Mud thoughts

No, not musing on ugly campaign tactics, walking under the freeway.  Wednesday was so beautiful I made another trek  under Over World.  And there was joy in Mudville when mighty CollageMama looked up.

With color on hiatus, texture is much more visible.  The many installations of mud tubes on the concrete support columns and beams under the freeway ramps impressed me with their structural precision and beauty.  Thanks to a former teacher/365photographer in Tennessee, I've learned they are made by organ pipe mud dauber wasps.  [No, that was not Mork's wife.]  Male mud dauber wasps guard the nest while the females go hunting for orb spiders to stuff into the pipes to feed the little ones.  Okay, I'm not going to make the manicotti for supper tonight...

There are many mud bird nests under the freeway access ramps, but not any under the main lanes of US 75.  Too much noise and vibration?  Or maybe to far a first flight to open sky?  There is a shortage of graffiti, too.  Will the birds and spray paint artists return to nest in the spring?  What can I learn about teaching clay projects for children from the birds, the wasps, and the tire tracks?

Heading back toward the trailhead, a word that sounds ridiculous in this urban setting, I annoyed a great blue heron in the creek on beyond the graffiti column.  The heron flew away against the traffic.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

"I need you to sketch the fish"

Dad beckoned me close to his bed, tried to wink, and whispered, "The rules have changed."  He saw the evening nurse pass by his doorway, and gave a silly little wave with wiggly fingers.  "She knows about the change," he confided.  


Okay, hmmm.  I never know what game is afoot.  Clearly, Dad felt it was important enough to communicate that he was willing to project his voice. He was animated, and twitchy. Dad's white hair was clean, soft, and wafting about like Einstein milkweed fluff, but he denied that the shampoo lady had visited.  He was anxious to see the greeting card in my hand, but alas, it was a card I was writing to mail, not one for him.


I'd been on the phone with the hospice nurse working to get Dad's meals changed to foods and liquids that are easier for him to manage and appetizing.  She has more clout with the dietitian and chef.  Dad lost three pounds in just the past month.  It takes at least 45 minutes to spoon-feed his meal, another sign of decline.  At this point, long-term nutrition and balanced meals don't seem all that important.  Flavor, enjoyment, and ease of swallowing are key.  


As I was feeding Dad his pink strawberry dessert that looked like Amoxicillin parfait, the tuna salad, 2% milk, and slice of bread, he suddenly said, "I need you to sketch the fish."  This sentence was a big speech for him.


Okay, hmmm, huh?  I scanned through a lifetime of fish associations starting with my small wire sculpture fish hanging from his ceiling.  Small fish in Willow Creek where Dad grew up?  Catching bullheads and sunnies at the cabin?  Eating rainbow trout in Estes Park?  The aquarium fish in the dining room across the hall from Dad's room?


What fish, Dad?

"The fish at lunch.  It was shaped," and here he seemed to be forming clay with his hands, "it was shaped like a dead animal."  


Well, then, HUH!  It seemed unlikely that Dad had fish for lunch since I was feeding him tuna salad for supper. 

Dang.  The best I could imagine was a molded salmon mousse at a gourmet buffet table.  Remember those copper fish molds that used to hang on kitchen walls about 1960?  Fish Jello seemed like a really bad idea.

Trying to keep away a mental image of decaying rat I'd seen on a sidewalk recently, I hoped for fancy fish sticks.  My students bring sandwiches cookie-cut into bunny, dinosaur, and heart shapes.  This would not be the first time Dad's chef had a bad attack of creativity.  But it seemed more likely that Dad was flipped out.


Then I recalled David Douglas Duncan's famous photos of Pablo Picasso eating a fish for luncheon. Afterward Picasso made a clay plate, and pressed the fish bones into the clay.  I saw a huge exhibit of Duncan's photos in Austin, probably at the LBJ Presidential Library in the early years of this millennium.


You just can't make this stuff up.  Sure that Dad was in a surreal la-la land, I saw his favorite aide in the next hall on my way out.

Turns out the rules really changed.  Big Red was shifted to a different hall and is not a happy camper.  The residents of Dad's hall are not happy, missing their Big Red.  Plus, she confirmed that Dad had fish for lunch today, although it wasn't "shaped like a dead animal".  Fish twice in a day seems excessive, but Big Red and I just slap our foreheads and shrug our shoulders about the weirdness of Food Service.

