thoughts

The Journey, by Mary Oliver

| Teresa Craighead

My dad sent this poem to me today, and it reminded me that I had come across it for the first time at a very difficult time in my life. When I read it, I felt like it was written for me. Every word reverberated within me.

The road indeed was full of fallen branches and stones, and the whole house that was my life trembled. But I also did begin to recognize my own voice, and I did stride into the world. Many things ended. Many things crumbled and broke. But new things came to life also, including my adventures in creativity, much of which I’ve chronicled on this blog. Thanks for sending the poem to remind me, Dad.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. 

But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life that you could save.          — Mary Oliver

Deeper into the World
Go Deeper and Deeper into the Awaiting World

Grateful for Small Encouragements

| Teresa Craighead

I am discovering that the Texas Hill Country is rife with amazing artistic talent. And those talented artists like to get together! In the last few days, I have attended a local lecture on Old Masters and egg tempera paint at the Hill Country Arts Foundation. I also learned that they have a full studio of wheels, kilns and eager and talented potters who gather there–even those who have their own studios at home often work there for the community. So of course I joined right away. I am taking my own lumps of clay up there tomorrow for the first time.

I also attended a fabulous presentation at the Kerr Arts & Cultural Center, another arts center that hosts events and has gallery space for all manner of exhibits. The Guadalupe Water Color Group held its bimonthly meeting, and Austin-based watercolorist Jan Heaton gave a demonstration of some of her personal techniques. Jan’s work is stunningly gorgeous in its simplicity, with a focus on form and color. You can see her work at an upcoming show “The Market,” held in San Antonio at the Hunt Gallery September 29 through October 22, 2016. These images are from Jan’s website, and I cannot wait to see them in person.

screen-shot-2016-09-14-at-12-47-46-pm
Newest work from Austin-based watercolorist Jan Heaton

The artistic ambience in Kerrville, Texas is simply wonderful. And I have yet to explore nearby Fredericksburg, which has at least 13 galleries and many amazing artists as well.

I was greatly encouraged during Jan’s presentation when she told us that she became a full-time artist (and is amazingly well-represented across the entire country) after a 25-year career in Advertising. Ahhh! Reinvention! This is my path, and it was wonderful to hear her story.

Do you have a reinvention story to tell?

 

The Time that Passes

| Teresa Craighead

Everyone should keep a blog just to be hit over the head with TIME and its refusal to slow down, much less stop and wait for us to catch up. Since my last post, my universe has dramatically changed. I know that’s a true statement for many people … after all, it’s been 18 months. Many things can change in the time it takes a baby elephant to be knit in the womb.

The culmination of nearly all of my changes have been wonderful, though the end was definitely not in sight most of that time. In that 18 months, I closed up my very small, one quarter of a garage pottery studio and put it all in storage as we moved into a small apartment to weather a layoff and a long job search. Among other (and more pressing) questions concerning our future, I wondered whether I would have another place to call “studio.” Uncertainty is taxing.

StudioFrame
The studio framework

It’s during these seasons–the difficult seasons–that I have been grateful for the stubbornness of time. It moves at its own inflexible pace, single-mindedly advancing minute by minute. During that relentless progress it takes me along, depositing me somewhere else further down the path whether I want to go or not. That’s the part I am most grateful for. I am moved along.

So I find myself here, 18 months passing since my last post, in the bend of this particular path as it turns to a new direction. Only a couple of weeks away (if the rain will stop)  from being reunited with wheel, kiln and magnificent clay, as Angus finishes the gorgeous studio he’s building me out back. A new job, a new town, a new season.

MoonOverStudio
Lying on the studio floor watching the moon

And new questions, too. Actually, maybe just the most basic question of all … who am I, now? Now that the kids are grown, now that my dear husband has given me the most precious gift of time (as in no 9-5 desk job), now that I can pursue artistic work freely? And, close on top of that one, What if …. I am no good?

But I fiercely believe and hold onto the benevolence and providence of God, and His active work in my small, daily life. So I take my steps forward …

God’s Glory in West Texas

| Teresa Craighead

bloomingpersimmonGetting out of the suburbs and into the beauty of the created world is inspiring and refreshing! We saw many marvelous sights on our West Texas Journey, including an expanse of the heavens in Marfa with no city lights obscuring the incredible starry skies, beautiful and wild blooms, and the gorgeous granite batholith called Enchanted Rock between Llano and Fredericksburg, Texas.

Jeremiah 51:15 says, “He made the earth by His power; He founded the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.”

enchantedrockStanding at the top of Enchanted Rock and looking out across the rough beauty of the Texas Hill Country makes me feel the truth of this verse in my bones. And it awakens a hunger for knowing God more personally and intimately.

So when I read this invitation, “Call to Me and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3), I am both exhilarated and terrified! cactus1

We get so excited to meet our favorite artists–whether they are musicians, actors or other creatives–how much more exciting to get to hang out with the creator of the entire universe? It’s stunning, really. And a bit scary! persimmons.drybrushyellowbloom

WT.Greenery

West Texas Adventures

| Teresa Craighead
WestTexasTrip
Texas is BIG!

