Memory from Woodsman Restaurant, Philomath, Oregon

When a painter friend and another friend, a weaver, and I entered the Woodsman Restaurant it was a very gray dreary day. We had a hot exotic Thai food lunch. We talked about the meanings of words like conceptual art, abstract art, objective art, non-objective art and gesture. The language about art is ambiguous. Gestural art could mean the human gestures of the subject or gesture could mean the movements of the artist leaving a mark where a gesture was made. Concepts could be the idea of a physical body and a realistic depiction. Or conceptual could be a meaning we put forth that doesn't have a physical shape. It was also clear that these words mean different things to different people.

This talk did not give me much food for furthering a group exhibit. Then when we were getting up to leave the sun started to light up the room and I saw a couple eating by the window and all the steam rising. I just loved the image and drew it from memory.

I could not detect much interest in arranging a group show around the theme of what is most precious and around expressing what is precious in ceramic material or woven fibers. The story hour for preschoolers was not well attended. I did receive a suggestion from a boy. He said books were the most awesome thing ever. And then he wanted to stay longer and draw a picture of his other idea an apple. These are very physical but the idea of being nurtured in both is intriguing.

Precious Vase series: Respect #3

The first two paintings of respect (above and to the left) were showing the vases leaving only footprints on the ground as they rocketed above the earth. Their fuel came from within. Their inner stars pushed out revealing outwardly their inner selves.

Their fuel came from within.

Each vase was shouldering against the other in mid air.

These are very complex concepts to express. So I did not put these paintings in the library exhibit for children.

Rethinking the symbols I came up with one that was wide and flowed up in a cylinder.

It deviated from the vertical moving aside to make room for one that was skinny and spiraling outwards until it realized it was going to collide.

To prevent conflict it respected the space of the wide blue flowing vase and took a different path as well.

One is the water and the other is gold both of value and each respecting the other.

Philomath Public Library exhibiting my "What is the most awesome thing ever?"

January 8 - 30 the paintings and ceramics of my Children's Ceramic Project has its premier showing at the Philomath Public Library. The show in the show case and the walls is about what is most highly valued by people who have answered my blog questions. On a low table by the showcase there is a suggestion box so kids can write what is the most awesome thing ever. If I get a good response and the Library feels good about my work, in September I will do another show of ceramics based on their suggestions. Then we will schedule with the area schools, a library field trip and I'll get to meet an audience for my art work. When schools have severe budget cuts, an art experience like my project might be meaningful.

A few coincidences : Kids get to vote on what they value most right next to the adult citizens' official ballot box. Second, the paintings about what is most wonderful and most highly valued fit just above the shelf on Buddhism. The second green painting is of "A Long Good Life" taken from an interview of the then 84 year old High Lama of China Tibet. Then in the children's corner there was a shelf up high where the painting of my great grandmother and father fit perfectly. She was teaching my father English who spoke only Russian his first three years. He is drinking hot chocolate while she peals a Mandarin orange. In front is an antique book of Aesop Fables. What could be better for the children's corner?

The Precious Vase : Marriage

Update ; October 21, my marriage vase was inspired by this Navajo wedding vase in Rain's collection. I made the painting when I did not have a photo available at the coast surrounded by cool colors. And I question why I didn't choose to depart from my surrounding cool colors. Also, I question the shape. Maybe I should straighten the necks and place a bridge across as this one has. On mine one neck was supportive and the other in a gesture of protection. This is an outmoded concept of marriage. More commendable is having both partners as equally strong. They have a bridge connecting them as they diverge from their heart roots. In this vase the liquid fluids within the vase are equally available no matter how it is tipped.

The body of the vase is like an egg and two necks are on top forming an intertwined relationship. The idea of the two necked vase is from a Navajo American ceramic piece that my blogger friend, Rain acquired from a trader. Rain's vase was made a few decades ago. The vase was spiritual for the Navajo with an ear of corn on one side symbolizing fertility.

