of the new studio.  And then I slept like the dead, soothed by crickets after gazing at stars, waking to the sound of little kids squealing in the hammock or feeding the goats or running around hooting like owls and goblins.  Five acres of sunshine and berries.  Plots of vegetables, a chicken house, laden fruit trees, a sauna, a large happy family, bees, cats, goats… space, color, light… privacy…respect… silence…. sunshine…… I have woken up in heaven.

So what are my plans now?  Cone 6 porcelain pots: same forms, saturated mason stain interior glazes. And fermenting crocks, also porcelain.  I’m working on the crocks now, and will be vending at the Price Foundation regional conference (in Portland) on sept 21st and 22nd at the booth of my chef and educator friend Tressa Yellig who runs Salt Fire & Time.  A few crocks are currently for sale at Portland Homestead Supply in Sellwood.

This week, though, I will be participating in a tea tasting day at the Jasmine Pearl, on Sept 7th.  The artists who have work in their tasting room will be there at different times- I’ll be there from 1 to 3.  You can meet my buddy Richard Brandt too.  (He makes proper teaware, I highly recommend it).  I’m sure they’ll have some incredible tea and treats, and I will have my last available work from the Tin Man if you would like a memento of this period of my ingenuity.

Despite my eviction, I am participating in Portland Open Studios this year; my friend and neighbor Jill Torberson invited me to demo at her metal studio.  I really like her style, especially for garden pieces.  Come visit us both.  Tour guides are available next week at the usual places: New Seasons, PCPA, indy art stores. And we now have gps apps for both i-phone and droid.

PortCouvers, you should also know that Danny and Michelle of Full Plate Farm are expanding their offering of CSA shares for the winter season.  I was a member last year and was pretty amazed at what they provided and for what price.  A large bin of awesome veggies every other week-  big chicories, juicy carrots, delicious potatoes, huge beets, popcorn!?!, and this year they’re adding duck eggs and honey … check them out..

And the Tin Man?  My beloved kiln?  I don’t know. I carried his heart in my purse for a few weeks. The bricks of his bones are safe in storage at Mt Hood community college.  Who is this potter without her innovative kiln?  I don’t know.  A teacher?  A kiln consultant/ contractor?  A writer?  I don’t know.  A social entrepreneur.  Maybe I am paid to rebuild the kiln at Mt Hood CC, or somewhere else in the area.  Students could use it, and I would run workshops of firings.  Maybe I rebuild it at the new studio someday far far in the future, but this place is also rented and still in flux.  The Tin Man is resting, and I am in no rush to have all the answers.  I remain porous to the offerings of my marvelous new life.

summer 2013

Game on!  The lovely people who help fire my kiln and I have teamed up on a new website called the Tin Man's Hands which features profiles of devoted members and their voices in our cooperative publicity campain.  We will all tell the evolving story about our enjoyment of our process around this kiln, and our experiences in a life of creating both objects and liminal experiences.  Please go explore the evidence of work we’ve done, videos taken, photos captured, statements made, food and laughter and exhaustion shared.  Find links to our personal pages, buy handmade work, and if you are interested in staying in touch with the happenings around this beloved tool of cultural creation, subscribe to the blog on the home page.  I have not automatically signed you up there just because you have chosen to follow me via Cathouse Clay.   I will certainly remind you in the future, but sharing your email further will remain your initiative.  That site is where you will find an active blog, an expansive social media presence, voices from my crew as it grows and changes, and exciting news about how we would like to expand the opportunities of the Tin Man to include the involvement of MFA candidates and guest artists.  We are initiating two annual studio sales of work from the Tin Man and hopefully beyond, and we are all together taking it up a notch!  Please participate!

