I DO Love a Parade

Small Town Parades are a bit different from the big city style. Not wanting to miss the Friday celebration on Main Street, I left this second group of 'my girls' (and boys) on the worktable and headed out for some pre-parade mimosas and quiche..

Out-of-towners and local residents lined the streets and cheered each bit of the parade. Locals waved to their friends and photographers seemd to be having a field day.

It was indeed close to high noon when we had this special parade treat: the staged old western style gun fight between the good guys and the bad guys. After one good man was left standing, and the crowds roared, everyone who'd been 'shot' got up and the guys moved on down the street to do another fight after marching further toward the mountains.

After tastey treats from a local barbeque, I went back to continue painting and gilding, and enjoyed my parade of studio visitors. More than fifty people came inside to look and chat about my work and about their own experiences with clay.

It is fascinating to hear who 'my girls' seem to be in the eyes of their beholders. I love it when different people get the same sort of feeling from a piece. Their reactions to the concept of 'Bottomless Vessels to Hold Chnage' actually expand the essence of my original idea. And I love the names that visitors give to my'girls'...

Often I have titled a work using the suggestion of a studio visitor. Surely some of these works have not yet fully revealed their mystery to me... And the one below has been so changed by the barrel fire that she is not at all who she seemed to be in her beginnings...A petite woman with blue-grey hair came into the studio on Friday afternoon and looked carefully at every photo on the wall; inquired about my architectural ceramics; studied the finished works on the shelf in the cabinet; and then looked at this piece that was on the worktable -awaiting the final touches of white gold leaf in her hair. I had not told this visiting 'fairy-godmother-like' visitor that I am in search of names.

But she loooked me in the eye and whispered, 'That is Evangeline!'

When I responded with a puzzled look, she elaborated, '...from Longfellow's poem, EVANGELINE'

OK OK, so I have looked it up on the internet. This poem is a gazillion pages long. I promise to get a hard copy so that I can actually read the poem and decide if indeed this is who she is. But where are the Cliff Notes when you need them?

In the meantime, it is interesting to hear what other visitors who have actually read the poem feel about this name as an appropriate title. Most do seem to see a melancholy in her face. Some have suggested that she has risen from the ashes of some tradgedy, perhaps the loss of her one true love.... I wish I could know what you think...

Now on this nearly final day of this fabulous residency, I will head over to the parking lot where we will have a pit fire and a barrel fire today, as part of an Arts District celebration... And I hope that the weather holds and that it will not rain on our parade.