Mental Health and Mud 2: Life and Grief
(warning: this one gets sad)
Coming back to anything after taking a long break from it is hard. I have been viewing this “blog” as a casual place for me to store my thoughts and feelings about making art, so I know its not a huge deal that I have gone months without writing (because this is mainly for me) but I do still feel guilty. I genuinely love writing about my work, and I love the idea of sharing this with other artists because I believe it’s important to talk about the not so happy and fun parts of making as well as the positive parts. Anyway!!
Since the last time I uploaded here, many things happened. I was knee deep in preparing for a holiday market, and figuring out what I felt was the most marketable type of thing to sell. I ended up selling quite a few things, with the most popular to go being small bud vases priced between $30-$45. I enjoy markets, because I love connecting with people through my work (and obviously I <3 money and need it to live), but it is so disheartening to think about your work in the context of monetizing it and profiting off it. It is taking something that brings you such joy and turning it into something you need to stress and bleed over. I’m lucky that I have the privilege to be a teaching artist full time, but a teaching salary that you can comfortably live off of is so rare, it’s basically nonexistent. So therefor I will continue to do as many markets as I can, and cry over the stress about it all. And I have another one coming up in June! And I will use what I learned at my last market to be even more successful at this next one. (And hopefully we won’t get into a car accident on the way to the next one. Yea. That was bad, very not fun.)
I was in a very dark place from the month of December until now. Which is also why I didn’t want to write. I’m not going to go into all the depressing details, but I will say making is so incredibly hard when you have so many negative feelings working against you. I once again found myself in the repetitive cycle of waking up, sitting in my studio doing nothing productive, teaching a class, and going to sleep. And I cried so much. I cried because I wasn’t doing anything productive in any capacity. I cried because of the fear for the country I live in, and I actively cry for the future of queer people in a world that hates us. There was such a dark cloud that followed me from room to room, getting bigger and darker every day. The world was scribbled out around me in a dark graphite. And then my wonderful, amazing grandma suddenly and tragically passed away, and it was like the entire world stopped. But unfortunately, when everything is so horrible it aches, the world doesn’t actually stop for you. No, it keeps spinning like a cruel carousel. And so, I took a month away from the studio to help my family deal with things, and to be around people I love, and it was all just so weird. I have never experienced grief for someone close to me before. And it was horrible, but the world kept spinning. And then I couldn’t take anymore time off. I had to go back to work.
Coming back to anything after taking a long break from it is hard. Surprisingly, coming back to ceramics was easy. Playing with clay is comforting to me, and I was able to surround myself with my work and just get back into it. It isn’t frustrating me as much as I thought it would. It is, however, so incredibly difficult being away from my family while we are all freshly still grieving. And this grief is being channeled into my art. My life has been divided into “before” and “after” due to this tragedy, and it is so strange to experience firsthand.
Before, underglazes were all I used. I shied away from glazes because I adore bright, playful colors. Gorgeous yellows, bright blues, and lovely pinks covered every inch of my pieces. But now… now I am so drawn to monotonous color pallets. My life has lost color and so has my art. Porcelain white slip and deep black underglaze are my best friends. Even the clay body I’m using is deep brown, contrasted highly by the white stoneware I typically use. Don’t get me wrong, these earthy colors and tones are beautiful, and I am thrilled when I take things out of the kiln, but it’s a very peculiar feeling when you can see such a dramatic change in your body of work and be able to track it back to one moment. One morning. My unused underglazes stare at me from their dusty cardboard Blick box underneath my worktable and wonder when they’ll see a brush again.
This change in my work has been stark and scary, but I am so happy with all the work I have been making lately. I needed this change. I feel like something within me has been unlocked and I am cautiously excited to continue to explore and see where it takes me. I am quietly grieving the type of work I made before this. I am unsure if I will be able to make work as carefree and playful as I used to, because the grief and tragedy I have experienced this year is now a part of me, and therefore a part of my work. That is not something I can turn off. I guess, just like starting a new piece, I’ll see where it goes.
(This past Christmas, I had decided to give all of my family members pigeons that I had put through a Raku firing. These two were gifted to my Grandma, and now they have flown back to me.)
Rest in peace, Grandma. You’re dancing with grandpa Nick now <3