Don't change the rules.  Don't play with your food.  Don't mess with my mind!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Renwick three out of four

Wishing I could pop back in at the Renwick Gallery in D.C. before the Craft Invitational 2011 ends in July.  Cliff Lee's amazing ceramics are on my mind this morning.  His celadon and Imperial yellow glazes on  pieces inspired by lotus and melons held such serenity and attention to detail.  Other pieces appeared to be porous lava rather than ceramic.

Yesterday it was Ubaldo Vitali's crab and urchin silver candlestick from 1976.  True, his pieces are conservative, but they are objects of great beauty. So that is the one out of four.

Matthias Pliessnig creates seating made of steam-bent strips of wood based on complex computer design models used for shipbuilding.    While one review suggests this is extremely new, to me it has roots in Thonet's bentwood chairs, Eames' molded plywood, and even basketry.  Sadly, we couldn't sit on any to test for comfort.

Judith Schaechter's glass pictures were just too creepy for me, although her "flashed glass" technique created lovely kaleidoscope effects.

In the permanent collection I was struck by Texas quilter, Pamela Studstill's piece.  Works by Kiyomi Iwata were intriguing in their use of metal thread and stiffened fabric.  An enormous ceramic "Dango" by Jun Kaneko made me regret not visiting the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts during my many trips through Omaha in recent years.

And now, oh my, I have discovered that Kaneko has designed two operas, Fidelio and Madama Butterfly!  On the Kaneko website click on "Artwork" and then on "Performance" to see photos of his designs.

There are lots of links here to the Renwick, reviews, and photos of artwork.  I don't want to violate any photo copyrights, so please enjoy meandering through the links.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Library collection count

Adding two new libraries to my life list, bringing my count to sixty-two.  Today I visited the Carrollton Public Library at Hebron & Josey.  It seemed like a user-friendly, efficient public library with helpful staff.  I'll be presenting a program about worms and worm composting at the library during the Texas Summer Reading Program.  The theme this year is "Dig Up a Good Book", hence the worm connection.
 
 

I was delighted to finally stand by one of the New York Public Library lions.  I've wanted to do that since I heard Andy and the Lion on Captain Kangaroo's tv show in the early Sixties.  Andy is one of my heroes.  He checks out library books AND he keeps pliers in his back pocket.  Between wire sculpture and Buick difficulties, I often have pliers in my back pocket.  James Daugherty's picture book was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1939.  Just realized when I was asking students to squeeze the clay with all their might last week, I was channeling Andy!

Andy braced one foot against the lion's paw

and pulled with all his might

until the thorn

 CAME

OUT.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Won't you be my darling?

Some weeks have seven Wednesdays.  Life is more Seussy than usual, so I need to rent a seven hump Wump.  Can I make a reservation online @ MrGump.com?

The three year old is singing to herself (at considerable volume) as she works:

Humping along in my little red wagon

Humping along in my little red wagon

Humping along in my little red wagon

Won'tcha be my darling?

She doesn't know any other verses.  She doesn't know any other connotations, thank heaven, as in "your sister's cocker spaniel kept humping the coffee table leg".

My sons learned a more mechanical version of the song:

Who's gonna fix my little red wagon?

One wheel's off and the axel's dragging

not to mention the blinker light from Hell.

Won'tcha pay the mechanic's bill?

My sister learned the song from her Australian preschool teacher who carried a bumpershoot on rainy days:

Chucking along in my little red wagon

Chucking along in my little red wagon

Chucking along in my little red wagon

... Won't you be my darling?

Efforts to track the expression "chucking along" ran off the rails. It is frequently used, sometimes instead of "chugging along".  We would like to hope that expression has more to do with railroad trains than brewskis.

The most common version of the children's song starts out:

Bumping up and down in my little red wagon...



Teaching an introductory clay lesson, my Hump Day morning was spent transforming lumps.  No time to stare at my reflection!  No time to be idle!  No time for a roll in ze hay or in ze red wagon!

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.
Igor: What hump?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Recycling in the wheel

Not being confrontational, I still wanted to speak with my new neighbor.  I knew her name and address because she put a giant box with a shipping label into the recycling cart.  Inside the box was a styrofoam cooler of the sort used for shipping holiday hams.  Inside the cooler were strange thawed and leaky cold-packs and bubble wrap, plus the soggy remains of some form of food.

