Finally, a picture from the studio tour. This work table is shown here "organized" for the studio tour. I laid out samples of needle and wet felt. I demonstrated needle felting with the roll of grey foam on the right. I also had my sketchbook open with the completed piece beside it. People thought that was interesting.
You can see two kilns behind me ( I still have to put together my hood vent over these), to the right of those (out of view) my soldering table, and bench. My work was set up on display tables in front of this table. More pictures? They would be clearer than I am.
I am just back from a family vacation to the beach, where I collected many clam shell segments. I spread them on a towel. It was surprising how quickly criteria developed for organizing them. If they could be snapped in half, discard. The shells' rings varied in color. They could be positioned arcing in either direction or in opposite directions from a focal point. Sizes could be gradated, alternated, or entirely random. All of these decisions where no different from any other human's, living in any age, regarding their materials at hand. I thought about the ancient need to organize into ornament. Surrounded by ocean sounds and smells, I didn't care about shows, sales, the economy, bodies of work, or technical prowess, but instead I followed that most basic of instincts, while I imagined my place along the continuum of humans, engaged in transforming pieces of their environment into markers of their culture and time.
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