Fun Fiascoes
How different is your inside from your outside? Your interior thoughts from your exterior presentation?
Some people I know have very few filters; the distance traveled between their thoughts and actions seems … short. Others are enigmatic and full of surprises. Sometimes the unfiltered people and the inscrutable people change guises. Sometimes it is apparent that I simply have not learned enough to decode it all, either way.
Recently I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon in my artwork: the things I’m thinking about most in my interactions with people seem to show up in some form – symbolically and unbidden – in the artistic and technical problems I encounter in my work. Turns out that efforts to achieve harmony with people are on some level, anyway, not so different than efforts to achieve harmony of form in art. I regularly feel that I get the opportunity to examine spiritual concepts through the evocative processes of ceramics and picture-making.
A recent ceramic piece that I liked, and spent an inordinate amount of time making, failed. It was the most frustrating kind of failure because it appeared only in the final firing. At the same time, it proved to be a very useful failure.
I had applied a surface texture to it, and glazed it with a verdigris on the outside, and a clean white on the inside. The glazes, however, were apparently stressed out because they had such different formulations. They didn’t get along.
One had a high frit content and didn’t budge (so I’m told) when it became vitrified; the outer glaze reacted quite differently, and expanded and contracted with the extreme heat of the firing. These very different chemical reactions, along with the shape of the piece, caused it to crack from stress. It’s called “dunting”.
Although disappointing, the dunting drew my attention to a spiritual idea. Perhaps it was a symbolic, visual demonstration of what happens when the interior and exterior of a thing do not match:
“They … have no ambition except to revive the world, to ennoble its life, and regenerate its peoples. Truthfulness and good-will have, at all times, marked their relations with all men. Their outward conduct is but a reflection of their inward life, and their inward life a mirror of their outward conduct.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, CXXVI)
Or maybe, “Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart?” (Hidden Words of Bahá’u'lláh, #26 from the Persian). I do know now that shiny white and verdigris should not abide in one vessel, for sure. And that it is more fun to experiment with this topic on pots than it is on people.
So what of dunting, or jarring differences between the inside and outside, when it happens within a person? Between people? In your own creative efforts?
[With thanks to A. for asking about the artwork and precipitating thoughts]
June 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Love this exploration and have myself explored this space many times over the years. I am grateful to have a more elastic exterior/interior such that my mismatches never quite end up *dunting*. Yet: perhaps a broken heart; many steps traversed on some path that now seems implausible; abrupt shifts in relationships; the clarity that results from sublimation (not Freudian but chemical) are examples of my dunting. Hmmmm.
BTW: I love that you tried to tell a story with a verdigris glaze on the outside and a creamy pristine white on the inside and the texture is rapturous!
June 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I want this “broken” piece.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Leili, these are splendid reflections, thank you. This is an example of how one person’s spiritual advancement is like a candle that can ignite many more.
And the quotation brings other quotes from Baha’u'llah to mind: “Words must be followed by deeds; words without deeds are as bees that yield no honey, as trees that bear no fruit…” (The Bahá’í World 1926-1928, Volume II, pp. 62-63)
“Amongst the people is he who seateth himself
amid the sandals by the door whilst coveting in his heart the seat of honour. Say: What manner of man art thou, O vain and heedless one, who wouldst appear as other than thou art?” (Most Holy Book, paragraph 36)
“…is not the object of every Revelation to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions?” (The Book of Certitude, p. 240)
And Rumi:
The mentor says, “O raw hastener, through patient waiting, You must climb to the summit step by step. Boil your pot by degrees and in a masterly way; Food boiled in mad haste is spoiled. Doubtless God could have created the universe By the fiat ‘Be!’ in one moment of time;
Why, then, did He protract His work over six days, Each of which equaled a thousand years, O disciple? Why does the formation of an infant take nine months? Because God’s method is to work by slow degrees, Why did the formation of Adam take forty days? Because his clay was kneaded by slow degrees. Not hurrying on like you, O raw one…
Brent
June 9th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
This is a soursop, better known to us in the South as a guanábana, which makes a most delicious juice. Your art is beautiful even if it cracked.
I am teaching a course now about the role of the individual in society and currently we are exploring the principle of investigating truth as an issue of coherence between our inner and outer lives. It is very rewarding as a teacher and I hope it is as well for my students! Nice post.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
@ Pritha: Thanks for your thoughtful reflections, as ever. I somehow knew the topic would not be foreign to you.
@ Farnaz: When are you coming to visit, then?
@ Brent: Those selections are wonderful and shed more light on the subject – the purpose of every Revelation being to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind …. ! And the Rumi is fantastic. Had never read it. Thanks.
@ Justin: Soursop! I was thinking aquatic, but tropical fruit works too. What field do you specialize in? And what materials are you using to explore the investigation of truth as an issue of inner/outer coherence with your students? Bohm’s “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” springs to mind.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Leili, Aquatic? This is too much of a coincidence. Look at this picture and tell me you did not have this in mind while you worked:
http://www.hotelsantacruz.com/turismo/images/guanabana.jpg
Guanabana indeed! Hahaha.
Although I have studied in several areas, my formation in education for development from FUNDAEC molded my thought and actions the most. I use parts of their materials in my classes. Although my classes are in English, my students have a high-intermediate or slightly higher English level, so very few would be able to work with a text by Bohm. It makes teaching such deep concepts quite tricky. We watch the 8 diet for a new america videos available on youtube to introduce the topic as most have not questioned how their diet choices relate to their value system. We also focus on evolution of the human spirit, which I explored here, check it out:
http://iguanajournal.blogspot.com/2008/05/stages-of-growth.html
I have not read the text you refer to, but I would like to. I will look for it, thanks for the tip.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:55 am
Re: the guanabana photograph, that is utterly amazing. I have only had guanabana juice from a can, and have never seen the fruit in person. Blown away!
The Bohm book is best in the first part – as it progresses it gets into more technical/physics aspects. Early on, though, it argues that wholeness is the natural state of things, and that fragmented thinking and approaches bring fragmented results.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Leili, Thanks for the comment on my website, I just came over here to see what you do.
Wow!.
I like what I see so far.
and Michael Cardew, who I had the pleasure of meeting, long ago, he was a truly inspiring person.
This dunting is down to the inner glaze being in compression, and the outer one being in tension. I’ve seen this in even more dramatic form, where a pot with this imbalance, looking in perfect condition, was knocked whilst being arranged in an exhibition, it burst, with a loud bang, like a grenade, and left no piece bigger than a fingernail.
Sometimes, just a slower cooling cycle in the kiln can cure this, it’s likely that your pot had a slight crack whilst in bisque form, and this crack propagated from an existing weak point during cooling.
The glaze and the pot form are great. If I were you, I’d make a test piece and fire the same combination again, but with a slightly thinner interior coating.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Thank you for your kind words, and thoughts, Soubriquet.
Amazing that you had the opportunity to meet Cardew. Sounds like you have a long experience with clay.
Re: the dunting – it has happened on several pieces, both with a high-frit white/verdigris as well as with nothing/verdigris. Although on this piece I think the interior/exterior glaze combination, combined with too-rapid cooling were the main culprits, the fact that I throw extremely thin, along with the form and rim (not the sturdiest) doesn’t help. Our large group kiln is shared, and so controlling the firings and cooling rate can be difficult. I do think, however, I will try this combo again, for experimentation – and spray the bisque piece with water aggressively so that the interior glaze is as thin as can be.
That anecdote about the exploding pot is amazing! Must have been an awesome sight.