Show Your Work
Life events can interrupt one’s work flow. This installation is about mid-career persistance. During a period of care-giving, I was away from the studio for months at a time. Upon return, I struggled to pick up the thread of my work. Most often I could do it, but sometimes I could not access my previous form language. At those times, it was necessary to make something —anything! I needed to move clay around, to make some satisfying forms. But what? I resorted to internet instructions on how to make a Japanese teapot by throwing it upside down. A great technique — but despite this revelation, frustrations abounded: perfect forms were plagued with lids that stuck, handles that cracked...and there was the problem of pots being visually boring. Perfect Failures.
About this time, my husband, who was writing a self-help business book, brought home stacks of such books from the library. Among them was Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon. Its premise: share your work, because wherever you are, it will be helpful to someone.
So here it is: documentation of restarting momentum in the studio, making whatever you make in the effort to catch that thread that is uniquely yours to follow.