movement....

Never confuse movement with progress.....
movements can go round and round....
In my personal life I really cant's say things are worse. They are what they have been. It's the same exact dance it has been for a while.
 This is true for a variety of spots in my personal life...
There are seasons, and like every other year they come and come and come.  True Change is elusive, and noted change is a trick, a job.  It lulls me into thinking it is real... but it is not.

So it seems the cooperative studio (Cup & Bowl), is not in a great place financially.  Nicely it needs less than $2000 steady a month to function. But with the small cut they take off the gallery I would need to sell like 500 bowls to cover the cost.  Not that I have to cover the cost but just to get a sense of it all...

However there are multiple ways the organization can make money. Classes, Gallery Sales, Membership and finally renting out the backyard.  Hopefully this comes together, I know there are many of us that have full time jobs and really can't take on too much more. For us, creating art is under this additional constraint.

Constraints..
Joel Cherrico (http://www.cherricopottery.com) wrote a great article talking about the constraints created when making functional work.  I think (and shared this with him) that this is similar to the constraints folk artist experience. There are set moves, forms that must be respected and ones movement within this is the creation and experience of creativity. Sure there are artists doing abstract ceramics and calling them vessels, but if they are unusable they are not "functional" and therefore by definition not functional ware. This is art as well, but it is not within the contraints. Contrary to what some artists seem to think (seems to be a painter thing especially) breaking with tradition simply to be novel doesn't make you art or original.  Novelty for novelties sake has a specific word... "fad"  ;-)

And, like is usually found with fads, it really isn't original. It is derivative. Why? because EVERYTHING is.  "there is nothing new under the sun." Not ones ideas, thoughts, art or pain, nothing is new or special or original.  Accepting this can create better acceptance of the constraints.

Constraints, self imposed, create what we call.... "style".  It is how you recognize someones work. It has the typical restraints they have adopted for themselves. At this point, I think I really can pick out one of my pots more often than not based on this. It is not just the form, but I tend towards typical ways of dealing with design in glaze and slip.  Even when soda glazed my work seemed familiar if not more so...

One constraint I have is this one of time. As mentioned I have a job.  I also have varying levels of energy to deal with the world. Sometimes my personal life helps with this, other times it drains my energy seemingly to challenge my ability to function. The ebb and flow of energy then dictates, to some degree, if I can create.