Alas, my participation as a displaying artist at the Village Gallery of Local Artists will be ending at the end of this month. These two items, both made in the 20th Century, will be the last pieces I add to my display. I do love the Gallery, and I will miss being part of it.
This morning Carla Z and I were doing a shift at the Village Gallery when two ebullient ladies walked in, looked around, asked if the prices were negotiable, and left. Other people came and went. Then these two ladies walk BACK into the Village Gallery and I say, “You look familiar. Were you here earlier?” and they say stuff like Yes and No and Evil Twins, eventually agreeing that it was indeed they who left and came back. I came back with a statement of gratitude that they were memorable enough that I didn’t just say “Hi, how are you? Have you ever been to the Gallery before?” and the brunette of them said she was more grateful than I was. The blonde of them began trying on tops designed by Suzen B, founder of the Gallery in its present form. She’d put one aside and I was intrigued by the color. I asked Carla, “What would you call this color? Taupe? How about Electric Taupe?” Well, that was a hit with Judy, who was the blonde. I then averred that I was a poet and I sometimes Googled phrases I thought I’d coined, invariably finding hundreds of thousands of usages. “Look that one up!” one of them said. “Can’t–I have an ancient flip-phone.”
Anyway, before they left with their merchandise, I’d committed to doing a rhyming poem with the following words and phrases:
heartmother
birthday
electric taupe
Judy
Ilyssa
Suzen’s Tops
I told them to wait a couple of days, then Google “electric taupe” and “birthday” together and they would find the poem I told them I would write.
freak freefolk in free fall
ilyssa of the big smile breezed on in
and in her wake a blonde-contrasting heartmother
whom some called judy modeled clothing. when
a birthday’d make its mention it would start other
celebratory beaming. suzen’s tops
of autumn’s glory–one, electric taupe–
then found their way on judy. bunny hops
made modeling such fun and play and hope.
eliciting ilyssa’s sage assistance
engendered no remonstrance nor remorse;
sedona freefolk vorticize a distance
with totemistic owl and hawk and horse.
the ladies chose, and spent, and left, and we
kept glowing, full of camaraderie.
Judy and Ilyssa, if you remembered, and searched, and found this, bless you. You brightened our day immensely!
Postscript: Two days after I posted this it occurred to me that I had access to an image and text about Suzen and her Tops. Behold:
Here’s a link to the Real Thing: http://www.sedonalocalartists.com/suzen-brackell.html
A few posts ago I featured my Village Gallery colleague Ricki Losee and mentioned that there was one other artist that I hoped to do a page on. Here is the page, and here is she. Patty Hoisch is a person whose talents include songwriting, song performance, lapidary, jewelry design and meeting management–and I’m just scratching the surface here. She is also patient and gracious, even in the face of a horrible pun perpetrated in her name: I asked her if she were familiar with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION; she said yes; I then suggested she get a ST:TNG Patrick Stewart action figure, “…so you can be Hoisch by your own Picard.” She should have done me grievous bodily harm; instead she smiled, politely but sweetly.
She has a website, Wild Hare Arts, which showcases her beautiful creations. Here is a link: http://wildharearts.com/
Here are the words to the quadruple acrostic:
When a happy whispered Aaaaah
Infiltrates a cloister’s spa
Let coquettish smiles appear
Delicately chart [or chase] a sphere
In the background of my drawing is a page of the sheet music she wrote for the cello part of her song “Shadow on the Wall.” Her husband Tom plays electric cello, and the two of them make beautiful music together.
Today I had the privilege of working with two of the true Sweethearts of the Village Gallery. One of them was Ricki Losee, as above. I hope to devote a future post to the other of them, but for today she will remain anonymous.
As for Ricki, her artwork in Prismacolor pencils is a celebration of vibrant, color-saturated life. She is at one with nature, especially with those creatures she deems Happy Things, which include birds and butterflies. Every nature drawing I have seen of hers has love, loyalty and creature-fellowship in it.
This page occurred mostly during a lull in the early shift, when Ricki asked me about my poetry and I decided to demo it for her, noting the happy fact that both of her names, Ricki and Losee, are five characters long. While I worked I talked to her about things important to her. Reverence for life is way up there, as is her love for her ornithology-inclined daughter, who is studying raptors, golden eagles in particular, and in pursuit of a Ph.D. So I have surrounded Ricki with not only a few sketchnails of her drawings, but also a golden eagle in full wingflex.
