Mud Pies, Pottery and Mankind’s Passion to Create

"India Rising -- the Lost"  24x18 acrylic on canvas (based on legend)

Why I didn’t go into pottery, I’ll never know. As a child I loved puttering with clay. Its sensual pliable warmth gave me my first thirsting for creativity. 

In grade school, a classmate and I made some clay figures. Our teacher gave us two empty cubby holes to use, and we fashioned a home for our two families that even included two dogs and a cat.

Our imaginations went wild as we moved our stubby people from place to place. We spoke for them, barked and meowed for them, and created furniture for them to use for meals, sleeping and being together. Our primitive characters came alive under our fingertips and tutelage.

I did some research and discovered the “Daily Mail” and in their “Science & Technology Section” an article on the history of clay works:

“Prehistoric pottery shows that man mastered clay 17,500 years ago - before we settled and became farmers.” That means man actually made animal figures artistically before there is a record of clay being used for functional purposes.

• “Finds prove that man mastered pottery 17,500 years ago
• “Pottery may have been invented - and forgotten - several times in human history
• “Later, technology was used for carving animals - NOT for making cooking vessels
• “Discovery came from before time when humans settled down into farming communities”

By Rob Waugh

“Earlier theories have held that the invention of pottery happened during the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers.

“But our ancestors didn't use the technique to make pots - instead, they created ceramic animals using clays baked in ovens.

“The finds - along with other recent discoveries in China - have forced scientists to rethink the history of pottery. It's now thought that the use of ceramics was invented - and forgotten - several times during history by different societies.

“The new find in modern-day Croatia is evidence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who ‘invented’ ceramics during the last Ice Age – thousands of years before pottery became commonplace.” As an artist, I find this positively amazing!

"Hey, Coconut, Mon!"  16 x 20 mixed media on canvas

And from the late Robert Genn:

“The Big Picture

“In life, in art, a major problem is failing to see the big picture. Individual parts may be just fine but the overall doesn't get off the ground. Together with your individual sensitivity and your own vision, what you're looking for is strength, pattern and character. We're talking art here: 

• “Go a long way back; I mean a long way--into the other room. 
• “Small room?--look at it through binoculars--backwards.
• “Look at it in a mirror.
• “Half close your eyes and look at it. 
• “Half close your eyes and work on it. 
• “If you're working from a slide, throw the projector out of focus and find the compositional faults. 
• “If you're working from a color photo, run it through a black-and-white photocopier and find the faults. 
• “If you're working from your head, try holding pieces of toned paper here and there to see improvements by adding color.
•  “If you're working on location, don't let yourself be tyrannized by the scene. Keep asking, "What could be?
• “If you're working on location, look through the viewfinder of a camera without taking the picture.” 

 “It's easier to get the big picture in a little picture, so think of your big picture as a little picture and your big picture will fly.”  Well said!

Robert & Sara Genn Twice-Weekly Letter

Below:  "Prayer Circles" acrylic on canvas

In the Looking Glass; Vanity at Its Worst

"hand feeding cat fish" on Bear Lake

Society places far too much value on appearances. The attractive, the gorgeous, the svelte or muscular often become the rich and famous. Add to that beauty, charm, wit, and a smooth-talking tongue, and you have an unbeatable combination. If used for good, all is well; if not, it’s a recipe for deception and destruction. This has been true since the beginning of time.

Vanity, and the downfall thereof, has been the topic of scripture, great literature, Legends and Fairy Tales. Remember when the wicked Queen in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" looks in the mirror and asks: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” 

We know she’s an ugly old hag; but the mirror, knowing that it will be broken if it speaks the truth, tells the ruthless queen that she’s “the fairest one of all” in spite of the evidence against it.

Like the queen’s looking glass, there are individuals who fawn over famous people; even becoming “yes” men and women in order to “share the wealth” and stay in good favor. The sin of vanity is not only a preoccupation with one’s physical appearance, but includes pride, greed, dishonesty, and misuse of power.

Some people lean their ladder of vanity on the tree of fame and fortune, only to find that they’ve chosen the wrong tree. In their struggle to climb the ladder of success, they willingly crush others under their feet as they scramble to the top. Their ego and thirst for money and power leaves the person they once were behind and they forget their core values. It becomes “all about me.”

"Another view of Bear Lake from the Wasatch Mountains"

Like "Alice’s adventures in Wonderland," things are not always as they seem. I read a wonderful book titled: “Bonhoeffer” a history and biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer a Christian Pastor in Germany during the rise and fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.

The book chronicles the power struggle between the Christian Church in Germany and the Furor’s ravenous appetite for a perfect society--an Aryan race. Eventually, there is a split in the Christian Church between those who want to support Hitler at all costs, and those who don’t.

"Park City Utah" (on vacation)

People became obsessed with the progressive vision of Hitler’s Germany. They were concerned with seeking approval and gaining professional recognition and advancement. 

If that meant tweaking the Bible here, and removing a few passages of scripture there, so be it. 

If that meant forcing compliance of the government’s new and improved German Christian Church; it was for the good of Germany. Christ’s gospel was far too restrictive, anyway, and much too lenient in its treatment of miscreants, half-breeds and inferior people who would simply limit Germany’s rise to greatness.

The complexities of Hitler’s march into evil and infamy boils down to this: The people were misled by a tyrant with a silver tongue who was expert at disguising his evil intents through lies and manipulation (a "wolf in sheep's clothing"). By the time they discovered the truth, the laws had turned against them and there was nowhere to turn.

"Street scene in Park City, Utah"

One such appeaser was Martin Niemoller. A man Hitler appointed to run the government’s newly created “German Christian Church.”

Niemoller realized too late what he had done—what they had all done! When he began to oppose Hitler, he was placed in a concentration camp for eight years. Later, he shot himself.

During his imprisonment he penned this:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Who will speak for you? If Beauty and worth are in the eye of the beholder, how will you be perceived by others? In the same token, How will your artwork be viewed by others? Integrity is living what you believe and acting in accordance with your values. First you must define who you are and what you stand for.

"Winston" my sister's hot Westie!  He's sooooo smart!