September
Fall down seven times, stand up eight - Japanese proverb
READING BLOG September 2022
SLOWNESS TT Intensive September
Pujol Reading:
The Cult of Speed. Overused technology. Recovering our senses. Empathy. A revolution of perception. Practice a day of Silence, No shopping no technology, no phone television just listening. Walk. slowly. Then write about it.
Crip time
Body slowness. One is forced to listen to your body which is a completely different time frame done most healthy body fresh people. The concept of time is transformed into that of an elder person, although you have a youthful brain there is a body mind disconnect unless you accept your body and run your life in a different time zone. also the concept of morning versus Melancholy time and how time changes when you're in mourning is interested.
9 letter short film: Letters can be a physical way to communicate and show love! In Nine Letters, this experience of ‘here and there’ is conveyed by letters, and by images of everyday urban life, evoking the dream state of the present imbued by the past. LOVED this.
Slowness is easy when you are in the zone, that place of balancing focus, concentration and drive with ease and confidence in pursuit of a repetitive or quiet task. Slowness has eluded me in my daily, busy, juggling kinda life. I have rarely found stillness around me with a few exceptions. My practice is a meticulous, time consuming, sometimes plodding process. I can work on a pieces for so long that I forget to walk or move my body or drink water or even to look at the a clock that tells me I have been at something much longer than I was aware of.
Aging has slowed down my body and mind in such healthy, healing and positive ways. Listening to body and mind there must be space for respite and reflection. My practice is a place for thinking, and breathing and minding a different time and space. Mosaic art is specifically a slow art form, created from thousands of tesserae, fragments, and parts set carefully and deliberately into a bed of mortar (cement). Making this kind of work is a kind of Bolero, or a piece by Godspeed You Black Emperor- slow, quiet repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, building ever-so-slowly in tempo to what is a crescendo of complete unification, full coverage finale. In every work, containing not only the physical elements and textures and inscribed poems and thoughts, there are the memories and music and visions that are triggered by the slowing down to allow thoughtfulness and sensitivity to be heard.
Some questions to get closer to some answers on breaking and the broken:
Is Mosaic a mutable art form?
This ironic. mosaic art could be seen as capable of change. I don't believe Mosaic itself is capable of change in its final form however my particular process does possess mutability Within the use end transformation of the materials used. I guess it is me that is capable of change and transformation and I can illustrate that within my process by creating End Breaking and arranging end setting or making permanent.
To revisit the process, it begins with drawing, mapping, planning. this is the design or composition phase which can also include writing or word triggering.
OSTRACA how does it relate to mosaic other than it just being shards? Each shard contains a wealth of information; materials and geography, vessel forms and decoration expose technology and knowledge of the time. Each piece contains both information inscribed and human touch. The shards are repurposed clay fragments that were used for lists, bills of sales, sketches, ballots,
“A potsherd (or occasionally a piece of limestone) used in the ancient world as a writing surface; in Classical Athens (and perhaps a few other ancient Greek cities), citizens used ostraca to vote on which individuals should be sent into exile, hence English "ostracism." - British Museum
Need to study how CERAMIC is the original material of mosaics ie: UR
Because pottery was the cheapest, oldest and most common form of home-ware that was available during ancient times.
Potter Kathy Kearns did a piece about ballots/ostrack regarding recent US elections as ostraca were votes AGAINST
https://www.crockettpottery.com/blog/2020/my-first-post
https://brewminate.com/ancient-recycling-writing-on-potsherds/
“The most common artifact found is a potsherd. A potsherd is a broken piece of pottery. Believe it or not, these can tell archaeologists a good deal about a site. In fact, pottery is one of the most useful finds in archaeology. Found in the poorest of homes, and the richest of palaces and temple, its use in ancient Israel was commonplace and indispensable. Although pottery vessels are themselves fragile and easily broken, the hardened clay out of which they are made does not deteriorate and so can endure for thousands of years.
https://patternsofevidence.com/2021/01/28/pottery-sherds-in-the-dirt-2/
One interesting use of broken pottery by people of antiquity was to recycle sherds as construction components. People of the ancient Middle and Near East would often bake their bread in ovens that were constructed of clay and sometimes lined with broken sherds. The sherds would provide some stability especially as the clay component was packed around it. The photo below shows part of this construction technique in an oven that was discovered at Beth-Shemesh.
Broken pottery was sometimes used as writing material. Usually this would not be for more formal composition, but for mundane uses that might not need archiving—sort of a “Post-It-Note” of antiquity. These are referred to as “ostraca” (plural; singular is “ostracon”). The ancient writer would locate a suitable piece of broken ceramic and compose the necessary data on it. These ostraca might serve as receipts for goods received.
One of the first practical implications archaeologists came to recognize that sherds could provide was to help establish some framework of chronology. Ceramic pieces morph through time just like general fashion. These changes can help identify the time periods to which to assign the vessel.
https://tsevis.com/kintsugi-2020 A series of digital kintsugi art made for Olympics Japan 2020
mutability and ephemerality of life, which can be recognized in objects that embody a sense of imperfection Simplicity and impoverished elegance and a lack of self-consciousness
Imperfection and mutability.
What does mutability mean? CAPABLE of Change
Wabi-Sabi; Imperfect, Impermanent and Incomplete.
From the perspective of a pottery studio, imperfections, inconsistencies and knowing the fragility of what we make is just part of the territory. It takes years to get to a point of near consistency with shapes and colors and even so, “near” is the key word here. There are so many contributing factors that play a part in the outcome of any piece of pottery! Perfection is, in most cases, impossible and if we grasp too hard to it to define our finishing point, then we could overwork the project and risk destroying what would have been beautiful when it was at a perfectly imperfect place.
In Japan there is a traditional concept surrounding esthetics called “Wabi-Sabi”. It holds a perspective towards imperfections and transience as something that adds beauty as opposed to detracting from it. Many have said that perfection is an illusion and sameness is boring – perhaps they too value the fundamentals of Wabi-Sabi.
The word “Wabi” expresses the beauty found in pure, simple and rustic designs as well as something that has proof that it is “made by the hand of God or man”. The word “Sabi” is the beauty in age or ware and tare, i.e. the aging of copper, the patina on a terracotta pot or wrinkles on a face. -https://mtartspottery.com/blogs/news/wabi-sabi
KINTSUGI- does it become permanent with repair OR does kintsugi prolong the life span
Mosaic is set in mortar, is architectural in that it made, historically to be permanent and constructed as so. In contemporary times, mosaic construction has continued to be used as an architectural adornment yet many of the methods of construction are impermanent, not by intention. Why is this?
Lack of information or more likely it is the lack of research into methods of construction that leads to erosion and disintegration of many public mosaic art made in the last century. It is also due to climate changes, application methods, material impermanence, and for me the most troubling is the lack of skill and research and education.
Ceramic- is it a material of permanance? Ostraca were NOT!