Idols

“You Shall Not Make for Yourself an Idol” (Exodus 20:4)

Worship your figures, worship your forms. Give them life with each veneration. It's the dedication to dwell on your own finger's creations that make a good piece of art great. Have faith in the clay, its ripples of silica, it's blocks of alumina.  It's good for the art and for you. Praise be to the clay and its maker. 

 I remember sitting there in those pews, my legs too short so as to wave above the carpet. I remember hearing the shall nots and the shall musts; Overviewing all of us, that oh so graven image. A man I never knew, from a place id never been, bleeding and dying like I could never know. It's what the eyes turned to naturally. A body so weak and a scene so violent it either added to images of torment or distracted from the scenes of miracles. That figure sticks to my mind like wet cardboard dipped in honey. 

I don't consider myself religious but seeing that figure at that Newport Chapel tickles a part of my brain nothing else can. A sculpture is never a solid form amassed of brass or marble but an empty vessel filled with our emotions and feelings. Images only speak 1000 words because we read into them so much. 

The bible forbids Idol worship because it knows we will do it, the impulse too strong, the reaction all too human. I've given into my natural impulses. The images I praise now are of my own making. I writhe in my own artistic ego like a pig writhing in it's own filth, gloriously. I venerate each mound of clay like its the Mother Mary. 

Hey wait a second! Its catholic guilt calling... he says he's with Moses, he's got some commandments he wants you to have a look at.

 You know what?! Fuck you Moses! I'm going to fuck the neighbors wife and steal his OX! I'm going to work on Sundays for double pay,  and every time I return to that blob of clay I'm going to make something I idolize.

“Their land is also full of idols; they worship work of their own hands,that which their own fingers have made”

Isaiah 2.8

Quenched

  “ when the rain washes you clean, you will know” 

-Fleetwood Mac.

There is nothing like getting soaked in torrents of a storms to put the mind at ease. I've always loved a good storm.  A child of the coast its been those grey water swells that have drawn me in. I often hear the question; are you a mountain person or a beach person? My only response is what type of beach are we talking about? Fine sandy shoals with warm turquoise waters? I'd rather not, some things are nice but fewer things are glorious. A stormy tide, that's glorious. Sitting in front of a passing squall you can hear the waves, you can smell the salt, you can feel the unique power that only the ocean offers. Some people need silence to sleep. Some people need silence to mediate. I need the roar of a fan to sleep and the chaos of a storm to mediate. When I sit in the perfect temperature bath I can feel the barrier between my skin and the water disappear. Their properties are so similar they feel one of the same. When I sit in the perfect storm I feel the white noise of  my mind getting lost in the swarm of fleeting droplets. I can feel my mind disappearing into the overflowing drains. The screams of the Poseidon's anger that's where the peace and quiet is.  

Maybe it's no surprise that nirvana means to quench the flame. For it's these flames of desires, furnaces of thought and embers of unease that can only be washed out by the heaviest of rains. It may not be everyone's sentiment but for me it's here where you can lose yourself at sea while finding yourself at home.

Crybaby

 

Why do we cry? We have many reasons to cry and many reasons as to why we cry. It is the latter I'm interested in. Animals can wash out a dusty eye, but to shed tears over emotions, that is uniquely a human activity. Homo Sapiens are willing to cry over spilt milk while an animal will only cry if we spill the milk into their eyes. Among all sentient beings, our special relationship with tears is distinctive and noteworthy.  

 

We cry when our Meibomian gland is woken up and sent into overdrive. Normally we produce half a teaspoon of teardrops a day, but in the time it takes to finish The Notebook we could have produced up to half a cup!

 

That's how we cry, but why do we cry? For some it's despair, for some it's being overjoyed, while for a limited few its being hungry. Those who suffer from “Crocodile Tear Syndrome” experience the perplexing situation of shedding a tear every-time they get peckish. This often occurs from a facial injury in which nerves are severed and damaged. Mistakes are made while the body attempts to repair the carnage. In the process wires are crossed, leaving a nerve transmission line linking the saliva glands to the Meibomian glands. It's as if someone wired your oven-stove to your bathroom faucet. Every time their hunger fires up, their eyes over-flow like the kitchen sink. Curious indeed, but this information only answers why do some cry, Why do WE cry?

