All For A Kiss

The kiss; what a wonderful, longed for, sometimes frightening, sought after, misunderstood, and maybe the greatest gift to the human race since most people are born as a result of a kiss which led to other things.

How the hell do you describe a kiss: by the feeling it gives you, by the physical act, by the chemical and emotional reaction?

Words cannot adequately describe a kiss and so it’s no wonder artists have tried to convey the meaning of the kiss with art. Rodin’s sculpture of “The Kiss” is one of the most famous in the world. And there are all of Gustav Klint’s paintings trying to tell us what a kiss is.

Then there is The Kiss of Death, which I suppose started with Judas kissing Jesus and in the Mafia is a signal that someone has been marked for execution. I don’t have any idea how many painting there are of Judas Kissing Jesus, but it must be in the tens of thousands.

I did two earlier sculptures of my impression of a kiss, which is that the man gets all the benefits (for lack of a better word), and that is why in both of them the woman’s hair flows over the man and all that she is offering is implied in the hair turning into a cornucopia.

For those of you who are interested in the technicality of such things; the one on the left was a crackle glaze fired to cone 10. The one on the right was painted with underglazes and also fired to cone 10.

Fun In Mudville

Summer time and the living is muddy. Well, that’s the way I like it. Have three months when the studio is rather void of students and I can play in the mud to my heart’s content. I have already started on my first sculpture of the summer, but until there is more I can show you from that, we’ll talk about my share of the output from the last firing. I had almost 40 pieces high fired. Most of them came out pretty good, some not so good.

The 12 inch warrior dinner plates – all the plates are 12 inches and there are a dozen of each – were done with painting a colored slip on the still damp plate. Some of them came out OK, and some were not so good. The problem was that I put the slip on inconsistently so some were OK but not really acceptable as far as I was concerned. If you look closely at the picture on the left you will see that his left arm is not as dark as the rest of him.

Others were real bad like the one on the right. So I have now applied a brown glaze to each of those plates and they are waiting to be refired.

We’ll see what comes out.

These plates are done with a Hawaiian quilting motif. This particular one is the breadfruit. These came out rather nicely, I thought. I will be doing more of those with other quilting motifs. Of course the real telling is if people buy them. I’ve got stuff lying around that I hoped would be real sellers, but the buyers didn’t agree with my thinking. Guess I’ll have to rethink things.

This scenic plate came out fairly well, but the colors were not as vivid as I would have liked. You can never be sure of what is going to come out when you put mud through fire.

As I said before, the weeping maid sculpture cracked in firing and had to go the way of all broken people – to the dumpster. Must have been a design flaw. Or maybe I can blame it on the kiln, or the direction the wind was blowing when I was making it. No, I guess I can’t put the blame anywhere else.

So here it is summer and I will try again. It won’t be the same thing. What I have started on is more complicated and I’ll tell you more about it later when I have some pictures.

Have a great summer everyone.

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The historical novels about colonial Congo: Of Rulers and Ruled and Of Chiefs and Giants published by ATTMP is available now from ATTMP and from Amazon. The Kindle  and Nook versions are only $5.99.

Paul’s book The Telephone Killer published by 2nd Wind Publishing is now available on Amazon and from the publisher. Kindle and Nook versions just $4.99.

The Final Witness and A questions of Reputation also available at Amazon.

Since everything is copyrighted please feel free to re blog any of my posts.

River Congo- Chapter 6

Ah progress. Progress. We come now to what is chapter 3 in Of Chiefs and Giants, which is the second of the two books published by All Things That Matter Press. In the original book, A River That Is Congo it is chapter 6. It is now 15 years later than the previous chapter.

In chapter 5 two of Ronzozo wives gave birth and both claimed they were the first to bring forth the future chief. Meli, the wife who lied about when her son was born, views Chief Kimulu’s death as one step closer to being mother of the future chief. As she thinks it, “A man may have many wives, but he has only one mother.”

A RIVER THAT IS CONGO
Original Version

1900

CHAPTER SIX

Chief Kimulu was dead. The stars were past the midpoint in the night sky, but the first cock had not yet crowed. The sorrowful wailing of the women began to float like sediment in the fluidity of the dark night. Whenever a man entered the place of death a full-chested roar of agony would splash like a heavy stone of torment into the night as he raised his voice once or twice in manly sorrow and then sat down with the other men to listen respectfully to the incessant wailing of the women. The wailing could not be heard beyond the village, but the drums would carry the message to all the other villages of the tribe, to the clans and to the little four and five family villages. Because it was Chief Kimulu who died other distant villages would pick up the message and beat the drums until by the first grey of morning all would know that Kimulu, Chief of the Five Tribes, Ruler of the North, Protector of the Lands, had gone to be with his ancestors.

