New and Exciting Times for Brookside Pottery

I can't believe it! Brookside Pottery has moved downtown to the Atlas Building in Tulsa.

I still have the location in Brookside but it has become as it started, the studio for kilns, clay, tools and larger classes during the fair weather months.

Change has happened again. And this is a fine change.  My space is lovely and located on Boston between 4th and 5th street on the first floor of the historical Atlaas Building in the Deco district of downtown.  I love it.

The front area includes a gallery of my pots and a few chosen friends paintings and sculptures.  The back are is a production studio area.  I will also tutor and teach very small numbers of people.

My minimum hours are Mon-Fri from 10:30-2;30 and Most Saturdays. Closed Sundays.  These hours are still in transition and I find myself working until about 7-8 every evening so far as I watch the traffic flow.

This is wonderful. I love the building and I love being there. It is a new day!

A Feather kind of day.

Sometimes a day will choose a theme for itself and if you listen for the clues when this is happening it is wonderful. We have a new hummingbird feeder out our window after seeing the little guys buzzing around a yard. it was no time until they discovered it. We have been watching an array of birds feeding on the suet every day and night out our dining room window. That is all fantastic and predictable. Offer it and they will come.

But today there is more. After long nights of playing hard and long days of working hard, I find myself soaking in my hot tub nearly every morning and sometimes every night as well. It is a way to meditate, decompress and be ready for what the new day might offer. To take time to hear the birds every morning and watch them find their food, play in the pond and watch us from the electrical lines is a pleasure.

This morning I woke to a wonderful poem about blackbirds by Wallace Stevens posted by a friend and a very interesting wall sculpture of a black crow appeared to share as well. I was ready to listen to the day.

On the way to the hot tub I noticed a small beautiful blue jay on the table on my deck. I picked it up and studied it looking at the shiny blue and gray feathers. I thought about the source.

Next, sitting in the water I saw a very small feather land on top of the water.  It floated with the grace of a lovely sail boat on the sea.  Delicate and strong at the same time. Not sinking. "Walking on water" in a way. It drifted a bit in the breeze. It never over-reacted. Its core was strong and it supported all the delicate softness of the feather. It glistened. In a way it looked like a sailboat. In another way it imitated the shape of the original bird perhaps. And the risks. My husband said it could be full of mites you know.  I did not remove it. How many I thought? It is so small. I watched it floating a moving a bit longer wondering what else I could learn from this moment, from this small light weight object that had the ability to fly and to float, never being sucked into the water with no air and no light.

Finally, with hesitation I removed it from the tub, it clung to my fingers and I let it go. Letting go.

Mother Nature gives us clues on how to live the good life, if we listen.

Later, John told me there is a new book out about feathers he saw reference to in the New York Review of books. I suppose I will have to find it. We are so apart of our times. We have a mass kind of thinking and cannot escape our time and how we think and respond. I suppose this is how history and cycles happen. We reflect our culture and our time.

So, today, after I go to my studio will be a wonderful time to make birds. Bird people perhaps. Maybe I will make a few bird baths, fountains and bird feeders as well. Feel it, live it, enjoy it. Soak in the moment.

Tourist Buses Chapter 2

A few mugs I made while in Hawaii

My desk at the City of Refuge looking toward Japan.

After my religious dose, I headed south and stopped at a coffee farm and museum.  The place was packed with people from a tour bus.  They looked like your typical American tourist, lots of people with money burning a whole in their pocket as they searched for interesting things to buy for gifts for others.  The shop tempted them all with samples of fresh baked rum cake, coffees and teas. There were tee shirts, colognes, 99 cents shell necklaces that I was tempted by until I saw they were made in the Philippines.  I found mass produced coffee cups with decals for $12-$22 dollars.  They were nothing special, just old fashioned looking coffee cups like restaurants used to use. So much money and how would they spend it?  Money was burning holes in there hands.  I walked around noticing only one person came into the museum that explained how the history of the coffee plantations.  I sprayed my arm with jasmine Hawaiian perfume and continued to watch them shop.  What a shame, potters so close by with handmade pots and they preferred flavored coffees, cheap shell necklaces and tee shirts.  I went to the restroom, washed the cheap perfume off my arm and wondered how any potter ever makes a living.

