evolution

this, i suppose, is what friends are for. yesterday, at the wonderful funeral march for my friend john payne, i got the chance to talk to a friend that i have not spent much time with for some months. in telling him about the new things i am thinking and doing in ceramics, i mentioned "this machine kills fascists." he laughed at me... and called me pro-capitalist. continuing to laugh, he said that he was surprised at me, wanting to kill anyone..." sooo violent!" he mocked me. i choked. sputtering, i was unable to defend myself. it might have had something to do with the fact that there were several other friends present, i had an armful of four-year-old, and we were about to start a march across the haywood street bridge. sigh. i have just never been glib under pressure. it speaks well of my sincerity, but not so much for my intellect. at any rate, the thought that this provoked has fermented and bourne the following.
i love words. i always have. they are for me the first blush of creativity. new forms are created in my mouth before they are drawn on the page. if i can't describe it to myself, i can't do it. but, even more than their effect on my internal processes, i am fascinated by the effect that they have on the masses. any masses. all masses. think barack obama. kennedy. MLK. hitler. woody guthrie. all of their words moved tremendous numbers of people to action (for better or for worse.) if anything has been missing in my asheville experience to date, it has been a powerful, passionate discourse with my own work. don't get me wrong, i love my work. it speaks volumes to and about me. but where it fails is in speaking to the greater issues that move me. oppression of women and minorities (be they traditional minorities, or the the urban poor.) mechanization. job loss. war. nuclear proliferation. the manipulation of american culture and legislation by corporate factions. (okay. keep laughing. how much did that last tank of gas cost? how much high fructose corn syrup do you imbibe on a daily basis? why can more kids identify ronald mcdonald than george washington? why are wild fish not safe to eat? who is actually profiting from the wars in iraq and afghanistan?) in putting brief, powerful statements paired with striking/unexpected visuals on my pots, i risk being dismissed as the ceramic equivalent of a bumper sticker. could be. or, in juxtaposing phrases like "canary in a coalmine." with a raven sitting on a nuclear warhead, perhaps i am releasing into the viewer the visual equivalent of a brain worm. (that piece of song that gets stuck in your head.)it will squirm and rankle until the possessor exorcises it by learning more about the issue at hand. and perhaps acting.
and as for the violence inherent in, "this machine kills fascists," passionate speech is not peaceful. not in the sense in which i so long embraced peace and non-violence. my own ideals created in me a stagnancy and helplessness and bitter silence that cankered and chafed. so, now i speak. loudly. using words that i eschewed before as too harsh. but in the din of pop culture, i have to shout to hear myself. but yes, i will study the great peace makers, too, to relearn a vocabulary of peace that moves mountains.
lovepeace
heather