Diabolical Clay

There was a time when a magic kiss fixed everything and what magic kisses wouldn’t fix, a wiggles band-aid certainly could. It is a sad day in a mothers life, when she realises that the one sure fire cure in her arsenal, just doesn’t work any more. That the magic has faded from her kisses and that wiggles band aids are made for little chubby fingers, not almost man hands.

I don’t often think of myself as the mother of disabled children, I certainly don’t think of my husband and children as disabled.When I think of disabled children, I think of the stereotypical image of a brain damaged child in a motorised wheelchair.

But I am, the mother of disabled children. My children are broken, betrayed by their broken gene and dislocating joints.

In my broken family Veronica and The Spouse are two of a kind, they both have a strong work ethic and they both treat their disabilities with a nonchalant disdain. They battle furiously on, until they collapse in their various heaps, gathering their breath, marshaling their strength and poking their respective ribs, shoulders and hips back into place.

David and I are of the same ilk, we both coast along doing just enough to pass, whilst also giving of ourselves to all that need a hand. We are the ones with the ready ear and the solutions, the broken naturally gravitate towards us. Or more especially the broken gravitate to my son. I learned a long time ago how to ration myself so that the psychic junkies didn’t drain me dry. This is a skill my son needs to master, but it is also a skill that only comes with growing up.

My son, my youngest child David, will be eighteen next month and somedays he is so broken it hurts me to watch. It is hard enough navigating the minefield of young adulthood with out having to deal with a broken body as well. I often wonder if I am in some sort of denial about the extent of David’s Ehlers Danlos or if it is just that I am so used to my husband and daughter being broken that I don’t think too deeply about it anymore.

My refrain in the mornings as David complains of feeling sick has always been, “You will be fine once you get to school.” As I pushed him into the shower, into the car, onto the school bus, out into his life.

Pushing him to push through himself.

David is in bed as I write this. He is having his first Ehlers Danlos Crash, he has pushed himself for so long that his body has pushed back and said STOP. I have a thick lamb stew on the stove and I am letting my son sleep. We have a Doctors appointment on Monday and then I will begin to push again. This time I will be pushing the Doctors to do what I want. I fought for seven years to find out what was wrong with my girl. Veronica has cleared the path for her father and her brother and armed with the knowledge and the support of my daughter I will try and make things a bit easier this year for my son.

April was very hard this year and I spent an awful lot of time being very, very sad. Next April I am not going to make any plans or commit myself to any exhibitions or anything. I am just going to eat cake and be kind to myself for the whole month.

I often wonder what impression of myself I give to people who read this blog.

The ceramics that fulfill me are made using pieces of plastic that have been inside dead birds. This plastic came out of the stomachs of only three Flesh Footed Shearwaters on Lord Howe Island.

And so using this plastic I made this work.

These cigarette lighters came out of the stomachs of Laysan Albatrosses on the Kure Atoll in Hawaii in 2009.

Using these lighters to make marks in the clay, I made these porcelain touchstones.

I take photographs of roadkill and I cry for my mother a lot .

The ceramic cooperative that I am a part of, has a shop in the Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart. On my days in the shop, some time is always spent chatting to the other shop owners and members of similar cooperatives. One of these people is Viv, a lovely bubbly woman,with busy hands, always pricking a piece of felt or sewing bits of something together as we chat away each week. Viv was quite shocked by my ceramic touchstones and dead bird bowls. “But you are the most irrepressibly cheerful person I know,” exclaimed Viv in horror when I told her what I used to make the marks in the touchstones.

Viv’s bafflement has stayed with me in the back of my mind and I bring the thoughts out every so often and examine them.

I am also the most irrepressibly cheerful person I know as well and even though I make such sad, sad work, the work makes me happy.

I think this next photo is the woman that Viv sees. I didn’t have my teeth in when David took this photo and I am far far too vain to be photographed sans teeth. So that is why parts of my cat hat is artfully draped across my face. *grins*

So I really hope that I don’t give the impression that I am eternally gloomy, because honestly, inside my head it is a never ending Monty Python skit.

Beware of Rabbits.

Good Morning everyone, the weather has turned decidedly chilly down here in Tasmania and winter is definitely on its way. Think of me today as I am up in my chilly studio, glazing, wearing a hat and warm jumper and wishing I had gloves as well. But gloves are not the most practical items in a pottery studio as I will have my hands in and out of buckets of cold,wet glazes.

Feel free to download this image and use it in your Sunday Selections post if you like.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

I love this photo, it puts me in mind of the sword fighting scenes in old Errol Flynn movies, where the hero always has the advantage of being on the top of the stone stairs in the castle.

I know I published this photo the other day but it is such a happy photo it deserves to be published again.

We often see a solitary Sea Eagle perched in a tree above our regular fishing spot. I have been trying to photograph this bird for a few years now without much success. Imagine my absolute delight the other day when I noticed that there were a pair of Eagles. YAY how fantastic to see a pair, when for years I had only ever seen the one bird.