Listening Chapter 3

Reflections in the ocean at the City of Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii

You know we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  Funny thing for a potter to say.

We learn when we listen and you usually don’t learn a thing when you are talking unless you are evaluating recent knowledge.

    I was visiting Pu’Uhonua o Honaunau, a historical park today, commonly called the City of Refuge, and heard some interesting words from a demonstrating wood carver and park ranger named Tom De Aguiar.  A young man walked by with his golden retrievers unleashed and the ranger said,  “Hey, you gotta get the dogs on a leash.”  The young man ignored him and instead of going after him or yelling, he mumbled a little under his breath and did not look angry or at all irritated. 

He said, “There is a time to listen and there is a time to not listen.  The not listening person is the one not interested.  The one who is listening is learning their peace.  The other is not ready.”  Then he kept carving a hiking stick he was working on for a man getting ready to retire.  I do believe he is a good listener.

Earlier in the park I heard a loud and grabby lady, asking where is all the information, what should she be looking at?  Are there any organized tours?  Don’t they have another map like the one on display she can buy?  The lady was wearing out the lady park ranger and was hardly hearing any answers.  She was exhausting to listen to and had no idea the answers were right in front of her.  The maps were in a box, the information was neatly numbered to match the map and there was a park path to follow as well.  The lady ranger explained there would be an official tour later but the lady wandered off.  She had not listened even when she asked the loud questions in a nearly rude way.

The sea turtle is still protected on the grounds at the City of Refuge

We were on ancient royal grounds where they killed people like her for disobeying and not following  the rules.  

In this ancient ground of spiritual power, those who had broken the Kapu meaning they could not look at or get close to the chief, walk in the chiefs footsteps, touch the chiefs possessions, or let his (her) shadow fall on the ground, were punished.  Women could not eat the foods reserved for offerings for the gods; they could not prepare food for the men or eat with them.  When a kapu was broken the person was put to death.  If they did not punish the guilty then the gods would get them.  Thus, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.

  So much for the lady asking questions unless she could make it to the Place of Refuge, another area in the park behind a large stone wall where everyone is or was given a second chance.  No blood could be shed there.  In those days, old people, sick, too young or defeated enemies could wait out battles thanks to the bones of dead kings being buried there.  Everyone was released and given another chance.  So what happened to that good idea?  And we are the civilized ones?

    Listening is important.  If you want to learn how to make art you need to listen and it is a good idea not to be grabbing information but take it with grace and give it time to jell.  If you cannot understand it you are not ready for it.

    No one should want to be a shallow expert.  It is good to keep your confidence but keep the gate of your mind open.

    When beginners come to my shop and I give them free information so the art will grow, I am amazed how many become experts immediately and start spouting off absolutes.  I am still a beginner and I started 35 or 40 years ago.  If I thought I new it all I would move on and try something new.  

Chapter one Staying Inspired

coffee beans growing on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona

Today I drove the island looking for potteries and coffee farms.  I want to know how others stay inspired and I will also tell you what works for me.

The first potter I saw had a great set up.  Originally from Oregon he moved to Hawaii 18 years ago and started a pottery, gift shop, coffee and macadamia nut farm and also sells shaved ice.  The man’s shop was immaculate.  Never have I seen a coffee-roasting machine right next to a potter’s wheel and not a spot of dirt next to either one.  The shop was immaculate.  The sign read, pottery and coffee welcome and enter.  I pulled my rental car down the hill into his small private driveway and parking area.  An English bulldog who was simply doing his job announcing my arrival greeted me.  I stepped into the gallery and saw several crystal fired pots, jewelry, soaps, teas, canvas bags and a bar with a big shaved ice sign next to a display of coffee tea and nuts.  The potter welcomed me and handed me a small fresh cup of coffee.  I introduced myself and we began talking about inspiration and pottery.  He took me through is studio and led me to the balcony where he pointed to his coffee trees.  He explained that he used to be a seminary student and switched to clay and then began making a relationship between growing coffee beans, making clay and God. 

