Points to ponder I

Why does any self-respecting salad contain WHOLE cherry tomatoes? Has any chef out there given serious thought to what happens when you coat a cherry tomato with oil, set it on a glassy plate and then hand it to someone to spear with a fork?

Stab. Sproing. Splat. Stain. That’s what happens (she said, as she futilely dabbed at her grease-stained shirt).

And how come the local dayspa is now offering “ritual pedicures?” Do these guys ever read their own copy? Common usage is a tricky thing that can bite you in the fundament if you’re not careful.

There’s nothing in English textbooks to prohibit offering “ritual pedicures”…but do you really want to do that when “ritual killing” and “ritual murder” are media buzzwords? Prolly not. As for me, I’m already seeing newsflashes like this one:

Esthetician Misti Metootzies was convicted of three counts of grooming with special circumstances in the horrific ritual pedicure of a Hillsboro woman.

And what’s going on with Geico? Now there’s a company with a sense of humor. After getting a wicked-juicy black eye for discriminating against foreigners in the 90s and sued again last year for discriminating against blacks, Geico chose to make fun of bigotry in some very clever, “so easy a caveman could do it” commercials.

But now the ads are getting darker and darker, with newscasters, shrinks and arbitrators siding with Geico against the caveman. What used to be funny now has me wondering what kind of corporate mind would portray Geico as still not getting it in the face of some pretty negative PR? It’s kind of like Enron publishing Enron jokes.

Stick with the gecko, folks.

Artistry, artisanry

At the recent BECon glass conference I had drinks with an artist whose work I really respect. During the course of the idle, “waiting for everyone else to show up so we can have dinner” chitchat, we got to talking about warmglass.com* and how certain topics seem to be cyclical, i.e., they turn up every couple of months even though you’ve already chewed them to death.

“Like the old art vs. craft thing,” she shrugged, “I mean, who really cares? I don’t care what you call me as long as I can do glass.”

I agreed. “Besides, I don’t think a lot of what we call “glass art” is art. I think it’s artisanry. To me, art is all about the content. If what you’re showing off is the properties of the glass, it’s artisanry, not art.”

Across the table I could see her tense, and she got that “if I weren’t being so polite I’d knock off your head and stuff it up your…” look. “And are you saying,” she said carefully, “that what you call artisanry is not as good as art?”

“Of course not,” I said indignantly, and she relaxed–you could almost hear the “whew”–”I think it’s stupid that Americans are so hung up on “aahhhrt” being the only thing with any prestige. In other countries, Japan for instance, an exceptional craftsman is maybe even more highly regarded than an artist.”

Ahem. Oh, yeah:
(WARNING: PEDANTRY AHEAD. LEAVE NOW IF YOU’RE ALLERGIC TO WELL-WORN SOAP BOXES…)

Since this is my blog I don’t have to adhere to any bloody art professor’s definition, so here goes: I believe that if the primary goal of the work is to show off the properties of the material, or your skill at working with the material, or your skill at making mesmerizing patterns with the material, you’re making craft (or, since that’s a dirty word in most US art enclaves, artisanry). Artisanry is all about taking skillful advantage of the medium.

Art is all about content. Anyone can put content on a piece of paper (or a clothespin) and make art. Good artists do that so it communicates that content to the viewer and hopefully causes some kind of empathic response. And here’s the thing about art: It’s not medium-specific.

By that measure, most of what Lino Tagliapietra does is artisanry. Who says his work shouldn’t be as highly revered (or more so) as, say, a painting by Hockney? Certainly not me, not with my Tagliapietra fixation. (Remind me to tell you of the time I bought a real, live “Tagliapietra” on eBay…)

Combine effective art content with the craftsmanship of an exceptional artisan…and I think you have a great artist. He not only communicates emotional content effectively, but his superb skill in the medium amplifies and empowers the content. Maybe we shouldn’t call him “just” a great artist, but I don’t know the right word.

And for the rest, I don’t think it’s fair (or intelligent) to place artist above artisan, or vice versa. And I’m not sure where people got the idea that crafts were either practiced by bored housewives crocheting tea cozies or people who were “good with their hands” and (by extension) lacking in imagination. I think it originated with the Manhattan “his art’s better than yours” crowd, which makes it semantic snobbery, not a valid PoV.

So why is it so pervasive in the US?

It’s a pity, because that attitude leads to all this hoohah about art vs. craft and makes artists ignore the tenets of good craftsmanship so they’re called metal sculptors instead of blacksmiths. It also makes the Peter Voulkos school of sculpture more valued than it probably should be while there’s something faintly commercial and tainted about, say, Frederick Hart’s work. (And lemme tell you, once you’ve seen Hart’s Ex Nihilo in person at the National Cathedral, the only thing tainted will be your soul.)

