Clay Play: Blue and Brown

Missing clay-time.
Samples from 2013: Strawberry Creek play.

"Ice-Diving in Hudson Bay"

ICE-DIVING IN HUDSON BAY

When we dive down in those cool and crystal
Blue waters, clumsy with our double wetsuits,
Steel tanks, and that thirteen feet of frozen sea,
Will we worry whether the ropes rub raw
On the rough-edged ice--safety-lines snapping,
Drifting from the ice-hole as we lose our way?
Perhaps, as we dive, swimming along stiff walls,
Sea-carved corridors, chill labyrinths of ice,
Our lamps might dim, or die, leaving us to grope
Blindly in that deep and dark, sightless world?
Will we wonder, what if--while we blindly swim--
The ice-hole freezes over, trapping us
Forever until the slow spring thaw?

Or will we be just like that Captain Hudson
And his young son, boating out on those quiet waters
Of the new-found bay, watching their tall ship sail
Beyond winter's ice.  A grim Captain-Boatswain yells
Hasty farewells from the fleeing crosstrees.
Winds bring their cries across cold, shifting seas.

--Matthew Duckworth

A fragment, a figment, from my youth.  Winter 1980: Poetry-Writing with Carl Dennis.
Undergraduate work here that I'm enjoying with hindsight.

Keith, my buddy Keith, was my partner in imagination, diving beneath the ice.
Fare well, rest well, strive well, my friend.
I miss you.

--MD

Vintage: "To His Lady"

Here's a decidedly vintage sonnet: October 6, 1983
          First Assignment: Sonnet
          Prof. Richmond's English 117S: Shakespeare

TO HIS LADY

I shall not wander in twisted conceits,
Nor cultivate crazes best left behind,
Nor waste vain efforts procuring young sweets,
When virtuous love composes my mind.
Good thoughts, better words, most excellent verse--
All features to furnish (with wit, with tact)
Fond feelings that now I merely rehearse,
Motions I go through, scenes I enact.
My stage-craft flourishes, though plotting's a ruse:
"Love is a masque where we all play our part."
What use for the scenery, when lacking a muse?
What use for the masque when the muse lacks a heart?
You'll grant I never saw a goddess go:
Down with the masque, my dear--on with the show.

--Matthew Duckworth


(I was cleaning out some boxes in the garage this afternoon when I happened upon a very old box filled with very old assignments--oh beloved undergraduate days.   Prof. Richmond actually read my sonnet aloud in class, which pleased and embarrassed me to no end.)

Reflections on Autonomy and Literary Experience

1.   "Toward" or "towards":
I always figured that if I could get through 13.5 years of Berkeley higher ed without knowing the exact rule, then there must not be an exact rule and I would let euphony be my guide.

2.  Trying to teach the mix of discipline and independence -- necessary and resolute discipline in thought and knowledge, boneheaded and clear-eyed independence of thought and knowledge -- that I absorbed before, during, and after my years at UCB . . . that's hard.  I've modeled it as much as possible, but I still have not quite found a way.

I don't always live up to my model either, though I do try.

I sometimes think crucial key components include a repressive childhood, strong individualistic modeling (thanks, mom & dad), and lucky genetics (the boneheadedness, for example).  At other times, I think a devotion to the idea (and ideal) of literary apprenticeship is necessary.

Of course, in my main teaching duties, my focus is on awakening and honing the skills of critical reading, critical writing, and critical thinking, which is a different path than the literary one I referred to above.  Such awakening and honing is a joyous thing, too, by the way.

3.  What depressed me the most during my long years of graduate study was what seemed to me to be the suppression of the original text and, more so, the actual literary experience in favor of something decidedly secondary.  Ideally, and practically, such study enhances the ability to experience literature in the fullest sense -- and I give credit and thanks to certain professors and colleagues to this day for their part in the true way (or ways, for there are different paths to explore) -- but I also watched other professors and other colleagues who turned away from literary truth toward something -- or some things -- not so worthy . . . .

Kraken

Old art:
Octopus --
sculpture mix;
sea foam, dark blue, shiny black, and other glazes.

Dream: Office Exile?