He explained how you start with a 100 year old plant, wait 4 years and the flowers begin to grow.  Many of the flowers fall off the branch; some remain and turn into the coffee bean.  First they turn yellow then green then red and then purple.  After that no other beans grow on that area and later the top of tree blossoms and it is trimmed and new branches appear.

He was thinking hard and the harder he thought the larger his eyes got and the more he questioned my religious beliefs.  He quoted the bible and told me how he was an atheist and thought he knew all the answers and then became a spiritual person.  He said he had been married to a new age woman and participated in her rituals and how that did not work out and he remarried.

He asked me about my religion and I confessed that I am a Unitarian and he was not sure what to make of that.  It was like he had heard of it but was quite skeptical.

“What do you believe in?”  He asked me.

I said that most people think Unitarians don’t believe in anything but that is not how I feel.  I told him we as a group do not believe in original sin and have a great sense of fairness for others and we are political watchdogs as well.  His eyes got a little larger and he looked at me skeptically.  I said, “I am an optimist and a positive thinker and I don’t think most people are evil.  However I am no fool, I know people do bad things as well.  I am not a Pollyanna.  I like the fact that our church will marry people in love from varying religions.  I think that is a good thing.”

He went on to load his kiln as my cell phone rang and I think he became more skeptical about me. 

“I don’t think it works, people who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior getting married.”

I was only asking about inspiration and his pottery and somehow the conversation kept rolling back to religion.

I walked back over to his sales area purchased some of his prize winning coffee for my husband and he handed me a New testament and I said thanks and crammed it in my purse.

It was not exactly what I had in mind about what inspires others but it just helps prove we are all in it for many reasons.  I drove off and headed for coffee farms and the Kona coffee guild

Forward for Getting There written from the Big Island

Forward

I sit in a hotel room in Hawaii where I have finally isolated myself from the outside

 world to write this book.  I have wanted to write this for several years, have started it a few times panicked thinking maybe I did not know enough after all.  Now I have regained

 my confidence and I want to share what I

 know from my years as a potter, a sculptor,

 a wife and mother and a half way decent business person/artist/teacher.  I want to tell you how I have survived over 35 years in a fairly conservative community and stayed inspired and produced thousands of pots.

I found a way to do it and enjoy it and not

 ever give up.  Everyday I still wake with

 more ideas and creative energy.

I hope this book finds it way into the hands

 of others like me who just wanted to make

art and lots of it.  Communicating through

 art is one of the most rewarding parts of my life. So follow me on this journey about surviving and balancing life and making your

life rewarding everyday.

It is late at night, I sit in an old hotel listening to the rain hit the tin roof, thinking.  Cars pass on the wet two-lane road in the Kona area of Hawaii.  It has rained all day and everything is green and lush.  I am staying in a hotel started in 1927 by a Japanese family and it remains in that family.  It is a cheap clean room, spare with a bed a chair, dresser, lamp and desk

 with no chair.  I have stored my clothes in

 one half of the dresser and turned the other half into my pantry.  I don’t want to leave this side of the island until this book is nearly finished.  I must write it.  I feel compelled.  I look out the window and I see a gallery sign reading, Art Farm.”  Maybe that is where I am.  I am stuck writing next to an art farm.  Let it grow.

Kiss an Egg, a book chapter written in Costa Rica

How difficult is it to keep things simple stupid? 

Here in Costa Rica we saw the chickens that laid the eggs and bought them from the owner.  The eggs are fresh and tasty.  I cannot check the date on the end of the carton.  There is no carton.  They come hand delivered in a recycled large tray.  I have not seen a Styrofoam egg carton since I arrived.

So what happened? Did we need more eggs than we could supply without the big stinky chicken farms?  Is it simpler to run to the store and buy them?  I think the answer is very complicated.  We changed.  And, I think the word quality was lost.  And then there is that industrial revolution thing.

I am guilty.  Just one egg is not enough.  I bought too much stuff for my studio thinking it would make it easier.  When you visit the potters in the pueblos of New Mexico there is proof the number of tools we think we need is a bit much.  I love my tools.  I am a tool monger.  I like handmade, commercial, newfangled and traditional Chinese tools as well.  I sell tools.  But the truth is it is how you use the ones you have.