Co-incidentally, there is a pile of publicity and we have stocked our etsy sites with new (bright colorful for me!) work in perpetual hopefulness: Mandy is being featured on the PADA blog soon and I have been interviewed by Brian R Jones for his podcast which you can listen to on his website.  Brian is a peer of mine, recently garnering recognition for his work in the field, his interesting concepts, and particularly his willingness to speak on topics that are touchy for some: innovations, changing attitudes, subculture (within ceramics), the effect of the recession on our lives, what young makers are up to, and how vital it is to maintain a connection with the past while recognizing new realities.  His podcast has been very helpful for me as I orient myself in a changing landscape and keep in touch with my peers and teachers on a national level.  I was petrified when he asked me for an interview.  I admit that I spent many days distracted by practicing what I really wanted to say, and I really didn’t impress myself upon delivery.  But, you’ll hear it- the tenacious, the shy, the sad honest, incomplete and hopeful parts of me.  You’ll hear bits of where I’m headed in the future, and a tiny bit of where I’ve been in the past.  Theory on where I am now.  As my old friend would say, it is what it is.  Hope you enjoy it.

Be sure to listen to some other ones too: I always find Simon Levin to be lucid and inspiring. I really enjoyed Victoria Christen’s interview.  Every time I’ve seen her since, I imagine her on rollerskates… such a perfect compliment to the rest of her spunk! Be sure to check out the interview with JP Reuer too: he directs the MFA program with whom I want to collaborate or offer the Tin Man as an educational tool.  There is a lot of hot conversation/ education here in Portland about social practice in the arts.  That’s how I landed on social entrepreneur as a paradigm moniker.  I talk about that too.  If anyone wants to discuss these topics, please be in touch- its really close to my heart.   Or just sign up for the TinMansHands subscriptions, where I’ll be initiating discussion via the blog. 

Lots of love-

Careen

spring 2013

That I am able to write a newsletter edition on my last “wet clay day” is a testament to how much more collected I am in preparation for this upcoming firing than I have been in the past.  The “last wet clay” day is a common designation at schools and studios meaning that if you don’t stop making stuff after this time, it won’t be dry in time for the rest of the stages of the prep process.  Rushing the next stages leads to the headaches, all-nighters and myriad of potential disasters that ceramists have to deal with when meeting a deadline.  Not to say that being on schedule prevents disaster! But it helps alleviate stress.  I sit here with my feet up as a good lunch simmers on the stove. 

By now, I’m running on the momentum of all that I have created here: a studio, a simple home, an awesome kiln, a network of fellow independents, and a vision of a more gentle future.  It doesn’t relate to the mainstream market at all.  But that market is one of many realities.  I don’t know exactly what Brian Jones will address in his upcoming talk at NCECA, but I know that he is using me as one of a few examples of makers getting flexible in their approach to the shifting market.  As the art world debates what happens after post-modern art, it seems like really, anything goes, so long as its presented well and cleverly argued for.  Ever the vanguard, art twists the psychology of marketing.  I am looking there too. 

Much of last year, pardon my low-class language, sucked, and I drew a few conclusions.  I’ve had it with the way I’ve been moving forward re trying to earn a living.  I’m looking elsewhere, and not to the saturated local teaching job market (sigh).  I’m intrigued, slightly hopeful, about my potential as an industrial designer.  I am well aware that it could become a full-time energy vacuum, but I am motivated to give it a fair shake.  I have a lot of confidence in my designs, and I think they could lend themselves well to industrial process and finish.  Teaming up with Mudshark Studios is exciting, friendly, a little nerve-wracking, and ultimately leads to a few key marketing points.  It’s a local story, about rebuilding economies and bringing ethics (and beauty) back into consumption.  Bits and pieces drop into place one after another:  knowledgeable people believing in me too and offering me their advice or assistance, or my beloved Portland Open Studios (app deadline Mar 15, PDX!) board suddenly dropping into a discussion on branding and strategic marketing assisted in part by a book called “Marketing that Matters” written by the director of the firm that assisted the marketing for New Seasons.  Intended to guide businesses that have a social justice or environmental awareness, the book could not have landed on my desk at a more perfect time.

This is what I am currently taking action towards:  I work towards my big life goal of establishing a residency in line with permaculture principals.  I earn a living wage (or better!) as a part-time industrial designer.  I continue to make work in my studio, offering more to the widening trade network in this fair city of big thinkers.  The industrial work becomes a business card for my studio work, ideas and long-term action.  I get into a positive feedback loop around deep green action and end up with a trade-based food-only tab at high-end sushi joints who source their foods sustainably, serve the patrons on my dishes: I’m their VIP at the bar and so are you because I invited you out to dinner!  Sound good? Ok, send your cosmic vibrations of crazy possibility towards that reality.  Yes! THANKS!  You help me make it happen! 