I am having a conversation with this painting as I work on it and am listening to what it says about the marriage relationship. I hear that the body egg shape of the vase holds the liquid oil or water. Eggs are a fertility symbol and also are symbol of a fragile relationship. Like walking on egg shells. The way the necks are configured here, the liquid inside would be conserved when the vessel is tipped. I thought it would look like the necks are embracing unlike the Navajo one. This painting idea is on hold until I visit Rain and examine hers.

This painting is acrylic and the first of the season. The weather is getting colder and my oils are drying slowly. What took three to four days during the heat spell now takes weeks. When I am painting on location I do not want to use any more chemicals then neccessary and minimize clean up. I haven't had to clean a brush in three weeks. Painting in acrylic after being spoiled by oil is difficult.

Fish bone as a watercolor tool

This is one of two of the same subject - Precious Vase of a Hundred Leaves of a Full Good Life symbolizing what the High Lama of China Tibet wanted for himself and his monks. I met him in 2002 when our tour guide who was formerly a monk and the Lama's student took us for an unhurried talk with the Lama in his quarters. The other one was an oil.

This painting was started with the fish head bones but they didn't fit well into my pan watercolors and the marks were not always predictable. The bones that worked well for oil and acrylics became a labor. Needless labor. I can clean my brushes in a very small amount of water that then becomes a tint wash and is never dumped into the environment. The painting 16" x 20" is the largest surface that I have worked in my recent work with fish bones. Since it is so easy to work with brush with watercolors, and there is no big difference in final statement, I declare that in watercolors, the fish bones are a gimmick.

Playing with cold water sponges

I noticed some sponges washed up on the beach. They were firm to my touch but when I tried to paint with them these once live organisms showed that they were already decomposing. These sponges were just smelly and worthless as a tool.

These are some of my photos that might spark a painting.Walking through a fog dream may work for a pillow shaped vase of my dreams. On one side the beach and the other the night sky.

day of play that didn't meet all my expectations

Friday morning began with a walk at Gleneden Park near Depoe Bay, Oregon. I liked the textures and the softness of foliage and structures partly concealed by fog. Then in the afternoon I went on a boat ride up from Coyote Rock to Skunk Creek on the Siletz River. When we started the weather was sunny and warm but soon after we anchored up to fish and paint the weather did a number on our plans. A large cloud turned angry and black. The change of weather was something I could not adjust into my painting of a vase of a hundred, good, leaf years. I wondered if a small black cloud was appropriate to such an upbeat view of aging and decided a little challenge was OK. However no sooner than I put a little dark cloud into my painting, we decided we needed to race back home before the storm. I quickly started another less precise painting but it didn't turn out either. I was left wondering if I can pull off putting river landscapes in the back and foreground of my painting because they are so complex and compete with the vase. Maybe I need to think out how I can suggest a river of life in an economy of images.

What the World Needs Now is Chicago, Want-to-be Olympic Heroes and Art

What the World Needs Now Is Want-to-be Heroes of the Chicago Olympics in 2016 and Art from the Heart of our Child inspiring that WE CAN all be all that we can be with a HEALTHY work ethic. What the world needs now is love sweet love, not just for one but for everyone. Chicago has excellent basic athletic and art venues to nurture the Olympic spirit. I wish President Barack Obama and Michelle well in their quest to bring the Olympics to Chicago.
For examples of art from the heart of our child click on the icecream cone. For my process and paintings of vases click on the label below.

Reflection Abstracts

These 12" square oil paintings are made with rags, pallette knife and fish head bones. They are a step in making more paintings of vases about what is most precious. They may remain finished as is and only help me in painting vase paintings. I like them as they are paintings of the similarity between ceramic glaze and water.

I f you like these abstracts click on the Label below.

