Rumor Has It

He said, it won't be, like, three posts, right?

No.  There will be more than three.  i've invited authors.  i've done the facebook plug. 

so.

more story time.  let's go back to the beautiful woods of southern Vermont.  to an area devastated by flooding created by Hurricane Irene last year.  that was the last time i heard Foye's voice.

i learned to throw for real back probably around ten years ago.   by chance, probably.  everyone who is involved with clay has their story, their open door-story.  how they met, fell in love with, and have a committed long-term relationship with the stuff.  that's kind of how it works. 

ceramics people aren't short term-types. 

oh -- and we ARE artists.

by the way.  we're not hobbyists.  this is NOT 'craft' -- so let me just set your mind and that debate at ease and put that noise to rest.

because we ARE artists.

i will debate you about it.  and i will win.

you cannot convince me of any other truth.  because it is THE truth. 

yes, if God were above, and He was staring down at Us.  It would be The Truth.  because He Hath made it So.

i have to say in the recent weeks, i have come to realize that i am part of that long-standing argument -- the 'Anything having to do with clay is Craft or Hobby but certainly Not Art'.  and i am happy about it.

i am happy about it because, in every story there is an underdog.  well, maybe not every story.  but in most.  okay, let's say forty-sixty?  how about antagonists?  protagonists?  i think about rebels in history, i think of John Lennon and how he was motivated by something -- what was it?  a strong dislike for the current ways of the world.  the US involvement and the British parliament.  a world dominated by something that we cannot affect.  an economic imbalance.  people in the world suffering.  maybe he was just motivated by drugs and alcohol, i know that happened.  but he was with Yoko.  Yoko.  preeminent artist of her time. 

what do John and Yoko have to do with this?

i could safely say that they are teachers of mine. 

i have had innumerous teachers.  and i will continue to have them, well, forever.  you see, for me, it is impossible to walk through the world without a curiosity and an unquenchable hunger for more.  it's just like that.  i'm just like that.  that's who i am and how my spirit works in this body.  that's just how it is. 

and so.  paths lead me to my teachers.  and then my teachers show me and tell me and then they show me that i need other teachers that want to be my teacher.  you see what i'm saying? 

for example, someone pointed out John and Yoko to me. 

for example, someone pointed out my very first throwing teacher.

and my very first throwing teacher pointed out the UC Berkeley ceramics department.

and now i'm a student participating in the ceramics department at UC Berkeley.

see how that works?

my teacher in southern Vermont, Richard Foye taught me to dress real dirty, like a homeless person.  he said it's useful because it weeds the bad ones out.  if people are judging you from the ouside, then they won't see the inside.  people who see you won't even see what you're wearing mostly.  maybe they see both, but that is pretty rare.  but they ones that just see the outside, you won't have to waste your time, their time.  time saved all around.  not to mention a bad investment.  i think that's what it's really about.  defending oneself and a tendency to be sincere and honest.  so what we were the same clothes three times in a row or for the last two weeks, even.  maybe in the professional world that would strike some as disgusting, weird, abnormal, just plain crazy.  maybe the professional world could be construed as such too from his perspective.

have i mentioned i love Richard Foye?

i love Richard Foye.

this guy.  what a guy.  he's got a Master's in Philosophy from the University of Vermont -- yes, that pays -- but what did pay off was his investment in the ceramics department.  he was hooked.  he was also friends with Ken from Putney -- he makes big plates, what's his name?  i'll remember in a little bit. 

my car was parked at his studio and home for an entire winter while i was in California.  this was about ten years ago.  it was actually an ex-boyfriend that had direct contact with Richard.  they played on the same soccer team.  i was leaving, he asked if it would be okay.  Richard has a big line of cars that he sometimes works on, and he said it was fine, no big deal.  but what Richard didn't know at the time was that i had heard of him.  i had an other friend also tell me of him.  and i had expressed some interest in clay, in pottery, in learning to throw on the wheel.  so i was supposed to go over and learn.  but then i never did. 

until then.  to get my car.  the unhappy break up with that boyfriend happened, and so i had to get in touch with Richard about the car.  and so it began.  i told him that i had held a ceramics job in Philadelphia with Julie Zimmerman Million, helping to make her little slab-built birdhouses.  we went to shows.  we did the schlep-in and schlep-out.  that's what i call it, going to shows, where you have to load in and load out, usually on the same day, sometimes not.  sometimes separated by a few unproductive weekend days where not a lot of merchandise was moved.   he listened.  we talked.   i think that first conversation lasted a while, at least forty-five minutes.  not bad for someone you never even met.

so he invited me to come out, stay in the extra room, and hang out.  Foye's got a certain style of everything.  you like it or you don't.  it's old Vermont.  it's an old creaky house that is totally beautiful.  i love that house.  it smells like fire. 

pick.  that's it.  ken pick.  lives in putney.  great house in putney, vermont.   makes these beautiful large plates, does very well at the shows that he does.

see it works.  if you let your brain do the work, the answers come.  you don't need the internet.  for everything.  you can even have conversations abroad.  without that internet.  but that's another story.

so.  Vermont.  it was the springtime.  it was beautiful, green, everything they say it is.  i had already lived there for a few years by then, and i had grown accustomed to the long dark cold winters and the hot summers.  the swimming holes in Vermont.  i tell you, reason enough to want to move back.  and i think about it from time to time.  there is this one place that is completely surrounded in granitic boulders.  the water is deep and black.  and perfect on a hot July afternoon.  they call them 'ponds' out there -- and in fact, these were the first ponds that i had ever swum in.  i have what they call the 'fish swimming up fear' -- you know, what may be akin to the 'fish biting-off fear' for the guys out there.  know what i mean? 

....to be continued