Beyond the Picture

The heart-wrending photo I posted yesterday of an Alabaman wave polluted by the Gulf oil spill prompted me to share some work by artists who evidently love nature, and whose work, I find, deepens my own love for nature and beauty.

Sakiyama Takayuchi is a Japanese ceramic artist who makes clay look like water and stone at the same time. Joan Mirviss says of his work, “Some vessels appear as if made from sand on the beach, the surface simply decorated by the current of the receding water. Others appear to undulate and twist in space as if in perpetual motion.”

"Listening to Waves", 2004, S. Takayuki. Sand-glazed stoneware.

This undulating, double-walled piece, entitled, Listening to Waves

“…gives material expression to the sensation of sound and the movement of water…. Waves swirl across the exterior, sweeping over the rim into the interior to create a fully integrated, organic form. Moss-colored glaze fills the ebblike grooves, leaving traces of sand on the surface of the vessel. This effect recalls the raked sand-waves of Zen kare sansui gardens, such as the sixteenth-century Ryoanji in Kyoto, which convey the expanse of the oceans, and ultimately the entire universe.” (From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History on the Met’s site)

I  love the idea that a humble lump of clay – skillfully-formed – can convey someone’s inner sense of the “expanse of the universe”.

S. Takayuchi, 2008. Vessel with diagonally-incised cascading folds. Glazed stoneware.

Next up, Jim Denevan is an American “earth artist” who, like Takayuchi, evokes the grandeur of nature. He makes temporary drawings on sand, earth and ice that are eventually erased by waves and weather.

I'm so partial to this image I don't know what to do with myself.

He claims to have made the world’s largest free-hand drawing. Is it bigger than the Uffington White Horse drawing etched in chalk in the English countryside? Possibly. I don’t really care. His drawings are sublime, and I love the fact that they are ephemeral. They fade away according to nature’s whim and schedule, covered by the tide, blown away by the wind.

Stunning, meditative, freehand labor of love. Look at the scale!

Finally, there’s Colleen Plumb, an American photographer whose eccentric and surprising series of photographs, Animals Are Outside Today, examines the intersections between humans and animals.

Horseback Mountain

This image is so arresting, it gives me the shivers. I can *hear* it. Plumb explains that she likes to study “how animals are woven through the fabric of culture. I began this project looking at fake nature, considering how substitutions for nature might satisfy people. Looking deeper I began photographing real animals, investigating how they provide intangible links to a deeper world of instinct and rawness.”

Elephant. Colleen Plumb, "Animals are Outside Today".

Now, I am not claiming that these three artists have some sort of pure, unambivalent “love for nature”. Love for nature can look like many things – sometimes the over-the-top awe and joy we feel for the natural world can be mixed with revulsion, fear or callousness.

We domesticate wild animals and keep them indoors. We adore the beauty of creatures, but one way of engaging with that beauty has been to conquer them and decorate our interiors with their hides and horns. We yearn to walk in an ancient forest, but we won’t directly miss it if it’s gone, thousands of miles away, and if it yields beautiful furniture and houses for us. Plumb says,

Contradictions define our relationships with animals. We love and admire them; we are entertained and fascinated by them; we take our children to watch and learn about them. Animals are embedded within core human history–evident in our stories, rituals and symbols. At the same time, we eat, wear and cage them with seeming indifference, consuming them in countless ways.

Our connection to animals today is often developed through assimilation and appropriation; we absorb them into our lives, yet we no longer know of their origin. Most people are cut off from the steps involved in their processing or acquisition, shielded from witnessing their death or decay. I am interested in moving within these contradictions, always wondering if the notion of sacred will survive alongside our evolution.

Plumb reflects on our relationships with animals, and underscores in her photographs the many contradictions and ambivalences that characterise those relationships. My starting point, the photograph of the oily wave, seems similar somehow. Although the image is not a traditional “nature” shot depicting a pristine ocean, I don’t doubt that the photographer loves nature and wants, through his work, to draw attention to its destruction. Denevan’s work is fleeting; it dies and fades away, underscoring the fragility of nature and a fascination with its manipulation. Even Takayuchi sets forth ideas with a sort of irony: he thinks about the expanse of the universe – in the form of a pot, made of mud.

Denevan

What artwork have you seen that inspires your love for nature, contradictions and all? And don’t worry – there will certainly be ample discussion of Andy Goldsworthy in Part 3, coming soon.

I first saw this photograph (by David Martin of the AP) in June: spilt oil forms a delicate pattern in waves hurtling toward the Alabama coastline:

Blobs of oil hurtling toward the sand of an Alabama beach. Photo: David Martin/AP

I have seen a number of photographs, all terrifying, of oil-covered pelicans and brown waterscapes in the Gulf region. More than others, however, this photo spoke volumes for me. For those of us who do not live in a Gulf state and don’t see the damage in front of our faces, it is perhaps difficult to comprehend the devastation the spill has caused to wildlife, livelihoods, ways of life. I think about the Exxon Valdes disaster, its attendant photos of oil-soaked birds, and the vague (if erroneous) perception that in time, it was cleaned up, bird populations have bounced back, etc. That may not have happened, and I fear it has not, but as the disaster faded from memory and from the consciousness of those of us living far away, that was the assumption.

The photo by Martin bears witness and gets my attention in quite powerful but understated way – it looks beautiful at first glance, before one is able to process it. Is that – seeweed floating in the water? No, it’s thick blobs of brown, iridescent oil that choke and cloud the water. As the wave crashes to shore, it will seep inches deep into the sand on the shore.