What I wish is that craft galleries (and museums) wouldn’t spend so much time on the defensive, trying to prove their inventory isn’t just as good as “real art.” (And in fact the reason I’m bringing this up is because of a discussion I had with one of the staff at the local crafts museum) But they wouldn’t have to if the US would, as usual, take a worldlier view.

Anyway. End of rant.

Oh. What am I?

Most of the time I’m an artisan (or maybe a labrat, given the amount of experimentation I do). Every once in awhile, and increasingly in things like the Emergents and my glass sketches, the content marries the craft and it becomes art. I suspect I’m no different than most glassists working at my level.

———————-
*Warmglass.com is the electronic equivalent of a glass artists’ cracker barrel. It’s a great source of information, also a great time-waster if you’ve got other things you should be doing. If you’re interested in kilnformed glass, it’s worth a visit.

It’s only my opinion, now…

…but I’m beginning to think that the qualifier “only” is one of the most damaging phrases in the American language. (same goes for “just” as in “it’s just a little thing I did at home”)

Think about it. By adding the word “only” to this sentence you change its whole character:

It’s intended for teenagers, so I strung it on cotton embroidery thread.
It’s only intended for teenagers, so I strung it on cotton embroidery thread.

Until I got into a discussion about it online, I hadn’t really thought about this from a semantic perspective. A woman justified lowering prices for the jewelry she made by putting down, in turn, her work, the small venue, and her customers. And I was struck with how these days it seems that these qualifiers have become an easy way to justify mediocrity, i.e., “My customer/the show/my work isn’t worth it so I did a half-assed job.”

Interestingly, I’ve also observed that many people who denigrate themselves in this way rarely realize that they’re putting themselves down, and they’re astonished when people take them at their word. Certainly this lady was, and spent much of the rest of her dialogue in angry defense.

There’s a cute scene in the Joy Luck Club where one of the Chinese daughters brings her fiancee home to meet her parents. Mom serves a traditional dinner with the traditional modest disclaimers (i.e., putdowns) about her cooking, and the boyfriend takes her at her word. “That’s OK. With a little ketchup it’ll taste just fine…” (and obviously gets the in-law relationship off to a rocky start)

This is probably one of those times where listening to yourself, or at least re-reading what you’ve written, would come in handy. I don’t see the point in doing a mediocre job–I’d rather not do it at all, then–and I don’t want others to think I would. So…I pledge to listen to myself more, and slap myself silly if I catch myself putting down my work, my customers, or anything else with the word “only.”

It’s only fair, after all.

CMOG does a very nice thing: glass videos

Ask and ye shall receive, apparently.

The Corning Museum of Glass, one of my favorite places on earth, just released 40 video clips about various glass studio techniques, and most of them are well worth watching. It’s a vast improvement over their first rich media forays, i.e., semi-audible podcasts with a few still images.

I moaned a bit about that in a previous blogpost, and bedogged if they didn’t fix it by releasing these clips. Since I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next installment of their masterclass series (which so far hasn’t materialized), this is a great consolation prize. Much happiness and joy.

There are segments on glassblowing, coldworking, flameworking, kilnforming, casting, etc. Most are about some aspect of glassblowing (not surprising given the fact that it’s CMOG). Audio is clear, (the voices of David Whitehouse and Bill Gudenrath in the segments I’ve seen so far) photography is sharp and well-lighted and the information is useful. The segments are pretty basic, but give you a good look at what is meant by, say, “battuto.”

You can download the small versions directly from Corning’s web site, or purchase the full-sized versions directly from Corning. I’m doing the latter and adding it to my library.

Happy sigh.

They haven’t entirely abandoned the audio-only podcast format, which is still a pity since this is such a visual medium. Tina Oldknow, museum curator and annual glass review maven, interviews the definitely UN-neutral Marvin Lipofsky in the latest.

Here’s another cool idea, although unless you’re planning to visit the museum you’ll wind up mostly frustrated: Corning has uploaded its audiobook tour files–the tourguide-in-a-box narratives that many museums now use to tell the audience what it’s looking at. The idea is that you can download it to your MP3 player and avoid a headset rental charge when you visit.

Just FYI, CMOG’s done more than this to beef up its website. I’ve been using its art search tool for a little while now, but I think they only formally released it this week. It’s great for finding and learning about historic glass pieces. Give it a whirl…

Gosh. Haven’t been to CMOG in a couple of years at least. Obviously, it’s time for another visit. Cheers….

