“What was the one thing you learned in Indonesia that has changed your life forever?”

This was a question I received from Megan at Fried Okra from my last post. Actually Lainey received the question for me during a recent visit, but it’s not really important. The point is I should know better than to invite such questions when there are such sharp-minded people out there willing to ask them. If you haven’t had a dose of Fried Okra yet, I highly recommend it.

The difficulty in answering such a question, for me, is twofold. First, I don’t really know if anything from my trip will be significant to my life 15-20 years down the road. I say this to my own embarrassment: it is entirely too easy for me to get consumed in my day-to-day life/ my culture/ my worries, and forget to look outward. Secondly, anything I say is bound to sound platitudinous.

With those two caveats in place, I’ll attempt to answer the question…

I have two short answers, I think. I can’t narrow it to one.

The first is a quote from JoAnn Van Reeuwyk, one of the American artist I traveled with.

“There’s more water than just what’s in my tank.”

Secondly, I met some great people I hope I’ll continue to have some kind of relationship with. I could, at this point, mention the names of everyone I traveled with, but you can find all the participants here (click the participants links on the side bar). For now I’ll mention Soichi Wantanabe. Soichi is a kind, gentle and extremely peaceful soul. No, I’m not really hitting the mark. He is genuine- in a way I have never encountered before. His paintings are rich, his subject matter is directly out of the Bible. His art is a real challenge to our sensibilities– technically sound, but at the same time might be dismissed as trite or outdated. If you grew up with the Good News Bible, as I did, it’s hard not to harken back to those cartoonish figures when you look at his paintings. Yet his work is not trite. It is genuine. And he’s going to be an artist in residence at Yale this fall, so clearly I’m not the only one who thinks so. Yale is a place where conceptual art is king (naturally), so it’ll be interesting to see how his work is received. I’ve been using some of his images as part of my daily devotionals recently, which has been rewarding–not because it confirms my own view of the scriptures, but it shows me another interpretation. And it challenges my own ideas of what artwork can be/ should be.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Rare Mo-Coffee Sighting in Indonesia

Me at Lembongan

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

Howdy gang-
Long time no write. I got back from my trip to Indonesia about two weeks ago. It was awesome: thought provoking, inspiring, culturally rich, engaging, and more than a little exhausting.

Since then I have been processing/ trying to get back to life as usual. I’m also trying to get my artistic work back on track, which hasn’t been easy.

I may try to write more about the trip soon. In the meantime, there are plenty of picture on my flickr site (click the picture).

oh, and if there’s anything you want to know in particular about the trip, ask me questions (it’ll give me something to write about)

What I learned from Art a Day

1. I should NOT have started this project immediately following the end of classes! I needed to take a week off first. I fell into the trap of thinking the high enrgy/stress level I was feeling at the end of the semester was normal, and tried to keep it going. Bad idea. This is related to the second lesson…

2. DON’T try to do something else during a move. Even a business move. Wow,  was that a pain! (and it’s still demanding bits a pieces of my time.)

3. I don’t embrace risk as much as I’d like to (the exception: “Ick”). I was expecting to really loosen up over the month, but instead I tightened up and fell back on reliable modes of working. This is in part because I was too interested in producing sell-able work (etsy). This is related to the fourth lesson…

4. I’m WAY too concerned with audience. I would be better served to do this for a month secretly, then post the works the next month….maybe. There were times when I felt like all y’all in net-world were looking over my shoulder. My bad.

5. On the plus side, I found out I like ink. I think I may play with that more, maybe work up to some larger pieces. I’d love to make some scroll-like large ink drawings. Ink might be a good art-a-day exercise for a future date. Ink has two advantages for me; no, three: it’s fast, you can’t edit, and I have absolutely no idea how to use it properly.

6. The little plates I made are pretty nice. I especially like the way the underglazes mixed. I fired these to a much higher temperature than one normally does for underglaze works, so I got unusual results. I’d like to make more of these, but I have to figure out a way to keep them from becoming all consuming.

7. There’s just too much to do. I need a warehouse and 4 assistants!

new platters in kiln

new platters in kiln

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

Other pieces I was hoping to get done by the end of May. (See this post).

They’ll be done by Monday, unless I need to reglaze.

May 30: Woman with Air Traffic Controller (in progress)

Woman with Air Traffic Controller (in progress)

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

May 29: Tumble-stack tray

Tumble-stack tray

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

the underglaze did some really lovely things on this one- I particularly like the blue “clouds” and the green George Washington.

Small Plates- Finished

Small Plates- Finished

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

Did I say earlier that the colors on these plates weren’t going to change much?

huh.

…Well, I lied.

Lots of surprises when I opened the kiln this morning, but most of them good (at least, I thought so).

May 28: Hooky

Today, dear friends, I played hookie. It was glorious.

Today’s hookie consisted of 9 holes of golf. I haven’t played golf for a long, long time. There were lots of bad shots, but a few good ones, too. I even had a putt for birdie (which, of course, I pushed to the right, which is what I always do with a pressure putt). Joining me for hookie were Joel and Peter Sheesley. The company and the scenery were delightful.

I guess I could have made an artwork afterwards, but that would go against the whole spirit of hooky. I watched the Cubs instead. And they won. In extra innings.

Which was the perfect end of a perfect hooky.

May 27: Dog House Daydreams

Dog House Daydreams

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

May 26: A Businessman Beside Himself

A Businessman Beside Himself

Originally uploaded by Mo Coffee

greenware plate
about 8″ wide

I particularly like the cartoon-ish colors of this one.