Torso:  Zen II, approx 23" slab and hand built wall sculpture by Tammy Vitale

My favorite part of being an artist has always been the creation part – in clay:  the wet muddy move it until it makes sense part.

Lately I have become quite content with the finishing part – the part where you glaze or paint and wire and glue and stand back and take a picture because it is all done part.

Perhaps when everything else gets to be quite exciting and adventurous (and I’m using those words on purpose, claiming them as opposed to other words which will go unsaid here..The Secret and all), it is good to have one piece where things are just mundane and humdrum.  Where everything is pretty much decided before hand.  There just aren’t that many ways to put wire on a piece so that it will hang:  cut, bend, wrap.  Done.

Very soothing.  Hypnotic almost.

I found myself in the studio being hypnotized this morning, finishing up the kiln load that just cooked, preparing commissions (2!), knowing that the hard part is over.

The new torso for hanging on the wall, which I will not picture here because it doesn’t have its nest, seems to have solved itself about hanging.  Now that I have the two pieces glued together ( I have learned that with a deep cut down the middle, trying to keep the dried clay in one piece is futile), the solution shows itself clearly.  And clearly I was forward thinking as I just happen to have put hanging holes right where they are needed.  Trust that instinct!  When I get a nest and finish her, I will take a picture and share.

Zen II above is based on Zen (here to the right for your viewing pleasure).  While  I don’t make duplicates, I have no problem with "referentials."

Girls night out did not happen last night as I anticipated – it is tonight instead.  I believe I may accompany Husband to work just to get out of the house.  I think I need that right now.

thought for the day:  Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you.  You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is.  The fact is:  You don’t know what it is.  You have only covered up the mystery with a label.  Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable.  This is because is has unfathomable depth.  All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg.  Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth:  Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose