Reprise: Happy Reindeer

Sculpture mix; shiny black and shino glazes, layered, for the snowflake effect.

Happy Halloween!

Flaming Pumpkin!

Shall I Pour For You Too?

'Tis The Season: Flaming Pumpkins!

Smiling Jack O': Isn't he terrifying?  I mean, really.  He is, right?
Even when my creations bare their teeth, they smile.  That just happens.
And, of course, I gave him eyebrows.

"The Music of the Seals"

The seals are very fond of music.  Everywhere I went people told me that, but I was never fortunate enough to hear first hand the music that belongs to them.  I believe there is music that remains privately in the minds of the country people of the West, but can only give here a few pieces that have found their way into print.  I shall put first a ballad, "The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerrie," and, last, a few notes which were sung by a seal off the island of Skomer, Pembrokeshire, in 1946, and recorded there by Dr. Ludwig Koch.  These two have moved me more than the others.

--from David Thomson's final chapter -- "The Music of the Seals" -- in his The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend.

Counterpoint Press: Washington, D.C..  2000.

First published in 1954 by Turnstile Press Ltd, in Great Britain; revised editions in 1965 and 1980.

Counterpoint edition features an introduction by Seamus Heaney.

Byron and Harold: "Once More Within The Vortex"

              I

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted, -- not as now we part,
But with a hope. --
                Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

                    II

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider.  Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

                    III

In my youth's summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
O'er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life, -- where not a flower appears.

                    IV

Since my young days of passion -- joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing.
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling
So that it wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or gladness -- so it fling
Forgetfulness around me -- it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

                    V

He, who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love, or sorrow, frame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpair'd though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

                    VI

'Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image, even as I do now.
What am I?  Nothing: but not so art thou,
Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
Invisible but gazing, as I glow
Mix'd with the spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

                    VII

Yet must I think wildly: -- I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poison'd.  'Tis too late!
Yet am I changed; though still enough the same
In strength to bear what time can not abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

                    VIII

Something too much of this: but now 'tis past
And the spell closes with its silent seal.
Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last;
He of the breast which fain no more would feel,
Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal;
Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

                    IX

His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found
The dregs were wormwood: but he fill'd again,
And from a purer fount, on holier ground,
And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain!
Still round him clung invisibly a chain
Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen,
And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain,
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen,
Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

                    X

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd
Again in fancied safety with his kind,
And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd
And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind,
That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind;
And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find
Fit speculation; such as in strange land
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

                    XI

But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek
To wear it? who can curiously behold
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,
Not feel the heart can never all grow old?
Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb?
Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

--George Gordon, Lord Byron --

the opening stanzas of the third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"



AND THE POEM ROLLS ON AND ON.

Outtakes

Monstrous: just out of the kiln.

Don't forget the coffee.  Strawberry Creek-side.

A really clean window.  And a great view.

Norah Jones, that Frog, and Glenlivet: yes.

 Water, charm.

 Self-portrait, with Boat, #51.

 Breathing.

Pig in a race.

Checking for more flaws.  Happily.

The suspects.

Alma / Precipice.

"Seyton!"

I'm thinking of a particular speech from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 
V.III. 23-34.  (Seyton is Macbeth's retainer and body-servant.)

Long ago, I wrote what I felt was a successful piece explicating Lord Byron's use of this same passage in his own masterpiece Don Juan.  I should hunt up those old words and see if there's any validity still there.  In the interim, I'll reread that piece from the Scottish play.

William Gibson: "A Walking Shadow"

At the moment, there are two particularly resonating pieces in William Gibson's 1999 cyberpunk novel All Tomorrow's Parties that I would like to share.  I'm also thinking -- or feeling, perhaps, as Laney might -- there's an echo of a few famous lines* from Shakespeare's Macbeth in Gibson's title.  Maybe that's just me.

In the first passage that I'd like to quote, I think Gibson provides a somewhat humorous self-portrait in his description of this particular character, a very adept killer.  I haven't done any kind of research to see if such is common knowledge, at least among those who know, but when I look at the author photo from 1999 (and consider Gibson's look over the years), I do see something a bit autobiographical in the passage.  Consider:

     But he does not draw [the knife] now, and the traders see only a gray-haired man, wolfishly professorial, in a goat of grayish green, the color of certain lichens, who blinks behind the fine gold rims of his small round glasses and raises his hand to halt a passing cab.  Though somehow they do not, as they easily might, rush to claim it as their own, and the man steps past them, his cheeks seamed vertically in deep parentheses, as though it has been his habit frequently to smile.  They do not see him smile.


