We had a lot to be happy about at the end of this past week: we sent off the final orders that were taken from the Philly buyers market (3 months ago!) and went to Morehead University as “visiting artists”. It doesn’t sound like that much but it surely felt it. Getting that last box out on Friday felt like huge relief. The visiting artist demo and lecture felt like something coming that was always in your mind but never recognized til it came and went and the relief felt after, let me know, that it was a bigger deal to me than I’d thought.

I’ll update the website of all the sweet new shops we in (hopefully this week) and you can go check out where its at.

I’ve also been working on some Shaker images that I’ve finalized as screen prints. When its done, I’m thinking, “idea or form, how could I make it better? the idea is all there, does it matter if there’s emotion. or, it doesn’t ‘feel’ right.” Anyways I’ve done three and plan for 5. I guess getting those done feels like an accomplishment too.

What else.

A few weeks ago I visited my brother and he had some Daniel Higgs. I’d seen him a few months back on Arthur and thought it kind of unbearable. But listening to it again I wanted to hear more. I got home and bought a few of his solo projects as well as a couple Lungfish albums. It’s really a hammer blow to the head at the right time. I’m sure it won’t mean a lot to a lot of folks who are in a different place at this specific time, but maybe later or maybe listen and remember a time before where this would have been good to hear.

Memories and emotions. Photos and things. When I take a photo today it feels cheaper than it did on film. Photo’s used to be memories, now they’re not even a dime a dozen, they free! What will become of memories, and with cheap memories we’ll have to dig deep for something real.

Today, I came across a bunch of photos I’d taken and forgotten. I was searching for something on my external hd and found some memories. A bourbon bottling shot (bourbon distillery–loves the still), and a shot of my first motorbike *sniff*. I remember riding home from work (aa) on a super chilly night–I’d just bought it. I could feel the air temp change as I passed a drainage ditch, headlight pointed too low (I didn’t know) thrilled to my gills, midnight and the air is all up in my grills, I actually yelped out a “wahoo!”, that’s the bike. I wish I kep it.

When I smell a dumpster I get transported to high school when I’d skate behind the Piggly Wiggly. The feelings of high school and skating by myself. A new town, new school, new people and what’s coming up next all floods back with the smell of nasty garbage. Some say smells bring back memories strongest. (oops.)

And I saw a bit of U2 on the Saturday Night live the other week and thought “old”. Bono’s voice, though I hadn’t heard it in years, brought back the same kind of thing. “Boy” was the first, second, or third album my brosef and me bought with our pittance. Many a road rid, dumpster sniffed, and song sung since then–on everybody’s end.

Reading in the Heath book (about a year ago, but its stuck) one person was writing an essay about growing up eating on Heath Ceramics. I think her sister got them as a wedding gift from her parents, but the writer had found a decent collection for herself. The dishes she’d eaten on, she can still eat on and remember the old days.

I hope that Dovetail can do that for someone too, but really its not up to Dovetail to make the memories, it the stuff that goes on around the dish. That’s life too. I hope that if my own personal, ugly mug shows up in anybodies memories or on anybodies memory cards, that it’ll be a pleasant enough thing. That I didn’t sour anybodies space. I want Dovetail to enhance and not sour. Let me know if you have something from Dovetail (or me) that’s gone rotten–we’ll try to make good. (aww…, blarf!)

Our friend Travis has curated a show for the LAL (Lexington Art League) called “Generously Odd: Craft Now”. It just opened tonight and we are happy to be in it. Both he and we didn’t think that our Dovetail wares would fit in the Generously Odd category, but oddly enough, it worked. The show looks good.

aww, yes. working hard, dawn to dusky, and for sure we smellin musky. mm, hm.

Things are cranking… just brought in about a ton more clay on my geezy weezy back. Also,
on the minute or two before I lay me down to go to sleep (praying the Lord my soul to keep) I been thinking about some new styles for Dovetail. Editions. Its been in the making since the name Dovetail was conceived. Its still a way off, but its fun to know that the dream isn’t die. dead.

