claybair on wed 12 dec 01
Hi Nikki,
You brought up an interesting phenomena I have noticed and wondered about
for a while.
During my children's formative years I took a sabbatical from my world of
art for at least 12 years . I threw myself into their education volunteering
1000s of hours in their schools, being a Girl Scout leader, organizing
science, art & Xmas fairs, talent shows, tutoring, book sales.... you name
it I was there helping. I did very little "art" during that time outside of
some fabulously decorated cakes.
I got back into it when I took a raku class at a Recreation center 5 years
ago.
I recently started painting again after almost 20 years. I came back to my
painting with a maturity in my work that hadn't been there previously. It
was as if I had been developing even though I had no canvas or sketchbooks
to show the progression.
I have noticed the same thing occurs when, for whatever reason, I am away
from clay.
Something happens.... perhaps mentally designing and engineering pieces is
as much an exercise as sitting at the wheel! Has anyone else had that
experience?
Gayle Bair
Bainbridge Island, WA
http://claybair.com
Nikki Simmons wrote>>
When I felt like my daughter could handle some separation from me, my mom
started coming over to babysit. Since they were already close, they did not
need any warm up time, so I would go into the basement for whatever amount
of time the baby was happy. We started at 15 minutes and now at age 3, we
have worked our way up to an entire afternoon. I followed her cues and tried
to meet her needs so that she could be a happy baby. As a result she does
not get upset when I want to work on pottery. As my hands got back into
clay, I could see that my work was dramatically different and better than
before my daughter was born. I am smarter, more thoughtful, and had a lot
of ideas to bring to clay.
Marie Gibbons on thu 13 dec 01
gayle@CLAYBAIR.COM writes:
> Something happens.... perhaps mentally designing and engineering pieces is
> as much an exercise as sitting at the wheel! Has anyone else had that
> experience?
>
Gayle,
I have a very similar experience... a parenting hiatus from art... in a way
it was a hiatus... in another it was a total learning experince, ... I think
it showed me that drive that I had attatched to my creative side.... instead
of making grown up art, I did things like paint dinosaur cookies with acrylic
paints and make jewelery with and for kids, did all sorts of clothing
embellishments, my kids had some of the coolest hats and t shirts on the
block. I did things in the preschool, and then in the public classroom.... I
saw art through the eyes of a child, and that is one of the coolest things
you could ever do. Finally, when it was time for me to do art for me, all
that stuff was part of my process . . and it was, and is pretty cool. One of
the reasons I really enjoy doing art with kids, my own and others, is to get
a reality check... they see things so clearly and quickly... makes you really
examine your own process... and think about overthinking a project, they work
soooo fast and so from the source!
I have watched other friends, artist friends, start their families, leave
their studios, for a while, and have the judgemental eye of others thinking
oooo she should be making time for herself in the studio... I think, ahhhh
she will have such a new look at things in a couple of years, how exciting!
marie gibbons
www.oooladies.com
Cindi Anderson on thu 13 dec 01
I haven't been away from clay yet to know for sure, but it certainly seems
reasonable. Once you are exposed to an art form, you have a totally
different way of seeing what is around you and that continues whether you
are working or not.
My parallel is more unexpected. I played the piano as a child, and didn't
play for almost 10 years, through high school, college and after. I was
marginal at best, so when I started back up I would be lousy. The strange
thing was the I played better after 10 years than when I was younger and
played all the time. They say there are connections in the brain that get
made from music that make you better in math. Maybe all those years in
engineering school doing math somehow made me better in music. Or just time
brought experience? I still think it is odd.
Cindi
Fremont, CA
----- Original Message -----
From: "claybair"
> I recently started painting again after almost 20 years. I came back to my
> painting with a maturity in my work that hadn't been there previously. It
> was as if I had been developing even though I had no canvas or sketchbooks
> to show the progression.
> I have noticed the same thing occurs when, for whatever reason, I am away
> from clay.
> Something happens.... perhaps mentally designing and engineering pieces is
> as much an exercise as sitting at the wheel! Has anyone else had that
> experience?
>
> Gayle Bair
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