what a semester

Happy holidays. So happy that there is time to catch up on sleep and reading for a little while.

I'm in Chicago with my brother and his family for Christmas, the drive out was great, f-l-a-t, plenty of sky, sun and snow on the ground.

"the hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. Its so easy to make it complex."

Yvon Chouinard

image from the George Nakashima workshop near New Hope Pa.

re entry

some of my favorite shots, always changing streetscapes

re entry to Philly has been a little rough, but things are going well, now that I am back on schedule and through the first week of school. I love being back in the library and the studio.

work is flowing.

peace

the blue of distance

"...we treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to aquire it, rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance. If you can look accrose the distance with out wanting to close it up, if you can own your own longing in the same way that you can own the beauty of that blue that you can never be possessed? For something of this longing will like the blue of distance, only be relocated, or assauged, by aquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them...

Simone Weil wrote to a friend on another continent "let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated" for Weil, love is the atmosphere that fills and colors the distance between herself and her friend. Even when that friend arrives at the doorstep, something remains impossibly remote: when you step forward to embrace them- your arms are wrapped around mystery, around the unknowable, around that which cannot be possessed. The far seeps even to the near. After all we hardly know our own depths." R. Solnit

thank you tokyo

I'm down to the last couple of days in Japan, before heading back to philadelphia. I am staying with a friend in the Shimo-Kitazawa neighborhood. It is a kicky little place, lots of dogs being walked and little shops on every corner. It is smoldering here this morning, I'm about to head out for another day of Tokyo street life. It is so fun to be back here, when I got here after Toyama I was so excited- I remembered so much from the first week here. I'm on a quest for some art books, other than that, just taking it slowly enjoying it.

Yesterday I was looking for last minute things, and books, and found an interesting street in Naka Meguro. There is a little stream lined with trees in the middle of it, and some great bookstores and american vintage stores. I have been trying to find some japanese designed bags, and every I see something I like, it is american vintage or swedish. I can say that the buyers are great here. I love the selections, but I'm not paying tokyo prices for things that i can get at home.

I'm entering the pre flight time zone confusion. Tomorrow I will give my phone back to Charlie and then I will feel even more displaced, but looking forward to all of it. The last minute walks, shopping, packing, giving things away, the general spacyness that flying induces, and the arrival back into everything that is familiar. I will be able to read and understand signs again. I will not live out of a back pack for a little while. I am already plotting my return.

I will continue to post about Japan and my work, through the next couple of months. Time and memories are non linear, folding and layering into my life. I was really surprised when I first got here, at the memories that kept coming up from all phases of my life. My childhood, friends, people I've lost, and my friends whose lives are full of sadness and grace. It has been so interesting, maybe because I had the space and time for it to emerge.

This time has been like dipping into a pool of silence, cast in on myself in ways that I haven't been in a very long time. In a letter, a friend was talking about how traveling is like studio time, you are always confronted by the unknown, uncertainty and your own habits, strengths and weaknesses. I just felt like I wanted to pay attention to every moment with relaxed alertness. Partly because of the language barrier, and partly because the people that I met were so rare, beautiful, generous and fascinating. Because we spent much of our time in silence, the exchange was charged. I wanted to pay attention, to be ready for anything. I am so grateful for this time. It has given me so much.

"...most people are much more unusual, complicated, playful and creative then they have the time to express. play is the thing that we put on hold because we get distracted by other things... play is sort of a reminder of what it was like to be a kid... we never lose that in the end... I think its always there. I mean you carry your past inside of you, it's clear, so why should it disappear?"

Oliver Herring

if language were liquid

it would be rushing in

instead here we are in a silence

more eloquent

than any word could ever be...

(s vega)

Staying at shige san's was a revelation. Again. Being here with 15 sentences of Japanese has been so fascinating- to see how I express myself, how I introduce myself and my work, how we communicate, or if words were necessary at all. Artists are such a prickly, sensitive bunch. I've been called finicky, persnickety and worse... But living and working with Shige san and Tanaka San was truly remarkable, I could feel myself reverting to a childhood experience of bilingual existence. My parents spoke another language, I understood the gist of it, the cadence, intonation, the sentence patterns. They spoke english to me, but my extended family usually did not. To be surrounded by 30-40 aunts, uncles and cousins wearing black and talking around you just changes everything. I could never fully relax, because who knew when the next half teasing question was going to come. I couldn't tell them apart sometimes and that was so emarrassing, so many boys and girls. You can bet they all knew my name. It was my first training in alert stillness, observation, trying to dissapear so I could watch and listen, understanding far more than I was capable of conveying. But I love asking questions, and getting surprising responses.