Relay race

As I mentioned, my Skutt GM1414 “bathtub” kiln chose exactly the wrong moment to roll over and play dead: I had a big honking 15-day firing schedule set up for a piece that’s about as large as the kiln can handle. 16 hours into the firing it starts displaying “Err1″ and that’s it–you couldn’t bake a decent cake in the thing.

Still, the poor kiln’s performed flawlessly and uncomplainingly for nearly four years. And since it had fired just enough of the mold to make it too fragile to move, I figured it was worth fixing.

Played phone tag with the nice folks at Skutt for a couple of days, finally connected and explained the trouble. “I’m 95% sure you’ve got a bad relay,” said the expert, adding that a relay replacement kit would most likely take care of the problem.

“Is it easy to install? Does it come with instructions?”

“Yes and yes. We ship it with a complete set of instructions, photos and everything. There’s really NOTHING TO IT.”

Now, in the annals of famous last words, “nothing to it” is right up there with “you can’t miss it.” After (I hope) successfully installing the kit I can say with confidence that there’s really SOMETHING TO IT!

Truthfully, once you get over the idea that the photos should be helping (they’re grainy, out of focus and black and white, which isn’t much help in distinguishing red wires from black or yellow from white), and you learn to ignore the tendency to understatement (”the tool necessary to install the relay replacement kit is a #2 Phillips screwdriver” (yeah, right)), the documentation isn’t bad. It’s written in a good step-by-step order and includes phone numbers to call if you have problems.

But I thought I’d share a few pointers in case anyone else out there needs to upgrade their Skutt GM 1414 relays:

Tool up. The instructions say all you need is a phillips screwdriver. By the time I completed the installation I had used the screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a “third hand” extender to retrieve lost screws, a razor knife to snip off the cable ties, a worklight, pen and paper.

The myth of the black wires. The instructions repeatedly refer to a number of black wires you must locate and either remove or isolate. For the record, the wires inside my controller are white, red, and yellow. Period. The “six black wires” are “six white wires.”

No pushover. If you think the “push-on” connectors on the red wires are hard to remove, just wait till you have have to put them back on. Make sure you remember which way the old ones were attached–it’s easier getting them on if you do it in the same direction.

Unwiring. The instructions suggest you place the controller box on top of the kiln or on a table beside the kiln so you can work on it. I’d like to see them try it; on my kiln the cables are so short they barely allow the box to touch the ground.

Take note. Although the documentation is pretty good about explaining where the new wires go, the photos are, as I said before, lousy. I drew a wiring diagram before disconnecting everything. It helped.

Be careful. The Skutt GM1414 is wrapped with stainless steel bands which are really, really sharp if you should happen to bang up against the bottom of the kiln. (And it should go without saying that you MUST unplug the kiln before grunnying around in its insides.)

Did the relays solve my kiln problem? Let’s hope so. I’ve got the kiln ramping up on its original schedule and I’ll check in an hour or so to see how it’s moving. Cross your fingers for me…

Update: This afternoon the kiln’s still heating and we’re right on schedule. (whew) Hopefully, the fix took!

Kilned out. Drat.

So with a humungous glass sculpture inside, my little Skutt GM1414 decides to pull a fast one. Or rather a slow one…

Stopped back from BECon to feed the cats on the way to Bullseye’s Lehr BBQ (which was a blast, BTW) and to make sure the kiln as firing on schedule. It wasn’t.

Instead, I found a big “Err1″ flashing on the controller and the kiln was still below 300 degrees (or maybe it went up and back down). So…shut down and I’ll talk to Skutt first thing Monday morning. Probably a relay.

Drat. Two days lost. Ain’t no way this thing can be moved without disrupting the glass (or possibly the mold, so it’ll have to wait on fixing the kiln.

Dad-gummit.

BEConography

So on the homefront, a great big (for my kiln, anyway) sculpture has been cooking for about 16 hours, the air is redolent with the scent of slowly drying investment plasters and we’re about 45 pounds lighter in glass supplies.

We’ve videotaped Les’ creative process, from figuring out what kind of sculpture to make to steaming out the wax and loading glass into the mold, and I’m hoping we’ll get some kinda video out of it. Things are looking good in that direction.

Outside, as I mentioned before, is the BECon thing (and weathering jokes from bellboys about BECon, D-CON, etc…) down at the Hilton. Logistically, it’s been a nightmare; Portland, “The City that Works,” isn’t working very well right now. About half of downtown Portland appears to be under construction, streets and all, which has made navigation and parking problematic. And the Hilton, like all commercial buildings, stays at a balmy 65 degrees inside and mostly serves iced drinks, which means I’ve been freezing the entire time.

