Thoughts, ideas, sketches

Okay.. so where to start.  Here is a collection of images that have been on my mind and have sparked new things in the studio.  The first four images are pieces that I recently made.  New in the sense that they were created a week ago, but not so much new to the conscious thought.  ah.. the conscious and unconscious.  This will make sense in a minute.  The rest of the images are picture that I shot while traveling in France, (oh god a year and half ago)  Taking these images spoke to me on many levels.  There is a sense of meaning and purpose to the window displays or shutter compositions on the buildings.  Fragments of something larger.  Essentially well balanced machetes.  I have been so curious in my own work about line shape and composition.  An ongoing study within all the work I make.  I am intrigued by the placement or rather displacement of something we might be looking at.  To create a surface of some kind, there are many elements that factor in.  Reacting and responding, intuitive and deliberate, conscious and unconscious, preparedness and damn right just owning the marks you make.  Those marks might not be exactly what you looking for, but the only way to search them out is to own them without any trepidation.  Easier said than done right? 

Material, light and shadow are some of the key elements that are so beautiful in these photos.  The strength that a casted shadow line holds over the naturally made water lines along the brick.  This enters into depth and building upon each of the surfaces. The interaction among the different materials allows for a combination of different line qualities. (soft, hard, bold, thin).  Does the material consume light or reflect it back?  I like the play of both.  

The works that I recently made are in response to and came to fruition from these photographs.  Now that I'm writing this, the imagery on my ceramic work all stems from this trip as well.