Vase of My Sparkling Dreams

We took the boat down the Siletz into the bay and dropped six crab pots. We were very busy dropping and pulling up the pots so I did not paint then. I did notice how the fog created a dream world which I tried to capture from memory. The Vase of My Sparkling Dreams is as big as all outdoors the sky, the waters and the earth. This vase is one of a growing series on vases expressing what is most precious to me. I am continuing to be open to ideas for other vases that express what others value most. A seven year old boy also said he valued his dreams.

Bounce light from vase of "Love" onto vase of "Long Good Life"

Glossy glazed ceramics placed in the sun light glisten and bounce reflections upon all that surrounds them. Like a gossy glaze the River Siletz waters, rippled by a breeze glowing with sunlight, bounce a light show on the river's banks. Looking at the river inspires a new vase in my most precious most wonderful thing series. This inspiration is based on science as well as emotion. Ceramic glaze is a glass and glass is a liquid like water according to physicists. The eternal ever lasting connection between what we observe outdoors and the characteristics of ceramics reminds me of humane life. So I painted a painting of the vase of "Long Good Life" symbolized by a surrealistic vase on a river bank.
One granddaughter made this vase about what is most precious to her - love. I'll focus on the appeal of expressing the wonderment I felt as a child.

Sunday Chinook Bone oil painting of water

The sky is overcast and the water is almost still.

Series of nine ceramic vases

I have, in addition to making the vases, painted three paintings related to my summer project. To see the paintings scroll down. To learn more click here about the vases. http://vaseswidlerwenzel.blogspot.com/

Precious Vase - Rejuvenating Garden

A painter sculptress also a grandmother and care giver. A lady who is living a sandwiched life says the most precious thing is her garden and appreciation of nature.

Tomorrow evening I hope to have the fired ceramic vases to share.

Honoring Ancient Mariners Vase

When I hold a vase with a long neck and trumpet shaped lip to my ear, I hear the ocean. Vases remind me of treasurers found in ancient ship wrecks. This painting comes from many inspirations. A most important inspiration is honoring the ancient mariners who spread the technology of ceramics in the Mediterranean. The idea of firing clay could also have come by Ocean currents carrying ceramic bottles.
This painting will be a key part of an exhibit of my ceramic vases.

"Relationships are Precious Vase Painting symbolized by cows Elsie and Plutonium and Pb

Update Sept. 7, 2009 My painting of Relationship Vase is about a fitting relationship that works. I have also completed a clay vase about Relationships that do not always fit nicely. The vase can be seen with all the other ceramic vases on my other blog.http://vaseswidlerwenzel.blogspot.com

Update August 20. My concept of symbolizing all relationships has developed as I painted. Today the painting of the relationship vase has been saved by scrapping the many symbols decorating the vase in order of making the idea of a vase itself being the relationship most valuable. When dirt and water is mixed a clay that can be formed is made into a vessel and fired into hard ceramic - a symbol of creation and of ourselves. Ceramics have brought about the most humanizing changes like food storage and agriculture. Vases have replaced human sacrifice. Vases have democratised the observance of death. some uses of ceramic at first seemed destructive of human virtues but can also be seen as a learning challenge. Ceramic shells can withstand the heat of catalytic atomic explosions.

On the 18th I was making a more complex multiple array of relationships. I painted a shaft of wheat poised above Pu reminding me that fowl smelling manure fertilizes wheat from which we make bread that sustains us. I have also added the relationship of clay mixed with water and then fired to make pottery. Pottery is often used to symbolize relationships. I am now looking for examples of pottery from other cultures and times. I am almost ready to make a ceramic vase about all relationships. I am not completely satisfied with the painting because it has so much happening. I want to communicate at an emotional level and the chemical symbols might not communicate as well as the foods.

The "Relationship Vase Painting" is oil on a 12" square canvas designed to hang in the corner of the room. The idea for this painting was contributed by Rain. Rain is a woman rancher and blogger. She wrote me that relationships are most precious to her. Relationships are valuable not just the lovely, nice fitted ones but all of them. Relationships that do not work for us are ones we learn from.

