I’ve recently (to my great surprise) attempted to replace my
nightly ritual of falling asleep to some DVD (Northern Exposure right now…the
Alaskan chill is so tempting in this heat) with meditation. That is, if you can
call two nights in a row a trend. I started to meditate again in hopes of
feeling better connected to my little inner world and giving myself better
guidance for my artwork. Different artists work in various ways – some have a
solid direction that I envy, others move seamlessly from one connected idea to
another with full bodies of work in between, and others are a little more distractible.
Like me. I see something I like, feel inspired by a bit of grass in my yard,
learn a new technique and I’m off and running like a raccoon after something
shiny. In art school, they will tell you that you need to have a style and a
theme to your work. It makes sense. Set yourself apart. Say something cohesive.
I’ve always struggled with this bit. I make one version of something and feel
like if I make another I will slip into robotic catatonics. Actually, that
would be a great band name. But I digress. Even my blog posts do not have much
of a connective thread. “Hey guys, ice cream! Hey guys, art! Hey guys, dogs!” The
theme is perhaps, Things I Like. I’m most interested in my own work when I can
keep it fresh, so my goal recently has been to find this freshness within a
common theme. It’s like slowly disciplining my mind and hands to stay together.
And I think it’s working. The show I have coming up is definitely incentive to
keep it together.
Often I will cycle back to earlier ideas with new
information or techniques to allow them to come to a more successful
realization. With this recent meditation, I have been interested in going back
to making mandalas. When I attempted them before, I found that I couldn’t effectively
translate them into something I felt excited about. I was making small
watercolors of them that didn’t fit the bill. Now I am working them into
pottery. It gels with what I want my ceramics to say – and now that I know
several techniques of inscribing thin, controlled lines onto my pieces, I’ve
been able to get it to all work.
Mandalas have been part of various cultures in some form or
another – Native Americans used them for healing properties, we can see them in
stained glass rose windows in cathedrals, and they are most commonly known for their part in Buddhist and Hindu spiritual practices.
It is seen as representing the universe from a design perspective. Mandala
creation is touted for centering the mind as a meditative technique in itself.
I find that as I make them, the structure of the circle and symmetry allows me
to let go and be surprised in the end by what I’ve just drawn. The overall look
reminds me of those wonderful, colorful, and expensive kaleidoscopes I would
slowly turn while I watched the tiny world inside flip into new patterns.
Places that had these were always filled with glass objects and glass shelves
and I walked with my hands pressed close to my sides, feeling like at any
moment I would lose control of my body and it would stumble into everything all
at once. Again, I digress.
Mandalas also just happen to fit pretty perfectly onto the
face of a plate. I’ve found that the best way to get the design into the clay
is by starting with a drawing of the mandala, then tracing over it in your
basic washable crayola marker. Then, on the flat template of the plate, press
the mandala drawing onto the moist clay, rub, and peel away to see the design
transferred. Mold the plate into the desired
shape and allow to dry to a hard leather hard. Carve away the lines and
fill them with colored slip or underglaze, mishima style. Wipe away the excess
color after it too has dried, and reveal your final pattern! I still have yet
to decide how to best finish it with glaze…not sure if I should use various
underglazes for each separate shape or cover with one transparent glaze that
will let the lines show through. Tests to come.
So, how do you center yourself?
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