Basics and the Multiverse

Many years ago when I returned to teaching , with small children needing care and only a martyr of a sister in law to help me with that job, I was distressed when a new colleague warned me not to mention that I had children. We were supposed to be corporate world, teachers, as opposed to the teacher that I had been in my early days who focussed on teaching children about how connected we were to everything.

 I wasn’t allowed to clock off and do my own home life thing and then catch up on work in the quiet of the evening. I had to sit through endless meaningless jargon meetings full of catch phrases and participate in committees and sub committees because that’s what corporate worlds do. None of it had anything to do with teaching but of corralling and subjugating teachers into fear of losing their jobs. It was a horrible time and I left to return shortly after on my own terms.

In those early days university research was undertaken as a quest for knowledge. Australia was a leader in knowledge production but as a country we were much like many modern day artists and not very good at making a buck out of our own discoveries. Our inventions and discoveries went off overseas and Big Pharma funded production while making a hefty profit. Our scientists freely exchanged information with scientists all over the world in a frenzy of excitement about adding to knowledge but at some point the paradigm was turned on its head and money was only made available for research that would produce profit for the end producer. Trickle down economics from the behemoths to the universities was falsely presented as in short supply. 

The inevitable consequence was squeezing out of research departments or charging for knowledge. And so Australian scientists had to learn the hard way that there is no money in research that upsets investors or governments. Every facet of our education system has gone the same way and if a teacher is innovative then that becomes a money making venture to produce a “package” to be sold to other schools. Everything is very tame but if a big investment has been made then an equal investment is made in advertising and flogging a product to be swallowed as the latest and greatest. 

Our education minister loves to make inflammatory commentary on education policies I suspect mainly as a distraction to other government subterfuge but by degrees art education has been commercialised and trimmed down to return to basics. I hope we have come far enough in child psychology to recognise that art is a basic especially in the life of a child.

I have knowledge. I still discover and create. I have no end purpose to my creating other than to see what I can do. I remain curious and many things tickle my curiosity on an hourly basis. As soon as I go into end market mode something in me deflates and dies. I have to relieve the suffering by practising a different form of art and enquiry, drawing, painting, sewing, photographing, cooking, gardening, printing, carving, sculpting, writing. 

So in my absence from blogging I have nearly finished my first picture book based on a knitted character that emerged from my bucket of threads.

I have discovered where a magpie lives, I have experimented with black clay which is really difficult to match to a glaze.

I have explored some different forms of serving dishes, I have discovered a lovely little feature on my tablet camera which photographs in the negative.

I have produced several watercolour paintings,

a print or two, knitted icord for pendants, produced drawings for a commission for Ingrid Tufts

experimented with possibilities with tissue paper. I have experimented with slips and scaffold bases,

I have redesigned some of my workspace and with help from loved ones have developed a shop page (joquirk.com) where some of my objects can be purchased and I have committed to Craft Victoria's New Craft initiative at Victoria Market

Some of my work is also out in the world at White Rabbit Collective in Sydney Rd Brunswick and if you are out on a Western Victorian road trip drop in and see lovely Linda at Gray St Flowers in Hamilton where I also have some work. In a week or two is the opening of the Linden Postcards exhibition which has changed format this year to only 2D work so it's just as well I keep my finger in the drawing pie as well and have two entries in it. 

And like everyone else on the planet I have bumbled through dark days dragging my sad sack of worries but I have the advantage of education and freedom of thought and speech and association. I live in a vibrant multicultural, multiverse full of ideas to synthesize and rub against one another. My heart goes out to all those places on this planet being ravaged by monocultures of thought, religion, race and agriculture. My body is telling me as a result of a systemic allergy to live on a bland repetitive diet but my mind doesn’t need to succumb. 

If you want to follow more of my artwork I can be found living in Instagram world under the handle @crankyceramics. For those of you tentative about having an online presence like instagram in order to connect , it is possible to have a private account containing nothing while still enjoying the plethora of activity out there. I post there almost daily.

Whitewashing and Colour Revolt

Some things have been distracting me of late which involved a lot of waiting and anticipation. It also entailed a trip to Cairns to see the result which was overwhelmingly beautiful and promises years of joy to come.

I am not good at waiting situations and either go into a frenzy of distracted creating with no great overriding plan or I freeze up and do lots of nervous energy things involving cleaning and re organising.
I can assure you on this occasion my house and studio are not clean or tidy and I have been productive in every area of creativity for weeks.