I didn’t get any decent photos as the Eagles were just too far away but I now have a new lens for my camera and I think that with any luck I might get some clearer images sooner rather than later.

This photo shows how far away the tree is, you can just barely see the dead tree inside the black circle.

Here are the eagles.

But it is my refrain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

Months ago I was listening to Pamela Stephenson in conversation with Richard Fidler, or someone similar. Stephenson was talking about her latest book Sex Life: How Our Sexual Experiences Define Who We Are  By asking the audience how many times a day they thought about sex, and confiding that she thought about sex at least ten times before she even got out of bed, Stephenson encouraged her audience to really concentrate of those fleeting sexual thoughts and to be honest with their response to her question. Not surprisingly we think about sex an awful lot through out the course of the day.

Of course by then, I was thinking about sex as well, as that was where the conversation had led me. As I was trying to work out just how many times a day I thought about throwing “The Spouse” to the ground and having my evil way with him, my internal dialogue drifted down a different path and I started to think about how many times a day I thought about my Mother.

Thoughts of my mother and the constant ache that is her loss, play in the back of my psyche like a quiet soundtrack of grief, with occasional loud cymbal clashes of hurt,  punctuating the song with sharp flashes of pain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

My daughter rang me last night to talk about Amy. Veronica told me that she had written a post sharing her frustrations at just how difficult Amy is to parent at the moment. Mum is the person Veronica needs to talk to about Amy, not me. Veronica needs the practical advice that only her grandmother can give her, as Mum successfully parented a stubbornly defiant, girl child of her own.

This excerpt from Veronica’s latest blog post describes the challenges she is facing now with her wonderfully feisty daughter.

TIME OUT is my other weapon in my ever decreasing arsenal, as she shouts at me that she WILL NOT GO and YOU CAN’T MAKE ME and YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

It’s frustrating and admirable how defiant she is in the face of two parents staring her down. Even as I march her to time out, with, if I’m being honest, the help of her ear because there was no other option short of bodily lifting her, I am proud of her spirit and of her anger, and her ability to decide what she wants and aim for it no matter what.

I can not give my daughter what she needs. I am next to useless to her in situations like these because all I can do is glory in the fact that my grand daughter so like me. As I make sympathetic sounds and offer useless advice, inside I am secretly thrilled to bits with this evidence of my grand daughters spirit. Veronica knows this and it breaks my heart a little bit more.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

We are not allowed to grieve in Australia. We are certainly not allowed to grieve for the inappropriately long time that I have been grieving for my mother. It is coming up to three years, surely you must be over it by now, this grief of yours Kim is a tired refrain.

It might well be a tired refrain, but it is my refrain.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

The writing of this post was triggered by reading  this article, The Love of my Life by Cheryl Strayed

I am okay at the same time as I am not okay. I am supported by my close friends, as well as good online friends, but that support doesn’t stop me from wanting my Mother and being broken by the fact that my Mother is dead. Again and again and again.

I want my Mother, my Mother is Dead.

I was going to update my last post where I showed you, the total destruction that is my studio at the end of a making phase, with a photo of the tidy and sparkly clean studio.

BUT.

I think this level of studio cleanliness deserves its very own blog post.

This is the carefully labelled chaos of one of my worktables. Do you see the doorknob in the lower left corner? That doorknob makes the best flower patterns when pressed into the clay.It makes the most wonderful daisy shaped dent in a ball of clay and I have had lots of fun experimenting with the impressons. The daisy making door knob is sitting on top of a pile of  tablecloths that were used for Veronica’s wedding, the lace of the tablecloth makes nice patterns in the clay as well.

Another photo of the previous chaos

Tadaa! Look at this! Look how sparkly and clean and home beautiful this is. There is even a bunch of flowers in the middle of my tablescape. Admittedly there isn’t a polished floorboard in sight but a photo of a clear table complete with vase of artfully arranged flowers should make the cut for this months edition of bland magazine. Yes?

I digress, I should be talking about studios and work and art and stuff and I was momentarily distracted by thoughts of all the Home beautiful type blogs I have seen popping up all over the place but I suppose it could be worse, we could have a plague of Rolf Harrisses to contend with instead.

I adore tulips and I came home from visiting a friend with an armload of tulips. I have some in the house but the majority are in the studio making me smile.

I have never been a tidy person. I leave a trail of destruction behind me where ever I go. I have accepted this aspect of myself now at the grand old age of 46 and even though I make a token effort to limit my mess making in the house, it is a totally different matter in my studio. I totally destroy the studio when I am making the work and there is barely a surface left untouched. Once the work has been bisque fired, the studio becomes even more cluttered, as I do final stage decorations on pieces that couldn’t be decorated as I made them, either because they were too fragile unfired, or because I forgot about them and the clay had dried out too much to risk applying any underglaze colours.

In the studio I only have to answer to myself and now as we speak, I am at the pointy end of a making cycle. This table with the labelled clutter is actually my main large work table, I finish off my slip cast cups on one side and roll out large slabs of clay for platters on the other side, where that pesky bowl of rocks sits. At the moment the worktable is covered with stuff, that was essential in the making process, but now that I am about to glaze, it is all clutter that is in my way.

