Stephanie M. Wilhelm
  • Home
  • About the Artist
    • Artist Statement
    • CV
  • WORK
    • Current
    • Clay Meets Buon Fresco
    • Past Works
  • In my own words
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Contact

Staying In Touch...

2/11/2012

2 Comments

 
Picture
The past few months have been filled with countless hours of work and school, work and school. I have been in the process of preparing for my ceramic show that will take place in June...and like many other art students, I find myself under the pressures of making art. Can you believe it? Something that is supposed to just come from "within", I am now feeling pressure to create. Well, in the midst of these frustrations I decided to step my foot down and really discover what was important to myself and my art without the outside influences of academics.
I had been writing continuously in my journal for the past several days, documenting each thought and emotion that I had been experiencing...trying to find substance in all the frustrations I had been encountering. Through this I confirmed one very surprisingly simple conclusion....

"All I know is this, that I love the feeling I have when I hold a piece of pottery. I love realizing that I have been turning a tea bowl in my hands for the past hour and never forgot it was there. How exactly is that possible? It's that surface constantly engaging my fingertips and my mind. When I hold that tea bowl for hours it's like I'm recognizing myself as well...and that is more valuable than anything. I can't step away from it and I can't be fooled by it. It is forcing me to grasp it, sense it, acknowledge it, and recognize it. And if I want to ignore it, my only option is to set the bowl down on the table out of the grasp of my hands...but that sensation still lingers on my finger tips. I think what makes clay so special is its ability to interact with a person and their life...and their emotions. Its ability to gather all of your senses....even the ones you want to push away.
If I can get one person in the world to sit there and hold one of my pots and twirl it in their hands for twenty minutes without forgetting that it is there, and while in that time they maybe not just acknowledge that pot, but they also acknowledge themselves....well then I have given someone the gift that clay has given me. The ability to acknowledge and recognize...the ability to stay in touch.
I want my work to be true, be honest...I want every single emotion to linger on the surface. It is raw, it is rough, it is harsh, and it is constantly awakening my fingertips...that's what it is about."
2 Comments
MO'D
1/30/2014 04:34:27 am

You have written a beautiful description too of love for another person--the senses in touch and touching fully the "clay" of another person with whom one is in love.

Reply
MO'D
8/2/2015 11:57:57 pm

Beautifully said. I would like to share this with some people at our church. Around the idea of God as a potter and us being the clay. Is that ok?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Journals

    January 2018
    August 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    Acknowledge
    Anderson Ranch
    Andrea Gill
    Arrowmont
    Balance
    Beautiful
    Buon Fresco
    Butterfly Bend Pottery
    Change
    Color
    Detail
    Ekphrasis
    Figurative
    Fresco
    Incomplete
    John Gill
    Linda Arbuckle
    Line
    Majolica
    Marks
    New Eyes
    Perfect
    Recognition
    Sensitivity
    Something New
    Stuart Asprey
    Surface
    Touch.
    Travel
    Wood Fire

    RSS Feed

Powered by
✕