Wednesday, December 5, 2012

OFF KILTER

I will spare all the recounting of a strange day, but it has been just one of those off kilter days. Issues with customs and the Post, glaze problems, clay problems (as in throwing), add in a day where the cat has decided to play Ninja warrior every time you go by and you might get a sense of my meaning. I am not saying it has been a bad day, just one of those days where everything feels as if it has shifted  five degrees off center. If I had been craving chocolate milk, I may have credited it to a temporal rift. Despite struggling with some very wet terra cotta, I threw what I had planned and was able to sand some greenware and slip it without any incident, so in reality I have little I should complain about.
Illustrated is a shikishi painted in a vivid tone of black by Oni-Shino pioneer, Tsukigata Nahiko. The four characters, kanji, are painted over a light gray wash most probably representing a bamboo stalk. It has little to do with my day or post, other than it has a nice centering effect.
"We should tackle reality in a slightly joking way, otherwise we miss its point."  Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)