I dreamed that my friend Susan had a pottery studio and shop in Copley Square. Neat turn considering rents are in the neighborhood of 60 clams PER SQUARE FOOT! But, hey, it’s my dream and she could afford live/work/retail space there. Awesome.She was sculpting life size, abstract figures—male and female—and invited me to create some of my own. Now, it’s been years since I’ve worked in clay and longer since I’ve molded, whittled and thrown out the slabs for my clay women. Would I work in the same manner? Would I create similar women?
No. The creatures I formed weren’t light, floating strips and slabs of textured terra cotta. No. They were inelegant, carved, solid things—women in cumbersome, suffocating layers of Victorian garb. More of a Botero vibe than Giacometti or Brancusi.Yes, assuredly there’s some deep, important, weighty meaning in there. My take away though? I’ve got to, got to, GOT TO start playing in the clay again. I’ve been thinking that I’d like to build a pair of five foot tall gryphons. They’ll be formed of long, twisting, flying slabs. These will be gryphons that look as though they could take flight at any moment versus the one I’ve got guarding our front door now.
I can see it in my mind and feel the terra cotta in my hands now. I'm thinking of using some of the glazing methods that my friend Ellen employs—slips painted over slips, drawn into, incised and glazed.
Yeah, this is gonna happen!
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~Mark Twain
Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.
~Victor Hugo
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
~John F. Kennedy
Is this is a dream? O, if it be a dream,
Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In dreams begin responsibilities.
~William Butler Yeats
We are such stuff / As dreams are made on
~William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act4, scene 1, 148–158
Sweet Dreams—The Eurythmics
Did you write this post for me or does it just seem that way in my current, ahhh, transitional state? Either way, thank you dear.
ReplyDeleteAnytime Sweetheart, anytime :-)
DeleteWouldn't that be cool, a pottery studio in Copley Square. Maybe you and I are in sync here, Donna. I haven't been doing pottery for over a year; recently been itching for the feeling of clay, too!
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