Texas is BIG! We drove over 1400 miles, spent 22 hours in the car, and stayed mostly in the south western quadrant of the state! The landscape varied from flat and ugly to mountainous and gorgeous to dry and dusty to wet and luscious. We made it all the way to Marfa, Texas, anxious to see the famous Marfa Lights, that curious and unexplained phenomena in the night sky. We did in fact, see the Marfa lights … while the man behind us on the platform was explaining to the people next to him that he and his buddies have met up in Marfa every year for the past seven, a reunion of friends. And every year, they come to the platform and hope to see the lights. As the four of us were pointing and exclaiming to each other, “There! See them? There!” this man behind us continued to recount his sad story to the others … “Seven years, and we’ve never seen them. I guess this is another year …” I was flabbergasted! We were looking right at them!! Three twinkling lights that would appear in the distance, a few feet above the horizon, dancing and moving, seemingly advancing towards us, and then retreating, then disappearing, only to appear again a few minutes later. We soon heard the reunion of friends packing up to leave the platform, another year gone by, while we had been entertained by the very lights they sought and missed.

It made me wonder how often I am guilty of the very same thing … completely missing what I’ve sought, and what it right in front of me, because I’d been distracted by myself and my own need to be the center of attention, or otherwise remain unaware. O Lord! Let that not happen! Let me not go through life missing the very thing I am seeking to find.

We also came across the abandoned movie set used in the 1960 film “The Alamo” starring John Wayne. One part of the set was old San Antonio. Here’s the church and general store, and of course, the famous mission entry:alamoset.church.drybrushalamosetbuilding.drybrushalamoset.alamo.drybrush

Representation and Expression

| Teresa Craighead

English painter Harold Speed described the goal of the artist as developing command over both representation and expression, in order to create something worthy. This resonates with me. Take for example, this lovely basket by studio potter and artist Joy Tanner: JoyTannerBasket

Joy clearly has command over both representation (we know it’s a basket) and expression, which is what makes me exclaim, “How lovely!” when I look at it. It is her particular expression of the form (basket) that draws me. Though, obviously, in order to create the artistic expression, she also had to have command over creating the form itself.

Though Speed was primarily a painter, he also wrote instructional materials for developing artists. In 1913, he wrote “The Practice and Science of Drawing,” now available in the public domain. In the text, he beautifully describes those invisible things surrounding good art. Like this: “The strength of appeal in artistic work will depend much on the power the artist possesses of expressing himself through representations that arrest everyone by their truth and naturalness.” Right?? So right! Here’s another basket by a different artist, Adrina Richard:

Basket by Adrina Richard

Adrina also has command of representation of form, and a very different expression of creativity than Joy. Same representative form–a basket; two artistic expressions, both of which are highly appealing in their truth and naturalness.

Speed also encouraged the artist to look for the “hidden rhythm” and “emotional significance” in the appearance of any object. By doing so, the artist can capture what moves her (or him) and then express it with their own creative passion. Both Joy and Adrina have clearly done so with their baskets.

So let’s challenge ourselves to look this week for hidden rhythms and for emotional significance as we notice nature, our surroundings, or whatever it is we are looking at. Let’s study form and think about how that form we are admiring might transform into a work of art with our particular creative expression.

Who’s Throwing Those Pots at You?

| Teresa Craighead

My mistake was in trying to make sense of a phrase by assuming it has always meant the same thing throughout history – Angus would say I had been applying a form of presentism when wondering about “throwing pottery.”

Is it called throwing because you slam the clay down onto the wheel head to secure it? Or because as a beginner you end up throwing away more pots than you keep? Or because the frustration of not producing a good pot on the wheel can cause you to throw the malformed objects across the studio?

Turn (Throw) the Wheel by Hand ...
Turn (Throw) the Wheel by Hand …

Nope. Not any of those. I finally decided to look up the origins of “throw” in the dictionary, and lo and behold, my presentism was revealed. While our current definition and usage of the word does involve flinging and hurling objects in a sudden forward motion, the original definition (according to Dictionary.com) and usage of the Old English word thrawen means “to twist or turn.” This, of course, makes perfect sense! The potter’s wheel turns!

Or Turned (Thrown) by Foot
Or Turn (Throw)        by Foot

 

This exercise is a good reminder not to attach our current viewpoints onto events or objects of the past, especially the distant past–because we tend to Make Stuff Up.

I’ve discovered some research material published by The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on ancient pottery found around Mesopotamia dating to 3000 B.C. How big of a weirdo am I that this is exciting to me because I can now add pottery to my Textile Timeline for Ancient History?

Endless Curiosity

| Teresa Craighead

I have inherited the investigative gene in my family, and while mostly just useful, it can sometimes get out of hand. Basically it means that when I find myself interested in a subject, I am like a dog with a bone, and can’t let it go until I am satisfied that I understand it. Right now, I have an endless curiosity about the natural world and its ability to provide for and sustain humanity—specifically, in two areas–with fiber spun into yarn and made into fabrics, and clay formed into vessels for use.

Cups and a water jug
Cups and a water jug still wet from the wheel

So I thought I’d just take you along with me as I try to satisfy this curiosity in my clay journey, just in case you were wondering about it, too.

This all started with my own increasing amazement of our natural resources. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I deeply appreciate clean water, available food, antibiotics and other advances that have freed us—at least some of us, looking at the world in its entirety—from ills that have plagued humanity through the ages. But, I am fascinated by the dual nature of the natural world. I say “the dual nature” because the natural world is both beautiful in its simplicity to provide, and amazingly complex within that provision.

Take fibers, for example. Linen, flax, wool, cotton, silk—all of these various fibers grow and reproduce, and did so and would do so without any intervention from us. Because of their natural properties—the way a fiber is constructed so that when it is spun, because of its natural design, the fibers interlock, become stronger, and can be made into the myriads of articles we need.

Clay is much the same—abundant in nature, and of such a specific construction in its nature that it is the perfect material for creating vessels—pots, dishes, water jugs, insulators, and even panels on the space shuttle. Clay is another natural material with astonishing properties.