TAMMY VITALE

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MN Icon full  Icon, clay and beads (including handmade glass beads), finished in acrylic by Tammy Vitale.  21" tall.  $115

Here's one of the pieces I've been working on lately.  Smaller pieces that make me happy.  and I'm not really worrying about sales with them.  I'm doing them because they want to come out and play and I'm experimenting with beads and wire.

Something's brewing and if I play at this long enough, it just might make itself known.

The detail picture for this is blurred – sorry.  You can still see the beads better than in the big photo.  I'm a lazy slub and just couldn't get myself back down into the studio to retake the pictures.

MN Icon detail.blurred 

The next piece is Blackbird, Blackird, Sing Me a Song.  I politely asked her if we could please have a shorter name but that name has stuck since she was created and I don't think she's going to be happy with anything else, so I had to give in and let her have it.

You know how artists say pieces create themselves?  Believe it.  And name themselves too (I know I've read works by writers who say characters create themselves and then write their own stories…I do SO understand!).  We aren't kidding when we say this.

More pieces are wandering toward finished.  I need to kick things into gear so that I have a nice batch of totally new work to show for ArtOMatic (June this year).  I got myself a 0% credit card so I could get a ring saw so I can do more glass pieces.  I keep wavering back and forth about spending the money, but art is calling the ring saw and art seldom gets denied.  I can deny new clothes, shoes, dental work, hair cut (I am very ready to take scissors to my own hair right now.  That could be interesting), but I cannot deny art.  It's as strong a force as the biological clock.

MN Blackbird full 

Blackbird  is 32" tall and 2 pieces, clay with handmade beads, metal, shell and finished in mostly glaze with some acrylic.  $125.00

MN Blackbird glass torsoMN Blackbird bottom v.closeup thought for the day:  We alreday have everything we need.  There is no need for self-improvemnet.  all these trips we lay on ourselves – the heavy-duty fearing that we're bad and hoping that we're ood, the identities we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds – never touch our basic wealth.  They are like cloud that temporarily block the sun…this is who we areally are.  We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.

…From this perspective we don't need to change:  You can feel as wretched as you like, and you're still a good candidate for enlightenment.  You can feel like the world's most hopeless basket case, but that feeling is your wealth…There's a richness to all of the smelly stuff that we so dislike and little desire.  The delightful things – what we love so dearly about ourselves, the places in which we feel some sense of pride or inspiration – they are also our wealth…In any case, the point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true nature.  Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images.  They are like an illusion – not really all that solid.  They are, as we say, just thinking…Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.  We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don'e really get solved.  They come together and they fall apart.  Then they come together again and fall apart again.  It's just like that.  The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen:  room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.  Pema Chodron quoted in  Sacred Voices:  Essential Women's Wisdom Through the Aged, ed by Mary Ford -Grabowsky

MN Blackbird face

7 Comments

  • Tammy, your pieces are so playful! I love the little blackbirds (you KNOW how partial I am to crows, but a blackbird is close enough!), and I spied one of your little torsos in the Blackbird, Blackird, Sing Me a Song piece. Yes, I absolutely agree–pieces dictate to you what they want to be, how they want to look, what they want to be called.

    Tammy, here is a young man singing the Beatle's Blackbird with a French accent. I think it's quite charming.I know you'll enjoy it.
    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x29lcv_blackbird_webcam

    Maybe we should start an unkempt artists site, for those of us who deny new clothes, shoes, dental work, hair cuts, etc. for our ART!

    Pema Chodron has made such a rich contribution to our understanding of being human, and how to deal with our reactions to things, especially when they are "falling apart."

    Here's another Chodron quote, which fits your big-hearted Icon piece:

    "When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."

    Yes, Tammy, something is DEFINITELY brewing.

  • Both your pieces is amazing…..I LOVE their embellishments!

    I also loved the thought for the day. It makes a lot of sense to me.

    love, light and peace,
    serena

  • oooohhh, it's late, I will comment more in the morning! love the black bird woman…want her~
    xoxo

  • Tammy–I haven't been visiting bloggy friends as often, and you've been so busy! I love it that you're letting yourself follow Art's path without worrying where it's leading–such power in that.

  • Wow, besides your creations, loved reading your thoughts!! I absolutely agree with you…and yes I cut my own hair, because I'm too obsessed about other things….anyway, I enjoyed this a lot.

  • I really needed your thought for the day today. It spoke to something really deep within me, especially since I am going around the same circle of "not really getting along all that well" with my older sister. I keep thinking that our relationship is healed, and then it falls apart again. Then I wonder what is wrong with me that I can't keep it together. Nothing. It's just that things come together and then fall apart, as Chodron so wonderfully put it.

    Your new pieces are a lot of fun to explore. Thanks for giving us the close ups so we can see some of the details.

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