and to begin…

As with many things natural, this blog’s coming to be arose within me from an inner push, an impulse embedded in the setting of a co-nesting world—my lived life: understood, intimately felt and often reflected upon, yet frequently just beyond my deeper comprehension.

Facets of my regular, daily existence encompass a diverse array of actions and states, as I suppose it does for most people. I consider this to be normal. For me, this entails having and reflecting on many ideas, images, feelings and insights into the nature and breadth of human thought. It also encompasses the compelling presence of the human body in a physical world. I have queries about the broad realms of art and science, the intense diversity and history of humanity, and the structure of the larger world, both on the earth and in the universe. These feeling/sensing/having aspects are as natural and real as my physical being and interwoven with it: in some way, they are modes of it. I am engaged with these elements of human experience, revelling in them, even while being tossed and turned like so much flotsam and jetsam, and following them—wheresoever they might lead.

They, also, occasionally drive me right around the bend: up to now, I’ve always found my way back. This site with these posts and pages, are some of my different takes on a fairly common inquiry: “so, what’s going on here, anyway – you know, in life?” I am in search of markers, hints, bench marks, un indice éphémère, a whisper of holding together…not too much more. So far, no path! I feel grounded but ephemeral.

The birth of an idea in the human mind seems as unlikely and elusive as that this large, solid stoneware wall piece “cellular construct“, could give birth to actual offspring and life. How could this inanimate thing bring life to be? A fair question! And of course, how could the human brain make an idea come to be? A fair question! Yet, here we all are: oozing lava, ancestral granitic mountain landscapes, the chilly arctic and driest deserts, deepest ocean trenches, blue skies, ancient forests, primordial mud, and living beings who feel, imagine, think and do.

Many of the images in this site demonstrate physicality, that is, my playing and creating with clay — a great love. They illustrate molding, shaping and understanding it, sensing/seeing and getting a grasp of its obscure under-structure through physical adventure and imaginative exercise. I am attracted as well to one of its ancestors, granite — what I often call ‘protoclay’. In these moments of curiosity-driven activity and exploration about clay’s nature and origin, I am drawn to wonder about the inner being of all matter and in that vein, queries come about life itself. In these wonderings, I take myself to be a nexus of life, integrated with the other actual stuff there is. My imagination and some ideas, however, often act as if they are a world seemingly on their own — how odd, yet normal. Making, being, seeming. How do I get to make clay objects which become stone, from an intimation of something — a complex of feeling-thoughts and visions? Words and things: a web in need of untangling.

Art, insight, thoughts, metaphor, language to open windows and doors, to let in fresh air and to enter realms which are our daily world, yet at the edge of what we sense we understand.

I would like to enter into dialogue with others on such matters, because matter matters, as does its offshoot — humanity. You are most welcome to join me. This is not a straight line.