Recently got some Santogold. Its been out a while but I have been in the basement. When your stooping over a glaze bucket and its in your eye this is a fun tune to hear tho:

The sign is terrible.
Saturday morning: grumpy, busy, not wanting to waste a day I could be using to fulfill orders or fulfill my life, a UK football game at 12:20. Just a few blocks away. We live on a terribly busy road and that road is the main vein to the Football stadium. 7 or 8 Saturdays a year, our “street” becomes a crazy road to nowhere. There have already been two nationally televised Saturdays this season and we’ve been too busy to bother. BUT…

Our neighbors moved out a month ago and their back yard is basically a parking lot. Last year they parked cars in their lot at $20 a car every home football game. I’d go over and talk to them thinking “I could never do that, its humiliating to stand around with a sign and beg people to give you hard dollars for something so silly as a spot to park it”. Yesterday, at 11:00, I put on my Kentucky T-shirt (and vintage hat I bought at Buffalo Exchange in Boulder) and took out my reluctantly painted sign and sold spots.

$180 in 1/2 hour. They actually thanked me!

I spend lots of hours doing some hard labours for little pay. That wasn’t hard and I can’t wait for the next home game! If they win, it means there’s interest. If there’s interest, there’s people that need “spots”. GO CATS!

The “mighty” dollar. One thing that’s cool about that whole deal, yeah it was nice to get some money for nothing, but it really feels like Capitalism in action. A need and a need fulfilled. That’s what this country allows and is known for. If you feel bad taking money for a spot you wouldn’t be using anyway, you’re a sucker that, as Darwin would put it, won’t survive. Here, you see a need, you provide for that need and you succeed (just don’t report it, don’t pay tax on it, oh-no, I’m going to prison in my white collar).

Making dishes doesn’t provide a need that Target can’t fulfill, but when it comes down to Local, or hand-made, or American–we fulfill that. If you can get one or fill your cupboards, its the same. Its one tiny grain of sand in the big U.S. sandbox. Its great to be able to contribute and be a part of it. I guess parking cars of local folks and taking money, which made me feel bad until they thanked me, made me realize that nobody here is forcing anybody to do anything. But this country provides opportunity and that’s good.

I meant “new”, not nude. I’m hoping for a few more pervy purchasers. We’ve added some roadish bikes to our stable for those who do not enjoy a leisure bike and would prefer they’re beverages and foods to be accompanied with a more aggressive riding position. Here, we see the newer, more aggressive bikes on a mug and a tumbler battling it out on a Kentucky trail.

Dovetail thinks about death a little, but not a lot. We have the Freedom series (yes, skulls are so 2003, but we all have skulls, so they’ll never stop being popular) which probably doesn’t really make the person eating/drinking actually think about death. But, in Margaret and my personal work, we both think about death a lot. The body as a vessel for life, or a spirit, or whatever.

Currently, Margaret’s working on a rendition of a sarcophagus, and I’m drawing/carving a lot of architects and they’re buildings decomposing or returning to nature. Looking at and thinking about these things isn’t depressing or gross, it makes us appreciate what we have right now and how crazy nice life and living really is.

Apparently being around all these discussions has made Franny want in on it. This morning at dawn I let her out. The sun came up and I went to let her in and she was laying in the dewy grass all casual and unusual. She’d done battle with and opossum and apparently won. Apparently, because this happened before and the opossum was just playing opossum. Not today, it was still there an hour later. So I had to put down my pen and pick up the shovel. Mercy.

Since coming back from Philadelphia and all that, new habits have been forming and old habits dying. Work is satisfying and plenty. That silly Silica dust is in my beard, nose and lungs and will stay there now, forever.

and I been listening:

Lights album Rites has been fun. Not too serious, called by someone (pitchfork?) “stoner rock”, but I wouldn’t call it that. Its got some jams but it also has some jelly. Mostly though, classical Indian has been uncovered and constant. The Shankar’s (dad and daughter), Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Budhatia Mukherjee and Zakir Hussain. Mostly. Its nice because it’s not linear, it goes and flows and turns into a kind of meditation in the air.

