Women I, II, III, hand made, slab built clay wall pieces, 24" – 27", by Tammy Vitale

Here are the girls, um, women.  They are mounted on the same wood as totems and made to hang individually.  May also make some to go on shields in pairs or threes but that might be a bit heavy.  Maybe I’ll just leave them free standing.  Anyways, these are my latest.  I have 2 for raku (and a torso) out of the same load, and Women Friends,  here too.  The left figure is an ultramarine blue, which you can see at the hip area, not black – which is the way it appears in all these photos, a trick of lighting and being able to use only the viewfinder on my disabled camera.  Soon I hope to have a good hanging place again, as I move art and books back into my no-longer-for-sale (at the moment) house.

Then here are some close ups of Women for detail.

click on the individual photos for an even better close up.

Had coffee and sanity check with girlfriend this a.m., went to Michaels and totally indulged in acrylic paint for all the colors I have been digging in for the last little bit for AEM this past weeks, bought a spiral bound sketchbook to start:  In my Own Backyard, which I envision as a daily (because AEM has been such fun) exercise in seeing with new eyes, my surrondings, defined as everything within 5 miles.  If I were new to the area, what would I be taking pictures of?  Most assuredly the water in all its aspects, and now just as surely, the leaves (which are almost gone – I ran through the woods barefoot yesterday after Dog, and it was like walking on soft cotton the leaves are so deep!).  Myabe the fog – you should have seen it this morning!  We don’t get it this heavy very often – enough to slow traffic down (hardly anything slows traffic down in this region).  And also my true backyard….learn it’s seasons, the ones I watch through the window just behind my computer screne.  Anyways, those are the things I bought.  I was also reminded that I can hand make my own paper – which I haven’t done in a long while, in addition to cutting out my watercolors, which I’ve been doing.

All in all, it looks as if I won’t get to the cottage this week.  Clean studio comes first and I can’t do it all.  So cottage will wait.  Time enough is coming for everything.  After Dec 2, everything goes into slow motion.  Time for making more Women and whatever other new things come to mind.

So for today’s AEM, here are pages 1 and 2 of my altered book (the opening pages were presented yesterday).   I have them backwards, page 1 being "Contents Subject to Change" and Page 2 being "100 Women."  (verses taken from my poetry)

The verse on page 1 says: If she were a month, she would be/August.  Hot.  Wetness everywhere./As she brushes her hair, she sees blue/lightening, watches her hair move/like something alive.

And the verse on page 2 says:  There will be no front page report of this/but tonight 100 women will share the same dream.

thought for the day:  Literature is full of portraits of the temptress, which reveal men’s obsessive fear of the sexuality that they project onto women…The importance of the temptress in patriarchal literature, moreover, is accentuated by the understandable fear of all oppressors that the people they oppress will turn the tables on them.  Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope, The Female Hero in American and British Literature