Proportion

Yes, more on branches! Are you sick of branches yet?

 

 There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.  –  Francis Bacon

 

I love this quote because it so perfectly expresses that which  was instinctive for me when looking at various trees.

I look at trees wherever I go.

I notice them and their shapes and outlines against the sky, as shadows on buildings, silhouetted by the sun. The best trees are at the cemetery (along Clark Avenue). They are all deliciously creepy and twisted just as you’d expect trees in a graveyard to look.

Why? And by “best “ I mean the most gnarled; they have that strangeness of proportion Bacon is talking about. Those are the ones that look best to me ; look best on my pots, are the most interesting and pleasing to the eye.

 

I have favorite varieties; Catalpa:

(and note how all last year’s vertical hanging seed pods make such a wonderful contrast to the curves and snaky turns of the branches)

catalpa
Catalpa Tree

 Honey Locust, (almost everything ends up pointing upwards by the time you get to the tip of the branches even if there are lots of detours along the way- this isn’t even the best example)

honey-locust
Honey Locust Tree

and Hawthorne (crab apple)

I’m not sure what this tree below is but it is one of the most stunningly perfect trees I’ve every seen. It’s possible it was trimmed but I just love all the writhing the branches do before they all agree  reign it in and to end together in that lovely curve.  This is the kind of tree I want on my pots!

new-york-city-crabapple

– these are the most interesting and gnarled and therefore inspiring trees.

Okay, so why is gnarling pleasing? I think there’s something about the way the branches head off in some completely unpredictable direction only to come arc-ing back for a very balanced composition. There are more curves (which I always find more pleasing) and an innate balance that could possibly be based on the physics of how the tree must grow to stay upright.

In language, storytelling that is, we often find the unpredictable quite funny or exciting. I think the same goes for visual unpredictability.

I dislike Ash trees – they are boring and ugly and I would be embarrassed to put one on a pot- note how they branch symmetrically  that is, the branches come out directly across from each other instead of alternating up the main branch. It kills the movement and life in the form.

ash-tree

Here is another very straighforward predictable tree although I think this is a Maple.

boring-tree

Boooooring!

You can see why- nothing happening here- it’s all balanced and pretty straightforward  with straight branches staying on course and ending up exactly where they meant to be. Hmmm, I’m starting to see parallels with life here!

Perhaps I need to do something wildly unpredictable.

Anyhow, many Maples leave me indifferent unless it’s autumn.

autumn-maple

 

What’s exciting for me is that now that I am keeping this blog, I am beginning to look around me with new eyes. I write about my urban environment, and the animals in it, then I look at how trees are … constrained by the environment and also how they appear differently than they would in nature.

First of all, we trim trees to keep them away from our houses or power lines which alters them or conversely, they often stand alone in parks and are able spread symmetrically; forming a “perfect tree”  as opposed to in a woods where they have to grow to accommodate the other trees.

We also plant them, choose the variety, stunt them, water them, and generally affect their growth. They are by definition “artifacts” along with the rest of our environment. How bizarre to be living in an almost completely artificial environment. 

And my pots are all about that believe it or not.

 

Shadows and reflections

Here in the city, tree shadows are cast onto unnaturally flat surfaces like roads and buildings. I have to say I find it lovely.

 

 

shadow-on-bldg

 

tree-shadow-on-sidewalk-and-house

 In nature, this only happens on the rare bare cliff

tree-shadow-on-a-bluff
Starved Rock shadow

and  on snowy fields, common only existing in pastoral settings, which are also man-made.

Here’s one distoted and reflected in a stream; also pleasing for it’s perversion of the form of the tree.

tree-reflected

Why all this excitement about tree shadows and reflections? Well, a tree is three dimensional. Branches stick out every which way- it’s hard to draw them true-to-life in 2-D without making them look fake or wrong- unbalanced somehow- branches that are actually sticking out of the back or front, look oddly out of place when I try to draw them flat. But the shadows and reflections flatten them out nicely.

My pots look a bit like trees have cast their shadows upon them.

 

santa barbara shadow
Santa Barbara Eucalyptus

 

 

Cheedur Mitzvah

 

 

Cheedur Mitzvah

A few weeks ago, I taught a workshop where we made Shabbat items (candlesticks, kiddush cup, bread plate) Before I gave my demo, the rabbi there explained the concept of  “cheedur mitzvah” as:  “the beautification of a mitzvah or commandment”. He spoke about how each of us can choose just how to beautify these mitzvahs; for example keeping the sabbath; what do you use to put your candles and wine and bread in? What things do you do, meditate on, eat that you, personally find beautiful?

 

 I was quite taken with the idea.

This is how i want to live my life. I want to surround myself with beauty; I want to create beautiful things for others so they may do the same, I want to elevate our daily acts  – the things we must do- by using beautiful things to carry out those tasks.

If you have a cup of coffee, why should it be in a machine-made, lifeless form mug with someone else’s advertising on it? (I’m thinking of a John Deer mug in case you are wondering)   

If you wash your dishes, I want the undersides to have beauty and detail to delight you when you discover it; if you come home with a grocery bag of fruit I want you to have a lovely bowl to set that fruit in and celebrate the bounty and freshness of what you will eat.

That’s why I’m a functional potter.  I want to elevate the everyday, the mundane, the unnoticed and the routine. I don’t want to be a sculptor. Where’s the challenge in that?  More important; where’s the interaction? My pieces are meant to be an intimate part of daily life. To have meaning for the owner.

Cheedur Mitzvah reminds me of the daily prayer the Navajo say:

Navajo prayer

Beauty before me I walk

Beauty behind me I walk

Beauty above me I walk

Beauty below me I walk

Beauty all around me

I walk In beauty all is made whole

In beauty all is restored

 

 

and I really love the longer version- it is, truly what I wish for myself. How wonderful to remind yourself of this every day:

 

Today I will walk out, today everything evil will leave me, 

I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body. 

I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, 

nothing will hinder me. 

I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me. 

I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me. 

I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful. 

 

In beauty all day long may I walk. 

Through the returning seasons, may I walk. 

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk. 

With dew about my feet, may I walk. 

 

With beauty before me may I walk. 

With beauty behind me may I walk. 

With beauty below me may I walk. 

With beauty above me may I walk. 

With beauty all around me may I walk. 

 

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, 

lively, may I walk. 

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, 

living again, may I walk. 

My words will be beautiful. 

 

and let’s not forget how beautiful the pottery is that comes from the closely related Pueblo  and Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) cultures among others from that part of the country.