In my art experience, I
rarely experienced the harsh reality of failure and dissatisfaction with a
piece of work. Questionable beginnings always worked themselves out into
provocative endings. I controlled the aperture; I directed the acrylics; I
commanded the pen and ink; and yet, I succumb to the clay body. I never before
battled with a medium as I have with clay over the past quarter. In
consideration of my projects, each one fails to embody the grandiose blueprints
I mentally composed.
Relatively unimpressed, I
observed the critique of my peers’ pinch pots on my first day of the class
(note to someone: adding the class over a week late in the middle of a
collegiate soccer season puts you behind more than a few paces). My lack of
admiration for my classmates’ pinch pots quickly melted as I attempted to
handle the clay in preparation for the coil pot. My unjustified, preconceived
confidence quickly vanished, and I can tell you it is a humbling experience to
come to tears over wet dirt…I may have questioned my sanity once or twice.
In conjunction with this
assignment, however, I also considered the existential reasoning behind art,
which initiated an embrace of imperfections. In my mind, the coil pots needed
to show the process to achieve the finished piece. Successfully, each work embodied
a compilation of transition, not simply from one coil to the next, but also
from a need for perfection to a freedom in raw, unrestricted expression. After
the bisque firing, I glazed two of the coil vessels reflecting the theme of
imperfection and emphasizing the “hand-made” quality—still hoping for
impeccable results, however. Humbled again, I glumly evaluated the glaze that
obstinately covered the attempted wax relief. My anticipated triumph disintegrated
at the ceramic reality in my hands.
After a time of unrefined
engagement with the clay, I transitioned back to straight lines and right
angles with the template process in slab construction. Making boxes, at first
posed a difficult challenge, but with time and repetition it became second
nature. This type-A artist could handle tarpaper and slab rollers all day. With
newfound confidence, I developed a great plan for a beautiful clock made out of
slab vessels—I seem to quickly forget I am not a professional at this whole
ceramics gig. Needless to say, the clock solely exists in templates and
conceptions.
With relative
apprehension, I committed to slab construction as my technique for the final
projects. My frustration peaked at the realization that my strengths would not
include towards creative expression, but rather a formulated method. This
approach requires precision, which I achieved by cutting slab after slab and
constructing box after box. Yet, when I received the text message (from a peer
who unloaded my work from the kiln) that read, “bad news,” my hopes for one
final project to end in success shattered. Apparently there are structural
cracks in some of the large boxes—enough of them that my design will be
incomplete without significant alterations.
So, here I am, flying
home from California (my soccer team lost to Stanford today), with an
overwhelming sense of failure—artistically, athletically, academically
inadequate. Yet, in reflection of other artists and people who inspire me, the
source of inspiration stems not from any one final, but rather the innumerable
transitions that contribute to the shaping and molding of the process. I sit in
frustration and angst (particularly for what I will make of my surviving
boxes), but hope that somehow this transitory period will yield greater refinement
of myself.
