This head was made from a memory, some years ago. I have long known the importance, for me, of remembering and recuperating the past and so, as soon as I started doing sculpture I had the idea of picking up a head a knew well and ageing it, as in one of those photofits they do for lost people many years later. The poor craftsmanship is a given, this poor man has lost his cheekbones, but then that was a result I intended to a certain extent. The real head has emerged now and I have something to compare although the thought strikes me that the recollection I have of facts and events is also not quite in focus. I have become more proud of my head now (it stands in my dining room!) and will never part with it, not because of the person it represents, but because it represents the person I was and became.
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Alan Yentob was interviewing Edmund de Waal a while ago for Imagine... The name of the program was "Make Pots or Die". I have been mulling things over for a bit.
I have tremendous respect for Edmund and I always admire the way Alan Yentob allows his guests to express themselves, and coaxes out of them a good extra scoop of thoughtfulness or feeling. I have read and loved The Hare with the Amber Eyes. I know this potter is serious, committed, very knowledgeable....can you hear the heavy hooves of my BUT approaching? ...I always see him, making pure white cylinders, little ones, tall ones (never fat ones), by the hundred, by the thousand. Sometimes they have a slight tremulous rim and last night there were having their foot shaved a bit. But I wait for the next thing. I wait for him to do the next thing and he does: he positions them in little groups on pure white shelves against pure white walls. They are never anything other than pure white cylinders, standing about together in groups or on parade, lost in space, cold, looking perplexed. My friend Jill says: you cannot know the mind of another person. Quite so. I completely believe that. But I do know my own mind: what comes next is my question and I can ask that. I guess I am expressing my mind in saying that the netsuke tell me more, and they were made so long ago, about now than what I can read in Edmund's cylinders. I can talk to them. I have an unsophisticated, illiterate mind, and I need a lot more explanations than I am getting from pure white. The netsuke are garrulous, dirty, convoluted, sneaky, so many things. But Edmund's pots are just there. They are frozen, waxy, and still. They do not scream, they do not question, they do not dance or lie down. He spoke os his first reaction to the netsuke, when uncle Iggy first showed them to him: each object would make the old man remember a story, a tableau, an episode of family life in those fabled times of old, when they were stupendously rich and very affable and well known. Edmund described how the object, handled, passed on to the new hand the story of all those hands that had caressed it over time. Also, how these perfect little gems can bewitch people, possess them. hence their great value. So, Edmund did not really like them, he could not make sense of such objects or the making of them. But now he owns them and he makes the connection between speaking in objects and building with words. His white porcelain tubes continue to multiply, referring to old jewish loss, to adversity on an unimaginable scale... I just don't get it. Where in those thousands of white tubes is all this? Is blank the ultimate end of the story? I will continue to look for that meaning: He says he tells stories with his pots; he has to make pots or die; I feel so stupid not understanding at all what he says but clearly see that making those cylinders is a must. Perhaps if I sit at the wheel and make a few?... Inside, this cube is white, completely blank. I sit curled up in there, alone with myself. The cube, along with the sphere, is a special form. Where the sphere relates to perfection, the cube relates to the sacred. Wheat is a product of the work on the land, also the stuff of nourishment, physical and spiritual. Water is the very medium that bore life and is still the most vital of all elements. Without water there is no life - my apologies to the organisms that thrive in sulphuric acid environments. As I look at a yellow sky and the already blackened tracery of winter branches, a reminder of winter approaching, snow flurries already here - I wonder where the fundamental work that we do to launch our future generations into their own future is leading us. I don't want the cloying mawkish sentimentality of returning to the past as an idyllic time, frozen and in fact imaginary in its perfection. I look to assess the balance between going forward confidently and leaving behind what is fundamental and precious int he long term. Surely we don't have to lose the sense of honour and right to be modern? Surely, it is possible to be fallible and imperfect, and yet to have an anchor of probity and a moral