Rain's "Relationships" is truly a challenge. For symbolizing all relationships, I can't make a sweet pretty gem of a vase. So I have painted an oil painting of a vase with proportional relationships that makes me feel good. This is a historic classic Chinese shape. A vase of this shape was given as gifts or treasured for their reminder of diverse people having similarities in common. In the background I have the periodic table. http://dayah.com/periodic/ and a solar spectrum similar to a rainbow.http://www.solarobserving.com/pics/hydrogen-spectra.jpg. I give two names to the black cow who is like Jekyll and Hyde - Fissile Pu after the radio active isotope plutonium. She has a calf escaping the field of the vase. The calf's name is Pb, the abreviation given to lead because one element that is formed in the radio active reactions is lead. The calves break through the barrier and become their own element symbolizing a relationship in decay and the seriousness of relationships that could be the ultimate destruction or if we learn our lesson well Plutonium could be key to an energy filled future. The other name I give to the cow is Elsie and she is in relationship with sunshine, cow's milk, bee's honey, and wheat bread.

Here is my first sketch for a painting about relationships.

"Society Allowing, and Celebrating Diversity is Precious to Me"

This vase was created in response to Cath's contribution to my ceramic ideas. She wrote "The longer I live in my home town, the more strongly I realize that society allowing and celebrating diversity is precious to me." Cath keeps a blog of her latest art series including mapping abstracts inspired by Aboriginal art. She is a librarian and care giver for her mother in New Zealand. http://cathsheard.wordpress.com

I enjoy painting in the public Sure fire Design Studio in downtown Albany, Oregon. Below are pictures of the vase before firing and the drawing I made before sculpting the vase.

I am working on the Children's Ceramic Project with my grandchildren and from suggestions in blogger comments. So please share with me a subject for a vase - share with me what is most precious to you. Or ask a young child what is the most wonderful thing in the world. One granddaughter made a bowl decorated with what she thought was precious - valentine hearts symbolizing love. The bowl will be fired and ready to paint the middle of next month. As for me after making and collapsing several first attempts in clay, I drew the idea pictured here. This is a plan for the next hand built vase that will be completed next month.

The most special thing in the world to one veteran's wife is simplicity

I have made a small unglazed cylinder vase to depict simplicity made precious because it is ceramic. This hand built vase is based on the response of a mother of four boys and the wife of a veteran who has served repeated tours of duty.

This is the first completed vase of a series defining what is most wonderful for all from age 1 1/2 to 90 with responses from all over the world.

Children's Ceramic Parties and class lesson plan projects

Front and back views of an earthen ware pot I did of my daughters and husband in 1975. This pot has always been precious to me because I love these people. The colors were clays of different colors and the green was poster paint. The shinny finish is Verothane. The yellow clay body came from British Columbia, Canada.

Looking through the archives of children ceramics is truly humbling. Themes of peace and international participation are note worthy. The ambitious projects are awesome. There have been similar art works with children to what I would like to do described in an earlier post.

Looking through the Google index I found:

An archive devoted to Children and ceramic work from all over the world. The examples of mosaic walls are splendid.http://www.ecfs.org/Projects/FieldstonLower27111/

High School Story Pots http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/high/Linda-story.htm

What is most precious on a precious ceramic vase.

I am painting on vases because ceramic vases are seen as precious and remind us of life. Children are our future and have a real sense of wonder and know what is important. What a delight it is to vicariously share their joy in what is precious to them. I want to incorporate their sense in some vases. Sometimes copying their art by incorporating their pictures into a strong statement that will interest those who will construct our future like politicians and entrepreneurs. To be seen I will possibly make a u-tube show of the vases.

These are of a vase called "Children Running Free is most precious of all for me" It is 5 and 1/4" tall and was made at Sure Fire you paint it ceramics in Albany, Oregon. It cost me $15.

Please comment with ideas of what is most precious to you. And I am open to ideas on how to get more responses for me to work with.