Tuesday, March 15, 2011

on the street where nobody lives

I was in frustrated with the world mode this morning, finding catharsis in songs about the messed-up-ness of the world and those who run it, jittery Reagan-era post-punk, third world protest singers, apocalyptic roots reggae, played requests for midwest 80's three-chord goodness dedicated to a Cleveland punk rock mainstay that I was too young to have known.



"Sometimes I just wish the world would stop", someone said to me this morning, and I sometimes wish I could wake up without hearing about some crazy disaster made by nature or humans here or there or somewhere.

I was so sick of staring at a computer screen yesterday but recovered quickly upon coming home and changing clothes and running back out to play with enamel, digging into the cupboard and discovering copper wire used for cloisonne, fascinated by the process of melting, removing glowing gold red-hot metal from the kiln, twisting the wire into swirls with a pair of pliers as the copper discs cool, learning that I have so much at my disposal, everything except a forge to do small-level metalwork to make things. Mondays have become days I look forward to for this alone.

I always wanted to go to art school, but what some mistook for raw talent was really well-intentioned mediocrity and enthusiasm, and I didn't have the funds to buy my way in. I worked hard to be average, to get B's to correspond with my A's in all things writing, meanwhile admiring the work of others for whom creation seemed effortless. I'm finally getting where I want to be, and thankfully in a place where I don't have to worry about student loans or costly materials (thanks City of Cleveland in a totally non-sarcastic way) to keep on learning.

I've started sketching out ideas, working old aesthetics into new things, enthralled with the alchemy of colored powders of lead and glass with names like "garnet," "delft," and "amulet," that the luminescent hues that I fell in love with going through the part of the museum where all the old stuff is, is something that I can make my own.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is what we should be teaching kids in art classes how to make things their own through working with them, personalizing them, imbuing them with soul.

Randal Graves said...

People Against Goodness And Normalcy!

Now you just need some relics for your swanky enameled goods. Some of the reserve bones are legit, think you could pass a humerus off as that of Saint Cleaveland?

Bet said city chops it sooner rather than later.

that girl said...

I suppose I could swipe that orphaned half of a cranium from behind the desk and pass it off as belonging to Joc-O-Sot if I don't want to make a Church In A Box.

I won't be surprised if the city chops it off the budget, but I might as well get all the enjoyment I can in the meantime. They need something to keep us peons from revolting.

Anonymous said...

my favorite line from the Wizard of Id, is where high up in a tower the guard tells the king "sire the peasants are revolting" to which the king replies "they certainly are"...