compass? I don't know whether there is really a loss of moral code or a loss of community - the press has too much to say about all this - but I know there is a terrific dilution for the young of the message that guides them in judging the future; there is so much glamour in having goods, in looking sexy, in putting me first, while the rewards of giving and being are perhaps not as widely advertised as they might be. So what am I trying to say? I want to express not nostalgia but a robust call to reality: what is fundamental? Asking questions like "What is just adornment and what is truly fundamental?" "What is happiness made of and what is illusion fabricated from?" I am talking to you - yes you! - and me: wake up and sort our your messy drawers! I was talking to a youngster recently and suggested volunteering. I could see that volunteering is seen as an old person's game. If you are no longer good for anything else... and besides, why should I work for nothing? Curiously, I believe that volunteers are the best paid people in the land and liberty is not a small part of that. Going round and round in circles, being confused about what is right and good and best for me, forgetting the value of pure water and wholesome grain, neglecting the quiet inner space - I find all that in others of all ages and, to be quite honest, I often find it in myself. So much to know, so much already learnt! The heart sinks at the edge of the river: water churning on and on and never returning to me again. And when it does, when time returns and the past shines before my eyes, I avert my gaze, I look elsewhere, beyond and over the brow of the hill. For the lies are many and the consolations few and the soft, tender, vulnerable spot must be protected. 'The years shall run like rabbits, For in my arms I hold The Flower of the Ages, And the first love of the world.' W.H. Auden in "As I walked Out One Morning" The aborigine custom of painting the story of the way of creation upon bark remains a highly symbolic act to my imagination: I feel the inner space opening and calling to my hands: work harder, work more, continue to move on from one act to another until you reach the end and until all that you have to say has been made. On November 20th to 25th, the Southern bit of the Northern Potters Association will be exhibiting ceramics at Thoresby. There is a Meet The Artist day on Sunday 24th, with wine and nibbles, during the usual opening hours. I have been working on ceramic boxes and have a little collection of them coming along as we speak: they will be hot out of the oven, the kiln gods being agreeable! Come and join us. Thoresby is a great location, at the end of a lovely drive in the Nottinghamshire countryside. Set in a wooded park, the courtyard is worth a visit at any time of the year, with its gallery, shops, garden centre, cafe and wonderful buildings and walks. The more adventurous members of Northern Potters fire a wood kiln in there at times and some of them will be represented at the show. HAPPY DIWALI What strikes me most about popular festivals like Diwali, is their infectious excitement. For many, this is areligious and cultural experience and has a serious, intimate meaning. But since it has strayed into the public domain of the irreligious masses, it has become something of a phenomenon. Diwali reminds me of a mad rush to the beach, or an ecstatic whirlwind romance, or a fantastic day with friends without worries: strangers come together and celebrate; but what do they celebrate? Their lives? Their hopes? Their faith in a better future? The very best of being in a crowd moved by the same motif is that you worry about nothing, you just are. I know very little about the religious or philosophical connotations or the origins of Diwali. I just look and see; I hear and try to understand. People are happy, they light candles, they eat, they party, they celebrate. That is what seems to be happening this week. I wish all celebrating the very best of outcomes. So I dare to join in on this most famous and popular festival in our communities. In my innocent ignorance, I hope not to cause offence or upset. The Diwali lamp, as I understand it, is a simple, mass produced item, made of clay or metal into which you pour oil and place a wick. A battery operated torch or an arc light might be more effective, less dangerous and more portable, but it would somehow not be the same. The little lamp surely cannot be a complicated work of art, imposing presence, protagonistic. It has to be humble, let the light shine. So here is my offering: this one is slightly broken, one of the scallops crumbled in the making, but it is somehow for me appropriate, serene, jolly, unpretentious, un-self-conscious, just a container for a bit of oil and a wick (or in this case a tea light). It blushes quietly and nurtures a little flame of hope, like cupped hands. This is a reduced reading, but it is big enough for me, today. |
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