Art, Life, and Egypt

I started this little blog in 2011 when I was in my second year at San Jose State University.  It feels like a long time ago, so much has happened, so much has changed. So where the hell have I been and what have I been doing? First, I finally graduated in 2012. After 18 years of trying, I finally received my degree in ceramics (and another in anthropology).  My senior show was such a great experience, and I look back at it fondly.

Straddling the 405, 2012

I also showed this piece at the CCACA conference (California Conference for the Advancement of the Ceramic Arts). It was a great experience.  While at the conference I saw a former teacher of mine, Tony Marsh.

 I hadn't seen him in about 15 years and it was great to catch up and share stories. (Btw, if you are not familiar with his work, do yourself a favor and check it out!)





In September 2012, I was featured in the Undergraduate Student Showcase in Ceramics Monthly.  It was a huge honor and I was crazy proud.  It had been my dream since I was 14 to be in Ceramics Monthly and I can't express how much gratitude I felt.  The only bummer was they put the image of my piece sideways, but oh well, I was just glad to be chosen.


I also sold my first large sculpture to a collector in Northern California.  It was actually completely by accident but it was a valuable lesson.  It was the first piece I made in my wind series. It was hard to let it go, mostly because I had never actually planned on selling it.  Lesson learned, never put something for sale on Etsy unless you really want to sell it. I had made an Etsy account just to have a web presence for a competition I was entering.  Once it sold, well, I figured it was too late.

Passage 2011

Although I was accepted into the American Craft Council show in San Francisco, I decided to not participate and ended up being in the now-defunct Ceramics Annual of America.  It was a lot of fun and I felt like I was slowly becoming a "real artist". The exposure I received from being in this show led to another opportunity.

In January 2013, I was in my first museum at the De Sassait Museum. It was exciting and stressful. I always focused on making work but almost everything I made wasn't made with the intention for it to last. This presented a problem with displaying work in professional settings.  Nonetheless, I felt like I had actually started a career as compared to just being a student.  For most, this type of success would make you stay on the path and continue doing what was working, but for me, it felt like more then I wanted.  I had a lot of momentum but I also didn't like the direction I was headed.  I started to question everything I was doing and nothing felt right.

 

In March 2013, I was fortunate enough to be selected for the NCECA Student Show which was in Houston that year.  I made the mistake of submitting two pieces; one was roughly 3' x 4' and the other was 30" x 10'.  Silly me, I was thinking they would never choose a piece that was 10 feet long. Boy oh boy was I wrong.  Another lesson learned, never enter a piece unless you know how to ship it and have the money to properly do so. Because of this show, I was in Ceramics Monthly again.  The September 2013 issue had an article that reviewed the NCECA Student show. I was really excited to be in it again. Unfortunately, the article had an error stating I was a grad student when in fact I was an undergrad.  I never said anything.

   

  After NCECA, I was asked if I wanted to do a member story for the NCECA blog. Of course, I was flattered and said yes! This was the last thing I would do to promote myself or my work.  After that, I stepped back and stopped pursuing a clay as a career.  What most people didn't know was that I was in a terrible marriage and after 15 years, it had taken its toll on me.  Being in an abusive relationship changes you in many ways, and it's a hard thing to re-wire your brain.  I had to stop focusing on clay and start focusing on getting out.  It was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I had ever done, and it took me two years to truly call it quits. 

After, I felt renewed. I was a woman on fire and discovered a new passion for life and travel. I fell in love with my now husband and spent two years living part-time in Cairo, Egypt.  It was such an adventure.  I also traveled to Italy and Denmark.  Living in Egypt had a profound effect on me.  The best way to describe it is slow chaos.  As a lover of art and history, it was a feast for the eyes. There are so many contradictions in Egypt. I was freer then I had ever been and yet more oppressed.  I was able to live a lifestyle I could only dream of in the US but in my heart, I still knew I was poor. Living in Egypt also gave me time to explore new art materials. I spent time experimenting with new ways of making all the while thinking of how to incorporate them into my ceramic work. I was able to travel because I worked as a substitute teacher in Oakland.  This also taught me so much.  The culmination of living and working in two vastly different places helped guide me to where I am now, in terms of my art.  I'm truly grateful for these experiences.  They left such a profound impact on me that I gave a lecture at NCECA 2018 regarding travel and the art practice.

At the end of 2016, I transitioned back into living just in the US and started to focus on clay again. I got a job teaching ceramics to adults in a studio in San Francisco and also worked full time at a ceramic supply store.  With my husband now living in the US, I was free to focus on what I had wanted for years: grad school.  When I graduated in 2012, my son was 12 and I told myself I wouldn't go to grad school till he graduated high school.  Now he was a Junior and I was ready to focus on creating new work for my portfolio.  In early 2017, I quit teaching and reduced my hours at work so I could focus on creating.  I was finally where I wanted to be after 5 years.  A week after, I found out I was pregnant.  

@needleandsponge

Pregnancy at 40 sucked. Pregnancy at 24, by comparison, was a walk in the part.  I had lots of complications and went to the hospital twice within the first two months. I realized I couldn't work and so I reluctantly left.  As the pregnancy continued, it became harder and harder.  I felt like I was awake in a coma.  My entire body was just trying to feed a baby and I felt I had nothing left for myself.  It was the worst I had ever felt.  At four months, I had a miscarriage two days before my birthday.  So many women have had miscarriages, but you never realize the weight of one until you go through it yourself.  It was horrendously painful. My husband and I mourned the loss, as couples do.  I spent the summer trying to redirect my focus back to trying to go to school.  I worked in clay and for the first time in decades, I committed myself to start a pottery business.  I was excited to have direction again.  It was fall, school started back up and the first day I went back to work my body decided to strike.  My right arm and right lower leg swelled up and I was in tremendous pain.  It lasted for weeks and months.  The years of repetition and wearing my body down had apparently paid their price.  I saw multiple doctors that each gave a different diagnosis but at the end of the day, all I knew was I was in pain.  My doctor told me no more clay. 

Photoshop Class Project

So what was I to do? well, I started to draw, a lot.  It was a lot of fun rekindling my old love of drawing but eventually, that too was too much for my poor hand.  The pain became so severe that I couldn't even brush my hair.  I did months of occupational therapy and tried to use my hands as little as possible. I was really bored but I tried to use this time learning new things on youtube and exploring creativity in ways I never would have considered prior.  When your body is limited your mind has time to flourish.  I spent so much time thinking of work I would make when I got better and researching ideas, places, and people.  I wanted to learn about digital fabrication. My abilities with computers were lacking and so when I started feeling better, I enrolled in a few graphic design classes. Which brings us to today, midway in my second semester as a graphic design student.

It's amazing where life can take you.  I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I'd be this happy.  I also never would have thought that I'd go through that much shit, but that's part of life. You gotta take the bitter with the sweet.  Right now, I'm totally focused on the sweet!