For the moment, you can find a fresh kiln-load of my work at the OPA Ceramic Showcase at the Convention Center on April 26th, 27th and 28th. 10am-9pm Friday & Saturday, 10am-5pm on Sunday. (free admission- but the pots are for sale- ha! no trades allowed here) .  and, no, I won’t be at NCECA.  Hopefully I’ll be bending nails in this really great guy’s barn, turning part of it into a living space.  (this seems to be my carpentry specialty) 

Big love!  C

winter 2012

It’s the last day of my temporary teaching gig at Pacific University.  My students come find me in the borrowed office for seven minutes each to show me their final piece and share feedback.  It’s been excellent, a challenge, enriching for all.  At the close of the day, Terry O’Day tells me the latest progress that has stemmed from her tenacity, and at my request, goes through her library sharing titles for my future education.  I want to tell you about this woman: she is so rad.   She’s the woman for whom I’m filling in at Pacific U this term.  She and her husband did blown glass for a long time, found their niche and did all right, but she grew weary of making objects.  Not the work of it but the fact of taking refined materials and producing more stuff.  She got a job at PacU and set about creating a classroom environment that fosters a comfort with the nature of the clay.  But she also founded a permaculture project on land that the campus leases, and has worked there with a teaching philosophy in line with experiential education: DO the thing to make the mistakes to see the results to learn the best action.  This is not a lecture, it’s a lab: the learning is in the work of it, the observations over time, and a debrief of that work’s result. 

On her sabbatical, she is trying to create an Artisanal Craft major at the school (or a permaculture certificate) (or insinuating these ideas into freshman level core courses via a major grant): organizing existing classes and putting the role of the handmade object into its historical and contemporary cultural contexts (pre and post industrial age) as well as in ecological context as our use of materials becomes more pertinent to our environmental health.   As she jets from one place to the next, she also takes long moments to share with me her insights into, well, all that and also resource-based economy, founding something in a way that allows it to grow and support itself over time, her trip to Italy to represent the local Slow Food movement, Deep Green vs Bright Green vs Green Washed, and as to be expected, we can talk for an hour about eating meat.  

Sadly, at this point, it sounds like admin isn’t really going for this new major.  For one thing, the art department is about art, writ Art, not craft, and won’t budge about that.  Never mind the historical dominance of fine craft for millennia and meta-thinky Art as the new kid on the block.  But for another thing, the whole premise of the major is based on systems thinking (new to me, and I have much more to read about it), awareness of design, writ large: that we would do well to have young people aware of and practiced in what it takes to analyze a situation in its micro and macro perspective and make critical decisions about how to move forward while knowing how to do so because they have some hands-on experience.  Using a permaculture garden as a lab setting or tool/ metaphor.  It’s a different paradigm, a different teaching philosophy than the status quo. 

This is why I call her rad: a radical, and totally undaunted by the system.  Laughing (as always), she describes herself as a visionary wacko maniac.  She is widely and effusively beloved by her students.   At the close of today, she tells me the latest: the college of Business is splitting off from the college of arts and sciences, and the director is very excited about her proposals.  Wonderful news!  As she pulls books for me about craft, design, and permaculture, I ask her advice about attending the multi-week workshop at the Bullock's Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island that I am thinking of attending.  She says, read these, develop some questions, go visit them.  And then go visit again each year.  I assume, and state, oh, to see how their place changes over time… she smiles… go there every year because you will change, your ability to see what is there will change…  I love her- that she can be so right on, yet correct me so gently.  I don’t envy aspects of her job.  But I do wonder at whatever path of patience she has traveled that has led her to glow the way she does.  I will miss those crinkly Mongolian eyes beneath that orange baseball cap.