My Instagram account ( @crankyceramics) has been a source of excitement and confidence building and no doubt that too will go through a slump or fall off the map as the next big thing comes along.
We are all assailed by doubts about everything we do which is why governments hell bent on power will seek to undermine our confidence and keep us in fear. I  have met someone like that on more than one occasion, someone so fearful of losing status or power, that nothing stands in their way to keep themselves on the top of the rocky pedestal. Personal attack and sabotage are their weapons, and public bullying and mocking with shrill voices that betray their panic. The day I turned up to the  grade school breakup party in a "homemade"dress instead of a shop bought dress,confused me as I longed for the crude factory sewing, the ridiculous price tag, and skimpy throwaway design, over my floral swiss voile dress cut to fit my figure by my mother and in a colour chosen to bring out my eyes. I had learned shame by being different and the powerful girls had learned from their mothers that being different was a weakness that could be exploited. I didn't realise that my intellect, my sporting ability and my enormously long hair were what the girls were afraid of because these drew the interest of the interesting other people-my mates, the boys.

I see the Instagram community as a place where people are taking a risk to come out and tentatively show their wares. Some of them are already well advanced with their skills, some of them are running a commentary on their practice and daily inspiration, and some of them are seeking inspirational others.  For some of us shrugging off bullying and shyness, it is a good place to learn to handle praise and attention.Kindness never hurt anyone and it is good to foster some positive constructive praise for young and aspiring artists. My past teaching career was always about launching kids and I can't help but continue that. Just as the sting of a bully can fester in your weakest moments, an uplifting word of targeted praise can sustain a child through some of the most brutal times.
As a gardener, I know the judicious use of white flowers can lift a chaotic riot of colour or lighten the edge of a driveway at night, but a garden made of white is a very difficult thing to pull off.  Likewise a landscape of just a couple of species of plants only stands out because of surrounding gardens throwing it into relief.
 The landscape in ceramics has been very white for a long time. It is a safe choice for restaurants because it is cheap to produce and replace, it implies purity and cleanliness, and it is tradtional and conservative. White has been used as a canvas for the kitchen artiste to squirt swirls of pseudo foods as paint around and elevate the eating experience beyond the mere inhalation of calories. In its most zen like form each element can be savoured for its essence, and in its worst iteration can appear like sputum samples from a thoracic ward frothing and sliding around on the shiny white canvas.

But the shrill and panicked voices of leaders around the world trying to conserve power while whitewashing their populations, their coral reefs, their immigration policies, their housing stock, and their dishonest monetary practices, agriculture and food production practice, is also being played out in every aspect of our lives, while our foods are being filled with synthetic chemicals and our air and oceans and rivers are filling up with their filthy byproducts. Filling the vulnerable with false fears of gods, and economic doom, while providing nothing to alleviate pain or ignorance or starvation is the weapon of the power hungry.

At the same time people are looking to artists for glorious vibrant works that counter balance the conservative background. The walls of urban environments have been the canvas for a grafitti explosion unknown 50 years ago. Yarn bombing of construction hoardings and traffic furniture seek to ameliorate and highlight the hard restrictive environment of the city. And the explosion of body art in every walk of life is a constant reminder of the rebellion even the most conservative people feel in their hearts to the march of globalisation and  homogenised corporate takeover of every aspect of their lives.

Natural art is disappearing from our environments and it is rare to see a fruit tree in a park, dangling with clusters of children and bird life hungry for its seasonal goodness. As suburban gardens are built over with blocks of apartments, low maintenance landscapes are chosen over exuberant and flamboyant flowering  and perfumed shrubs which require regular pruning and tidying by knowledgable gardeners. Maintenance men with electric brooms are NOT gardeners. Whole swathes of generational knowledge are being lost to an unbalanced world view, that corrals and contains and categorises humans like goods on supermarket shelves. We buy into the view that we cannot continue the urban sprawl because it undermines the centralised food and energy production model we have had to swallow.

Toxic chemicals, don't belong in food or water. They are put there to...I don't know why.

Toxic and not so toxic chemicals can make glorious colours in glazes,and in their encapsulated underglaze colours are permanently safe from leaching into food or the environment and are safe for use in the studio.
I love  unbridled colour and its ability to flush out the panicked and conservative, status anxious in a crowd.
I think ceramics can be a political act.