Art, Pottery, Festivals, and Connections

  

I go to ceramic festivals for the art.  Last weekend, in a nearby German city, the fest of clay rambled through block after city block of bowls, cups, and other kiln fired implements. At least a hundred booths cluttered the streets, most of them manned by the artists themselves.  I love pottery and last Saturday I strolled in a paradise of design and ingenuity. Stroll with me for a few moments...

Ok, so maybe sloshing down some wine and biting into an aromatic bratwurst hot off the grill clouded the purity of my intentions just a tiny bit.  What the hell, ya gotta loosen up and free your mind.

By the second glass of wine, I start to get philosophical, so bear with me as I spew a mélange of random ideas.  Art connects us through a spider web of tiny threads that attach us to the reality of our existence.  Maybe I need to explain.

 Let’s start with painting.  Bursts of color across a canvas bring us a panorama of possibilities in other forms of art.  There are colors and designs for ceramics, soaring notes of classical music, sparky, yet mellow riffs of jazz, swirls of dancers, and the flowing prose of literature.  It’s all connected.  To paraphrase that noble writer, Ernest Hemingway, When I run out of inspiration, I go look at a few canvases.  You know Hemingway?  Larger than life and his cup of indulgences was as deep as a bucket.  He should have been a wee bit more forthcoming.  Before you write, first you have a couple of belts of Cuban rum, do a little fishing in the gulf, take in a few bullfights, and THEN go look at a few canvases.

Musical notes?

 Now let's look at music.  Much has been made of the connections between mathematics and music.  Ponder the question of why some music is more popular than others.  Could be explained by the artistic patterns of notes, as well as rhythms?  Are there mathematical equations that suggest why some music is popular and other music not so much?  Professor Jason Brown of Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) thinks so.  He’s a Beatles fan, as well as a mathematician and using math, he’s written a ‘new’ Beatles song with the numerical patterns found in original Beatles tunes.  As he says, math is essentially the search for patterns and, he continues, there are mathematical reasons that Beatles’ melodies and guitar chord sequences continue to resonance to the modern crowd over forty years after the group quit recording. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j28Lj5t_7Xo

Which leads to a bigger question:  Is pole dancing art?  I’m going to pass on that, Bob and move on to dutiful husband category for a thousand.

But the heart of this festival was ceramics.  I’ve often wondered about the links from painting to textiles, writing, music and dance.  All of those mediums offer free flowing, twisting hues that flood the mind with new possibilities.  I’m a potter myself and often look to textiles for inspirational texture, and lines of color. I also get ideas from painting, and the soft flow of jazz can get me in the mood to write… and other things.

And of course, sculpture is another art that connects.

 Clay is a malleable substance that lends itself to so many variations.  I find there are as many interpretations as there are ceramicists.  Clay also expresses nuances of customs, cultures, and even civilizations.  Japanese ceramics are distinct from those in Europe and both are vastly different from pots and cups found in Native American art. Even within Europe, it's easy to identify Spanish pottery from Italian, and Italian from German, or French.

 At this pottery fest, no two potters produced the same designs or styles. Just goes to show, once your mind is free to explore possibilities, your limits burst at the seams.  In booth after booth, I marveled at resemblances to swirls of dancers, streaked rainbows, and stark monochromatic designs, reflected in simple blacks and whites you find in photographs.  Black and white photographs inspire simplicity of line and nuances of shadow. 

“All of that on pottery?” you ask.  Definitely.  Few things express drama and mystery better than plain black, white and simple grays.  To take it a step farther, I believe movies lost something in the transition from black and white to Technicolor.

Pottery also connects us to cooking implements and the flower garden.  Just a quick scan of the photos in this blog and you’ll see what I mean.  Again I ask, what exactly is the connection of line and form amid ribbons and pools of color?  I think I know.  Art directly connects to all of nature and nature connects us all.

But, what the hell.  That’s enough thinking.  Need another cup of the grape?  I’m buying.  And the next time you hear about a pottery festival, go.  It’ll free your mind.