Back in 2004-05, it was a struggle to get the condo homeowners to accept a recycling program at the complex.  The city was going to provide recycling collection at no cost to our complex, something no other multifamily complex, apartment or condo, received. 

Over the years participation has grown for this completely voluntary effort.  We started with four carts emptied biweekly, and now have a dozen carts emptied weekly.  Many enthusiastic residents help move the full carts into position for the weekly collection by the city truck.  My responsibility is still making sure the carts are in position, and keeping track of holiday schedule changes, plus educating residents about the city's accepted materials for recycling.  It's a way to serve my community that sure beats a three-year term on the condo association board!  It's also self-serving, because I would otherwise have to save and haul my recyclables to a central city collection point. 

Deep down I know that people don't read signs.  Still, I was perturbed that the new neighbor hadn't noted any of the recycling requirements listed on the cart:

• Flatten boxes to conserve space. 
• Make sure lids on the carts can close so paper stays dry and doesn’t blow.
• Only clean, dry cardboard.
• No plastic wrapping, toys, or bags in the carts.
• Styrofoam is not recyclable. No packing materials, “peanuts”, or cups.
• Glass, metal, and plastic should be free of food.

Psyching up, I gathered the styrofoam cooler, a recycling flyer, and the shipping label.  I ordered my thoughts about welcoming the neighbor and explaining our recycling program.  This would be a pleasant chat, and then I would happily take her nonrecyclables to the trash dumpster. 

Part of me worried I might receive a classic playground challenge like, "Says who?" or " Gonna make me?" or "So what?"  Guess I'm still the littlest kid at recess.

My new neighbor has at least two preteen daughters.  The one who answered the door never stopped talking on her cellphone while I explained my wish to talk to her mom. 

The door closed, then reopened.  The daughter, still on her cell, said the mom was "working on her wheel" and "on the phone".  I handed her the cooler.  Could she please tell her mom these items were not recyclables?

Many questions come to mind:

• Is my new neighbor a potter?
• Is she a hamster? 
• How can a person working with clay on a wheel use a phone?
• How can a hamster in a wheel use a phone?
• Can hamsters throw pots?
• Why can't a preteen set down her phone to talk to a real, live human?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Thanks be to Bakers Coconut

The choreographer found it first. "Oh, my gosh! I've got to have this!," she said.



We were going through Mom's cookbook cabinet. The cover of the pamphlet pulled at something deep inside me, but I shrugged and said, "I don't like coconut."

Turns out, my choreographer sister doesn't eat coconut, either. We were remembering instead our fascination when Mom cut and formed a sheet cake or round layer cakes into birthday party works of art. Mom could spin a whole party theme from a few cuts and manipulations of Duncan Hines.



Transforming a sheet of paper or lump of clay with simple cuts and manipulations to create an artwork is the core of my work as an artist and teacher. Taking shapes and angles and moving them through three dimensions to fit a piece of music is my sister's work. Building on a subject theme fires our creative burners.



This evening I'm sad for kids with bouncy house/Chuckie Cheese birthday parties. Where is the creativity in that?


Seafoam punch was served at the fish party. Lime sherbet and ginger ale, with maybe a bit of pineapple juice...

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Waiting for Stonehenge to dry

Way back in the olden days of the 1960's when we walked to school through the snow, children did not have free AOL internet cds to use for tracing circles. It was a cold, dark, and primitive time. We had to use our Etch-a-Sketch and Spirograph to pretend we had the thumb-clicking computer games that hadn't been invented yet. We actually wore clothes made from gingham and rickrack. [Be sure to remember us when you plan your holiday/tax deduction-inspired charity giving! Many of us are still in therapy.]

I belong to the Romper Room Do-Bee generation.
Miss Linda on Romper Room could see all of us through her Magic Mirror, and name us by name. Her circular mirror was an amazingly powerful device.

In those dark ages, parents did not let their children run with scissors. You had to be at least thirteen to carry a sharp, pointy compass in the zippered pencil bag inside your three-ring Slicker binder. We learned early, though, to draw an accurate circle with two pencils connected by a length of string or wire. Primitive people are resourceful, and that is why they are able to create the felt circles to make poodle skirts!



Maybe that is why I've always been fascinated with the circles of Stonehenge. How did people nearly five thousand years ago lay out the circles for pits, berms, and stones? Never mind the astronomy aspects of the project! How did that mom on Salisbury Plain tell her kids to stop bickering about it?