In her hut, Meli, third wife of Ronzozo, daughter-in-law to Chief Kimulu, knew as soon as she heard the first beats of the drum that her father-in-law was dead. He was attacked with fever three days ago. He started vomiting and was unable to eat. The batu-na-dawa came and made the cuts in his body to release the evil spirits, but the drums told her now that the power of the evil spirits were greater than the knowledge of the batu-na-dawa.

River Congo – Chapter 5

Here is chapter 2 in Of Chiefs and Giants, which is the second of the two books published by All Things That Matter Press. In the original book, A River That Is Congo, it is chapter 5. It is also six years later than the previous chapter. In the previous chapter Ronzozo was wounded in battle. In this chapter two of his wives are pregnant and about to give birth.

It is beginning of the struggle and animosity between two brothers who were born on the same day but of different mothers. Both mothers claim they gave birth first hoping their son would be the Chief-to-follow.

Because these books cover a period of almost 90 years from 1879 to 1965 and deals with large numbers of people and events the progress is indicated by years. As in real life some years have a lot happening in them and in others not much happens and so in the books there are years with several chapters and a couple of years with only 1 chapter in it.

A RIVER THAT IS CONGO
Original Version

1885

CHAPTER FIVE

Light from the flames of the small fire flickered timidly against the black mud walls of the hut. The smoke curled slowly upwards feeling its way along the bare pole rafters until it found the hole in the thatch at the peak of the roof where all the rafters came together. Close to the wall opposite the entrance a young girl lay on a woven straw mat, her stomach protruding roundly above her with the new life that was in her. She was fifteen years old, third and youngest wife of Ronzozo, Chief-to-be, first son of Chief Kimulu. Next to her an old woman, her hair gray, her flesh loose and sagging squatted next to the girl, her arms wrapped around her knees, her chin resting on her folded arms, as she stared into the small flames of the fire.

What Makes An Artist? – Revised

A week ago I had a post entitled “What Makes An Artist?” – I got more static from that post than any other post in my short one-year lifetime of blogging.

You remember I was posting about the upcoming pottery sale at Windward Community college and someone asked Ruby, “Hey, Ruby, where is your fish?”

The fish they were referring to was a clay sculpture of a Koi that was about 3 feet long and probably weighed 20 pounds or more.

Her response was, “Oh, I sold that, so now I’m a real artist.”

When I heard that I wanted to say, “Selling one sculpture doesn’t make you an artist, it makes you a merchant.” I didn’t say that, of course, but I wanted to.

That’s all rehash, but you can go back and read that post and maybe you will find some things in it about which you can give me static. I love static. I love compliments more, but lacking complements, static will do.

River Congo – Chapter 4

Finally – something in print.

This chapter is the 4th chapter in the original book, A River That Is Cong. It is Chapter 1 in Of Chiefs and Giants, which is the second of the two books published by All Things That Matter Press.

By eliminating the first 3 chapters, which you read in previous posts, we have reduced the word count by 5,200 words. Not much in an original book that is 250,000 words long. No wonder we had to make it into 2 books.

OK, here it is. Let me warn you that it is a long chapter, 3,663 words. In the printed version this chapter is reduced by another 900 words to 2,710. Actually I like the original version better, but some things have to go. If you want to compare the two versions go to Amazon and take a look inside Of Chiefs and Giants. There is quite a difference between the two versions.

What Makes An Artist?

“Hey, Ruby, where is your fish?”

The fish they were referring to was a clay sculpture of a Koi that was about 3 feet long and weighed 30 pounds or more. It had been pit fired and had some nice blacks and reds on the white clay. Ruby had it for sale at every Christmas and Mother’s Day sale for the past 4 years.

“Oh, I sold that,” Ruby said, “so now I’m a real artist.”

It was a nice piece. Not to my taste, but that’s not the point. I don’t know what she got for it, but I wanted say, “Selling one sculpture doesn’t make you an artist, it makes you a merchant.” I didn’t say that, of course, but I wanted to.

But it got me to thinking – when does the artist become the merchant and vice versa? I have a friend that I think is a very good painter. He gets a reasonable amount of commissions and teaches at the college. I ran into him at the mall and said, “Well, Well, if it isn’t Norm the artist.”

His response was, “I’m a painter. That’s for sure. Whether or not I’m an artist we won’t know for another 50 to 100 years.”