Making art/junk in "this economy".

I posted today about a show at the Armory where I saw some interesting things (see next post), but once I got going, I felt a need to document what I've been doing lately.   First, I would describe what I've been doing as "not enough" in the ceramics realm.  This is because my day-job life has been unsettled and draining for the last couple months (left a part-time job I've had for the last year for a new full-time job where I was previously part-timing simultaneously) and the new job "atmosphere", shall we say, is taking some getting used to.  Details of my day-job life is off limits for this blog, but the transition has been affecting how much time I can spend on ceramics and also affecting how inspired I am, or not, in composing art and even thinking of whether pursuing this hobby, if that's what it is, is worth the effort and sacrifice of extra time needed to spend at the new job, or much-needed after-work, total-passive decompression.   Hopefully this will pass and I'll get more inspired again.

It should also be noted, in "this economy" (a phrase that has become just a little too pat - you hear laugh-tracks after the phrase on sit-coms) I am very happy to have a full time job again, after 2.5 years without, and people close to me are also having a very dodgy time applying their high-level, commercial-creative skills into a making a living.   The longer "this economy" goes on, however, the more it just feels like the powers that be have deliberately woven a new fabric of our nation's work-culture, in which everyone just feels on the edge all the time about keeping or having a job.  It kind of feels like this was the intentional outcome of the 2008/9 financial crisis - a culture in which those of us fortunate enough to be working are all so grateful that we dare not demand better.  And those who aren't working are just like deer caught in the headlights.  We've been convinced that we cannot afford universal healthcare; we dare not ask for a raise (or even a salary close to what we made pre-crash); we try not to think about how we'll get by when we have to retire; we spend half our weekends doing work that on Friday was described as urgent but, come Monday, our bosses might not even need, much less take note of - all due to how unsettled business is.   Sorry to be gloomy, but this is the real atmosphere in these times for a person like me, and I don't subscribe to the dictum that only smiley-faces should be documented in forums such as these.  This blog is about my discovery of ceramics, how I've discovered a passion for expressing my creativity through this art form at a particular period of my life, and how the world and my circumstances affect this passion.   If you'd rather I never stray into "the world and my circumstances" in this blog, however, I do value your opinion.

OK, enough, so here's the last piece I finished.  I'm pretty happy with it!   So you know the scale: it's just over 12 inches tall.  I can't imagine really how the world will be made better by this new objet's existence, but here's to that leap of faith...

It's sculpture-clay with chun blue glaze over clear glaze.

And...

Here is a poorly-photographed work-in-progress.   This one might, MIGHT, become my first lamp (!).  I'm using "throwing clay" instead of regular sculpture clay, as an experiment.  I'm liking it a lot, so far - much stronger than stoneware clay, for cantilevering and such, but feels less crude than sculpture clay.  There's a pretty long window in the timing of its moisture-level when it feels like putty that will form and then stick any way you please...