Beach Salad

Beach salad.

(See Sappho on "beach rubble" via Mary Barnard.)

Hollow-eyed,

Tight-lipped:

This fish . . . .

Garnish for gulls.

Someone else's tower.

Rock on.

Fisherman setting forth.

My clayfellow Aegir . . . .

Flow.

 Ducks-in-a-row.

Revisiting: The Merman's Head

The Merman's Head:
sculpture mix;
copper carbonite oxide;
matte white glaze.

This must have been the third of the four or five full-sized heads I have sculpted.

Reprise: Aegir, Sea-God

I Have A Kelp Tattoo

I love kelp.

Brass Hooks, Sidelong Looks

Aegir: sculpture mix; blue, green,and white glazes;
copper wire; fishhooks.
20-minute exercise with model.
(I overglazed, actually, but later I realized that I like the gloppy, soggy, flowing look with this piece.)

Postscript:

Reprise/New shots of an old piece.  I like the angles.

Aegir: Copper and Clay

Centering

Reprise: Aegir, Sea-God

Aegir: sculpture mix; blue, green,and white glazes; copper wire; fishhooks. 20-minute exercise with model.  

I've posted shots of this piece first here and collectively here.

The Thinker, Fisherman-Style

OR, THE FISHER-KING?

I needed a book-end for the semester's worth of books I was setting up for a shot.  The rum just went with the charcoal I had just started about a dozen feet away and outdoors.  Grilled salmon on the menu.

I'm still thinking of a proper title and text for this shot.  That's how I work sometimes.

"Blue Drop" started as a reflection on anger--anger that's stultifying--and with those photos of the small blue mask underwater stacked in my mind.  I moved the photos from memory, in the organic and technical senses, onto the page, started a mini-story in between, and there it is.  I'm still working on that entry too.  (I must have tinkered with the wording--especially adding, cutting, and re-adding, and then revising the last two paragraphs--a dozen times in small ways, but that's all part of the fun.  Draft in motion.)


If you are intrigued by what I've said about "Blue Drop," please go here.

Archilochos: Grains of Salt

Three Pieces from Archilochos, the ancient Greek poet, translated by Guy Davenport:

With ships so trim and narrow,

Ropes fast and sails full,

I ask of the gods that

Our comrades have a wind too,

That they meet neither tall wave

Nor reef.

                 All fortune be with them.

Let us hide the sea-king's gifts,

The wrecked dead Poseidon brings.

Their lives

Held in the arms

Of the waves.

--Archilochos

from Guy Davenport's 7 Greeks,

A New Directions Book: New York, 1995.

(I've posted shots of this sculpture in the past here.)

Solace and Sustenance

Tonight's swim helped.

Aegir, Ready

Aegir: sculpture mix; blue, green,and white glazes; copper wire; fishhooks. 20-minute exercise with model. (I overglazed, actually, but later I realized that I like the gloppy, soggy, flowing look with this piece.)

Aegir is one of the Northern European sea-gods from pagan times; he and his wife Ran use hooks and nets, fishing for the souls of fisherfolk, sailors, merchants, and passengers upon those cold northern waters. (Njord is another Norse god, though he has more to do with ships, harbors, and anchorages.) Aegir is known for the beer he brews; the Norse gods, led by Odin, Thor, and Frey, often spend weeks at a time hoisting tankards and horns with Aegir and his sea-folk in that cave beneath the sea.

Being the guest of Aegir, if you're not a Norse deity, just may mean you've gone and drowned yourself. At least the beer is reputed to be good.