You, Nyorg, will stand here and hold this stick to the ground. This is the most important job. You must do it very quietly for the magic to work. You must stand still and be strong until your dad gets back from hauling those fifty ton stones twenty miles. [At least that's what he claimed he was going to be doing.]

Now, Snyurg, you have the most important job. You must take this length of rope woven by the Grandmothers, and attach one end to Nyorg's stick. Then you must attach the other end to Klorgle's stick. This magic will only work if you hum quietly to yourself all the while and keep your finger out of your nose and your loincloth.

Klorgle, my brave girl. You are the dancer who has the most important job. While Nyorg stands still holding his stick to the ground, you must stretch Snyurg's rope taut and dance with your stick all the way around the flat meadow. Your dancing will make the sun rise and set [and keep you out of the hut while I make moss stew for supper and feed baby Gleurg. ]

Why yes, Nyorg, that's a very good question. A henge is an earthwork system of bank and ditch. Please keep standing there holding your stick very still. [Makes me think of Charlie Brown on the pitcher's mound.]

My students are waiting for their clay Stonehenge projects to dry so they can be fired in the kiln. After that, they will paint the projects with watercolors and have them done by the solstice. If we stand just so and really squint, we might discover the Big Poodle and the Little Poodle in the night constellations.

Admitting powerlessness over the kiln

My life for the last month has been pretty unmanageable. Firing student clay projects has taken over. I dream about loading and running the kiln the same night I dream I have a new baby to care for. Pretty much sums it up. Dealing with a kiln is as time-consuming, demanding, irrational, draining, and occasionally cute-as-a button, as a new baby. A new baby with colic.

My first son was a colicky baby, and I survived. I was crazy as can be for the first year of his life, though.

The kiln has cute moments. It looks like a cross between your great grandma's washing machine down in the cellar and R2D2.

The Online Etymology Dictionary and the Free Dictionary give me some insight into kilnosis, my current mental state:

Stir-crazy 1908, from stir "prison" (1851), probably from Start Newgate (1757), prison in London. stir-cra·zy (stûrkrz) adj. Informal
Distraught or restless from long confinement in or as if in prison.

Cabin fever n. Boredom, restlessness, or irritability that results from a lack of environmental stimulation, as from a prolonged stay in a remote, sparsely populated region or a confined indoor area.

I've been diagnosed with Kiln Captivity Disorder aka firing fever. This syndrome was first isolated among orangutans in zoos who created fabulous bowls and vases out of stuff they found on the floor of their cages. Ick. Zoos are improving all the time, and most orangutans get to go to the arts and crafts center twice a week nowadays.

Feels like I have spent the last month loading clay projects into the kiln, running the kiln (firing), unloading the kiln, reloading the kiln for the next batch. Now we are doing the second firing to glaze the clay. Glazing is the high wire circus act for an art teacher. The pieces must be placed into the kiln so that they don't touch each other, and they must be precariously balanced on goofy spiked tripod supports. After that, you just have to say your prayers and hope for the best. Burning incense and sacrificing a virgin or two might be good moves.

No wonder I'm considering going into a different line of work. Did I mention I teach preschoolers to roll clay coils by pretending to be a really bad lounge singer? And isn't this wire sculpture by Steve Lohman great?

Vocabulary

Today's vocabulary word is extrude--to shape by thrusting through a die.

The preschoolers are poking drinking straws into white modeling clay as we attempt to form the analytic shapes to make dinosaurs. Naturally, they are fascinated with the coprolites left in the straws, and work to force out the core samples. The dinosaurs are turning out pretty well. One little girl told me that choosing which dinosaur to make was like going to a "cafetherium" for lunch.

There's a theory that "Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous." The quote may come from Doris Lessing, or even from Anonymous Herself. Whatever the source, life is weird.
Nearly everyone I know is involved in the care for an elderly parent. It's a physical and emotional task way beyond my expectations.

Donna Anna in Act I of Don Giovanni has been playing in my head all day. Also, I recommend turkey sandwiches. My coworkers decided I was a hormonal stress mess and picked up lunch from Corner Bakery. Those Thanksgiving tripto-thingies in the turkey got me all calmed out and groggy this afternoon. I'm feeling more integrated/cohesive/dried-out pink Play-dough than I have in days. I hate that soft moist weepy modeling clay kind of day, especially when the different colors get mixed together and it's all stuck in the cookie cutters.