The other night, I had one of my recurring dreams that I have a secret office at Berkeley, usually a closet of a space that locks, which somehow is always overlooked, and I just work there or ruminate there or drink there. I only have the dream once or twice a year, but I've visited that office off and on for, oh, 20 years now.

(Back in the early 1990's, for a few scattered semesters, I had solo-access to a quite nice office in Wheeler Hall due to the kindness of my dissertation director, but the dream-office is never quite that space, not usually quite that nice either.)

In this latest episode, the usual closet-office had morphed into a suite that I (a not-quite-me -- you know: dreams) . . . that I was squatting in, only to get busted out when a new hire showed up expecting to inhabit the place. She was not very happy about yours-truly, and as I was throwing books and clothes and gear into a rollie, I woke up.

I wonder if that's my last visit to campus.

Where, Oh Where, Are The Three Billy Goats Gruff?

Triton: A Mask
Sculpture mix; nutmeg and stormy blue glazing, I believe.

Study Break Is Over

Ursula Le Guin, In Person, on The Novel: 2/26/13

Bay Cruising

Wishful Thinking?

An odd emblem there for a very tippy craft.

B Is For Bear; B Is For Bowl

Pygmy Pachyderm

Elephant (Tiny Tantor): recycled studio mixed clay; unglazed.

I make and use such pieces to keep track of my projects in the studio.  Once you cover the bowls or sculptures with plastic, one bat looks much like another.  My duck-heads, birds, and elephants stand out  in such company, and they lead me to my own work . . . as well as warn off others that this bat-ful of clay is not theirs.  (That's the theory, anyway.)

One more for the menagerie.

Late Afternoon Bay Jaunt

"Yellow-Boat Man"

"Yellow-boat man, what's he got in his sack?"

--four singers on the dock bayside in Berkeley serenaded me as I paddled back from a kayak workout.

A blurry shot of the dock-singers. With my sunglasses on, I can't really check the focus of the camera, and I was sitting in my kayak, bobbing on the slight swell, at the time too. Still, here they are.  I pulled up next to them to say hello, and they called out that they'd made up a song about me and did I want to hear it?  I told them, of course, please.  They sang a fun song with multiple verses I can't recall and a chorus of which I only recall that one line quoted above.  I listened, laughed appreciatively, thanked them, and asked if I could take a photo.  They smiled and agreed.  

The joke of the song--"Yellow-boat man, what's he got in his sack?"--has to do with all the gear I load onto my kayak even for such a mere workout paddle.  I put my dive gear, cold gear, and repair gear, none of which is needed on such a day, onto Sofia because if you are going to train for a real diving outing, well, you don't go light.  You pack it all on, and I think my red dry-bag or the red net bag caught their attention.  Of course, with the hippie/rasta vibe they had going, "what's he got in his sack?" evoked both contraband and mojo.  Or, that's how I took it, happily so.

Here's a shot of Tertius, my truck, and Sofia, my kayak, loaded up, with the dock in the background.  You can see the musicians still out there, playing and singing.  Jaunty day.  Better than I had expected.

Thanks, guys.

Berkeley Mascot: Two Shots

For all my UCB compadres.

Or--forgive me--nuts about Berkeley!

Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn?

I love my alma mater, warts and all.  And, to keep with that metaphor, she'll bewitch you if you give her half a chance.  Half-Circe, half-Sibyl of Cumae?

Whenever I approach that gate, I hear Virgilian echoes; I just do.

(Homeric resonances too: Holy moly, Hermes!)


Let's hear it, especially, for Latin Summer Workshop '88!
"O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem."  --Virgil, The Aeneid, from Book I.

Ducking Out for Coffee

Fish To Fry

I asked the fish market guy how he likes to cook true cod, and he first gave me a handful of good healthy ideas.

Then, he confessed, "I like to bread it and fry it. I like fish and chips. Not that you can say that in Berkeley."

Me: "You can say that to me. I'm from San Pablo."

In Search Of . . . .

. . . the Loch Ness / Berkeley conjunction. I'd heard tell of it . . . .

Nessie: recycled stoneware clay, bisqued.

She's a bit smaller than expected, I'd say.