Stuff I Made

Today I went to the Pera Museum to see the exhibition Masterpieces of World Ceramics from the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A is one of my favorite museums. I often consider going back to London just to visit it and the British Museum. I often find ceramics to be equally, though differently, as moving as paintings or sculptures. They’re tactile. I’m drawn to simple, rough pieces that have no interest in hiding their dirtness, pieces with earthy glazes and odd or even sophisticated shapes. When I’m in the Louvre, I usually skip the painting rooms (too much drama, too much flesh) and head to the ancient Near Eastern archaeology sections. Today, I probably embarrassed myself by doing more than one little happy dance before more than one exhibition case.

I know I really like a piece of art or craft when it makes me want to paint or make something, and I’ve wanted to paint or make since this afternoon. Although I spend large portions of my free time making silver and semi-precious stone jewelry, I miss getting my hands dirty. I miss the texture and mass of wet clay, rolling a flat piece in the slab roller, stamping and incising, coiling and joining, cutting tiles, not to mention obsessive compulsive glazing. I miss flipping open my idea book, taking stamps and needle tools out of my art box. Since I don’t have available studio space, I’m going to pat myself on the back and show you pictures of things I made a few years ago, inspired by pieces in museums and pictures from the archaeology section of the Bryn Mawr College library. The actual things are in shoeboxes, stored in a friend’s attic, waiting for me to figure out how to get them to Turkey without breaking them.

I call this group the cavalry.

This is my version of a Boetian bell idol. Her legs are clappers. She makes a pleasant, musical little sound when shook. She sounds nothing like she looks.

These are my little boat people. This is my least favorite of my versions of the subject, but the only one of which I have a picture. My favorite one is on loan (probably permanent) to an archaeologist friend. It would be nearly impossible to get it acrosss the ocean without mishap unless I called on the V&A packing crew.

I am most attached to this one. He's an abbreviated version of an ancient one with four horses. His little hat is separate and has holes in it for string intended to attach to his head. His hands and the horses muzzles have holes for reins, though I never got around to putting the string through the holes. I never got around to fixing the axles with string either.

I call him Ben Hur. I didn't quite understand how to structure the chariot to hook up to the cart correctly. Next time.

I don't think of myself as an artist. Instead, I'm more of an amateur. It seems to me that many real artists and craftspeople don't get emotionally attached to what they produce, maybe because they produce so much, or accept that what they make will (hopefully) leave their hands for someone else's. I'm highly attached to my little guys, even if I can't get at them.