I've been dragging my feet about posting my NCECA experience... partly because I
arrived home to a backlog of work, partly because I can no longer pull that many
late nights (or drive 1200 miles) without being tired afterward... and partly
because I am just about talked out. Roomie Snail and I are pretty much the
conversational "perfect storm", lol...

We roomed with Lee Burningham's high school students, and it was great to get
their opinions before I went out in the morning... these glasses, or these?
These earrings with this shirt? They were quite helpful. (I am not only a middle
aged mom and uncool, I am now unaccustomed to clothes without mud on them, or
shoes that aren't hose-able.)

Before the conference I had penciled and graphed out every lecture and panel
discussion, morning yoga to late night program, but when I drove into town with
Edith as copilot, I decided that it seemed too much like my daily life: running
from one task to another, mentally about half a tick behind. So I wandered
instead, bumping into people I knew and following them. I saw the last half of
Terri Gross, the first half of Jack Troy... I didn't watch the clock.

I wandered to the La Mesa show, and the Artstream show which had outgrown its
trailer and taken over a room at the Marriot. (I met Ron Meyer, which was a
treat.) There was an odd little collection of gallery shows all together with
intriguing work, the K12 competition, and the Cup sale -- all standard annual
visits and always providing a year's worth of inspiration and food for thought.

The show in the clayart room was especially marvelous, as we went back to chat
with those pots again and again, at the elbow of this clayarter or that...
photos showed the evolution of each invited artist's work over the years (some
more than others.) Bravo, Jean... marvelous work.

I had a nice Greek dinner with Potters Council, ate for free at Steve Tobin's
party, and in general managed to pinch my pennies pretty effectively. I had
brought a stash of cash just in case I had a chance to go to soma faaabulous
restaurant with Vince, but alas, no Vince... no Dave McBeth... and I didn't have
the heart to go to the dance at all without Nan or Steph around. No Alisa, no
Hank, no Wayne, and I missed Marty Morgan (for whom I am still carrying a pot!)
Lots of familiar exhibitors were missing form the hall, too. We did get to a
nice Burmese restaurant after the Potters Council's "Show of Hands", which was
fun.

I sat in on a dual demo, just to give it another chance, but I'm way too
overstimulated at NCECA to sit still for that long and watch other people work.
There are people who are good potters but not good talkers, and anyway watching
people make pots on a screen, for me, is like watching people make love on a
screen: kind of dull and two dimensional, and nowhere near as interesting as
doing it yourself.

The valet parking service managed to wrap one side of my red van around a yellow
concrete pole, which I didn't notice until I arrived at Steve Tobin's studio
with a carload of roadweary passengers and had to walk around to open the
passenger side door. Yikes! Still waiting to hear from their claims people. But
I soon forgot to stress about it: Steve's studio was just mind-altering, worth
my drive to Philly all by itself. The enormous metal root-tree sculptures, the
warehouses full of work, and train cars full of work, the store room of raw
materials and the houses made from slides or bronze-cast matzoh, the glass, the
brass, the found object work, and the dynamic energy of the artist was both
daunting and inspiring.

Apparently when he goes to speak at art colleges he isn't invited back, because
his advice to art students is, "Quit." He tells them that their teachers are
failed artists, and that's why they teach... and that teachers will teach you to
be just like them. That both intrigued and insulted me, and it has inspired a
lot of soul searching since (and a 65-response thread on facebook as well!)
Steve has been willing to take big risks, work outside the established ropes,
plan projects that may take a decade to bear fruit, and keep some kind of spirit
of exploration and experiment alive, and I respect that.

On the other hand, my children are fond of shoes and groceries, and though I
consider myself pretty productive, I am kind of bound to my artistic hamster
wheel for now. So that bar is a little high for me to reach for...

Philly was an interesting city from what I saw, educated and modern, local
flavor and a good mix of people, historic and shiny-modern at the same time,
kind of a renaissance-man-in-a-sports-car. I have to say I still love
Pittsburgh, though... it was the city version of the midwest boy w/ big arms and
a hopped up Chevelle...

Snail led me to the Mutter museum the last day, which was marvelous and
horrible, a cabinet of medical and anatomical curiosities. Back in the
politically incorrect days of my childhood I was the kid who loved the natural
history building at our zoo with the glass jars of pickled embryos and the real
shrunken head, so I anticipated that same kind of gruesome thrill and awful
beauty, and I wasn't disappointed. Skeletal, mummified, wax-cast, dried, stuffed
and pickled in jars at the Mutter were the kinds of horrors we rarely see
anymore in daily life. I will admit to being really glad to step out into the
fresh air when we were done; the fetal and stillborn deformities section kind of
wigged me out, and the ceramics show there paled in comparison to the medical
histories recorded behind glass.

I am still processing pots and images, likes and dislikes, conversations with
old friends (too brief) and with facebook friends now connected to real life
memories. I always rent a dumpster after NCECA for a massive spring studio
cleanup, and the bar is always raised by the quality of work I have seen so that
all my "iffy" pots are easily recategorized as landfill-worthy. Now, though,
those projects have to wait for the weekend. Tomorrow will bring studio students
in the morning, college classes all day and then potter's guild classes at
night.

Meanwhile spring is sprung, the grass is riz. Eleven chicks are discovering the
grassy world outside the brooder, with much random springing about and flapping
of stubby wings. Seedlings of tomatoes, amaranth, ground cherry, odd eggplants
and leeks are under lights or moving out to the hoop house a tray at a time.
Tyler had his first date, with a girl in his fencing club (they went to the
zoo.) Connor and Molly went out in the thunderstorm tonight with a flashlight
and brought home a coffee can full of worms, a wet toad, and a crawdad who is
now waving his pinchers at me from a jar of water on the countertop. The kids
all have spring break this week and their dad is taking them for bike rides and
to the zoo while mom heads off to work, so I am feeling a little sorry for
myself... but I will never again complain about any job, as I know too well what
it feels like for a family to be without one, and too many in my struggling town
are in that boat still.

Big hugs to those I had a moment with at NCECA, and to those I sorely missed...
to the marvelous Snail who has the smartness, to the spooky-brilliant Jon Singer
who proofreads my stuff and Polly Beach who publishes it, to Phil P who forgives
me my trespasses, for mel who is such a good mentor and dad to his clayarters,
to the beloved mugettes, to Lee B. who got out the vote, to the potters council
folks with the big plans and tall orders, to those who make me laugh, and listen
to my stories as if they haven't heard them already... every year at NCECA I
remember how much I love clayarters, every one of them, talky and quiet, bubbly
and morose, young and old, quirky and serious.

Night, all... my pix are on facebook and I don't have the energy to post them
again, and we're all so much better looking in person.. .though May's images are
really stellar!

Yours
Kelly in Ohio





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