Never mind the more fundamental questions about greed, irresponsibility, prevention and the causes of this environmental disaster. Everyone is wondering: Will it ever be cleaned, in water or on land? How? How long will it take? What will the pervasive oil do to people’s and creatures’ physical health? What obvious, and what hidden effects will there be, and how long will it take for these impacts to emerge?

The image sticks in my head. Soon I’ll be sharing some other images as a counterbalance to the feeling of pessimism that accompanies this one. I’ll feature works by artists who have been inspired by nature. Their work, although it carries contradictions and ambivalence, is infused with their love of the earth, and their work intensifies my love for the earth.

“‘The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established,’ Bahá’u'lláh wrote. ‘The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.’  The major issues facing the environmental movement today hinge on this point. The problems of ocean pollution, the extinction of species, acid rain and deforestation – not to mention the ultimate scourge of nuclear war – respect no boundaries. All require a transnational approach.

This dichotomy between spirituality and materialism is a key to understanding the plight of humankind today. In the Bahá’í view, the major threats to our world environment … are manifestations of a world-encompassing sickness of the human spirit, a sickness that is marked by an overemphasis on material things and a self-centeredness that inhibits our ability to work together as a global community.”

(From the Statement on Nature, Bahá’í International Community)

Some weeks ago, my sweet friend Shirin came over to purchase a wedding gift for her cousin (Congratulations Tekies!). I brought out a number of my ceramic pieces to the kitchen table (made of white Corian, about 6’ long) and let her choose. When she selected the piece she wanted, I went to the other room to wrap it in protective paper, and placed it back on the table.

Black and white stoneware piece for the Tekies

Shirin was texting someone, not touching the table, and I was writing something down, also not in contact with the table, when we both heard a very loud CRRRACK, then exploding sound, then a huge crash. Apparently, the table, which had upon it several of my very favorite ceramic pieces, decided to SPONTANEOUSLY SPLIT ITSELF IN TWO. The two halves of the table turned downward, crashed to the floor (narrowly avoiding our feet) and everything on it broke—except the recently-purchased and -wrapped wedding gift.

After jumping out of our chairs with the noise and explosion, Shirin and I were paralyzed for a moment. What had happened? Why, with only about 8 lbs of weight on it, and no one touching or putting pressure on the table, had it committed hara-kiri? And why, after we have had the table for years, did it choose to do so with my pieces sitting on it?

There is probably a simple technical explanation – perhaps the span of the Corian table was too wide, and it had a hidden stress fracture that finally decided to resolve its tension and split. I was more interested, however, in spiritual reasons for the breakage, if any, and what it could teach me.

Table now fixed, w/ supportive plywood added underneath

I have heard many times of the practice in Japan, China and elsewhere of requiring beginning potters to throw work—and destroy it all for an entire year or two or three. I have mentioned this here before. Although I am relieved in some sense that I have not been trained in this context, the purpose of this approach is a noble one. Making and destroying your work for a period of time teaches detachment from the pieces you make, from your ego, and from outcomes and reactions thereto. It prizes the process, the pure intention and technical exercise of creating something, and challenges the illusion of control over the very capricious medium of clay.

I found an interesting thought on a Hungarian ceramic artist’s blog, proposing that perhaps ceramics could be defined as clay in all its stages of being—greenware (unfired), bisque fired, glazed and yes—broken into shards. “Nothing,” writes Gabor Terebess, “has a final shape (broken ceramics advertise) … it is the part that makes the whole; it is absence that makes presence what it is.” Hm. Nothing has a final shape. Always transmuting, always changing, never static. Also true for people? Is it ever time to give up on our own (or others’) capacity to change?

Left to pick up the pieces.

So evidently my pots decided to change their shape, without my prior approval. It was, I admit, disappointing to collect the broken pieces of these pots that I spent hours making. I haven’t thrown them away as yet, which may be an indicator of my reluctance to fully embrace the lesson in spiritual detachment that a table tried to teach me. But all is not lost. This tiny realm of destroyed artwork can provide reflections on why more significant things in life often don’t turn out as planned.

And what to do when they don’t? The totally uncalled-for explosion of the table actually is an opportunity to examine what it means to make something out of an unintended result, and have that new effort be better, more confident, more integrated and awake.

No, really, it was a good experience

How have you responded when things contrary to your wishes happen? Both in the symbolic artistic realm, and in the larger arena of life?

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.

The piece in question, when it was greenware (before the bisque firing).

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.

Obstinate verdigris and white glazes

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”.

Look! I've hidden the unsightly crack!

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.

I kind've like - and accept - the piece this way.

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]

Originally uploaded by ardour.

I find this picture by Yoav very beautiful. It reminds me of something that has bothered me for some time, and for which no one has yet supplied an answer that makes sense:

Although we see and hear many birds each day, why do we almost never see dead birds? I have seen hundreds of thousands of birds in my life. I am even one of those nerds who seeks them out. Yet I have only seen a tiny number of dead birds in my life. In Haifa, yes: I understand that there are ravening feral cats everywhere, and “being eaten” has got to explain the phenomenon, at least partially. But what about all the other places? How could street animals and/or wildlife possibly get to all the millions of birds who die each day without me seeing any evidence? It’s not like I don’t look around, either.

What’s your theory?

Roses in the heart of New York City.
Originally uploaded by .Leili.

In a related question, I am wondering what happens to all the flowers that are grown and cut and shipped and bunched and displayed in a streetside stand for myriad purposes — apologies, love, restitution, thanks — and go unclaimed? Do all those potential emotions wind up wilted and unexpressed in the dumpster at the back alley?