A Lesson in Symmetry

When I was in preschool, shortly after the Civil War, we dipped a piece of yarn tied onto the end of a pencil into a metal juice can* of tempera paint**. Then we flopped the yarn on one half of a folded piece of construction paper. We lifted the yarn away, then folded the paper closed and rubbed it. I still remember the surprise of opening the paper and finding the painted squiggle on both halves of the paper.

Since children don't use that edible paste these days, that first surprise of symmetry might be one of the most common art experiences across generations. The other would be the first clay snowman.

Today a student found a way to take the symmetry lesson to the next level. We are studying prints, making styrofoam, texture, mono-, sponge and spatula prints. We were taking turns printing circles of different sizes using yogurt, oleo, cottage cheese, and snack pudding containers. This lad was so pleased to find that the red circle he made on one half of the paper now appeared on both sides that he put the paper on his head like a tent. And, yes, he had very symmetrical bright red circles on each side of his little blond head.

O O

*Frozen OJ came in metal cans that had to be opened with a can opener. The cans were just the right size to fit in the paint tray of our school easels.

**It was powdered tempera mixed with water, and either runny or lumpy.

Pit Firing on Monday

Set out from my Santa Fe motel to visit the Plaza, and managed to end up on Museum Hill at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian by being thoroughly lost. Amazingly, the Wheelwright is the only museum open on Mondays, and nobody's there. The Wheelwright is displaying pottery by the women of the Zia Pueblo. When I ask the woman at the desk about how the giant storage pots were fired, she launches into a history of the museum and explanation of its Navajo construction with cribbed roof beams. A docent walks up, and next thing I know I'm on a private tour of the exhibit! The docent's name is Nancy, too. Nancy Jane, not Nancy Louise...

I like the way rainbow curves swoop around the contours of the Zia storage pots. The pots have many linear interpretations of birds and feathers. My favorite is a roadrunner pot. The docent points out pots made in the 1920's that were influenced by Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb. "Walk this way", the birds seem to say.

Anthropology and Undergarments

My first destination is the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. It is on a straight line between the airport and my motel. I am fascinated by the exhibits on clay preparation and glazes by the Anasazi, Hohokan, and Mogollan peoples, but can't absorb it all. The next exhibit is Kuna molas. Among the fabric molas of animals, airplanes, and insects, there are molas of bras and panties. Since molas are traditionally used as the front bodice of a dress, this is a pretty weird concept.

After I check into the motel I go off to the nearby Walmart to buy some bras for myself. Didn't have enough bras for normal life, but had no time to shop before the trip, so it's imperative that I find some that fit. Thank heaven my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Korinek, won't require an essay on what I did on my summer vacation!

Big Bird

On Wednesdays I teach at my Montessori school where everything is child-sized. That means the table surface is just above my knees. We were working with clay today to develop hand strength. I show the children how to roll the clay into balls and "snakes". Just visualize an ostrich with its head in the sand. I spent the whole morning on my long legs with my big rear in the air and my head back down at table level making eye-contact with the itty-bitty kids while guiding their hands with the clay. Even my ankles hurt... Sure, I could squat down to kid level, but then the sound of my knees cracking might scare the more sensitive ones.

Better to be an ostrich than a flamingo.

The beginning

Creating a new blog can't be any more embarassing than the rest of my day. Dressed up as an Aussie Outback guide, taught kids to make burrito jeeps, and received a large shipment of recyclables from the Bridge Club Ladies back home. Some of the Ladies have been playing bridge together for over fifty years. Today's box contained the responses to my plea for Seventies fabric remnants. I offered the Ladies unconditional Polyester Double Knits Amnesty. No questions asked. No judgments made. I need these other-worldly remnants to clothe genii hand puppets in August. The genii will travel by flying carpets made of interior decorating upholstery swatches. The Ladies can't see well enough to sew these days. Their daughters loathed the polyester hot pants, midi skirts, gaucho pants, and those groovy giant zippers for bodysuits their moms wanted to sew. Those daughters were busy discovering the Grateful Dead, staging high school moratoriums, fearing Nixon, and wearing denim. Can't really blame either side. Luckily, those remnants were packed away in decaying corrugated Almaden boxes for thirty years. Perhaps the Generation Gap can be plugged with hot glue, wine corks, and sequins.

Coming soon: A Medicare prescription bottle plan