SPOON!

I admit it, I like the Tick.

I also like making tiny spoons from clay, as it turns out.

When I was five I remember vividly trying to make a spoon out of clay and being somewhat disappointed with the results. The spoons I have been making lately are what I would have made then if my tiny hands and willpower had both been a little more mature.

Why spoons?

Well, I am so glad you asked that question. As a potter and an artist, I like to think about silly things like what vessels mean metaphorically as well as functionally. I think that all art is a form of communication, some more provocative than other, and that while the teapot seems to be the pinnacle of expression for a lot of potters, I find myself attracted to simpler forms.

I have been playing around a lot with slab bowls and cups in the last year. They are attractive because they are somewhat like a flat canvass. Then one day I happened across an essay on The Cup by Pete Pinnell. Pinnell makes the point that the cup is probably one of the most intimate forms of art - you accept it into your personal space and actually put your mouth on it!

Just imagine what would happen if you tried to smooch a Kandinsky in MOMA.

So, from there, my mind wondered.... hmm.... what is more intimate than that?

Well, how about something that goes IN your mouth?


The spoons turned out to be also good for dishing things out in small measure - also lovely metaphorically speaking. Somewhere along the line they also became a process for me thinking about my brother, who passed away from a heroin OD seven years ago.

So there you go... spoons, intimate, little dispensers of love lost.

Or maybe you just want to eat your ice cream without all of this baggage.