Being here has given me the gift of that early stillness and responsiveness. I am amazed by what a gesture can convey, what intelligence and humor are held in our bodies, hands and eyes. I know that Americans rely on eye contact much more than Japanese, and that my hosts are making great efforts to meet me and make me feel welcome and comfortable. It is a beautiful thing. I appreciate it immensely. But I also love that we can be silent together. That we can be present for each other, and share the task of wadding pots, loading a kiln, chopping vegetables, making tea, and just take our time. Not feel pressured to try to say it all.

I spent 3 days wadding pots with Tanaka san, loading a glaze firing of Shige san's work. I learned so much about him handling his work. Wadding is a refractory clay used to keep glazed surfaces from sticking. it leaves a scar, another kind of record. We used the lick and stick method of wadding not glue. You make a pea sized ball, lick it, stick it to the foot ring, after you have 7 on the pot. you dip the balls into sand, and then place the pot into the one below it.

At times it was so boring, so quiet. At times I was intensely focused on not breaking anything, the pottery is incredibly fragile (at this stage, green ware, slipped and glazed) that time flew by. Shige san does not bisque fire his work, I love the rhythm of it. Make a pot, trim, slip, and glaze. then start loading the kiln. The pace was so slow, by american standards, excruciating at times. But liberating too, we could take as much time as the work needed. when the fragility is so close to the surface you have to slow down. I did not break anything. I got to feel the heft, cross section and surface of 100's of pots this week, from the studio to the kitchen. It's strong work, rugged, precise, imperfect, casual, sensitve and demanding. Much like Shige san.

water

since heading south, I have been on rivers or beaches almost daily. I went to the aquarium in Osaka and got to pet sting rays. they are awesome. I cannot stop thinking about the gulf coast. Time will tell the extent of the devastation to the ecosystem of that area. We are all connected by water.

" pay attention and respect to all sentient beings."

on listening

one of the great pleasures of Mashiko was meeting the incredible people who live there. I will write about 2 of them today. Yuko san and Ono san live in a traditional farmhouse, have a pet rooster and know how to throw a party. The night I arrived was cold and rainy, I got lost, got the wrong train, was starting to panic... but when I called ono san he put me at ease. "i am waiting for you." His studio is attached to the house with a beautiful irori, charcoal fire pit. there were plates of food surrounding the fire, in all sizes and styles of pottery. there were a bunch of potters and artists there with us, their faces in the half light of the kitchen were beautiful. we were like the potato eaters, hunkered down around a focal point of fire and food.

Ono san loves music and has an amazing stereo system with huge speakers, he played a great mix of rock and roll and jazz that night, I remember Cannonball Atterly and Janis Joplin, maybe some stones and miles davis? maybe... as the night got later and later we switched from sake to tea to coffee and cake. (3 ish?) then finally a bath and bed. I loved how we all started to relax, sing, listen, snack and tease each other.

Watching Ono san listening to music is a real treat. He can't talk, he sits back in his chair, eyes closed, listening with complete attention. it made me so happy. when i was a child, I didn't go to preschool, I hung out with my mom and listened to records and the radio. We had an old record player that I could stack up with 45's or 78's. I would put a pillow on the edge of the speaker and listen to music for hours.

I have started to listen to music in the studio, when trimming pots or doing things that allows for drifting and half listening. But I, too, am incapable of really listening to music and talking or reading at the same time. I brought a cd of unacompanied violin suites by bach back to them when I returned. We listened to it for hours, I remember falling asleep around the irori with the cd still playing, and finally crawling off to bed. Ono san had a recording of the same music by another artist, so we listened to that one too, hearing the difference in breath, pacing and interpretation. this was one of the highlights of my trip.