I am guilty.  I have a lot of eggs from all kinds of cartons.  I have too many tools and that takes more space and more organization.  I even have sentimental tools from a friend who died.  It is hard to give them away.  Life could be simpler if I had fewer tools.  I don’t even know what I own.  I am trying to look at some and realize I have had my turn, now let someone else play with them.  It helps when I donate them to worthy causes.  But I have to keep several handfuls to stay secure.  At least I have taken them all out of the boxes they came in and used them.

Our ideas, our projects our lives are easiest to enjoy when they are kept simple and maybe a bit organized.

I look in the depths of my dark clothing closet and I panic when I try and find shoes.  30 shoes?  20 pairs? I don’t know. I get the flashlight and search desperately for 2, only 2 good shoes.  And, I cannot give them up even if they are too tight or stinky.  Maybe I should throw a couple of chickens in my closet.

In grad school we all loved firing with cone 10 gas in that giant kiln.  It took several of us to fire it, load it, and mess with all the air, gas, thermocouples and dampers.  Then the gas crisis of the 70s hit and they turned the gas off.  This caused a panic.  We were not considered necessary gas users.

  That is when I looked back again to the simple way of life.  What is basic?  Native Americans, Africans and Mexicans do not have the latest super L&L kiln and the pots are gorgeous.  I started studying their ways, combined their ideas and fired the simplest way possible.  I used sawdust, grass, and dung, wood whatever material was most available.  I confess I did bisque fire for permanence.  Feeling the clay using the simplest techniques.  I learned primitive techniques are neither unsophisticated nor inferior.  I could also see how tradition in crafts would have been helpful.

When I attended the Hopi Indian workshop in the 80’s I asked Fawn Navasie where she got her ideas.  She said,  “I just close my eyes and see them.” 

Most likely, she only had the tools she needed, and probably a real chicken pecking in the yard. The kiss of simplicity.

Putting your eggs in one Basket

What kind of potter or artist do you want to be?  Can you force your style?  Do you want to learn just one thing or lots and everything?

Do you want to make functional ware or make a very pure form of art?

Can you tell what kind of potter you are? Is it important to be only one kind of potter/sculpture?

Generally, I have found the more I learn about different techniques and ways to fire etc., the better.  When you open up to new ideas and maybe a different way to build or fire you begin to have more choices.  Sometimes I wish I did not know so many ways to do things.  It would be easier and with tunnel vision you can make more progress faster and possibly become an expert in some area.  Ceramics is full of so many directions as are most of the arts that it is hard to know which way to turn.  Experimenting even when the experiment does not work is a learning process and adds so much to your knowledge.

Put your eggs in one basket and you limit yourself.  Sometimes it is just more difficult to carry a lot of baskets.  Remember you can always set a few baskets down after a while and get more specialized in your knowledge. Knowledge, learning and listening.

On being Grounded

A dear sweet friend who had been through a very intense experience of a dying father, finally had to let go.  The father had lingered and held on to her and finally when friends forced her to leave the room and take a short break, he died.  She had to let go as well.  Her friends took her outside and sat her in a lawn chair, removed her shoes and put her bare feet in the grass.  This experience did in fact ground her.  She found the strength to continue with her life.

Planting and flipping dirt may help many of us get grounded.  Whenever I lose a friend I want to plant something to prove life continues and to see things grow.

Those feelings also happen while working in clay, dirt.  A friend of mine whose beautiful young daughter died “grounded” herself by learning to make pots.  The pain never totally left but it did significantly ease the pain.

My students get their hands busy and all of a sudden they relax and with the sensuousness of the pliable clay in their hands they go into the zone.  They will work through the stress of the day as they slam the clay down on the worktable to remove its air bubbles and begin to tell me their life stories as well.  “Clay talks.”

The creative experience grows as the hands work the clay.  You just can’t help it.  Grounded.

"Did you hear what I really said?" Chapter 46 of Getting There

Talking to a friend, he said.” So what is your book about?  “  I started to laugh a little being embarrassed trying to sum up about 45 unedited chapters.  He knew what I meant immediately.  He is an old friend and a retired preacher I knew in Knoxville when I taught middle school.

“So it is just like when people used to ask me on Tuesday what Sunday’s sermon would be about.”

