Kayaking with Sofia

Sofia is my kayak: an Ocean Kayak Scrambler 11.

The day was quite rough and cold, though these photos don't quite show those aspects. The dive-master had even cancelled our two days of diving due to the high swells. Here I'd watched, waited, and made my move in what I hoped would be a lull. The sit-on-top works well across rough water, but she's beamy and offers a lot of surface area to breaking waves; I'm often pushed back ("punched" may be a better word) if I don't time the entry just so. But then that's part of the fun.

Here, the fun was getting right out through the waves. I had witnesses to impress (or not to falter or fail in front of). I cruised about for only 40 minutes or so, I think. The day was bright enough, but cold. Since I was solo, I held back from braving the surf breaking along the south edge and straight out from the beach past the third set of rocks. Later, I felt I should have pushed myself more. Still, good exercise, and I felt quite secure in the rough water in Sofia, though I will say I put on my fins once I was beyond the shore break just in case of capsizing. I wanted to be able to catch and remount my kayak quickly and easily.

Van Damme State Park, just south of Mendocino.

Late November, 2009.

Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter: A Descriptive Sample

I love this book, this novel, about the historical Macbeth, Thorfinn of Orkney. Dunnett's lively mind and comprehensive research provide a dense, demanding, rewarding reading experience. I've read and reread this book so many times that I enjoy dipping into it anywhere, which almost always draws me into rereading from the very first page. I always falter at finding the right words to describe this novel of action and intellect, force and cunning, passion and compassion. History as life, as a dynamic force or field, and thinking --mindfulness, thought undivorced from physicality and action--are the two house-pillars upon which this word-hall is built. The book is intelligent, often gorgeous, often brutal. Thorfinn is a Viking, after all.

Anyway, here's just one paragraph, selected almost at random, that I feel catches Dunnett's lively, observant, worldly style in a few sentences. Here, the people of Orkney are awaiting word of the war in Norway and they gather on the strand as the first ship with news approaches. Dorothy Dunnett's day-job, as it were, was as a portrait painter, and I think you can see some of that artistry even here in a minor paragraph from page 62.

"Instead of a clean half-moon of blue pebbles, the beach was thick as a bere-field with heads: the cloth-bound heads of married women and the shining cloak-fall of hair of young girls, as well as the cloth and leather caps, the untrimmed hair and beards of the farmers, and the smooth chins and snake-moustaches of those who had travelled and fought and fancied a foreign style would make them sound wittier. The roar of talk, as the longship's prow, sixty feet high, cut towards them, grew to a storm, pushing back the kindly sound, the surfing lap of the waves."

A Wooden Box

Sculpture mix; glazed with nutmeg.

Solstice Medley

The Green Knight has haunted my imagination in the best ways.

Sculpture mix; green house paint, matte; rosemary bough; mulch.

Salvage work: sculpture mix, copper wire, twig, twine.

Daydreaming about the king's musketeers and the cardinal's guards, about Brian Duffy, Tim Powers, and a certain brewery in Vienna.

Strawberry Creek, UC Berkeley, on a rainy day.

The Drowned Man, Fallen Leaves.

Strawberry Creek, UC Berkeley, on a rainy day. A closer look leaving the art studio.

Talismans: mermaid, rosemary, epee.

The Green Knight: Reprise:

Gruntle: Or, The Watcher in Winter

Sculpture mix; glazed with nutmeg.

Earth Goddess

Sculpture mix; layered with transparent brown and celadon glazes.

Summer 2009.

The Bog Man

Bog Man: stoneware; clear glaze.

Just fooling in art class; found myself with this fellow in my hands. (Of course, after all those years in the peat bog, his nose would not be quite so strong.)

Postcard: Fishing with Clay

Stoneware; glazed with a thin coat of Celadon and a splash of Stormy Blue: Fall 2009.

A friend has said, ruefully, that what you love most, you do second. He was talking of teaching and making music. His comment has had me thinking, Can I even say what I love most? The water? the classroom? books? clay? And what about the fatalistic or even cynical logic in his saying? How do I feel about that? Do I recognize a truth there?