In the second passage, we get what I would consider an apt insight into tools, whether a knife (as in the novel) or in the handouts and prompts I make more or less everyday.   (I'm not eschewing focus or direction or precise utility for the students, not at all; still, the "handles" -- the ways I may manipulate and use those handouts and prompts -- ought to be "simple" to afford "the greatest range of possibilities".)  Imagine the handle of a knife from the kitchen: plain, streamlined, straight in design, I'm guessing.  Now imagine one of those knife handles shaped specifically with finger grooves, shaped to be held in only one way; that second knife affords a very firm grip, but only in one position, yes?  And therefore, the utility of the knife is limited, prescibed, overly-shaped.  Not the kitchen knife, though, as you can shift your grip to suit the particular job at hand.  All that's part of the meaning I find in the passage from Gibson below.

I love finding the truth in as many disparate places as possible. Consider:

     The handles of a craftsman's tools bespeak an absolute simplicity, the plainest forms affording the greatest range of possibilities for the user's hand. 
     That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the absence of grace.

--from William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties


*Those lines from Macbeth, from the character Macbeth himself in the last act just after he hears that his wife, the queen, has died:

She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.  It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Wet Clay: Keeping Track

Bowls for the soul.
And small figures--heads of duck and ogre--to help me to find my pieces once the plastic goes over the top and obscures which wooden bat is whose.

Close-up of The Ogre's Head.

A Danish Mermaid: Ophelia Revised

In my version, she lives.
Ophelia survives her madness and suicide attempt.

I'm not sure what would happen when she gets back to Elsinore's great hall, though.
If we entertain this resurrection, what's likeliest?  Or . . . .
"What's your poison?" would be the wrong way to ask what you favor, so I'll just say, What would you favor for Ophelia Revived?

(Ophelia played, this time, by . . .
Medea: stoneware; transparent brown glazing, layered; copper wire.)

Moya Cannon: "Tending" and "Hunter's Moon"

I think if you even merely browse this blog that my appreciation for the poetry of Moya Cannon is very strong.  Here are two more that I wish to share:


TENDING

When a wood fire burns down and falls apart
the fire in each log dies quickly
unless burnt ends are tilted together --
a moment's touch, recognition;
gold and blue flame
wraps the singing wood.

--Moya Cannon


HUNTER'S MOON

There are perhaps no accidents,
no coincidences.
When we stumble against people, books, rare moments
          out of time,
these are illuminations --
like the hunter's moon that sails tonight in its high clouds,
casting light into our black harbour,
where four black turf boats
tug at their ropes,
hunger for the islands.

--Moya Cannon

Charming

 Sculpture mix  charms and ornaments in progress.  The deer pattern is from a design by the wonderful Celtic artist Jen Delyth.  I have an ornament of hers that I am using to make patterns in clay for my own use and enjoyment.  Check out her art!

Moya Cannon: "Emptinesses Which Hold"

NAUSTS

There are emptinesses which hold

the leveret's form in spring grass;

the tern's hasty nest in the shore pebbles;

nausts in a silvery island inlet.

Boat-shaped absences,

they slope to seaward,

parallel as potato drills,

curved a little for access --

a mooring stone, fore and aft,

and a flat stone high up

to guide the tarred bow

or a hooker, pucan, or punt

when the high tide lifted it

up and in, then ebbed,

leaving it tilted to one side,

in its shingly nest.

--Moya Cannon

'WE ARE WHAT WE EAT'

That's what she said,

'Every seven years

almost every cell in our body is replaced.'

I thought of her own art,

how faithfully rendered

the miraculous lines, the miraculous lives,

of feather and bone --

and I remembered an oak rib,

honeycombed with shipworm,

given as a keepsake to another friend,

who had sailed from Dublin to the Faroes

in a wooden fishing hooker,

which was later rebuilt.

These boats are rebuilt, renamed,

until every plank and rib

has been replaced so often

that nothing remains

except the boat's original lines

and a piece of silver,

hidden under the mast.

--Moya Cannon

Salvage Work (small): sculpture mix; blue slip; clear glazing; copper wire; twig; twine.

"The Armor of Your Virtue"

THE ARMOR OF YOUR VIRTUE

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The rushing fool who hesitates
Lately finds that his angel is lost.

Should you ever address such divinity
With this litany of virtuous sinning?
Do you dare press this unsuitable case
In the bare face of a model affinity
On the strength of such illusory
And unsubstantiated winning?

Not proven, not proven, not proven--
Do you rue the imprudent fiction,
The innocent, illicit diction?
You ration out your conquests in respect
To consequence, conscience, and blundering.
To a Scotch verdict, no contest you've pled
To govern such botched, besotted hungering.
Never guilty quite, you oddly-kiltered martyr,
With the armor of your virtue left
Virtually without a dent.

