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My most recent project has involved revisiting the idea of The Vessel.  Easy, I thought, make a pot;  It has an inside; it has an outside; it can contain things – job done!  But then I remembered that I don’t DO easy.  This straight forward approach had no chance of satisfying me.  There had to be a more complicated way to consider the idea of A Vessel.  For one thing, presumably if something is a vessel it has to be capable of containing something.  If you pursue that thought far enough it becomes ‘if there is nothing in it, is it a vessel?’  Presumably this means that the contents of a vessel must be considered in the making.  Unless you put something in it it may not be a vessel. While that was not necessarily the opinion of my dear friend, Winnie the Pooh, I think it might be important and so I got to thinking that perhaps the inside of a vessel is more important than the outside and the the inside should never be considered as just an empty space.  I set about making vessels which tried to emphasise this point of view – where the outside merely existed to give a frame to the inside and as such should not be decorated to appeal while the inside appeared treasured; an inviting receptacle for the contents and decorated as a treasured thing.

 

Imagine my horror then, on opening the kiln, after an extensive period of researching, testing and making to discover the disaster that was within  One piece had tipped over and stuck to the side of the kiln, one had slumped and stuck to a kiln shelf prop, none of the glazes had come out as planned, the interiors looked a mess.  Misery descended!  I took them out and wrapped them to take into college but in truth it was difficult not to chuck them straight in the bin.  All the way to college I brooded on how I might salvage something from this project, anything which might give me a pass mark at least.  Nothing came to me.  But help was at hand in the shape of my college mates.

 

Having left the pots sitting dejectedly on my table I returned to discover that people had decided that, if they nudged the ambiguity of my original constructions a tiny bit further, they became something ‘other’ – maybe vessels or maybe not.  And this is how they reclined, resplendent in their new found glory, ready for a place at Tate Modern whenever a curator wishes to pop round and collect them!

 

 

This morning, over breakfast, I asked my husband what it felt like to him when an idea strikes.  He looked at me with the gentle compassion which demonstrated clearly that he did not have a clue what I was talking about.  I wonder if I am alone in feeling almost euphoric when an idea comes.  I remember so vividly the exact moment at which I realised that I had to pursue some kind of exploration into art.  I was sitting in the art studio at the school where I was head of science.  The head of English had organised an artistic workshop for staff during the holidays and a handful of us were sitting round talking, relaxing and making sculpture.  It was a wonderfully convivial atmosphere and I know I was feeling completely happy and then ‘BANG’!  This huge surge of electricity flooded my brain.  I couldn’t talk.  I could hardly think. It was an ecstatic moment with an after burn which lasted for several hours and I knew that life would never be the same again.  I know that sounds a bit melodramatic but those who know me well have come to recognise these moments when my head almost explodes with an idea and I am unable to focus on anything else for several hours – sometimes even days – while the adrenalin, or what ever it is that pumps though my system in that moment, is gradually dissipated.  I think it probably infuriates them but what can I do?

My mother describes moments when her brother seemed to have ‘gone to the pictures’ and my daughter has always ‘gone off on one’ with an idea for a story almost from the day she was born.  Perhaps it is a family thing.  Do they feel the surge of hormones and the associated heavy headedness that I experience?  Is this what is meant by artistic temperament?

My most recent moment was yesterday.  I was driving to my studio with the express intent of putting 5 pieces of work, which sat ready and waiting  to be fired, into the kiln – a half hour job at the most.  Then, just as I approached the traffic lights in Earlsfield and should have been concentrating on a difficult right turn, an electric shock thudded through my brain.  I know that my resolution to the current project was not perfect but I had reached the stage of thinking that I was fairly pleased with it and it was good enough.  Now there was nothing else for it, I had no choice.  On arrival at the studios I rang home and explained that I might be some time.  I broke up the vessels which had waited so patiently for attention since before Christmas and began almost from scratch.  Assessment for these pieces is in less than a fortnight.  I have an exhibition (ArtRooms 2015: http://www.art-rooms.org/) going on at the same time as the assessment .  I should not be starting again at this stage.  But there was simply no alternative.

The interesting thing is that I should have known it was going to happen.  I had woken up feeling very restless.  By the time I got into the car I was actually shaking.  I should have known.  But that feeling, when the crescendo comes and the idea hits cannot be rushed and I am not at all sure whether watching it approach would actually do me any favours.  It is exhausting though.  Just sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have someone else’s brain inhabit my body for a week or so.  Would it be like having a holiday on a tropical beach?

One day I think I need to ask someone to wire me up so that I can actually watch my brain activity, such as it is, on a screen.  I cannot believe that it fits any pattern of normality but I can’t help thinking it might be rather spectacularly colourful.  If I can only capture the moment.