Minor matters compared to the conference itself. Bullseye has really slicked up this confab, and the speaker roster is excellent. Heard a great speech this morning from architectural artist Gordon Huether, who interspersed a lot of “Like wow, mans” and a tendresse for Tupac Shakur with a great deal of shrewd business savvy and common sense. Thoroughly enjoyable.

A sick cat at the vet kept me from most of the festivities yesterday (drat), but I’m told it was even better on the first day. Four different people told me that they cried at a talk by artist Narcisssus Quagliata. Sorry I missed that.

Went through the technical vendor exhibits and spoke for awhile with the Western Industrial folks, who deal in all kinds of refractories, about a casting problem I’ve got coming up. I need a soft, flexible center to cast some thick glass rings, and it appears that stainless steel mesh-encased fiber rope might be the answer. More on that later.

Really interesting exhibit on glass in architecture at the Bullseye Gallery, worth seeing if only to understand the range of creativity currently going into world buildings. I’m a little leery of one design, a room divider made of thin, barely softened glass sheets spiked like shish kebob onto an iron rod–I sure wouldn’t want to walk into it–but the willingness to test the bleeding edge makes this a lot of fun.

And the most rewarding part of the conference, of course, is the people. Seeing lots of old buddies, making a few new, learning a lot from them. Had a casting debate at lunch that rang lots of bells and gave me some ideas. So…off to the Lehr BBQ for more networking. G’night, all!

Oh for goodness’ sake!

Right after I posted about BECon and Dr. Linton’s color theory class, Bullseye posts pictures of the class (and no, I’m not reading the New York Times…).

Interesting look at BECon, though–if you ignore the mention of me in the photo it’s worth reading….

Oh, and my color exercises are the fourth column from the right (see the second picture in Lani’s post).

BECon: Architecture, glass and buddies

Been a busy two weeks (please regard this as an oblique apology for not posting in awhile…), focusing on websites, glass, new (marketing) work, glass, old and new friends, glass and…glass.

Was honored by the presence of two really wonderful artists, Mel and Les “Twinvision” Rowe-Israelson, last week and this. They’re in town to focus on building some reasonably massive glass sculptures, meeting up with the rest of the glass community and…BECon.

BECon, Bullseye’s glass artist conference, is this week. The conference focuses on educating glass artists along a particular theme, with some of the best kilnforming artists and engineers in the business. I confess, however, that I learn just as much networking with fellow glassists as I do listening to the speakers, and I also have a lot of fun.

This year’s theme is kiln glass in architecture, an increasingly popular topic, with a strong focus on ways to effectively scale up and install glassworks. Since I keep wandering into that sort of thing myself, I’m hoping to learn a lot. (More on that as the conference gets into full swing.)

In the meantime, I’ve been getting a huge education in casting glass from the twins, and learning a whole lot just watching Les build one of her signature pieces in wax. As an experiment, we’re also videotaping Les as she works–I’m hoping we’ll get a nice “how to build a mid-sized kiln-cast glass sculpture” video out of it.

Les has inspired me to revisit HostaBowl, one of my Emergents pieces, and slightly modify some techniques. She’s also been helping with two other Emergents, DogwoodMan and HostaFading, which will show up on the blog someday soon. She’s attacked my large-scale wax phobia with a missionary zeal, and I’ve gone so far as to succumb and buy some of that hated Victory Brown wax to give it a shot.

For me, BECon is starting with color–I’m in a three-day workshop with Dr. Harold Linton of George Mason University on 3D color theory and practice. We’re doing small-scale boards with ColorAid paper, building 3D models to test color combinations and playing around with color mapping. Somewhere in the back of my head I’m wondering why we can’t just do this stuff on the computer–it would be MUCH, much faster than gluing colored paper to foamboard–but Dr. Linton’s helping me put reason behind some of my color dilemmas. Neat stuff.

More (much more) to come…

Abhiruchi

• Abhiruchi website

• Location: Beaverton

• Cost to fill up two people: Around $35

There is an incredible south Indian restaurant, Udupi, in Takoma Park, MD, just outside of Washington DC. I still dream about their masala dosas. My Indian friends tell me the food there beats most of the restaurants in India. Abhiruchi ain’t it, but it’s not bad.

You’ll find all the standard Indian restaurant dishes here, the ingredients are fresh and the people very nice. The restaurant itself is not exactly ambience city–they’re tucked into a K-Mart strip mall–but the food’s reliable and it’s reasonably priced. They do the breads well, there’s a buffet at lunch that looks like a pretty good deal (haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure).

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