The 10,000 Studies of a Bowl Maker
The 10,000 bowls are the 10,000 mornings of waking and joining my soul in the studio.
Over the decades, I have figured out how I make art, how I turn my studio into the palace of making. It is not about what I am creating, it is this odd combination of mediums that connects me to my soul, and then my soul to the soul of the world.
My process is a recipe refined over the years: part writing, part bowl, part illustration, part paint, part prop, part documentation. And while the ingredients are exact, there is a complete need for the whole thing to be unmeasured. This is the cake my soul likes.
I am currently engaged in a lifetime body of work: the 10,000 bowls. On this fine November morning, my soul and I are mixing words, line and color upon bowl number 2,127.
From the 10,000 bowls will come shows, where I will gather a few hundred cups and bowls, along with all their poems, paintings and props, and share them in person. The current collection I am pulling together will be shown in the spring or fall of 2022.
The 10,000 bowls are 10,000 journeys into the lands of soul where I, as Charles de Lint so perfectly says, “touch magic, pass it on."
Old Maps
Art is a way to navigate past the Krakens. A way to find a current of words that splash the salt of soul upon your bow, as the wind sings just the right song from your playlist.
If traveling by foot, a collection of poems can take you so far up the mountain that you find yourself asking the moon for directions to get back home.
I pick up art as a map when I am looking for trails walked by my soul’s kin. When I am looking for that old, wooden spoon to stir the cooking pot that is simmering over that once-upon-a-time fire in my other home’s hearth.
There are boundless collections of maps in the world’s treasuries of art for all to steer by. I just picked up a painting today that when I plugged it into my navigator, took me on a round-about way, straight to wonder.