Back to the coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The stammering fool fails to prevaricate;
Another angel-- oh, hesitate--is lost.

How do you ever qualify for happiness?
How do you ever quantify your joy?
Where's the form for furthering matters
Or the pattern to know and avoid?
Chipped glass, stalled payment,
Standing traffic, walking the pavement--
Till the pang of passing passion's freshly frosted
In an ashen hour of friendly fashioning.

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The fearful fool bravely hesitates,
Though fortune favors a state of grace,
And finds his angel is lost.

Finally, you fear shyly she will be offended.
If only she could condescend to be flattered
By the curtained confession still to be amended,
Still to be shuttered and shattered.

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The brazen fool still hesitates,
For fortune favors a state of grace,
As he finds his angel is lost.

--Matt Duckworth


(I wrote this poem back in 1996 on my 35th birthday.  Lightly edited recently.)

Squeezing In Some Reading?

Julius, Post-Ides: sculpture mix, pit-fired on Ocean Beach, SF, CA.

My second-ever head from years ago.  I can walk you through the 14 flaws, if you'd like.  I keep the piece in my office to make "draft" discussions a little easier; I've got the perfect piece of realia,  a prime example, right there.

Also, when I teach Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, I bring in the head while we're discussing Acts Four and Five.  I want to guarantee that Great Caesar's Ghost gets due weight . . . .

Montaigne's "Grotesques and Monstrous Bodies"

The opening sentences from Montaigne's essay "On Friendship" strike a chord:

As I was observing the way in which a painter in my employment goes about his work, I felt tempted to imitate him.  He chooses the best spot, in the middle of each wall, as the place for a picture, which he elaborates with all his skill; and the empty space all round he fills with grotesques; which are fantastic paintings with no other charm than their variety and strangeness.  And what are these things of mine, indeed, but grotesques and monstrous bodies, pieced together from sundry limbs, with no definite shape, and with no order, sequence, or proportion except by chance.

--Michel de Montaigne, 

(translated by J.M. Cohen, Penguin Books, 1958)

Time-Travel: Take Four

Photo of a photo.  1965 vintage, perhaps.
Between more formal posturings, wouldn't you say?
Or after.  Mostly candid capture here, though one fellow is tracking the camera still.

(Me? The small fry in front.)

Halloween Cat

Motley: 17 and more.

Bright eyes; bright spirit.

Moya Cannon: "Who Conducts the Music of Our Dreams?"

ALMA,

I woke up saying the word,
just as, a few mornings earlier, I had woken up
saying 'The Silk Road'.
Who conducts the music our our dreams?
leaving us with only one clear note -- a word for 'soul'
or a name for the most sensuous, the most tortured, of early roads,
a name given at a distance, in hindsight,
by someone who had never travelled it --
not even once clear road either, but several,
a web of camel routes through thorn and sand and storm,
mule tracks over frozen mountain gaps
to where silk worms chewed on mulberry leaves,
spun from their bodies the strong filaments of dreams.

--Moya Cannon

Blue Kraken Rising

Please note the play of light and color as the creek flows over the creature.

(Click on the photos and consider the enlargements for best effects.)

Three Coins from Guy Davenport

I love Guy Davenport's fine collection of critical essays: The Geography of the Imagination.  He had such a breadth and depth of knowledge, literary and humane, that he was able to bring to bear at a moment's notice, or so it feels, time and again.  Many of the essays began as lectures, composed while Davenport walked from his house to the university.  I wish I'd been in more than a few of those classes.

Here, I just want to share three quotations plucked almost at random from that fine book.

"Translation involves two languages; the translator is in constant danger of inventing a third that lies between, a treacherous nonexistent language suggested by the original and not recognized by the language into which the original is being transposed."

--from "Another Odyssey"


"Plutarch in the first structuralist study of myth, Isis and Osiris, demonstrates that there is no one way of telling the tales of the tribe. A myth is a pattern, not a script."

-- from "That Faire Field of Enna"



"Sir Walter Scott, out hunting and with some good lines suddenly in his head, brought down a crow, whittled a pen from a feather, and wrote the poem on his jacket in crow's blood."

--from "Finding"

Maelstrom: Kraken Blue

Details from Blue Kraken.

Blue Kraken: sculpture mix; floating blue and jade green base-glazing; transparent brown, red, floating blue, and jade green glazing, layered.

The Water-Boar

A Mere-Pig; Or, Twrch Trwyth, Translated: 
sculpture mix; transparent brown glazing as base; floating blue, shiny black, clear, and jade green glazing, splashed and dripped.