Fear and anxiety

Newly thrown large pot.

I was an anxious kid when I was growing up. I was anxious about everything- school, social situations, being a good person, staying out of trouble. Often the anxiety manifested itself into fear. Being afraid was something that I dealt with daily. Even into my adulthood, I was anxious and fearful. I've gotten over most of that now, but I recognize the time I struggled with it is as a source of strength. 

I learned what make me more prone to anxiety, like lack of sleep and being overworked.  I learned how to handle my anxiety, stress, and fears by acknowledging them, asking for help when I need it, and by allowing clay to keep me centered. Most importantly, I learned how to let the fear pass.

The scariest time for me creatively was when my kiln was finally installed. I looked at my husband and said "There are no excuses now. I'm not bound by somebody else's firing schedule. If I don't make anything, it's on me and me only." Failure now would be only of my own doing. Now that's scary.

But the fearful anxious times in my life have taught me how to get through the anxiety and remain creative and productive. I know my triggers, such as the first show of the season. When I'm scared I'm ready for it, I acknowledge  it, and I keep working until it passes. And when I need to, I ask for help. Mostly that comes in the form of asking my husband to allow me to briefly depend on his spiritual energy, and lean on his strength as he takes me by the hand, leads me into my home studio and say, "Come on. Let's do this together."

Balance

Teardrop vessel.  Detail.

The path to enlightenment is the Middle Way.

Siddhartha was required reading in my high school, so I encountered the idea of the Middle Way about the same drawing was becoming a habit.  As a I grew as an artist in both skill and spirit, I equated the Middle Way with balance.

Teardrop vessel.  Detail.

The Middle Way reminds us to keep our minds open, quiet, and alert, and contemplative.  As I became more mindful and contemplative of the way I composed a piece, my artwork became more balanced. In my art, through my graphic design training, I began to dialog with the positive and negative space, paying attention to the spatial relationships between elements and respecting the tension created between them, making sure to never overpower the piece with a lot of visual noise.  I stopped filling up spaces because I felt compelled to do so.  I began to place elements deliberately, and with cause.  I became aware that the quietness of the elements, balances the loudness of the visual pause.  As in the art of the De Stijl, simplifying the composition empowered each element, creating a piece that the viewer can relate to more easily.

And so it is with our day-to-day.  You speak with intent.  You listen quietly without judgement.  You balance the loudness of life with the quiet meditations that keep you centered.

Students of Saint Pat's

My students listening to the docent
at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I teach at Saint Patrick High School, the oldest all-male high school in the city. I have taken my boys on two art field trips this semester, one to the Art Institute of Chicago, and one on a four day tour of the art museums in New York.  Both trips held surprises for me.

Our first trip to the Art Institute of Chicago included students in the beginning art class who have just started being introduced to art.  It was a docent led tour and the docent was just beginning to entertain general questions about art when one of my sophomores asked, "Isn't art a reflection of the artist's emotion?"  The depth of the question is what was surprising to me.  He never took an art class, and he just started learning about art history, and here he was making these connections.  And no, he wasn't an honor student.  I think when anyone watches the silliness of teenage boys and has a chance to hear their conversations (especially the students who talk about which superhero would win in a fight) it's easy to forget how deeply they may be thinking and processing material you're presenting to them.

Our trip to New York held a couple of pleasant surprises for me.  

My students listening to the talk about
the Guggenheim's on Kawara exhibition.

The first came on the first night when my husband and I went to all the rooms to do bed checks at the designated "lights out" time.  Two seniors were not even close to being ready for bed.  When we open their door, they were busy ironing their clothes.  They said their clothes were too wrinkled to wear.  I was surprised that they cared that much about the shirts and jeans they brought, and that they knew how to iron!  Good work moms!

During the trip, I also came to understand why our students are so amazing.  Whether a student is interested in art, theatre, music, science, math, chess, athletics, etc., students at our school always find a place to fit in. During the trip, I realized that is because our boys really understand how to dissolve their cliques and pull together as a team. The group included sophomores through seniors, and the seniors took care of the sophomores through their leadership and their example while they included everyone and their humor and their fun.  Our sophomores and juniors are extremely mature. They were able to identify behaviors and others that bothered them, avoided the behavior in themselves, and were able to separate themselves from annoyances so as not to create tension or confrontation.

