(Thursday, June 30, 2016) moon: waning crescent Taurus / tarot: Judgement
I started working on my new Edie the Herbalist piece yesterday. It went incredibly well. I have changed my medium from white stoneware to red stoneware, and am very happy about that. I never really liked white stoneware, but Continental Clay did not carry a good mid-fire red. Now that Minnesota Clay has moved to within a mile of my house, I shop there, and they stock a nice red stoneware. The white has a musty odor and a stickyness that irritates. The red smells like the earth after a cloudburst. Love it.
I have an older ceramic piece that was inspired by my luminous black sow dream. Claudia named the sow Edie, thereby connecting the sow and the herbalist dreams. The Celtic goddess Cerridwen sometimes appears as a sacred sow. My original Edie dream takes place in Celtic Cornwall. I was never happy with the surfaces on the black sow piece, so yesterday I took advantage of some “post-firing techniques.” I coated the outside with a black wax that has a silver sheen, and then used some gold leaf on a part of the inside. Better.
Today I was walking around Lake Harriet and saw, for the first time, the older gentleman who created the small elf door tending to the letters people leave for him. He was quite elegant, wearing a fine linen suit coat and a broad-brimmed hat. Since I have been so focused on Edie, I was very pleased to see another human who shares my affection for the faery realm. (link to elf house here, and here)
I am hoping that the year-and-a-half I have spent away from clay is a marker for a new chapter, a chapter with more creative success than in the past. I smashed three mediocre pieces this afternoon and put them in the trash bin. Some art teachers say one should not destroy work but I find the need to do so overwhelming at times. I never regret it. An instructor I had a few years ago says the Mississippi River is full of pots tossed into the currents by U of M undergrads.