art quote – Doctor 1.14.2021

The creative life is not a straight line. There is no map for making, only an orientation. It’s a poetic, unpredictable spiral. It’s the discipline of returning to the same practices again and again, regardless of circumstance. No matter how flourishing your life as a maker is, or how successful you are, you don’t ever …

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annual donating in 2020, and a poem 12.31.2020

This year, in keeping with my desire to "give back" by donating a portion of my art sales to charitable organizations, I'm donating to the Madison School & Recreation pottery program. Their mission statement is "MSCR will enhance the quality of life for individuals in the Madison Metropolitan School District and for the community by …

poem – Oliver 12.17.2020

Walking Home from Oak-Head By Mary Oliver There is somethingabout the snow-laden skyin winterin the late afternoon that brings to the heart elationand the lovely meaninglessnessof time.Whenever I get home - whenever - somebody loves me there.MeanwhileI stand in the same dark peaceas any pine tree, or wander on slowlylike the still unhurried wind,waiting,as for …

word orbs 12.3.2020

One of my favorite songs is Kate Bush's 50 Words for Snow - basically a list in song. And posted on my wall I have a list, cut out from a newspaper long ago, of 100 words for precipitation. I like lists. Perhaps I learned list love (or list lust) from my mom, Eleanor, who …

perennial seed starting 11.19.20

I've collected perennial seeds in the past and started them in small pots, but after I watched this video about seed starting, created by the park staff where I live in Dane County, Wisconsin, I decided to "go bigger!" Perennial seeds in the midwest need a cold period to germinate, so they have to spend …

art quote – Le Guin 11.5.2020

Art isn't explanation. Art is what an artist does, not what an artist explains. (Or so it seems to me, which is why I have a problem with the kind of modern museum art that involves reading what the artist says about a work in order to find out why one should look at it …

community mural 10.22.2020

In August of this year, I learned about a collective, community mural to be displayed on the University of Wisconsin campus here in Madison. Any community member could participate in this socially distanced art event, called "Threads of Hope." One could use any media they wanted, as long as it fit on an 8x8 inch …

head planter 10.15.2020

My youngest child Berit requested that I make a head planter for her birthday this year. Here's the planter when it's still at raw clay stage - before any firing has occurred. Here are a few shots after firing. She's glazed with white shino.White shino allows for some of the brown clay to show through …

6-year blogiversary 10.1.2020

Yesterday was the 6-year blogiversary of this blog. I published my very first post on September 30, 2014, using a free wordpress.com theme. Then, for the last two years, I tried and tested an upgraded, "premium" WordPress theme. With that premium theme, which cost money to use, I'd hoped to sell my paintings and ceramics …

poem – Eliot 9.24.2020

Wait Without Hope By T.S. Eliot I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.Wait without thought, …