Great job men!  I'm really proud of you all!

Throwing and centering

"You center the clay by centering yourself."

The Spirit of Clay, Robert Piepenburg

Inhale. Acknowledge the tension you've accumulated from a stressful day.  Let go of the breath. Let go of the tension.  Inhale. Make contact with the spinning clay. Lean in. Focus. Exhale. Center. 

Teardrop vessel.  Wheel thrown,
carved and soda fired.

Throwing take a series of slow and deliberate actions. Clay can't be rushed. It doesn't like being rushed. When you do something the clay doesn't like, it'll let you know. Usually in some catastrophic way.

Inhale. Open the clay. Exhale. slow down the wheel. Raise the wall. Feel the rhythm of the wheel. Visualize the shape. Focus.  Move slowly in rhythm with the clay. Check your energy. Stay centered. Be aware of yourself. 

When you approach the clay, slow and deliberate actions become automatic. Checking your energy also becomes automatic. If you approach the clay with anything other than calm, your rushed actions will cause a will cause the clay to become off centered and your pots may fail. 

Never at any point do you allow yourself to do anything that strays from being centered, purposeful, and deliberate. When you stop paying attention, your work will go awry. This is a habit the clay has taught me. In many ways this is what drew me to clay. In my youth, centeredness was something that I always valued, and centering myself was something that I did to an extent but not very well. The clay helped me to hone that. Now I check my energy during the day, ensuring that my actions are purposeful and deliberate. I watch, assess, and address what's in front of me slowly and thoughtfully. 

Creating

Creating means seeing the vision of what you want in your head long enough to make it real.  It means problem solving your way through the limitations of your media and pushing the limits of your own skills and abilities. 

Bottle.  Slip textured and soda fired.

This is the same process we use to deliberately create and recreate ourselves.  We hold in our head the vision of the person we want to be, becoming hyper-aware of our habits  and our ways of thinking, then retraining ourselves to suit our vision.  We problem solve our way through this retraining process as we think our way beyond our perceived physical, emotional, and spiritual limitations, and allowing our personal perspective to evolve. We identify the untruths we tell ourselves which defend our current realities so we can adopt the truths that will nurture us and make us whole. 

I realize the process is simply stated and does not capture the large amount of spiritual energy it takes to create, but this is part of our life's journey. It is part of the process in evolving into higher spiritual beings. From personal experience, I can say the continuing journey is not only amazingly rewarding, but as with all things, the more you practice the process, the easier it becomes. 

Socrates said the un-examined life is not worth living.  I would like to add that the un-evolved spirit dooms one to a personal hell. 

My Second Job

Large Vase.  Approx 22" tall

When I was getting my teaching certificate at Chicago State University, Alain Gavin told me when you're trying to make a name for yourself in art it's really like having two jobs. Your first job, your bread and butter job, allows you to eat and pay your rent. Your second job is your art. He said the hard part is when you come home tired from your first job, you have to have enough discipline to go to your second job.  I've talked to many artists and this seems to be the common experience.

I love the summer because my bread and butter job is on the back burner and I can concentrate on doing artwork. Right now is art fair planning season and I can't help but to look forward to warmer days and art fairs. I will kick off the summer with the Park Ridge Art Fair.  In the meantime, while I'm waiting for the thaw, I'm making work that takes forever to do- the type of creative nonfunctional work that pushes my skill and my knowledge of my media.  

Positive energy

Cup, etched and and painted

During the last couple of months, I had some really good visits with some really good friends. My closest friends are people who surround themselves with positive energy.

The danger with being in a helping profession is that often we are drawn to people who need us and if we're not careful, this becomes are social life.  There is a danger of becoming trapped in co-dependent relationships or we don't take time to rejuvenate ourselves. We don't take our time to surround ourselves with people who laugh and enjoy life. We forget to surround ourselves with people who restore our energy and whose energy we can restore.

As the first month of this year closes I decided that my New Year's resolution should be to surround myself with more people who exude positive energy.