Gawain's Stroke of Luck

Or, Part I of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."

Wood-Kerne

Wood-kerne: sculpture mix; green and nutmeg glazing.

Radagast and Lucky, Working

Radagast: brown clay; unglazed.

Lucky the Reindeer: sculpture mix; brown and blue glazing.

I broke Lucky, by accident and before he had a name, on the way from the garage to the studio, but I decided to bisque and glaze him anyway. You never know what you'll get.

Solstice blessings on us all.

A Viking Holiday!

A belated Happy Solstice to you all!

As the days grow longer, may we all strive a bit more to fill our days--and each other's days--with action, reflection, and happiness.

--MD

Three Kings

Catriona O'Reilly's "Thin"

THIN

It is chill and dark in my small room.

A wind blows through gaps in the roof,

piercing even the eiderdown. My skin

goose-pimples in front of the cloudy glass

though there was scalding tea for dinner

with an apple. I'm cold to the bone.

I don't sleep well either. My hip-bones

stick in the foam mattress, and the room's

so empty. My sister is having dinner

with a boy. Awake under the roof

I watch the stars bloom heavily through glass

and think, how shatterproof is my skin?

I doze till six, then drink semi-skim

milk for breakfast (the bare bones

of a meal) before nine o'clock class.

It's kind of hard to leave my room

for the walk to school. No roof

over me, and eight solid hours till dinner-

time. All days my dreams of dinner

are what really get under my skin,

not the boys. My tongue sticks to the roof

of my mouth again in class. I'm such a bone-

head! And my stomach's an empty room.

My face floats upwards in a glass

of Coke at lunchtime. One glass.

I make it last the whole day till dinner:

hot tea and an apple in my room.

My sister seems not to notice the skin

around my mouth or my ankle-bones.

If our parents knew they'd hit the roof

I suppose. My ribs rise like the roof

of a house that's fashioned from glass.

I might even ping delicately like bone-

china when flicked. No dinner

for six weeks has made this skin

more habitable, more like a room--

or a ceiling that shatters like glass

over those diners off gristle and bone.

This skin is a more distinguished room.

--Catriona O'Reilly

For too too many of the women I've known.

"Like Pearls, The Pain"

A moment from Joe Coomer's Pocketful of Names:

She climbed up into the stern of the boat. Flakes of rust and paint rained on the granite floor. Driftwood watched her climb, then settled down, chin to forepaws, to wait. She sat on the bare wood of the washboard, clasped her hands and pressed them between her crossed legs.

So Will had loved Emily. And he had loved her. And now he was in love with Zee. It was plain to see, and impossible to understand, how his affection was so embracing, so encompassing, and so malleable. His heart seemed so easily restored. She knew that she herself held grudges for years after the end of a relationship. She revisited diaries, letters, and even greeting cards in attempts not to understand old failures but to relive them. There was nothing to be resolved, no transforming catharsis in memory. Time did not heal old wounds. The hurt persisted, and like pearls, the pain survived deep in a center that had to be continuously swathed with yet another layer of forgetting that only soothed until the next remembering. The boy at Haystack, Mark, his name a crystal she cut her tongue on each time she said it. It was the first time in her artistic life that art seemed unimportant. She just wanted to bury her face in his neck and lie there forever. It was more important that she watch him create. And Jalendu, who was as lost in love as he was in New York, and who tried to hide from love and the city in her. How could you not love my sweet brother? It was easy not to love him. She had no other choice. After months of desperately trying to be in love with a man she admired, who made her laugh and cry with his tenderness, a man who found the world around him strange and mystifying and full of beauty, who regarded her as its zenith, she'd given up. "It's not that I don't want it to be there," she'd told him. "It simply doesn't exist."

"Perhaps it will be born later," he suggested.