This Morning Mags and me and our neighbor were out looking up at a big dead limb in a tree that had been hanging on up there since winter. We walked away and, crash! It came tumbling down right where we just was. Wowee!

Anyways, things are moving along. If you ordered from us in Philadelphia, rest now–things getting on. THanks!

Jessica Helfand has written a concise essay/article on design and emotions, and to my brain, its a compliment to my thoughts reconciling the Art/Design question. What is Art, what is Design and why define them? I’ve been trying to define them because when I feel like I’m failing at achieving my goals, it helps to step back and define them, then put what I’ve done (work) to the coals of the goals and see what comes out.

In this article, Helfand gives a pretty simple definition of design, that its…”an external representation of something else, joining the manufactured thing to the world of the living”. I’ve read recently that art is a noun to the critic and a verb to the artist. So if I’m constantly trying to define things and categorize and make lists and columns, is this helpful? Am I a critic, or an artist. Or a crafter, designer or poser. I’ve been upset at myself in the past for treating them all as nouns. I don’t get any work done. When I’m defining everything before I do anything, I end up stopping myself from starting. I think its good to be cautious and educated, but it can be stunting if I don’t know where I’m headed.

So far it sounds simple enough. Design is “joining the manufactured thing to the world of the living”, and Art can be joining the spiritual/internal/personal? thing (idea) to the world of the living. Alright: objective/subjective. I move on.

Philly painfully brought back the same problematic formula: Craft/Art. Somehow craft sticks in my craw more than design when it comes to my perceptions of the great “pyramid of power” (in terms of cultural relevance and influence). Art is at the top, design below that, and craft below design. But wait! Craft has neg. connotations but it can be simply defined and empowered too. Craft is something that can be perfected, and that perfection can be repeated. There’s nothing wrong with perfection. To aspire to make “perfect” art is what the artist does, but since art is subjective, only the artist can decide if its “perfect”, or the best they could possibly do. Probably not, because you can always improve on what you did last. So keep making stuff til you get it perfect (you die). But someone that perfects the building of a chair and can repeat can have mucho peace and contentment. Would I? Would You?

Craft too, is simply the use of the tools and medium the artists uses (so, lower case craft). The use of these things can be perfected, or mastered. Does getting a Masters degree make you a master or does working with your tools over and over and over. Once you feel like you’ve mastered your tools and medium (you’re a crafter) you can move on (up on the pyramid) to a designer or artist. You can get a client to tell you what to represent externally to the world or you can listen to the spirit in your soul and represent that. You can help create a new and better world or, you can keep promoting someone else’s agenda. That sounds negative but I don’t mean it like that.

The Shakers made chairs in the form of a chair at its simplest. It showed their subjective thoughts on form (simplicity void of decoration, craft as devotion) within the parameters of craft (perfect and repeatable) but in the same old 4-legged dictionary def. of “chair”. Some say a Shaker chair is art, but its a chair and you can get a “Shaker” chair from Charlie down the road (if he’s a good enough crafter con man). The repeatable doesn’t have a soul (Robot vs. Human). Arne Jacobsen makes a chair but changes the form to something we’ve only seen in nature. He doesn’t craft it, he designs it. Its for the human form. He’s a designer.

Philip Guston learned to paint (mastered his tools/medium/craft),

then stopped listening to the client (gallerists, buyers, professors) and listened to something nobody else could hear.

After the Philly showdown, we head south to visit some of Margaret’s family. On the way down to visit the family (meeting up in S.C.) we decided to camp. The hotels have been much more expensive on this trip than I’d expected, and a few days in a cold room with a T.V. and tiny fridge is enough. We looked up Santee State Park and saw that it looked good. It has trails and lakes and tent camping. It was good. The August heat and humidity of South Carolina could’ve been a whole lot worse. We had a fire at night to ward off the evil mossies, swam in the lake in the early morn, and “hiked” a trail before breaking down camp and leaving.

The lake had a cypress forest in the middle.

I’m looking forward to getting back and getting started on all the new orders. Its a little difficult to enjoy being away when you got work to do. But that’s the point of getting away usually, right? Realizing that work is a good thing, but rest is needed too.