Here’s her reading list: A theory of craft- howard risatti / the craft reader / the unknown craftsman / choosing craft, an artist's perspective / beauty of craft / Glimmer / the third teacher / the design of business / the link in above paragraph / farmers of 40 centuries - fh king / Fukuoka - 1 straw revolution / david holmgren - pathways to sustainability / toolbox for sustainable city living- scott kellogg / linda weintraub's series on art and permaculture, also, "to life" / earthuser's guide to permaculture - rosemary morrow / gaia's garden - hemenway / just enough- brown / sep holzer's permaculture

I must do my duty, since this newsletter is also announcements for where to find my work! Lots of potters are having studio sales.  For a map, go to the OPA website for the pdf.  Here’s a shout for Victoria Christen, whose work I have admired since I first saw it at Linda’s house a decade ago.  Go to her studio this weekend for soul-warming earthenware.   Mandy and I have joined the good people at Mudshark Studios, et al, in a pop-up shop downtown for a holiday sale.  Located right across from the Real Mother Goose, it is in a prime location with extensive open hours from now till Christmas.  Please join us on first Thursday (this coming) for brandy sipping and hob-nobbing..  Full details on this facebooky page. 

For sale is my studio work and also the results of this year’s adventure with Mudshark Studios: a slip-cast version of my popular mug in white or black.  I tried on a new hat this year: designer.  How does it look?  New Seasons Market likes it: ordered 260 mugs wholesale, and they are currently for sale at all 9 stores that have a homegoods department (everywhere in OR minus Hawthorne).  Dubbed the Mermaid’s Cup, they are a story of local economy, and as such, a litmus test for where my attention will go in the future.  Retailing at 25 dollars a pop, they aren’t Chinese cheap.  But almost everyone’s earning a living wage from concept to cash register.  “Buy Local” is what it says on the featured product image.  Yup, that’s me as a mermaid, dressed in my hair with threads of pbr beads and blue make-up.  Please let me know if you search for them and don’t find. 

Ps… I received many kind replies to last quarter’s newsletter.  Thank you.  You are marvelous people. Life has taken a remarkable turn for the better in the past few months….......  “they say the darkest hour is right before the dawn” (Dylan)............

May your holidays be full of friends and good food..........

fall 2012

At some hour of the evening every Thursday, Brooke of Big Fork Farms drives by in her pickup to deliver the bushel box of vegetables.  I never see her, as it is that evening that I teach at the community college over the summer. I return home at 10, anticipating an evening of stewing down kale with onion to put in freezer bags, blanching carrots, crunching down cabbage, radish, and homegrown nigella into a saurkraut for my morning eggs with toast.  Can you freeze saurkraut?  Inevitably I turn to the interwebs for answers before the evening’s tasks. (the answer is no, it kills the good bacteria).  The whole point of joining a CSA is to also “put food by”, preserve it somehow for the winter months ahead.  Extend the enjoyment and nourishment of the bounty.  An accumulation of chard stems, carrot, onion, and beet tops becomes stock tonight, then potato is boiled in it to make a vat of soup base that will freeze well for many dreary February nights. 

This brings me enormous pleasure.  In my current state, it provokes the same peace that a good day of making pots can bring.  Which begs the question: which part of the peace is the active part?  The clay is elemental, as is the food.  I spend more and more time in the kitchen these days.  Mandy asks me what I read- eventually I have an answer- I read cookbooks.  I love to eat well. I love learning about the balance of sour, salty and sweet as I do the balance point of one of Clary’s mugs. I am not your beans and rice artist, sorry.  I skip the truffle oil but I don’t hesitate to buy goat cheese.  My wine is cheapish, and I share it. 

A punk that I was dating some time ago said that she wanted to have an attitude that the world is abundant.  Fair enough.  Admirable, even.  And it is, if you make it that way.  She was also stingy with her time and ended the relationship.  Do I blame her? Nah.   She was doing her best with the available information.  But sometimes I miss her… among sharing other delights, I think there was plenty of space for me to show her the seasons- this is harvest time- this is the time when cabbages are as big as my head, so lets do some work now, we animals with tools, to have more later when the cold settles and the land is unyielding.  I don’t want to take your anti-depressants in the winter of your discontent.

