Xiem, kemper, and mudtools and random tools collected throughout my continued time in ceramics. 7 years of collecting and finding new ways to work with clay.
Pottery tool roundup
in DE ARTE
Clay Talk
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I left the studio i was at back in January. Before i left, i finished a collection of objects. Self-described as Nomsters, of all shapes and sizes. Nomsters of gods and blobs and things.
I started school again, after about 6/7 years… I’m taking a handbuilding class! So far its been good, I think its something that forces me out of my comfort zone a bit. Having assignments and objectives has pushed me to step into more logical thinking and planning. Planning is not something ive been doing with clay for the last few years, ive let it speak through me and let the ideas flow out of me as i go.
Ive updated the Day Ceramica- Process page with a bunch of work in progress photos at different stages of the clay process. I’ll be updating the objects page soon with some shots of the final forms.
Pieces in progress-green ware pt. 1
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What a special medium. Ive been working with clay for the last 4/5 years, it has remained dear to my heart ever since. I started connecting to it instantly and felt a part of myself start to speak through it. Im coming into my puzzle of an identity more and more the longer i create with it. I feel all the faceless ancestors of mine teach me.
This medium goes through fire and dryness and unpredictability in such a consistently magnifying way. It’s beautiful in each of its stages. A wet maleable dough, a form that starts to hold its shape, it can be carved into and added on to until it reaches a state of fragile strength, its put under fire, forced to cool, and painted with liquid that burns into glass for its final form. All while being in an uncertain state. Your final piece may not come out exactly as you expect it to, it may come out in pieces, it may come out fully intact. The beauty in that is so powerful and has been my biggest teacher since i started.
This collection, like all my pieces, are a connection to me. I expect nothing and receive everything. I wanted to record a few of the pieces ive been making in its earliest stage- pre-bisqued and raw.
I’m excited to play around with not only functionality but making them come alive through the shadows they create, I noticed this pattern when I first started making this collection and I’ve been chasing different shadows in some of my pieces ever since.
June & July Journal
June & July
I finished A Very Easy Death by Simon De Beuvoir. Its a fast read that took me a long time to want to pick up. I have grown up taught to except death as it comes. Within my family there are health conditions that have seen better days in the recent years and its not an easy thing to experience. So you could imagine picking up a book about the last few days of the authors mothers life was something I was a bit uncertain I could handle. But I got through it and it was a beautiful telling of pain and comfort in family that spoke directly to me.
For my birthday I got myself Ed Templeton’s 87 Portraits, from the Arcana bookstore. I missed the day he had a book signing but luckily they had some more shipped in.
My sweet sweet Sol sent me a card game for my birthday, I haven’t played it with friends yet but it looks exciting!
Plants pictured: A pothos plant I grew from just the nodes of my moms 40 year old pothos! A pink syngonium, and a new Pothos N’ joy I got from leimert park.
Many many beach days, as many beach days as I can get in a week! This is something very very new to me and I plan on writing a bit more about it but being at the beach in a bathing suit, just loving myself and not hating my existence in this vessel is something i’ve never experienced until this year. Ive struggled with body dymporphia my entire life, from outside perceptions of me that have distorted how I see my body. Its a beautiful thing to feel more comfortable than I ever have.
I had a glaze day at the studio, got some pieces out of the final kiln and built this nomster planter!
and last but certainly not least, I rode a bike for the very first time in my adult life, invigorating to say the least. Also, terrifying but I felt like my childhood traumas were healing.
Plant Resilience is Human Resilience
Its like the world only wants to show plants when they are blooming not declining. I know I’m not alone when i say i am guilty of neglecting my plants as well as my self.
My depression fluctuates quite often, added fibromyalgia pains to the mix and everything just becomes harder…
I stick pretty hardly to the words “everything is connected”, I see it firmly in the plants in my home. When I don’t give them the proper care, they get droopy, they dry up, and they get prone to little creatures from their mold. Kind of like humans!? When I don’t give myself the proper care, I get droopy and so does this vessel I live in. Sometimes I dont notice until its too late and I feel like I have to push that start over button with my health.
Sticking to routines is hard, I simply say get back on the saddle when you’ve felt enough time pass for yourself.. everything is hard enough in life.