 

Let's talk to the experts! Babies are the Professors of the crying world. To be a cry baby is to be an A-tier athlete on the tear production team. Babies cry a lot; they scream, they wheeze, all while calling for attention. Oils are among the 160 molecules found in tears, without these drops of moisture some scientists posture that a baby could steer into harm's way. A dried out nose and throat is an irritant for us but for the feeble, it's dangerous. Having the tears come along with the hours of screaming may protect a baby from un-wished ills.

 

Examining tears as merely a way to keep the repository channels lubed up ignores the important roles tears play in our society. If we are to answer this question (as to why we cry?) we need to dive deeper!

Crying is an external display of an internal emotion. It is described as an honest single. For emmy-award lacking plebeians, tears are something that can't really be faked. Anthropologists have argued that this honest expression can add authenticity to a relationship. A symbol between an individual and a group that their emotions are raw, bare and real.  Blurry crying eyes leaves one emotionally and physically vulnerable. Like bowing or opening arms for a hug, tears show the group that the individual is comfortable around them. Crying helped to bring communities together, securing their survival against a hostile outside. These acts would help to ingrain crying from a communal code to the genetic code.  

 

Account of William Howe defending his client ( Edward Unger) 1887, NYC

“The trial had left Unger with not so much his foot on the scaffold as his neck in the noose. He had admitted his hatred of the victim, one August Bohle. He acknowledged battering him with a hammer, dismembering his body, and sending his limbs and trunk in a box to Baltimore. He also accepted that he had taken Bohle’s head to Brooklyn and dropped it off an East River paddleboat. It was hard to identify any doubt, let alone a reasonable one, from the evidence. But as the handkerchief hit Howe’s forehead and his eyes began to shine, an argument, if not quite a defense, swirled out of the maelstrom. Unger had three children, including two daughters who had been clinging to him throughout the trial, and — although Howe begged the jurors not to let that sight cloud their judgment — it was to their tragedy that he turned. For Edward Unger’s only crime, he insisted, had been to spare the little ones the sight of death. He was no guiltier than the girl being dandled on his knee. “It was his son that cut up his body,” he sobbed. “It was that beautiful child that used the saw: it was the elder sister that throw [sic] the head in the river.” Reminding the jurors that there were no eyewitnesses to the killing, he pleaded with them not to make up that deficiency with logic. “Did you leave your homes to hang a man upon inference or your reasoning?” he demanded. “God forbid.” The point was, in every sense, a rhetorical one. Unger was found not guilty of murder. “

The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O. J. Simpson  

  Sadakat Kadri  

Maybe it was Howe's tears that got his client off scot-free. As he dabbed his eyes, his tears jumped from the handkerchief into the minds of the jurors. This honest signal proved that this lawyer believed in his client and so should they! Whether it was the tears or not that clinched the not-guilty verdict the prosecutor, Francis L Wellman would always lament he could smell Howe's onion soaked handkerchief.

 

Tears are a lot of things, protective lubricant for our eyes and airways, external expressions of internal thoughts, but most of all tears are signifiers of humanity. Language isn't unique to humans, neither is tool making, but crying not to wash the dirt from our eyes but the emotions from our souls, that is something that is uniquely us. 

The New New

What a mindfuck. A glass and half full of bullshit. The new new; A chaotic set of alterations, lacking every bit of moderation. 2020 has steamed rolled in like the flying Scotsman only to become a train-wreck littered with dazed and sickly passengers. Devoting our senses to the news we can't help but rubberneck at this unfolding tragedy.

It's been a rude awakening coming into the new decade. We were stirred up at the early hours of 2020 by blaring alarm bells warning us of a new disease. Kicked into the cold shower of reality we are only just starting to get a grip on things. New activities, new interactions, new information. Non-stop new news everyday; Don't forget to catch-up!

Switching on the telly at midday has become the new ritual for Victorians. Each day we wait for the empty podium to be filled and the cases read aloud. In front of that artificial purple background we listen anxiously for the numbers to be called out. Jeez, tatts-lotto in 2020 is not like how it used to be.

Glue yourself to that glass box. Press your ears to the speakers so you can be confused a little clearer. What zone? What stage? What permits do I need to run a shop? What needs permit me to run to the shops? Is drinking alone no longer sad, but an appropriate measure? All will be answered by the 24 hours new cyclone.