"What you love most, you do second." Really? Always? And, why? Or, why not?

I like to spin out questions in postcards, probably to the dismay of my correspondents, much like that old Romantic spider, Coleridge. But I'll pause from questioning, and attempt some assertions, using my friendly fish above as a guide.

He is friendly, isn't he? Despite the teeth, yes? Is he art? I haven't a clue. I enjoyed the making, and I enjoyed seeing him come out of the kiln, just as he is, even more. I love how the fire of the kiln has that last word beyond any of my expressing, my intending, my making, and yet what does that say about me, as a maker? Is he art? Is it art? Sure, why not?

I couldn't begin to say what I love most--teaching, reading, learning, making with clay, diving and swimming and kayaking--though I know I love all of those activities. (I don't spend enough time working with clay to say I love it most.) Still, that saying from my friend makes me wonder, and wonder may lead to knowledge and, better yet, to wisdom. I have a fondness for rephrasing questions and statements, not liking to be subject to much of anything, frankly, but I haven't yet decided on how to rephrase that saying to my liking. Yet. I'm letting everything stew in the cauldron of my mind for now.

I like this fish a lot. He's worth liking, don't you think?

Underwater Amazons: Stone, Shield, Net

I've been making mermaids for years: a personal fetish, in the best sense. I've given more than a few away to friends: the perils of having a clay-maker as a friend! Bowls are usually welcome gifts, but sculpture . . . . that's trickier, more demanding of the friendship.

My first efforts emphasized metamorphosis, emphasized strenuous, painful transformation. They all tend to be rather ugly, from a narrowly human point of view. I like them, warts and barnacles and all. (I made a dancing mermaid once, who wasn't ugly, though slightly flawed in the glazing. She has a good home.)

Here, I like best the Amazon with shield (redwood bark) and stone (beach pebble). Sculpture mix or stoneware; the basic glazes; copper wire. I make mermen too, just not as often.

Shipwreck: Oedipus? Jason Argonautica?

Oedipus (ship)wrecks: the obvious pun. Jason after the Argo's mast has crushed his skull and his men have dumped his body overboard to drift and sink and wash up anywhere but where they are. Tainted heroes, taboo-breakers, adventurers beyond the pale: after the fall, what use the fiery spark? Salt-sea renewal? Salt and sand refinement? Set aside my own mythologizing here. What story would you tell?

(Yes, my feet did get wet with this sequence. I love how the foam rushes through the eyehole here. I have another shot where the foam looks comical or diabolical; I can't quite decide.)

The Moon-Goddess, Horned

Fall 2009: sculpture mix, glazed with multiple layers of transparent brown, stormy blue, and celadon. I feel pretty good; I was aiming at these effects, but she's far more lovely than I anticipated. The Moon Goddess, Horned: believe it, believe her.

Bayhenge: More Views from the Kayak

I have heard the Berkeley Pier used to reach a mile out to the deep water channel for ferry service to San Francisco, but I've also heard tales of sea-druids and rites of passage . . . .

Kitchen Mermaid

Summer 2009: Sculpture mix, glazed with stormy blue and celadon; pirate medallion.

Watch the Eyes: Bird and Mask

November 22, 2009: Van Damme State Park, Mendocino, CA

This bird was immediately interested in the mask, and it followed me about the beach from shingle to drift pile to shingle again. If I moved away from the mask, this bird went--as you can see--right for the eyes. I can't say I'd want to have washed up unconscious on this beach, though an eye may be a small price for survival in such cold waters.

Mask: The Drowned Man.

Bayhenge

Kayaking; Thanksgiving Day, 2009.

The Drowned Man in Drift Wood

The Drowned Man: Sequence I (Revised)

November 22, 2009: Van Damme State Park, Mendocino, CA

Mask: Sculpture mix, cobalt carbonate oxide & satin white glaze.

Sand and shingle beach; sea foam.

(Yes, my feet got wet; should have put on the wetsuit boots, but when I walked away from the truck, camera and mask in hand, I hadn't realized I'd be standing in the surf.)