And from that point on she could not meet his eye or hear his voice. It was all part of the world she already knew and did not need. When they separated she did not miss him. After he was gone, there were times when it was only as if he'd moved back home to India. He was safe, at home in his culture, surrounded by comforting, close reflections of his own face. "I will die if I cannot be with you," he said. And he did. And he was right about love, too. It was born later. She came to the understanding that this was a man who would have been a companion. There were worse things than being adored. She saw him in a glass of water, in puddles on the street, the rain sweeping down her windshield before she switched on the wipers. His sister came and took his remains back to their parents' home on a sandbar in the River Houghli. Sitting there in the stern of Break of Day, she suddenly realized that both men, Mark and Jalendu, had lived on islands. It was troubling. Is that why she'd come here? Or was it only coincidence? Arno had left her an island, not a farm in Nebraska. In fact, she'd only moved from one island to another. Manhattan was an island, too. If you wanted to be direct about it, every land mass on earth was an island. The only thing that differentiated every human, every island dweller on the planet, was their individual distance from the water.

--Joe Coomer, Pocketful of Names.

Mere Mortal

That's my favorite self-portrait of the year: free diving off Salt Point State Park in Sonoma County, CA. This dive was an early August jaunt with dive partner Gerald. Very surgy day, though the water looks clearer than I expected or recall here.

Late lunch at the Fish House in Bodega to celebrate and refuel.

Just a random shot from that August dive, the last dive of 2011, I think. Even the random shots of an urchin, fish, abalone or kelp get my blood pumping for another dive.

Before that happens, I need to put in my pool time, rebuild some swimming muscle, and drop some blubber. This semester was the most difficult in memory for keeping the pool sessions going. I must have gotten sick every other week, catching the latest cold or flu or sore throat time and again. And, as a teacher who relies perhaps too much on my voice in class, it was a rough, rough term.

All that time out of the water has not been good for me. Seriously, I need to work off some of the excess weight, or turn it into useful muscle, or I'll need a slightly bigger free diving / kayaking wetsuit. Four years ago I was dropping below 160--which was too light, too thin--and these days I'm sliding past 180. More than the issue of weight or neoprene fit is fitness. I miss the muscle and the muscular support. When I was doing all that dolphin kicking with the Rocket fins on, I didn't have the back aches from too many hours at the desk. (Or, if my back hurt, that was because I was kicking, diving, and kayaking too much, which felt better, even if it did still hurt.) I didn't have the same knee issues. And, I would bounce up the stairs. (Don't you love aging?)

I'm reminding myself of all this to power the return to swimming regularly, frequently. I like myself better when I'm swimming too much.

Pool: here I come.

Wavy hair: if I can't hit the beach, I'll wear it. Something like that. Growing it out; resisting the buzz. December 2011.

I'd rather grow some gills. Wouldn't that be the best mutation? Or, to phrase it as a question: if there were a surgical procedure to implant gills in the sides of your throat/neck, would you go for it?

Maybe some of that Harry Potter gillyweed for the next dive.

Silly thoughts at the end of a long day. Why not?

Robert Graves: Three Cantrips

RECOGNITION

When on the cliffs we met, by chance,

I startled at your quiet voice

And watched the swallows round you dance

Like children that had made a choice.

Simple it was, as I stood there,

To penetrate the mask you wore,

Your secret lineage to declare

And your lost dignities restore.

Yet thus I earned a poet's fee

So far out-distancing desire

That swallows yell in rage at me

As who would set their world on fire.

--Robert Graves

THE GIFT OF SIGHT

I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,

Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;

Knew the smells of bird's breath and of bat's wing;

Yet sight I lacked; until you stole upon me,

Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips,

The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,

Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.

--Robert Graves

THE SNAP-COMB WILDERNESS

Magic is tangled in a woman's hair

For the enlightenment of male pride.

To slide a comb uxoriously

Through an even swell of tresses undisturbed

By their cascade from an exact parting

Could never hearten or enlighten me--

Not though her eyes were bluer than blue sea.

