hal mc whinnie on sun 25 apr 99
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
[ A PARABLE FOR THE CLAY ARTIST]
" Every garden is a replica, a representation, and attempt to recapture
something, but the form it finds for the art is that of a mental picture,
so in spite of its' special properties, a garden is just another of the
images of art. All landscape painting is a kind of gardening, though
idealizing impulse makes a show of delimiting itself as we move towards
the present."[Robert Harbison
Some years ago an artist and potter friend of mine, who was living in
Kensington Maryland, a small artistically oriented community just beyond
the beltway in the Washington D. C. area; grew tired of reading all the
books about the guided tours and the field trips to either Monet's garden
or to Renoir' garden and now more recently to Cezanne's garden. Were the
impressionists the only garden lovers in history? Are all artists'
gardens the reflection of impressionist paintings? What about gardens
devoted to the memories of other artists? What might they look like? What
would a Calder
Garden, a Moore garden, or even a Du Champ garden contains?
My potter decided to dedicate a garden of sculpture and ceramics to the
memory of the 16 Th. Century painter Bosch. He proceeded to call his
garden " The garden of earthly delights. " This garden would soon become
the focal point of all his creative efforts. It would seem that his
garden is an excellent example of what the art historian and writer
Robert Harbison has discussed in his excellent book "Eccentric Spaces"
1988 David Godline , Boston.]
According to Robert Harbison, "we replicate the world with our ideas of
it, gardens being intermediate enough to make us think they are nature
and not simply embellishments or enhancements of it, regions which like
painting let us forget there is anything beyond".
My friend began to place his ceramics and clay sculptures into the lush
green of the garden setting. Those objects were placed on sculpture
stands [ old logs] and hidden away in secret places created in the larger
landscape. In the winter those objects could be seen in the deep snow and
by late summer those same forms were lost in the lush of the summer
landscape. In the spring they had emerged from the blanket of the winter
snow ; whereas in the fall they could once more be seen as the foliage
died. The garden grew. Money was no issue, the garden had become the
focus of his creative life. Gardens are built on the idea of contrast,
one thing superimposed upon another, art placed in a wilderness according
to Harbison.
It was in about this general time frame that my friend began to
experiment with some new ceramic glazes. He had developed a great love
and taste for bright colors and his first glaze experiments employed
certain now forbidden chemical elements in the glaze; elements such a
lead and cadmiun. The bright oranges and reds produced by those
chemicals in combination soon became important artistic elements in a
series of small sculptures that he called " the deadly mushrooms."
ORANGE LOW FIRE GLAZE
Nepheline syenite 50
Gertsley borate 50
Lead chromate 10
Antimony 5
Those deadly mushroom sculptures soon became a great success and were
exhibited throughout the garden on small logs used as sculpture stands.
For a short time at least all seemed to go well but finally the demand
for more color led to the developments of new glazes. When I first saw
the following formula on the studio blackboard I began to realize that
there could well be trouble ahead.
YELLOW CREAM GLAZE LOW FIRE
Nepheline syenite 50
Gertsley borate 25
Frit 3124 25
Uranium oxide 10
The second series of deadly mushrooms became even more successful and so
uranium oxide became the basis of all his ceramic glazes, he began to
employ it everywhere and in ever increasing amounts. The garden glowed in
color that summer and in the early fall; it was glorious as the late
garden contrasts one thing superimposed upon another, art placed on a
wildness according to Harbison.
The garden glowed in color that late summer and in the early fall; it
was as glorious as the late garden paintings of Monet. Finally he started
a new series of sculptures..For those new sculptures he needed even more
intensity of color, redder, more orange, more yellow. So he devised and
tested yet another new glaze, one that was a combination of all that he
had done before in glazemaking.
YELLOW ORANGE RED LOW FIRE GLAZE
Nepheline syenite 50
Frit 3124 25
Plutonium oxide 20
Uranium oxide 10
Lead chromate 10
Antinomy 10
The mushrooms from hell glowed with a fire that only the great poet Dante
would have loved. Problems however started to occur in the garden at
about this time in our account. His favorite fig tree became a fig
forest, a collection of trees growing fifteen feet a year but there were
few if any figs to be found. His favorite grass plant became 25 feet tall
each year. The Pereuvian daffold multiplied, each plant producing up to
10 or 15 new bulbs per year until he had thousands to plant in the garden
each spring.
I don't know about the legality involved with owning uranium oxide but I
do have some idea of the dangers involved with working with it which I
tried to communicate to my friend. Urnaium is generally pretty nasty
stuff. It is a strong beta emitter which means that you don"t really want
toi work with it unless yiou are shielded. The ceramic fiesta ware were
plates from the 1940"s that were made with uranium glazes and give off
radiation in the 30,000 range which is enough to set off most of the
radioactivity alarms at the local power stations.
For the next several years "The Garden of earthlyb Delights" grew and
grew. More sculptures, more mushrooms, even brighter colors: reds,
oranges, yellows. A white pumpkin vine greww 100 feet in the first year
and finally a winter squash plant took over the entire landscape and
produced a squash of more than 400 pounds. Towards the end of the final
year of this garden adventure one could no longer even find the
sculptures amon the chinese chive plants which had by that time expanded
to fill all the spaces in the landscape. The sculpture ponds were choaked
with water hycanthias all grwon from only two cuttings.
ADD YOUR OWN CONCLUSION
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