As long as there is a dinner plate sized space of clear table left to work on, I can still work happily enough, this photo shows me at the decoration stage of the work. I only have to decorate a few pieces as all the decoration and mark making is done as I am making the work. Once the work has progressed past the “leather hard” stage and onto the “too dry to do anything else”  stage, I have generally lost interest in it.

Now it is crunch time, my deadline is looming and both worktables need to be clutter free in order for me to glaze the work. I have to make some new glazes and my standard stock glazes which sit under the table in ten litre buckets all need to be stirred well and then thoroughly sieved. A very messy job.

The studio will be all sparkly and clean for about an hour today and then the process of creative destruction begins again as I make a hell of a mess glazing.

I have procrastinated enough dear internets, and will be (mostly) incommunicado for the rest of the day, as I knuckle down and get ready to fire this latest kiln load of work.

Also for those interested, here are the paint brushes that I make with my hair. I just sticky tape the hair onto a wooden skewer.

And here is a photo of the marks these paintbrushes make on the work.

I was reading my friend Achelois blog the Tensile Times, the other day and  Achelois was lamenting her lack of a view. I know a couple of other bloggers who read here have been stuck inside as well of late, as their recalcitrant bodies refuse to do as they are told. So this weeks Sunday Selections are all scenic photographs, for my stuck at home friends.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

This photo of Cormorants was taken at Pipeclay Lagoon in 2010

This Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo is on sentry duty, keeping an eye out for predators whilst the rest of the flock tear the bark off a couple of fallen trees in  their quest for a meal of grubs.

This is Mount Dromeday and the Derwent River, the smoke is coming from a forestry burn off, further up the Derwent Valley.

Driving down the Midland Highway, I drive down this road every day, sometimes numerous times a day depending on which school bus David is catching home.

Sunset through the branches of a tree in my front yard.

This is the view from the top of Mount Wellington.

A few years a go one of my girlfriends went to the Doctor because she thought she had Alzheimer’s. We were both very relieved when the doctor told her that if she was aware of her memory loss then it was most definitely not Alzheimer’s disease.

I have clung to that piece of information over the years as I regularly forget the names of common household items and rely on my children to fill in the blanks for me. I have included an example below.

Conversation with my son
Me: Where’s that thing?
David: What thing?
Me: That thing that squirts out light
David: The torch?
Me:  Yes.

I have forgotten the name of the tap, that thing, you know, you turn the handle and water comes out? Buttons, those things that are round and you poke them through holes in your clothes. I am sure that my loving children will be quick to add to the list of flippy things and oom chicky things that I regularly need them to find for me.

Apparently I have an elegant nose. I haven’t ever really paid any particular attention to my nose, it has just quietly been there, under the radar, doing its job for all these years. My favourite uncle complimented me on my elegant nose yesterday and the memory of that conversation had me smiling and proudly stroking my nose all day.

The Ceramics Triennale is in Adelaide from 28 Sept -1 Oct and I am trying madly to scrounge up the $44o registration fee. With a serious juggling of my budget I can manage the airfares and accommodation costs but the registration fee has put a bit of a stumbling block in my path. I think I will have to sit here for a bit stroking my elegant nose whilst I ponder whether the Triennale is a “must do” event or a just “wish I could go” event.

I have previously mentioned that  I have somehow managed to get myself onto this list. The first stage of the competition closes very soon and if you haven’t voted for me, as well as for the myriad of other lovely bloggers in the competition, I would really appreciate your vote, or even just a like on the facebook thingy over there will make me smile.

I did a huge cleanout of who I am following on twitter, it took me over an hour to manually unfollow a plethora of dead accounts, businesses, art site spammy links, as well as real people. If I have unfollowed you by mistake can you please tweet at me and I will follow you back.

I will leave you with a photo of a piece of work in progress. I am entering some work into the Rose Exhibition at the Art Society of Tasmania’s Lady Franklin Gallery at the end of this month. The theme is Picasso’s Rose Period and the exhibition is aiming to raise funds for the Cancer Council.

I have put my own slant on this theme and combined Picasso’s Rose Period Acrobats with the Cirque de soleil’s, Saltimbanco the combined imagery of the two have conspired to help me make three of these pieces. They are as yet unfinished but I hope you get the idea from this piece.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

These photos are a mix of  images that I took yesterday. These are truly “happy snaps” in the fact that every image makes me very happy. “The Spouse” and I are keen anglers and we worked very hard to infect our children with the fishing bug. When we took our own children fishing we were often fishing for the table and Jeff wasn’t perhaps as patient as he could have been. It was a totally different story watching him fishing with his grand daughter and I spent most of the day yesterday watching these two have the time of their life and grinning to myself.

These next three photos are taken with my phone.

Releasing the fish and watching it swim away is almost as much fun as catching them in the first place.

I think Miss Amy looks like she is having a good time.