In the zone

Around the time of my last post I had a day in the studio where I spent a lot of time staring and sighing. Which, I know, is a good thing to go through. It means that I am facing a challenge, some sort of lesson that will push my work forward. But that doesn't mean it feels good or that I'm gleeful for the challenge.

It might have even been that very same night that I picked up the book Everyday Sacred: A Woman's Journey Homewritten by Sue Bender and started reading her essays. When I first started posting my bowl series earlier this year, a Facebook friend recommended that I pick up this book. And I'm so glad I did- it gave me my painting mojo back! Friday evening came, I put the kids to bed, warmed up my palette, and seriously got into a zone. Several hours later, I had completed four bowl paintings.


from left to right: Needs and Wants, Sacred Vessel
Just Enough, More of Less
To see each painting larger, please click on the titles under the image, as they will take you to the painting by itself. I am actually going to list my paintings for sale as I go along with this series. I plan to make a lot, perhaps a la Judy Wise who is creating 100 paintings of abstract exploration. Well, 100 may be a bit ambitious for me as I have so many things competing for my attention when I'm in the studio. But I would like to make at least 20. Yeah, 20, that seems like a good number.

When I work on my bowls I get into this serious meditative phase while I'm painting. It's hard to describe. The best way is to just say that it is a continuous conversation with myself. Bowls just have so much meaning for me. I started working with bowls as a metaphor when I was preparing for my first solo show "Expectations" back in 2007. It wasn't something that I really delved into at the time, but looking back at my work, I can see the roots there.

But I can go even further back to high school where I spent so many, many hours in the ceramic studio, throwing bowl, after bowl, after bowl on the wheel. I loved being on the wheel. The whole act of centering the clay. Knowing, even then, that if I wasn't centered, there was no way I would get that lump of earth centered on the wheel. When I went to college, I found my way to the student center's pottery studio to throw more bowls and mugs to get that creative release amidst all my science classes (what was I thinking?!?). And later when I started teaching and doing speech and language services to a very demanding and stressful population in the Chicago public schools, I found my way to Lill Street, when it was just a pottery studio on Lill Ave. And I threw more more bowls, mugs, and even added plates to my repertoire.


That I May Receive
April 2012

I can go on and on about what my bowls are about. But I will just leave it at this- that Raymond Carver poem that sparked my first bowl painting back in January 2011

...My bowl is empty. But it's my bowl, you see,
and I love it.



My Bowl is Full
January 2012