Creating my own health.  Growing it, soil first.  I’m going out on a limb here, and I mean no offense, but I associate her kind of hopefulness with faith.  Oh, God will provide me with what I need.   Maybe God looks like the grocery store full of packaged imports, but what happens when Monsanto invades the food production and pushes the shutdown of family farms?  What happens when both your lovers move away and the big art fair that killed your summer barely pays back expenses?  What happens when it seems like all my hard-working friends inventing so many better ways to move forward lack community critical mass?  And the misogyny and idiotic racism is still there, the soldiers are killing themselves, and the galleries are closing too?  Apparently God’s not on our schedule.  Or as Tom Waits proposes, “God’s away on business”…

....But at risk of leaving you with only sour, not salty and sweet, I will happily acknowledge the abundance of my life: the fact that my personal expression does not precipitate a hate-filled death, the steady help from my parents without which I might never have dared to live the way I try to do, my numerous friends from so many backgrounds, and the serendipity of other meetings and opportunities in this fair city in this lush NW in this, the most spoiled country in the world.   May you and I live out these days of abundance in as little frustration as possible….. 

Here’s to that….

oh, and by the way- hope to see some of you at the Utilitarian Clay Conference soon!  My ears will be wide open to your stories, as encouraging as you have been of me telling mine.

also, hey Portland!: Remember Portland Open Studios!  This is the annual self-guided tour of art studios when 100ish artists will open their creative space and share with you their working methods and inspiration.  I'll be making pots, if you want to come see me in action. I always look forward to this event, since so much of my story is around me in my studio and I don't have to go on about it in words.  Kid-friendly, all over the metro area, educational, and often a great place to pick up great holiday gifts made by people that you love...  do swing by!  My studio will be open, and I'll have plenty of work for sale, including seconds at $5 a pound.  Pick up a ticket at New Seasons Market or online at their website.  Hope to see you!

Best Wishes-

Careen

summer 2012

After such a busy winter and sunny spring, I dare hope for an amazing summer. I will be exhibiting work at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival in mid-June, and will have a booth at the Bellevue Arts Fair in late July (#I-06). Hosted by the Bellevue Art Museum with its focus on craft, the fair is of long-standing excellent repute in the NW and promises to be a relatively lucrative one for me. I am psyched to have been accepted. Relieved too, since the juries of other regional hi-mid-quality fairs did not esteem my work enough to include me in their selections. I am weary of that high-stakes gamble and will move towards applying for retail representation next year. Fairs are a serious hassle for the full earnings which are still mediocre, and impossible to do alone. Fortunately, I have Mandy’s help for this one. I hit a low point recently, concerning all this. If you’d like to read about it, look to this blog post.

After the fair, I will be visiting with friends and family in various places as well as attending Burning Man for the first time. My body and hopefully enough of my mind will return just in time to pick up a one-term teaching job at Pacific University this fall.  Thank god for teaching, man... students energize me; I like the regular little paycheck... I get into it...  But too much would kill the joy..

So who’s this Mandy girl you keep talking about? Well, that’s her, trying to move a petrified tree…. Mandy is my first ever (sound of a little copper bugle) studio assistant! She’s been making work and making me laugh in my studio here for a number of months now, and a very welcome addition to my world. Connected by a mutual friend, she has recently completed the same graduate program as I did, and found a ceramics tech job not long after moving to town. With a focus on large slab-construction sculpture, it is a significant shift for her to be making utilitarian ware in my studio, so excellent conversation is growing out of that fertile ground as well as the many commonalities of our personalities.

We have a work for studio space exchange and are slowly tuning the parameters of what both of us think is fair (a little hard to do between two workaholics). For Mandy's artist statement and info about the studio assistantship program, look to this page. Here's a vimeo tour of the studio. She will be here until the completion of her solo show at the Blackfish Gallery Cooperative in June 2014. The position will then be available to another woman, should you know of someone else who might be a good match for the situation.

