Jim and Nan McKinnell
Ceramic exhibitions don’t receive as much press as other art mediums here in Colorado and I suspect throughout the nation (if not the world). Imagine my delight in seeing a full page feature story on ceramic icons Jim and Nan McKinnell in the entertainment section of the Friday edition of the Denver Post. Even though they’re not originally from Colorado, Colorado claims them as their own after they settled in Ft. Collins, CO in 1970 after teaching and studying ceramics in many different locales.
A retrospective of the couple’s work is on view at the Beyers-Evans House Gallery courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society. Included in the exhibition are 84 pieces of pottery from full scale work to miniatures just a few inches tall, as well as some of their pottery tools, correspondence, framed and loose photographs. I’m intrigued by the artist couple – they both shared a love of ceramics and collaborated on nearly everything they made making it difficult to assign credit to a specific piece.
I’m looking forward to seeing the show and have been meaning to go to the Kirkland Museum, which also has a large collection of ceramics and pottery and is a few blocks away from the Beyers-Evans House Gallery. The only downside of going to the Kirkland Museum is that no one under 13 is allowed entrance. That puts the kibosh on going with my 10 year old daughter.
After looking for more information about the McKinnells, I stumbled upon the Smithsonian Archives of American Artists. The Smithsonian has digitized many of their collections and the information is available online. Isn’t that cool? The site also has a written transcript of an interview of Nan McKinnell archived, but the audio is not available online.
Meanwhile, I decided not to read Thoreau again, because I’m going to listen to it instead while I work. After cruisin’ the ‘net this morning I found LibriVox, a group of volunteers whose goal it is to record all public domain books in the USA (basically anything published before 1925) and make the audio recordings available for free to anyone who wants to listen. I found the full Walden audiobook on the site and am going to load it onto my iPod Nano. A list of cataloged books in on their site, but can also be found under Podcasts in iTunes.
As to a Thoreauesque family experiment, I suggested the idea to my husband and daughter over dinner last night. My husband is interested, but my daughter was sputtering like I just asked her to cut off her right foot or something.
Finally, my mom and a few others emailed me yesterday to tell me that my blog wasn’t showing up correctly. I checked it out in my browser (Firefox) and it looked fine, but then decided to open my site in IE after suspecting that there might be a compatibility issue since a similar thing has happened in the past. Lo and behold, it looked like gremlins had eaten everything! I checked the html code editor in Wordpress (I normally use the WYSIWYG editor) and some weird code was present. It must have happened yesterday when I did a cut and paste of my post after I edited it in Word. Luckily it was a quick fix and nothing serious.
Have a good week,
~Cynthia
Hand built relief printed white stoneware boxes fresh from the bisque kiln.
I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been very productive lately when it comes to making any new work. I am not sure if it’s the awful news of late and all of the political campaign noise that’s distracting me or if it is the result of my mom duties or that I have been questioning whether or not I should even make pottery. To relate it in pottery terms, I feel like I have been looking for answers in a murky throwing bucket before the clay slurry has had a chance to settle to the bottom leaving clear water on top. Maybe my inattentiveness and reluctance to enter my studio is a combination of all of the above. It’s not like I haven’t been thinking about clay either – it’s something more.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Oh for Carpe Diem’s sake, Cynthia, stop over analyzing everything! Just do it already and start making work and posting pretty pictures again.” I’ve decided to edit the political, financial, religious and mom stuff out of my original post and am going to cut to the chase today.
Here is part of what it comes down to: I’ve been a little hung up on making things to sell to other people when I’ve been trying to live a simpler less consumer driven life.
The philosophy of “living simply“ has ties to Transcendentalism, Epicureanism, Conservation, Social Justice, Sustainable Development, Ascenticsm, Taoism, Buddhism, and even Anarchism. According to social scientist and author of Voluntary Simplicity, Duane Elgin describes voluntary simplicity “as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living.”
By now, you’re either fully tuned out, or you’re saying, “Get to the point, sister!”
In the past few months, I’ve considered selling all my equipment and doing something else – something more service oriented. In the past few days, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that potters are part of an ancient tradition of making functional and decorative hand crafted work and are passing their knowledge to future artists. A hand made mug does cost quite a bit more than a cheap mass produced one from China sold at big box stores, but that purchase is also supporting a lifestyle that very well could become extinct. Now more than ever before, the arts are a necessary component of a healthy and balanced society. In a way, people like me as well as everyone listed in my blogroll on the right hand side bar, along with artisans around the world are sustaining an important tradition. In essence, the act of making and purchasing hand crafted items is a conscious choice that fits well into the philosophy of living a simpler life.
One of the fathers of the movement, Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden while living in a simple cabin outside town as an experiment to live close to nature with minimal personal stuff in the 1800’s. While I know life is more complicated than it was in the 19th C, and can’t really be compared or viewed in utopian or romantic terms, a place like Walden Pond sure sounds pretty enticing right now. Maybe my husband and daughter will be up for Thoreauesque experiment in the near future.
Either way, I feel like the clay slurry has settled and after letting my neuroses ferment for awhile, I realize that I am in the right place right now. I haven’t been taking advantage of the 6 uninterrupted hours I have available 5 days a week, to make work while my daughter is in school. All I lack right now is a little bit of discipline and the research stage has gone on long enough – time to start working in the studio.
Meanwhile, I took a close look at the work that I bisque fired the other day and am happy with the relief printed boxes and mugs. The work didn’t warp or crack and the design is crisp.
That’s it for today,
~Cynthia
