Fatality Knocks

"Dead people and dead thoughts and supposedly dead moments are never, ever truly dead, and they shape every moment of our lives.  We discount them, and that makes them mighty."

--from Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl: A Memoir

Poem

Old Wire: A Forsaken Merman

Chicken wire: clipped, twisted, and compressed; shaped.  Old garage art: 1996.

You should try this sort of garage art too.  I'll bet there's some old wire in the garage or around those tomato plants right now.  Try it.  Play.

(With a nod, of course, to Victorian poet Matthew Arnold and his poem "The Forsaken Merman.")

Mosaic, With Mermaid

Mermaid Sighting: In The Creek

Freshwater mermaids.

Sculpture mix; blue or sea foam glazing, respectively; copper wire.

Rafting In The Studio

“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.” 

--Dorothea Tanning

I was tempted to title this entry "Anger Management," which is true to an extent, but art's aid to essential sanity is something that I favor and recommend.  I took my own advice and managed to fit the studio into my day.

Three bowls and some silly little figures: feeling fairly sane right now.

No Wake Zone, Seriously

Paddling Off The Row

In Medias Res

In the middle of things . . .
the duck-fish presides, always ready for a go-out.

And I just keep duck-diving wave after wave after wave in my mind.


(I've posted shots of the duck-fish before here, among other places.)

Kelp-Napping

Hunter

Egret: Monterey Bay near Cannery Row, Monterey, CA.

Clay Work

Treat bowl: studio mix, recycled (stoneware & Navajo Wheel); denim, transparent brown, and shino glazing.  (I think.  I didn't keep proper notes this time.)

The Last Bowl Of Summer

Emerald Waters

Emerald Bay: Fannette Island, Lake Tahoe.

I included this shot in an earlier blog-entry, but only after clicking on the shot and considering an enlargement did I appreciate the ripples, the clear water, the reflection of the tree, and so forth.  That's why I'm reprising this piece in extra large and large formats.

Old Wire

Back in Summer 1996, I was feeling the blues--no teaching gig, dissertation stalled, Dante's "dark wood" looming--so I went out to the garage and started bending chicken wire into shapes.  That's a merman (see his finny back?) to the left and an octopus to the right.  I also made wire masks (crow, fool, deer), human figures, and fish.

I had no plans to do anything with such pieces; I just needed to make things and working with words had gotten far too fraught.  Chicken wire happened to be handy, I guess.  Occasionally, in the years prior, I'd carve goblin faces in buckeyes and, of course, pumpkins, but making these wire pieces was an important step in letting myself play, in letting myself make and not judge, in not over-evaluating the products or the process.

Two or three years later, I started playing with clay for the first time since childhood.

I have had this notion to drape such wire art with kelp . . . .

What's A Duck Worth?

Old Man Autumn / Old Man Winter?

Let's look at this mask again, noting the browns in the setting, the context:

I put my Gemini, Sleeping mask next to a brown log and some brown leaves, and the mood and narrative of the piece seem to change.  Star-sign shifts to seasonal mythos.

Here, I see Old Man Autumn snoozing away on the left; Old Man Winter, on the right. (Your left, your right.)

Gemini, Sleeping

Gemini, Sleeping--A Mask: sculpture mix; denim, transparent brown, and clear glazing, layered.

M D U

At the end of the day's paddle to Emerald Bay and back, from my kayak I spotted two lost SUP paddles on the lake bottom, paused and considered, then continued up the shore 30 yards or so to beach my kayak near the path to my truck.  I described the paddles to the staff at the Baldwin Beach Kayak/SUP Rentals and their probable location.  I figured they could use the paddles; I like to share stories and finds, especially as I was ready to load up and leave.

On second thought--for how could I resist?--I grabbed fins and mask, and swam back to search for and, ideally, recover the two paddles.  Despite my efforts, I couldn't spot them again, but one of the staff took advantage of my info to recover one paddle from the bottom.  Score.  She used a stand-up-paddleboard, which gave her better perspective--that standing vantage--to scan for the "treasure".

Still counts, I say.

I love finding stuff.  I like when other people find stuff too.

For example, my best friend's wedding band from the bottom of a lake or another friend's truck keys from the Klamath River.  But those are stories for another day.

Lake Tahoe temps: 68 degrees in the upper layers.  That's pretty cosy after swimming in 54 degree Pacific Ocean water.  Diving down just a dozen feet meant finding the distinctly cooler waters that Lake Tahoe is famous for, however.  

Along this stretch of Baldwin Beach, I spotted two SUP paddles on the bottom--or I'm pretty sure there were two paddles.  I don't think I spotted the same paddle twice, but the kayak-rental staffer only found one.

Here, you can see how she's scanning the bottom from that standing vantage for those paddles.