This winter I sat in front of a huge sheet of paper to “mind-map” the short and long term goals of my professional life. Coincidental to that was a series of group meetings called Vision Planning for the Community Minded, hosted by a somewhat fledgling cooperative workspace and facilitated by a potent independent consultant named Cheri Anderson. Free but incredibly valuable, the conversations greatly assisted me in analyzing my branding, vision, and mission statements.  Not an easy task, that! Here's what I ended up with for a business card:

Have I captured myself?  Seriously, I'd love to know what comes to mind when you see this... The back describes me as a potter, instructor, and mentor as well as including the more extended explanation that I make "luscious porcelain for everyday ritual created with ecological consciousness".  Branding-wise, its hard to get into the details of my sweet kiln without the message getting confusing... Wait, she's dirty, but she's clean?!?  Marketing my"self" as an artist is arguably the greatest existential loop I've ever traveled.

The Vision and Mission Statements were just as hard, and as yet unfinished. Basically, my vision was for a contemporary culture in alignment with permaculture principals and international social justice. Just a leeeeetle too broad! Someone heard my statement in the group and asked “where’s the handmade pots part of that?”, a completely valid question. Uhm…. so ubiquitous that it doesn’t need to be mentioned? Clearly, I have a long ways to go before I get my vision condensed into one lifetime's worth of work.  Can I make a vision statement for how I see my interaction with this world continuing three hundred years after my corporal death?  I can, apparently, since a vision is just that, separate of my ego, if you will.  Eventually, I tuned it to this: A return to interpersonal economies of heirloom-quality goods produced in awareness of nature's needs.  The pace of contemporary life is sustainingly slow, with gatherings of friends, neighbors & travelers over slow-cooked foods served on hand-made dishes.

As a related closing note, I haven't spoken about Reseach Club recently, but it is still a very important part of my life.  My friend Nim Wunnan is a source of great inspiration to me.  He is the mover and shaker behind RC and now the Portland Passport Project, which tried to take RC to a new dynamic with both web-based and analogue media.  Based on the modus operandi that we are truly fed by face to face interaction with like-minded curious people, the passport project seeks to create a record of same, mapping and stamping our everyday journeys to interesting gatherings around portland.  By tangibly connecting organizations like Portland Open Studios and Supportland with individuals like you and me, the reminiscing over looking at accumulated stamps could be as contagious as remembering those from international travel.  And its one beautiful example of the kind of cultural activity that has me waking in the morning more energized than melancholy.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough community commitment.  As Nim writes: "we have not acheived escape velocity".  But you know what's super-sweet?  Some of these people that I met through RC brunches are becoming genuine friends.  These are the kind of people that I wanted to find in this little city.  This kind of friendship is what makes life worth living, and THAT, my friend, is what feeds more cultural creation.  I'll be there at Portland Prom, quite likely dressed as a cat in coat-tails. hope you can join us....

spring 2012

I think my life is charmed.  Let me give you an example.  Yesterday Richard and I drove to Seattle (completely underslept, having packed my truck in the pouring rain the night before) to install the Tin Man’s contribution to the show of work from woodfire kilns of the northwest timed in conjunction with NCECA.  All was well: a few hiccups, a few questions, whatever, the venue looks good, hung out with an old friend in the evening, slept in a euro-chic hostel next door, take care of small things this morning, and drive home to Portland in the sunshine.  Drop off Richard in time for him to make an important meeting, and start driving home.  I get to downtown and there are these new light-rail tracks set into the right-hand lane of a four-lane artery, and I have no power steering in my 48-year old pickup: it feels weird to have that steel and gap under the tire.  But after a few hundred feet, its not just weird, it’s amiss… I pull into Sheridan’s and have difficulty parking.  I think well, lets just drive around a side-street for a sec… all of a sudden I have no brakes.  No brakes!  …… well, AAA was there in less than five minutes.  Zip zop, and I’m at my mechanic’s.  Seven minutes pass and I’m on the right bus.  Three minutes and I’m transferred to another bus.  It takes me about an hour and a half more time to get home than I expected, but all the pots that I formed, bisqued, glazed, fired, cleaned, packed, drove, unpacked, installed.. are in Seattle where they should be.  I had already arranged to catch a ride with Mandy to the Jack Troy workshop and up to Seattle for the conference.  My mechanic has a week and a half to fix my dear Moby, and I don’t even need groceries.  I’m safe, I’m situated, I’m drinking prosecco, I got to spend time with my amazing friend last night… I mean… what am I doing right here?   … thank you?  Thank you….  who?

