Monday, October 2, 2017

Where Catfish Bloom

In the last post I showed the greenware version of this piece. It progressed to bisque fired and now to glaze fired. This project was inspired by the poem by Lisa M. Pursley, "Where Catfish Bloom", which I am sharing with Lisa's permission.


Where Catfish Bloom
Yesterday she was daisies,
dahlias and a spray of baby’s breath
until she was trapped
by the frailties of a civil engagement;
an iron woman achieving honesty,
sanity and swept floors.
She shares a confident understanding
of individual smallness.
All her lovely habits fortified,
trampled like the spirit
of a goddess in the rain.
Now she sits, cut
and stuffed, in a clearly gripping vase.

Lisa's poem was one of many submitted to Riverside Artists Gallery's 2016 Poetry in Art and was one among some great poems that were not chosen by any of the participating artists.
It was in my short list of poems I was considering for myself, but at the time I could not seem to solidify my thoughts on how I would approach the project.
I am no longer with the gallery but at that time I had been coordinator of the 2016 Poetry in Art exhibit and had a file of poems that were submitted by poets for consideration by the artists. When cleaning out files this spring "Where Catfish Bloom" was one of several from that exhibit I kept. 
It was very difficult to delete any on them!  
Above:  As you can see the piece stands on a flat surface, but is also wired for wall hanging.
Below:  Some decision making about whether to leave it alone or keep going.  This is the bisque fired head. I thought about leaving the head just like this.  The color of the bisque fired clay is very much like flesh tone and I had burnished the clay a bit so it has a smoother appearance than usual.  The glaze I used on the box is rather rustic so I decided to go ahead and fire the head to cone 6 (my usual glaze firing) in order to get the tan color this clay obtains when fired to maturity.


Below:  I decided to add a little iron oxide to the hair and darken the irises with a combination wash of cobalt ox. and copper carb.  Later, I brushed a little clear glaze on the irises (not shown).  The bisque fired head is among some pots awaiting a cone 6 glaze firing.



2 comments:

  1. The image of the woman's face looking out of the square of the small dark opening of your box shaped sculpture is thoughtful and haunting. It works so well with Lisa's great poem. Wonderful!

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    Replies
    1. Peter, thank you very much. That poem has been running around in my head for quite a while. I have so much respect for the writers in this area.

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