The Salon Night was a lot of fun. It’s really great to hear each artists’ ideas and stories and why they make what they make. I am surrounded by people who create. I think the common ground is a curious mind and being interested. The idea for Salon Night at Forest came from the conversation I had with Kelly during the interview for the magazine article. We talked about an hour and a half, followed up with several phone calls. I did not expect that I have so much to say about my background, what I’m working on and what I’m interested in. I found having a conversation with others interesting because it brought out things that I did not think of by myself. Especially when I want to say, no, that is not what I meant, it forces me to think what it is then that I’m interested in.
Day Fifty-Nine
I counted. This is day 59. I missed 6 days somewhere.
Good days, bad days, usually it's when I am sitting down for a long time that I find my self not happy, so when that happens I just stand up, go take a walk and work on stuff. Thinking around in a circle frustrates me so I just stop thinking and start working. Two months have passed. I already feel like time is running past me. It is still 2 months. I still have 10 months to go. If this was a life and if I was going to live until 120 years old to make the calculation easier, I just finished my teenage years. It's short and it's long, so I'd better be happy and enjoy what I have.
Day Fifty-Two
I almost forgot putting in a fantasy part. I want to be able to pull out different reactions and emotions with these - something other than ones towards beauty - the feelings for strange things and surprises. The snake-like form made me uncomfortable while I was working on it and it became difficult for me to touch. I fear snakes. The stretching neck made it look a little too realistic so I slitted the neck and the belly open and added more meat to make it more abstract, which could be seen as a sea creature, a worm or a plant perhaps. Working on a sculpture is fun. I haven't worked on pieces that are functionless like these for as far as I can remember. I wonder if this feels selfish to not - I'm not interested in explaining who I am with these objects at all but rather creating a mood. I want to surprise people. Now I think about it this "want to surprise people" has been my motivation for making things and designing things.
Day Fifty-One
The exhibition on Voulkos at Museum of Art and Deign got me excited. Actions and movements you can feel from his works are wonderful. It is not my instinct to leave freshly cut edges like that. I was thinking that thick slab of clay was motionless and lifeless and I was inclined to go thin, so it would show its fluidity but this show changed that view. The part that talked about his process relating to his interest in Jazz and Flamenco music resonated with me and excited me.
Day Fifty
The article came out and I became unnecessarily self conscious. I had a hard time explaining how I came up with the theme “Fantasy and Nightmare” and what I meant by them. During the conversation I came to think that I was trying to identify the unexplainables through working with forms so they would become a tangible object and no longer abstract like an idea since they are given the outline. I thought I had the limitation in literal explanations and that could do better through forms.
I'm still trying to find what I mean. It is an interesting exercise: I started making a list of things I associate with “nightmare” and “fantasy” and came to a place where nightmare is something creeping out from the ground under my feet and is sticky and damp, whereas “fantasy” is someting floating in the air and is light like a feather, fluffy, and supple. Then I just remembered the black and white illustration of forest trees that appear to have eyes and a mouth hovering over a little girl. It’s an illustration from Andersen’s Red Shoes book I read as a child. Now I think about it it’s the image I've been having about a mysterious and scary but curious place. I was terrified by that story. I could be that girl. It's not entirely foreign to me. I read the whole story this morning and it is once again horrifying. I don’t know it was a good thing to start a day. I came out from the apartment and saw dogs running and people gathering in the park under the warm sun. It’s good seeing things alive. After passing by adult skate-borders in the concrete slope field I came to the studio to find young leaves growing towards the windrow. My forest is a not a scary place for this moment. Although often I think plants are kind of creepy. They grow…
Day Forty-Nine
I took out the bike I had not used for a few weeks and went to the waterfront in Williamsburg during the lunch break. I need to see water once in a while. I smell spring in the air. The succulent pots project has completed. I threw plates and cups and now am waiting for them to dry. A new project begins. I feel like running, I cannot not sit still.
Day Forty-Eight
I'm glad I am at home. I almost stayed late at the studio. My day went fast in a scattered way. In the morning I trimmed plates, which I wanted to finish yesterday but didn't, checked the cooling kiln and trimmed cups and saucers. I then finished off the bottom of the glazed pieces to be packed up. This will be the last shipment of the succulent pots. I need to get rid of the habit of checking emails and phones while I am working with clay which is an effective way of getting distracted throughout the day. The problem with this is that not only my work is done in a scattered manner but at the end of the day I don't feel like I accomplished good solid work. This leaves me unsatisfied so I stay late and work late, trying to finish one more thing so I would feel like I finally accomplished something, despite the fact that I know late nights will make me work poorly in the next coming days. It creates a bad cycle.
I received a UPS notification that the package I sent yesterday was delivered. It was actually picked up only a few minutes after I left it in the pickup locker. Thank you - I got lucky. While trimming the plates I came to think that I got the artist statement wrong. I don't agree with what I wrote yesterday. In the statement I said that the project was to help me define my experience through building forms and that "maybe I get to decide if I see fantasy or nightmare". But now I am thinking that is not what the project is about. I do not need to do a project to find out that there are related but opposite ends to a single event or experience that could be an illusion. I was thinking that I have the ability to find the positive side, the fantasy side and see the ripen bananas and smell the sweet scent from guava fruits. No. I want so see the other side. I am more interested in seeing the monstrous banana plant flower that looks like going to swallow my head and the worms creeping out from the fruites on the ground. I would be then fantasizing experiencing nightmare. The project I submitted yesterday shall be called Fantasy And Nightmare As Of Yesterday. There will be another one. "Living a life like my last day" sounds horrifying to me. I would rather make imperfect one today and make another one tomorrow. If it is bad, it will be conveniently forgotten. I would go with Woody Allen's theory. Try lots and one in ten will be okay.