So NCECA is here, and I’m hustling.  Everybody’s excited, I’ll buy some sweet pots from the artstream, awkwardly bump into people I haven’t seen in years, see some amazing work all over town (Nordstrom has clay shoes in their window display!), end up with more questions than answers, kick myself for this response or that mishap, laugh my head off with people I haven’t seen in years, and then it will all be over.  I’d be fine with just that.  But this is the catch: I’m not just showing a few pieces in a gallery or two during that time, but have a significant amount of work for sale at this show.  The owner of Pots gallery. Mike Peck, is a woodfire enthusiast, and had his eye on a sweet old building was used for Eagles meetings, and now art and who knows what else: it’s a hall in Fremont, and for NCECA he converted it into a space where the owners of kilns that fire with wood can show work with their crew. Its really nice for me to be able to exhibit not just my work, but offer the opportunity to my crew who may not have such a chance otherwise.  Obviously there will be openings everywhere and mystery and mayhem, but if you’re at nceca, please do stop by on Friday evening… Oddfellows Hall, 3509 fremont ave, to say hello. yes, it's on the shuttle loop.  Mike seems like a very dear man and he has organized shows at pots gallery as well as the Gail Nichols show and David Hollander.  This show is cool in that there’s such a huge variety of kilns- from student-friendly cat kilns on college campuses to gorgeously sculpted anagamas in the woods to kilns that have survived over a hundred firings, and of course, the Tin Man, yours truly, owned and constructed by the only woman, and reprazentn’ quite well if I do say so myself.  Here’s the facebook event post with the full press release.  I wrote the releases for this show and the woodfire cups show to work off part of our participation fee.  Nice to exercise my new skills learned from Portland Open Studios.

Hope to see you out painting the town!

fall 2011

Summer... blessed summer… this lady who mostly grew up in Florida becomes seriously depressed if jailed in a computer during the fleeting Oregon summer months. That’s what happened in late July this year, but never again!! Summer is a time for outdoor projects, potlucks, bbq’s, Allison’s wedding, thighs sore from bicycling miles to see friends, languishing, table surfaces taken over by drying calendula and nigella seeds … summer belongs to the forest, the mountain lake or the abandoned lot, sock hops on freshly waxed hardwood, and occasionally coming home to a mess in the kitchen sink because it is the place where studio, garden, and dishes are all washed, and nothing is more important in summer than doing everything other than keeping the place ship-shape!

But I can’t do everything, hard as I try. I am focused on continuing to make my home as flexible and efficient as can be. (read: endless construction/repair).  These photos are the exterior paint before and after, and then I had opportune moment to paint a mop-able (and yes, orange) interior floor.

I am also focused on constructing something else: a plan to increase visibility of my work through collaboration with chefs, small cafes, and “pop-up” dinner parties. Is there scarcity in the economy? What if I value social entrepreneurship instead? I make objects, yes, but for the purpose of nourishment and social gathering. Surely I can find a way in this town that loves to eat, drink, and make merry…

On the daily, I scrounge. A walnut comes down six houses away- I rally and make sure the branches are in my pickup. A friend and fellow ceramicist plans a long trip to Brazil- the shade-loving rare plants of her garden find home here and the tables of her studio become my newly created spaces for students. I am preparing spaces in my studio and garden where an assistant could work, or I could host private instruction. Next year should be fairly full-tilt: my internship doing PR for Portland Open Studios is phasing out and my focus can return to my work. I feel that I have done well by them, and they by me. I have truly assisted in their growth, and they in mine. And I look forward to assimilating that knowledge into my bigger picture.  I didn't realize how much of a freight train I had moving in the studio until I had to stop it to do this service.

Speaking of Portland Open Studios, its coming up Oct 8,9, 15,16- all ye in Portlandia who may want a ticket, do get in touch. This is the best time to visit with me in my studio and watch me make pots. I will as usual have a table set up outside with seconds at $5/ pound. They go pretty fast, so come early. If you’d like to visit with just me, awesome- no ticket necessary. But if you’d like to meet 98 more interesting people and watch them do their thing, pick up a color tour guide ($15) from any new seasons market, or a $5 map from any artist (ns too,later). Tix are good for two all four days.. portlandopenstudios.com for more info: I was in charge of overhauling the website this year, so its pretty legible now.  go check it out.  i-Phone app tix too.

