Mid-March Snapshot

February flashed by, and March seems well on its way to doing the same. 

Golly. 

30+ days since my last post, and a little over 30 days until showtime. I've had my last official review before the Big One (oral defense), spent a lovely Spring Break in California, and now just need to make a ton of work from now until Easter. 

I feel panicky often, but so far the feeling's not totally paralyzing. Thank God. 

My latest photos are up on facebook. Check it. 

I planted some seeds to try and start a vegetable garden, and now I think I'll be up to my ears in plants pretty soon. It's very nearly a jungle on the kitchen table. 

There's no more time to wax prosaic about what I'd like to think my work could be, but I know now what my work is: an exploration of what a bowl is. Period. 

The dictionary tells me that a bowl is "a rather deep, round dish or basin, used chiefly for holding liquids, foods, etc." 

"Rather deep" is important: the bowl is a form that strikes a balance between the flatness of a platter and the far more vertical cup (vase, jar, etc). It is neither too shallow nor too deep, but only "rather". Just enough to be what it is. 

Some teacups are just bowls with handles stuck to them. 

My exploration involves manipulating, changing the most basic components of the bowl form - rim and walls - to see how far they can be pushed before the form becomes something other than "bowl". 

I don't know what exactly comes after "bowl", but that's ok, since I'm not talking about it anyway.

Foot rings are integral to bowls only insofar as the bowls need to be stabilized. Their only function is to support and display the bowl - a built-in miniature pedestal, if you will.  

Being able to "hold liquid" is important. The integrity of the wall is therefore important. Walls that have collapsed, or are full of holes turn the bowl into something other  - a decorative object, meant for display(ing). The primary appeal of such an object is visual.

"Used" is the most important word for me. Bowls, for me, are meant to be used in the context of everyday life, caught up intimately in the most mundane human action: preparing and eating food. 

Decorative forms, meant to sit and display themselves (or their contents) on some surface, are emphatically not bowls -  no matter how much they assimilate the form of a bowl. Their emphasis on visual appeal, often at the expense of practical, functional considerations, renders them unable to fulfill one or more of the essential attributes of a bowl - 1) able to be used, 2) "rather deep", or 3) able to hold liquid. 

If a form is fully functional as a bowl, but is used for display purposes, it is the result of someone making use of a bowl's secondary function. 

Bowls don't have to be plain, but they do have to be bowls.