Wake up, digest the reports. Keep up on your notifications by keeping up your morbid curiosity. Hook up your IV to mainfeed and report comments on the coroner's report. Watch the news, embrace it like a pillar of molten copper, squeeze it tight while it burns your flesh. Brace yourself for each new day of news. Embrace the new new.

Productive Avoidance

I'm doing some productive avoidance. Some spring cleaning while the deadline counts down. A little writing while the clock ticks, a distraction or two while I should be knowing better. There is nothing like the unrelenting power of avoidance to motivate.  

I made this sculpture a couple weeks ago. Since then I have re-wedged the form back into an anonymous wad of clay, and since then I had struggled to write anything of meaning on this piece. I've stared bug-eyed, fist on cheek looking at this void of meaning, for answers. Nothing came, no meaning, no stories, no words, just the smug expression of a surreal form with its head resting on it's fist. No write-ups could survive pasts their infancy. All ideas succumbed to draft mortality.  

This piece of clay is an experimentation of texture and techniques, while this piece of writing is an occasion of avoidance and procrastination. I should be writing two important documents right now, one due tonight, the other tomorrow. What better way to procrastinate than write about the thing I've been avoiding to write about for weeks? Fuck, I'm good. My mental gymnastics could  put any circus out of business. Don't judge me for writing this, I'm just being productive.

Igneous

 

To ignite is to birth fire, to be igneous is to be birthed from fire. This journey starts with burning caverns and finishes with my burnished pot. The magma rich center of our Earth is a non-stop, nuclear-powered factory. Fueled by radioactive uranium and potassium it's been reliably running 24/7 for 4.5 billion years. This volcanic enterprise burns, churns and creates the minerals we call igneous. This molten Earth doesn't just flow, it rushes violently and devours into unshielded rock. To call these forces colossal would be an understatement. This raw unaltered power is something rarely experienced. A thin veneer of insulating crust is what protects us from the bone melting heat. And when I say bone melting I mean it! Underneath those 30km of packed rock and with 2000 degrees to spare, it's hot enough to turn the firmest of femurs to the most molten of soups. My grandfather used to describe vivid memories of getting close to Earth's engine rooms. In Carletonville, a town an hour drive from Johannesburg, he crammed into a cage that would transport him and the men he was with to the underworld. It only took 10 minutes but by then they were sitting in the deepest mine shaft in the world. 10,000 feet underneath insulating rock the temperature was unbearable. Refrigerators were hauled into these boiler like rooms, yet the narrow passages would keep the air hotter than any day in the Sahara. Work had to be halted so that the miners could upturn their rubber boots overflowing with sweat, it was as close to hell as you could ever get. It was at the depths that these human's truly understood the power of the geothermal engines below our feet. Engines that rip apart the bonds of the hardiest of stones and like alchemy, birth compounds completely anew. Engines that pulse with a power of such magnitude that us mere mortals struggle to grasp it. The engines of Earth's inferno deserve our praise but most of all deserve our respect. “Volcanoes are special because as we take delight in their strange beauty, there must always be an undercurrent of fear” -Professor Aubrey Manning From hundred of kilometers below my feet to the surface of my pot, how did these polished iron bleps get here? If the cores and mantles are the production factory, then volcanoes are the logistics department. With global reach and a long track record, volcanoes provide us with a rich assortment of minerals manufactured from deep below. The trachyte in this work comes from one of the most epic delivery systems ever appreciated. A 2000 km stretch of volcanoes from central Queensland to the northwest tip of Tasmania, it is the world's longest continental volcanic chain. Thirty three million years ago a hot plume busted through a weak crust and began regurgitating its igneous insides. As the world's continents slowly shifted, so too did the plume. From its beginnings up north it traveled southwards, eventually ending where it is today resting calmly in the bass strait. Each time the lava chain extended the chemical composition of its contents changed. Over the hills of New South Wales the plumed welled contents from deep within the Earth. A unique combination of alkali feldspar in the form of trachyte is what came in the delivery. Iron rich and with not too much silica the lava oozed with the consistency of warm honey. There on the heights of a prehistoric continent this unique gift cooled and clarified into hard lakes of glaze. I love igneous rock; They are both a unique tool in ceramics as much they are a unique story in geology. Isolated collections of rocks that reveal stories of climaxing volcanic plumes and lactating magma caverns. A strange beauty with an undercurrent of fear, a strange mineral formed in underground currents of fire. That's what sparks the fire for my love of igneous rocks, that strange beauty.