To close, I also have a kind of “best of recent large work” show at a sweet community workspace called Collective Agency through November. In the vein of Research Club but more in the conference/ social geek direction, it is in a great old town location (in an old brothel!.. how appropriate for the Cathouse’s productivity).

Tigridia: blooms in semi-shade or a vase: thanks Jacey!!

winter 2011

Chopin’s Nocturnes drift up from the studio as I sit at a desk below one of two big skylights in the attic.  About one of the past five years has been consumed in the piecemeal construction of the space above my carriage house studio into a bedroom and living space.  I finished the last chapter on Sunday (and, sigh, must promptly tend to other urgent tasks, as usual).  The space is as wide as the footprint below (380 sq feet), with a 6 foot peak: a worthy amount of space.  But was it ever a back-breaker of a project!- constantly hunched or jammed into a tight corner with a hundred year old layer of dirt and nails poking through the shingles. Hooray for torque-drive framing screws! And much of the materials were reclaimed: ship-lap flooring, cabinet doors, fir panels, insulation, dumpster dimensional lumber, an octagonal window...  But what one does not pay for in clean materials, one must pay for in labor.  Someone tell me why I undertook this project on property that isn’t mine…. Well, I do know, somewhat… the awkward girl has grown into a capable woman.  But toughness alone will not answer the human urge for stability.  My landlady and I may have shockingly different approaches to yard care, but we are perfectly aligned on the subject of a safe space.  She appreciates me as I am, she extends an angel’s wing over me as a person and over the ceramics operation that’s probably bigger than she ever imagined.  I am sheltered under these trees, and we all feel the coming storm.

There will always be maintenance, but with that done, a kitchen, shed, garden, and awesome kiln constructed, I am now FINISHED with the material investment stage of establishing myself in Portland.  Now for the hard part: becoming a unicorn: an autonomous potter actually making a living wage off her work.  The internship doing PR work for Portland Open Studios is also coming to a close now: about 1200 hours over the past two years.  I have sort of learned a more gentle language and some more computer skills, I’ve interviewed some great artists, learned how I can use but don't love facebook, and gotten a sense of how to deal with the media. I’ve learned that even though I can actually fake it at the business suit meetings (thanks to pieces of my mother’s wardrobe!), I’m still miles more comfortable in torn shirts with my potters.  And this last point is very significant for me: spending this much time essentially volunteering will likely silence the monkeys in my head telling me that I’m selfish for chasing this dream of indy studio ceramics when it is so clearly not economically viable. What did Simon Levin quip?: "Woodfire: work harder, not smarter!"

Well, teamwork has always been key to solving the impossible.  Not a month had passed between when I had created a space for an assistant to when I was very loosely interviewing Mandy Stigant.  She is a recent grad of the same program I attended, and we found an instant kinship in many surprising ways.  She spends some evenings and days here making pots in exchange for the promise of her help with art fairs next year.  My goal is four firings and four shows.  NCECA will be one of them: look for the Tin Man and his crew represented at a show across from Pots Gallery called Woodfire Kilns of the Northwest.  I will also finally get my applications out to places like Akar and the Signature Shop.  I think my work has matured enough to try. 

But I’m still focused locally.  This coming weekend and the next, all you Portlanders who love clay, please swing by Mudshark Studios’ new location near Sandy and 20th.  Twenty one ceramics professionals are exhibiting in a holiday sale.  I’m talking about sweet little pots, slip-cast growlers, and gnarly big sculpture.  The likes of Katy McFadden, Richard Brandt, Brad Mildrexler, yours truly (and Mandy’s puzzles too!)  … or at least come join us for live music and a keg of Widmer Bro’s brew on the Friday nights…  check out canowoop.com for details.  We’re on the OPA map as Christy Lombard. See you there!

Have a warm and friend-filled holiday!

Careen