It goes something like this in my own interpretation.  There is the book I plan to write.  There is the presentation you hear.  There is what I actually write and the book you remember me writing.  Sounds like a good explanation to me!

I have been writing this book off and on for about 10 years.

  I started scribbling it on paper rapidly in outline form when I was at a conference with my husband. A conference offers me a nice clean quiet hotel room where I can think with no interruptions.  A first I could not write fast enough and I knew exactly what I wanted, an almost how to kind of pottery book.  Next, I looked at my bookshelves stuffed with how to books and thought, “No, that is not quite what I want to write.  There are way to many already.  Writing another book about how to make a coil pot really is not necessary.”

I want to write a book about the essentials of living an artistic life and how to make that possible. 

Books that have been meaningful to my life are, Gift from the Sea, it helped me through hard times, Like Water for Chocolate, because of the adventures and they way she added recipes between chapters, not playing by the rules, and Eat Pray Love, the search for meaning in a woman’s life, and the humor of Nora Ephron’s, Heartburn and I Hate My Neck, which remind me not to take myself too seriously.

I wish I could turn to my husband to help me edit these 45 or so chapters.  He is a terrific writer but a bit to analytic for my style writing.  My book is more about feelings and surviving as an artist and his is facts and history.

Maybe writing this “life” book is all about being a baby boomer in my 50’s.  Another friend said, “Oh yes, my husband is in his 50’s so he is writing a book too.”  I can’t let that pop my bubble or maybe it is true and just take it from there.

    My most meaningful life book about pottery now is Centering, not about centering clay but about centering your life and Bernard Leach’s book the Potter’s Mark.  I must confess, I have never made it entirely through either one.  And, I hope to design my book in a way that if you don’t have time to read it all at once, you can pick out chapters to read individually that might be inspiring one at a time.  And, I want chapters in between that offer fun projects and yes, food recipes as well.

    I am not sure where this book belongs on the shelf.  I talked to the editors of Ceramic’s Monthly and they are more into the how to books in a tight economy.  They have tried the more philosophical books and have not been able to sell them.  And it may be that Clay Times would read and accept a chapter as an article, I am not sure.  It is kind of biographical and probably a little more new age spiritual than I want to admit. 

  I have a friend who has been through the self publishing, print it as they buy it and with her help it might all fall into place given enough time to work on it.

But I do know I can only write when I am not home and can not feel obligated to go to the shop and make a living with my hands.  I have written several chapters in the hotel room while my husband attends his academic conferences, about 20 chapters in hotel rooms in Hawaii, and several more chapters while staying with friends with great feed back on ideas in Costa Rica.  I still need more time and a little help with formatting etc on my computer.

Writing is as rewarding as making pottery and certainly does give my tired arms a well deserved rest.  I have always loved teaching and helping my students of all age to find their way through art and life. 

  How about, “Finding your way, an adventure through the essentials of art and life?”  or “Getting there, the essentials of life and clay.”   Well, maybe.  Just write and edit and put the icing on the cake later.  

Hands, Chapter 31 "Getting There"

The following is a chapter from my book, Getting There, This was written while staying with a friend in Costa Rica.

The Costa Rican laborer’s hands may be the roughest hand I have ever shook.  The second roughest hand was my friend Mikey’s daughter.  Her hand was an American cowgirl hand.

My husband is a professor and writer and he has very soft hands.  My son is an artist with very long thin fingers.  My daughter’s hands are like princess’s hands, tiny soft and small, waiting for white lacy gloves.

Hands lead our way to the senses.  We shake hands, we feed ourselves sometimes with a fork and sometimes we hold onto a slippery mango.

I explain to my pottery students that their hands are their finest tools.  The most expensive tool will not necessarily produce the finest pot.  You see this as the aspiring young to the clay student asks, “So what kind of wheel or kiln do you use? Or what kind of camera should I buy?”

  Through your hands you feel and make artistic decisions with clay. Pinch pots are the essence of all clay making and the feeling, pinching and moving the clay makes it happen whether you are throwing on the potters wheel or pushing the clay around making a figure.

Hands.  They tell us a lot about each other.  Do you sit on your hands? Do you extend your hands easily? Do you stick them in your armpits?  Do you decorate your fingernails and protect them?  Can you resist rubbing a babies head?  Can you squeeze meat to make meatloaf? Do you point accusingly?

