Anachronism and Something New

1.anachronism

əˈnakrəˌnɪz(ə)m/

noun

noun: anachronism; plural noun: anachronisms

1.   1.

a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.

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            marimba, pilates, lost trades, playgrounds

Last weekend in Kyneton  (Victoria) was the  Lost Trades Fair. I wasn’t able to go so I checked the programme online and found there  were delightful old crafts like coopering (making barrels) chairmaking, leadlighting, blacksmithing and hedgelaying. I didn't see pottery listed and  thankfully there is still interest in this craft but if we don’t move forward with the other aspects of ceramics i.e the business end we may well become an anachronism just at a time when the planet needs old fashioned alternatives to so many economic rationalisms.

During the week I listened to a great RN program about children being rescued from an educational blackhole by a creative music program using marimbas. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/tate-st-primary/5325034

The improvement in overall school performance was put down to the fact that the marimba programme involved whole body involvement in its performance and learning, from the making of the instrument as a group, to physically playing while standing and moving and echoing patterns produced visually as well as auditorily. This meant that children could experience the brain rewiring of music without needing to be able to read music first and the fidgety, kinetic learners could be imprinted with the patterns through their bodies, priming their brains for other pattern learning like decoding print.

You can watch a marimba being played here.

When we learn a physical skill our brains remember a muscle choreography and practice remapping it in our brains overnight. I remember this well from childhood, going through the motions of learning one type of high jump (the straddle) to  (scissors) to Fosbury Flop approaching the jump from another angle in a new style but also gaining insights into burgeoning philosophy as my world view literally changed.

 When I learned computing ,my thoughts flashed before me like computer files, as I settled down to sleep and I could see gardening files come into focus with embroidery techniques combined overlaid with watercolour techniques. My whole framework for thinking had done a physical shift as my brain applied what it knew to what this new world order looked like. When I took up Auslan ( Australian sign language), my other language learning accelerated because I now had a physical way of learning and filing languages -in my muscles.

 This blog has changed my way of operating in the world and in my head as I physically engage with the keyboard and I often find myself tapping out thoughts in my head .

Our bodies are not just vehicles for our brains as Ken Robinson describes here but discreet extensions of our brains and each appendage feeds our brain information to locate ourselves within the soup of our environment. If every thought connection in our brain develops synapses then every sensory experience of our world creates a sort of synaptic connection to the universe making us more securely engaged and aware. Limit the experiences and you risk the individual feeling vulnerable and hanging by a thread. Physicality matters!

The discussion about the marimba program follows closely on the heels of a research project in which children were observed in two different playground situations, one where they had standardised safe playground and sports equipment and the other, regular household items such as brooms, buckets and crates. The second group were found to be more creative, more physically active and more socially engaged than the first as they found new and interesting ways to engage with the equipment rather than the prescribed notions of standardised equipment. Everything old becomes new again. So it is important to keep in touch with those old skills and old ways of doing things. Re engage with some of the physical things you did in your childhood and wake up some of those synapses!  

I began pilates the other day to address some of my spinal issues and had to balance on half foam cylinders, something I was excellent at in my youth. It is partly what prompted this post and brought back memories. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see older people balancing on raised curbings around service stations as they try to physically rebalance their lives. Some of our politicians could do with a bit of physical alignment.

Ancient Mayan art of Pilates  gives you rock hard muscles

Autumn is here and acorns are hanging on the oak tree in the park. Sadly most lower limbs have been removed from the trees to prevent children climbing and hurting themselves. I am anxious to get out and moving around in the cooler mornings but have been applying myself to new skills ofsetting up an etsy shop. It is still crawling days but I would appreciate any advice you have so I can unstick myself from this computer.

 https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrankyCeramics?ele=shop_open

No doubt my mind will reframe the world again. I can feel it happening already as I try to apply my own practices of reduce, reuse, recycle, to the practical aspects of packaging and presentation. The initial purchase of a giant roll of bubble wrap had me in a spin trying to work out ways I could offset this hideous purchase.

The bubblewrap made a temporary desk. Printed stock list on a spread sheet streamlined the task a bit.

Every plastic container that comes into my home is now going to have at least one more use. Bubble wrap will still be employed but our office shreddings will now be part of the bubble wrap replacement in nice little recycled paper pillows. 