Magic rules an irreducible jungle

Dark as eclipse and scented with despair,

A stubborn snap-comb wilderness of hair,

Each strand a singular, wild, curling tree.

--Robert Graves

Wizardry for the Tree

Radagast the Brown: ornament; unglazed clay.

Exercising with Clay

20-minute gestural exercise w/ living model.

Pit-fired.

The Watcher (Not at Dusk)

Dusk

I call this one The Watcher.

Sculpture mix; nutmeg and brown glazing.

Tonight felt right for pulling him out and taking a few potshots.

Dusky, dusky mood.

My mother would have been 76 today.

From my earliest days, she fostered my devotion to stories and magic.

Real magic: the sort you can find in the webbing of a frog's foot, in the whiskers of a ginger cat, in the earth around a tomato plant's roots, and in the sand, rock, and salt of the seashore. Driftwood, windfall, found coin. I am the son of a witch, as she always claimed, for which I am so grateful.

I wish you'd found the time and space to learn the piano, Mom. When I realize that I've been putting something -- some possible joy, however arduous or demanding -- off for too too long, I think of that wish of yours.

Bull-Headed

Brecca: stoneware; blue glazing.

Hrothgar's Pawn: sculpture mix; deep green glazing.

Talismans of stubbornness? Head-pieces for hardiness and holding ground?

Sofia's Bottom; Or, A View I've Been Missing

That's the keel of my kayak, Sofia, as seen from below, from the basic free diving perspective, and that's one view I've sorely missed.

There's a cheeriness about sighting Sofia's bottom as I rise up from below, even if I'm not planning to clamber back aboard anytime soon.

The yellow is quite obviously a jaunty color, but her presence is more than a mere color or look. When I see her where I expect to, I know I haven't been pulled off track by any unnoticed currents. If I want to climb out, there she is, whether I just want to warm up, to grab a piece of gear, or to paddle off to a new divespot. If I am weary from all the hard swimming and held breaths, she offers a platform to rest upon. If I am getting spooked from sharky thoughts, well, there's eleven or so feet of plastic sanctuary.

Mostly, Sofia has been my companion up and down the coast, as far south as Morro Bay and as far north, so far, as Mendocino. I haven't been diving, or even swimming, due to work demands and too many illnesses strung one after another, cold to flu to sore throat to whatever bug is going around. So, looking at any shot of my kayak, even this one from beneath, especially this one from beneath, is both heartening and tantalizing.

I need to take Sofia out soon. She deserves it. We deserve it.

Okay, maybe I'll take some Sudafed and try a light workout later today. First step towards some kind of fitness. I've been missing the pool so much also.

Rex

King's Head: sculpture mix; shiny black and shino glazing.

(Marred from the black glaze running further than expected.)

Portrait of the Artist as a Gemini

Caption Contest?

Sea Urchins

Mendocino waters: July 2011.

(Maybe in January I'll slip into these waters again.)

Actually, these shots are for my English 1A students this term. Tom Kendrick could tell us so much about these creatures, starting with whether they'd be legal catches or not.

Have a great break!

(That is, MWF Class, have a great break beginning after our final this morning.)

Knight at the Ford

Guthlac: sculpture mix; green and blue glazing.

Looking at the figure leads me into looking at the water. I like catching the flow in such moments. I feel I learn something.

Hwaet!

Sometimes, I Sip Scotch

. . . while Susie sells seashells by the seashore.

Other times, I need more salt.

Monastery Beach: June 20, 2011. Fairly random shots.

Recollections for the spirit. I'm too far from the water right now.

The Antler Dance

King Lear and Frey the Stag: sculpture mix; green and blue glazing.

Wagging Tales

Coyote: clay trickster.

Tuxedo in Motion

Almost 17 years old.

Still very much in earnest.

Changeling

Odysseus' crewman; Circe's merman.

Greek Helmet/Merman: sculpture mix; brown and green glazing.

This is an old piece, and not entirely successful, but it's giving me ideas.