the rhythm

"figuring out the rhythm of our lives...."

"efreewilson 2014"

Hello.  My name is bfree.  I've been making pots for some time now.  I started in high school... I graduated in 2000.  I'm 31 now.  I've been making pots since then.  I've been around.  I've met some people.. I've been to a few places... and oh yah, I saw that one movie that changes everybody's life.  I've cried and loved.  I've fought and have the scars to prove it.  I've been there .... and i've been here.

give it a second...

  Now...what's most important is the latter..which is a mentality I'm continuously dealing with..the HERE.  John Lennon had a shirt that said.. "you are here".  it's the saying on a map when you're in a new place (or old) and want to know what the hell is going on... just look for the magic symbol of an arrow....those beautiful words... "you are here".  how comforting!  how such a simple sentence can clear the room.  these pots are where I am.... in a really messed up way of thinking about what pots are..and what they mean.  these pots, because they're the last I've made.....  are "here".......and where I am.

 Here in this picture is the culmination of my time.  it calls back to things before and things now....  and now with words it really puts it all together in a sense of...time....  Are  we only as good as the last thing we make (or do)?  if so those bottles represent everything in my past...  That's me and what I've been through.  in a lot of ways i feel it isn't good enough..which is why every artist thinks that what they make isn't good enough!

and for now I see them.  in fact the bottles in their "non-digital" form sit on the table with me as I type.  they look different..  they're waiting.  or is it me who is waiting?  can it be like looking in the mirror or is it a picture of a fantasy?  a thing i've imagined and created... can it really BE.... me?

so here in lies the problem...  as an artist.  you're an artist?  You want to be one?  so make something. take that thing and place it within your life... acknowledge the ever present act of "figuring out the rhythm of your life..." recognize that even the daily act of looking at somebody or smiling at somebody..is - a - thing.  it is a projection of you.  the things you make.  the things I make...

are they the same?

a new cup

someone at work mentioned that i could go up for my 3 or 4 month review.  i didn't realize that i've been working at this place for that amount of time.  the time with AMOCA is going by so quickly.  there always seems to be so much to do.  we're gearing up for our Christmas sale, opening on the 14th. big plans are in the works for some new kilns and a great big fund raising push by the beginning of the summer.  I've had some time to screw around but not really focus.  the transition is still...transitioning.  my inventory at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena has to be super depleted after this last month..and i'm slowly building back.  In the mean time I played around with some glazes over some tenmoku for the gas kiln.  I was happy with the results...  but the results are coming slowly, even though we fire a cone 10 every week at the least...

Not a bad looking cup I think.  This cup made me stop and think.  I haven't done that for awhile now... you know, "thinking" about pots.  I'm constantly reading and flipping through books..or looking at pots...but for the last half a year my pots haven't engaged me in that critical way of self realization.  Anyways!...  I thought..hey look at this cup. it's pretty bad ass! (not to mention there's about 5 of these that are very similar) good job bobby!  the way the glaze rolls down the side and hangs there reminds me of the old chinese tenmoku glazed teabowls.  wow.. i've always wanted my glaze to do that.  that rolled edge of glaze is so unique!  the rim broke that wonderful brown and the clay body, which I left exposed toward the foot is toasty and alive from the iron oxide and the feldspar poking from within..the glaze itself was delicious!  like the frosting on a birthday cake.  that type of frosting a group of young children yearn to taste while they wait for the birthday boy to blow the candles out.  see how the iron that has escaped from the tenmoku has caused those bubbles and rivulets through the surface...causing that wonderful hairsfur type result from the cobalt and rutitle???  how the feldspar chunks have given the glaze life beyond just gravity..flowing around the intrusions...   oh yes!...   how fun! how serene! 

...yet something was missing.  i asked myself..  (i experienced these thoughts during an 8 hour marathon of season two of American Horror Story on Netflix while I drank wine from this cup..and continuously felt the under side of the glaze near my pinky finger as i drank).. let me regress, I asked myself.. why is this important?  the drippy black and blue, cool and historical throw back and head nod to the old pots..is that enough???  i don't know. i don't think so.  eventually i came to the conclusion that this, like anything  I've been doing with clay is just another step..a step to... somewhere.  that mystical place where pots are magical..sometimes we see it.. most of the time we don't.

it's difficult to accept a thing as another rung that's a part of a never-ending ladder..a ladder that leads up or...  can lead down.