Sensitivity connects through your hands.  We find our way through our hands. 

Think about a baby’s chubby new undirected hand before they learn to get what they reach for.  The strength of strong persons hands can be impressive.  And, of course, there are the jokes about the size of a man’s thumb indicating similar matching body parts.  Old people’s        thin-skinned worn hands from years of work becoming more delicate again, telling us to slow down.

Hands show agreement and confidence when we shake.  Hands show the clay who is in charge.

As we see it. reality.

In the garden in Hilo.  Photo Linda Coward

We listen when we are ready and want to hear.

 When we are ready, we see what we want to see. 

We are all always in motion and changing.

listen            photo L Coward

Reality is as we interpret it.

 

Stength       Photo L Coward

Ancient Celtic Prayer, maybe the oldest

The Deer's Cry

I arise today
through the strength of the heaven, the light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Spendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

Translated by Kuno Meyer

Reading Anam Cara, perfect for a potter

From Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom  John O'Donohue
...Spiritituality of friendship with the body

The body is your clay home, your only home in the universe. The body is the soul; this recognition confers a sacred and mystical dignity  on the body. the sensors are devine thresholds. A spirituality of the senses is a spirituality of transfiguration....Thoughts are our inner senses...they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.


 I make landscape pots now I have a better understanding why.

Brookside Pottery? Where is it? What is it? When is it?

 
When?
 Brookside Pottery hours will be by appointment and luck of the draw until Mid May.

I will be easiest to find on Monday mornings, Wed. and Fri. afternoons and Saturdays and by appointment. 

Where?
 I am located in a garage down the alley off 37th Street. Actual address 1138D East 37th Street. Across from channel 2 on the west side of Peoria. Basically in the parking lot behind Locker's Hair.  It is not as confusing as it sounds once you find the parking lot.  Call 918 747-7574 for shop and my cell is 918 697-6364. I will help you find your way.












 What is it?
Artists studio, my and my son's pottery for sale.

I sell many kinds of clay, low and high fire. I also carry Kemper Tools, Mud tools and more. The glazes I usually sell are Amaco, Spectrum and Laguna with a specialty in cone 5/6 glazes.

I also teach adult classes on Tuesday nights weather permitting, all levels with a class maximum of 8 students.  Young adults are usually tutored on Saturdays for one hour at $25 per hour plus materials.

Contact info: Linda Coward
                        claylady00@aol.com   (00's are numbers not letters)
                        shop  (918) 747-7574
                        cell (918) 697-6364



  
The rest of the story
  Nothing stays the same and that is true with my very unconventional business as well.  So Brookside Pottery or me, Linda Coward continues to change to survive.  If you are looking for a Walmart or a Hobby Lobby or A freshly painted up town gallery, keep looking. This is alternative shopping from the artist's working studio.

It is fun to meet people who find me on line and come to check it out or buy clay and tools. Sometimes people are looking for mugs or mass produced pottery. Well, that is not exactly what I am either.

The reaction to my alternative and creatively cluttered shop brings back memories of Santa Fe art studios in the early 70's.  I usually apologize and try to clear a path to the customers needs.  My studio space is small not 740 square feet compared to the 2600 I used to have.  Yes, I need to keep sorting.  But tucked in every nick and cranny of the shop you will fine tools, nature objects for inspiration, and projects in the works. It is fun and a little different. It is a very personal kind of shopping experience.

Brookside Pottery is a working pottery studio. I teach small classes, tutor adults and children and that is a great way to learn one to one.  I also sell tools clay and glazes.  I am an artist and I am a teacher. I have a masters degree and about 40 years of experience. And, like a crazy woman I share a lot of technical info with the community.

Now I have added more obligations to a very busy life.  I am teaching 3 classes at Roger's State until May.  This will affect the shop hours tremendously.  I  will be glad to meet anyone by appointment. The shop has limited heat sources as well but is a wonderful place to be especially in fair weather.

 

 

 

What it is all about.

News clip from the 80's. Ian on my lap at the wheel

Ian at work

Ian teaches enthusiastic boys

My ever so helpful student, Vera at work.