I have raided a few stores that sell imported Asian products and garnered some little packaging boxes that were being scrapped so my  packaging efforts are coming along. Negotiating the marketing network may take time but I am on my way.

Please take a look at my shop and share it with anyone you know. If you have success stories with etsy that you can share I am a willing student.

Caring for Our Dirt

So far this blog has been a bit of a scatter gun approach to things that I am passionate about and you may ask when is she is ever going on focus on ceramics?

Well the truth is I have a female brain, so I don’t focus on just one thing at a time. (Actually my brain is more like an electronic toy left in damp conditions and just annoyingly firing randomly and constantly :P ) My work with clay brings me into deep meditation with the actual clay and its history and biology while also focussing on its future life and impact. It is beholden on me to be responsible to create the safest, earth nurturing practices and while playing and experimenting, to not produce more junk in the universe.

Therefore my practice has to be holistic.

I have to be mindful of where my refuse goes. Refuse in this case can be anything from clay mixed with water at the end of the day to dry glaze materials made of combinations of dry minerals and metals, as well as bisque clay (fired to hard but still porous), fully fired failures, off gassing, and carbon output from firing as well as transport. Not to mention plastic bags and plastic containers which seem to grow like topsy in the studio.

My first rule is that whatever can be reclaimed is. So breakages get smashed up and buried in pots as drainage or broken up for mosaic projects (more about that another time).

Super soil  as found in South America has developed over centuries as healthy microbes have built up on the surface of discarded, broken Mayan pottery shards. The miniature crevices in the low fired clay provide just the right conditions for successful proliferation of the microbes so I use that as one my guiding criteria and feel comfortable in burying smashed up shards in deepish holes around the garden. The worms and critters seem to love it.

Water and clay slurry at the end of the day is left to evaporate and is reincorporated into new mixes of clay. None of it goes down the drain! I cannot afford the plumbing.

In my sink I have a large plastic sink bucket. Everything is washed inside this and the following morning when the levels have settled the top water is poured off into the garden via a filtering system .

This is a 1.2m deep plastic lined pit of layered broken pottery, building rubble, scoria, sheep’s wool, sand, more scoria ,more sand and topped with decorative pebble. It is purpose built, based around a building oversight when the slab was poured for our house. It was a lot of work to rectify in one day but I believe it works brilliantly.  It is also a pretty courtyard.

There is a small drainage pipe at the bottom which then leads the filtered water into the first part of my garden through irises and native grasses and tree ferns which are all renowned for different filtering capabilities. Beyond that line most of the plants that follow are edible and so I am constantly aware of not poisoning myself or the environment. The happy sound of frogs in my garden assures me that it is pretty healthy out there.

Glaze materials which can include copper, manganese, nickel ,cobalt, iron and various encapsulated colourants are all treated with due care. They also mix with clay sludge and because of their weight fall to the bottom of the sink bucket. After the lighter water is poured off, the really dull sludge is poured into a settling bucket to dry out. So far I only have half a bucket of this sludge after 18 months. If this is later mixed with clay it can be fired into paving stones or just lumps and will no longer be able to leach into the soil.

Water is collected from our roof in a 10,000litre rainwater tank and flushes our toilets, and waters all the gardens as well as feeding our air cooling system in a closed cycle. Electricity comes from a roof full of solar panels offsetting any electricity from firings. I also use a gas kiln for large sculptural pieces and it is only fired when it is full which may take months. The off gassing from the kilns is kept as safe as possible with minimal use of heavy metals, endeavouring to fire when air is moving in a northerly direction towards the enormous park opposite, for the trees to filter the air first. My bedroom lies in direct line between the kiln and the park so I am also keen to not poison myself. From what I have read about the materials released every time a cigarette is lit, my rigour is chickenfeed but it helps me sleep at night. And all those plastic bags and plastic containers can have several more years of use before they eventually get fed back into the recycling stream washed free of clay residue.

When you buy ceramics from 3^rd world countries, just remember that the waste products are much worse, the working conditions are horrific, safety practices are non existent, effects on the environment are cumulative and destructive because of lack of education and that the true cost of manufacture and shipping does not reflect in a fair price for workers and destruction of habitat. Think global buy local.

I found this trailer for a movie I am keen to watch http://www.thedirtmovie.org/. The stuff we are working with every day is going to be harder and harder to come by in the future if we don’t keep recycling our organic waste and nurturing our soil. It’s just dirt but we can’t live without it.