TAKE IT EASY
Technically none of the plants we grow in our homes to make us feel better even belong there. They grow wild and free, attaching and proving for and in nature. They soak up their natural seasons because that’s where they are firmly grounded and rooted. No matter how much time I land in my lowest depression it seems these guys are as resilient as I am. They are a reminder of the resilience that lives inside me.
I notice them drooping when i’m in bed, sometimes I stare at them and hope they understand how tired my body feels. Even the routine of giving them their drink of water and care is something I struggle with sometimes. Waking up with pain as soon as light breaks through the windows, shatters a lot of my energy from the start. But the moment I do get out of bed and clean their leaves and give them a big ol drink of water, they spring back up and I feel gratitude. They make me feel important, its not just me that needs to get out of bed and get a drink of water, I have to provide that for myself and my plants and my two cats, Joffa and Sombra, but that’s a story for another time.
Plants and things, they aren’t much different than us. They’ve taught me a lot about my own patience and resilience. They teach me the importance of living, in the moment. Because I think we could all benefit from that drink of water. I know the routines I have set up in my life are key components in my well being, but as much as I know that, living with pain makes it extremely difficult to follow through. Its more than just taking things a day at a time, to me its about breathing, acknowledging the pains, and pushing through when I can. Because I can’t always push through so easily.
everyday is a health day
Every day is a day to take care of your mental physical and spiritual health. As it is all connected, we experience these three things hand in hand, daily.
I live with chronic debilitating illnesses both physical and mental, every day is a battle i fight through.
I am not ashamed of living the way I do. Unfortunately there are more days than I’d like, where my chronic pain takes over. I’ve had a cold for over a week now and normal to me is my immune system on overdrive. With my inflammatory disease, my pain is sometimes not manageable. My main medication is a an snri, working as an antidepressant that also increases the serotonin and norepinephrine in my big brain that calms down my pain receptors. I picture them going off uncontrollably like a parade of fireworks. My medications help but at the same time they dont. Its funny and ironic because when im happy and working and creating its like im in another dimension where my body is just as happy, I go numb to my own conditions because I am energetically more positive. Its hard to wake up sometimes with no money and not think of drowning.
I notice changes in my body when I don’t drink enough water, stretch my body a few times a day, and when my stress levels increase so does this pain. Fibro isn’t something that can be cured and it’s not exactly something that has enough study to be fully understood. Taking the time to listen to myself and study my body greatly decreases my chances of a monthly flare up.
Right now I have a rheumatologist, pcp, psychiatrist, therapist, and an obgyn that have provided me with help in managing these conditions. Getting care from multiple doctors that take their time to listen to me has been a blessing I didn’t even think could happen.
I started therapy when I turned 25 thanks to my mom even though she doesn’t believe in it. Her gift to me was medical insurance that I’ve been able to use and help myself live a more manageable daily life. That does not mean it is easy for my mom to pay that every month, I have this little cloud over my head racking up the bill to pay her back because quite frankly it isnt fair that she has to put half of her check into me and she deserves more. I can’t describe the feeling of being able to go into Kaiser again though. I lost my medical insurance when I was 17 and since then have been seen by doctors that have harassed, lied, and hurt me. 18-25 living with illnesses that they believed I didn’t have because I was “too young to have that pain”???
Ex: Going into urgent care with multiple ruptures cysts in my uterus and being in a hospital room for 10 hours only to be given ibuprofen and sent home. I was told I couldnt have pneumonia last year because I was too young. (After catching pneumonia before it advanced to an infection in my lungs, catching covid before covid) I was treated unfairly by the first obgyn I went to who made me cry a river while he uncomfortably misdiagnosed me, told me to take medication and tried to tell me my allergic reactions were happening because I was drinking alcohol?!? Which I wasn’t (from my long, excruciating history with medication i know not to do things that upset my body even more)
I started a chronicallysickchronicles where I write in more detail about my monthly flare ups and what I did to manage and balance myself.. It is not an easy thing to live with chronic illnesses. It is also something that does not stop me from living. World mental health day was two days ago, it took me a while to write this. I think its extremely important to note that every day is a new day and chronic illnesses whether mental or physical or both look different on all of us. We experience everyday differently and are all connected by it.
You are not alone, I am not alone. We are unique and pretty fucking resilient..