The words to the eponymous double acrostic are these:
Reverence for life ensures you have a tale to tell
If you see some Happy Things they just may say Hello
Cackles, birdsong, cacophonic squawks–and so it goes
Keeping conversation with a Condor? Do not grouse
It may turn to dietary issues–like a mouse
Here is a detail from an original clay sculpture of mine that I have offered as a raffle item for the 5th Anniversary Holiday Celebration of the Village Gallery in the Village of Oak Creek. A maniacal bird of no particular species doubles as a prison within which a crowned and hollow-headed Kirk Douglas languishes.
Here is the piece entire:
This picture was taken in March of 2008, in the back yard of a house I once co-owned. I was still married, still living in Phoenix, still unpublished except in college literary magazines and the editorial pages of the local newspaper. So much has changed.
Here is the invitation to the Holiday Celebration, which takes place tomorrow, December 15, 2013, from 1 to 5 PM.
I won’t be there the whole time, since I’ll have to get some shuteye prior to my 11PM-7AM shift at work and do a 40-plus mile to&from. But I hope to see my creation go to a good home, and I hope to hear some good music, and I hope to meet at least one person whom I’ve never met who follows this blog…
Yesterday I worked the two-to-six shift at the Village Gallery, the artist’s cooperative where my ceramic work is displayed. (All members are required to put in two shifts per month.) It was a slow afternoon, and though I was working alone, I had a lot of time on my hands. With Willie Nelson playing on the CD I made this page:
Sorry about that, Willie. Doesn’t look much like you unless you squint; and the words imply rocky relations. Such is the nature of acrostic, rhyme, meter restricted poetry.
Oddly, the back of this page had a previously drawn panel array with a near-Willie in it:
I had started this the day before, intending to flesh it out with eraser and more pencil. I may well leave it as is. It’s nice and mysterious with what’s left unsaid.
Here are some more sketches I made during my shift:
Note that one of the sketches is all words. That’s OK–Charles Dickens did some sketches that were all words, compiled in SKETCHES BY BOZ. “The Poetical Young Gentleman” is a must-read for poets who don’t want to make fools of themselves.
Most of these sketches are exemplary of the way one of my pages gets started. I just think out loud on paper (that isn’t loud at all, is it?), and sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. (Note the drawing problem of the fellow starting up the stairs, for instance.)
But the sketch that I feel best about was left at the gallery, in the folder of Husain Abdul-Alim, an artist who with his spouse has purchased a couple of my ceramic creations. He does carved-wood masks, mostly intended for hanging on a wall. I did a calligraphed thank-you note that included sketches of three of his masks. I hope he likes it!
This little piggie is glazed with Coleman Red-Orange.
This little piggie stays home: I’m not going to display it for sale at the Village Gallery, where my stuff hangs out. It’s got Cobalt Turquoise and White Liner going for it, and I can’t wait to put some Cottonwood flowers in it after Denise and I move there.
This little piggie went wrong, or not: Coleman Red-Orange again, and Cobalt Turquoise, but the Red-Orange morphed to a sort of red iron oxide just below the rim. But the ribbing was consequently better defined with that thinness. Still, I wish I’d kept the vessel inverted/immersed longer in the glaze.
This little piggie DID go to market; after being rejected by the Yavapai College Juried Art Show, I gave it shelf space at the Village Gallery, and a $35.00 price tag. Within 24 hours it was purchased by the spouse of one of my fellow artists–and there was a thank-you note in the cash envelope! Moral: Rejection need not be Forever.
And this little piggie is going Wee Wee Wee all the way to the Valley of the Sun. It was commissioned by, and made especially for, stellar Valley poet Bill Campana. I’ve upended it to reveal the signature/date format I use. Feb 6 on top, 2013 on bottom, and my signature in the middle, with the O of Bowers coinciding with the center. Atypically, since this is a commissioned work, I’ve added “Made exclusively” (below Feb 6) and “for bill campana” (above 2013. Bill texts almost entirely in lowercase, including his name) to the foot inscription. (The bottom of a functional ceramic vessel is called the Foot. Other body parts, like Lip and Belly, come into play as well when a vessel is described.)
It has been too long since my “One with Clay” featured clay. Feels good!
One with Clay, Image and Text 