This weekend past, I sat down in the studio and knew I needed to make something, for the sake of creative habit. I found myself thinking about hollow forms and all the designs I’ve made over the past five years that incorporate an element of hollowness. I realized that I always fill a hollow form or close it — I never leave them empty and open. I wondered why and I wondered if I was simply being sensible about how I designed around a hollow form element or if there was something I needed to address with regards to my self. The opposite of full and closed is empty and open. Why have I never considered the other option while making hollow forms? I realized I felt a need to explore the option of making them empty and open. When I realized this, I felt something stir in my chest and rattle like wind through willow bones.
I sat down at my studio bench and designed a sort of open, shallow container that I planned to fabricate and leave empty and open. I sawed out the components, cleaned them, trued the edges, cleaned them a second time in acid, hand sifted them and fired them until I achieved the colors I was hoping for — a white enamel over-fires along edges and thinly sifted areas as a beautiful, minty, spruce green. It’s a very lovable color. I never grow tired of it. So I fired and fired again until I saw the colors I wanted. Once the piece was finished, I thought it so smooth, lovely and extraordinary, as well as minimal, textural, empty and open. As I sat there and held it in my hand, the way I felt about it changed, I found I felt slightly uncomfortable. I wondered if anyone else would like this object so empty and open (which is something that I rarely think about when I’m making things, I never wonder if a piece will be loved by others, I just make the objects the way I like them to be). I can’t quite explain it with words, but looking down at the empty open object in the palm of my hand was like staring at something made of bareness and truth. I wanted to avert my eyes or cover myself with fig leaves. It was the strangest thing. I wondered if I had surrendered to the steadiness of expectation, with regards to crafting hollow form objects and jewelry, and then filling them or closing them? Perhaps I was over thinking things, or perhaps I was on the cusp of understanding something about myself?
So what did I do? I filled the shallow container, I made it less empty and open. I placed a tremendously delicate little, chartreuse, pod-like component on the edge of the empty open and I felt silly because my goal was to explore the empty open and here I had made the object less than what it was supposed to be — though it now looked like it was more! So I sat down and began again. I made a second shallow vessel and it was very fine and I liked the enamel work very well, perhaps more than the first. When the piece was cool, I held this empty open in my hands and marveled at the inflections of the enameled hues. It was was lovely, open and empty. And then I made another chartreuse pod-like specimen and made the empty open less empty and open. I allowed myself this. I didn’t want to rush.
Then I began a third shallow container and the same thing happened again! When I came inside that night, I brought the components I had made with me and I thought these three objects were marvelous, reaching and perfectly beautiful, even if they were less empty open than I had attempted to make them. I wondered if this was a failed exploration on my part or if making empty open and being empty open is meant to be a gradual process for me. If I let go a little bit everyday and allow myself to unfold from previous perceptions and habits, bit by bit, might this exploration of empty open truly arrive at itself? I think about people living in their houses, filling every room and shutting all the doors, is there something lost in that fullness? Think about being in an empty room, once it is filled, the fall of light changes, the bounce of sound is obstructed. What if we were to leave more things empty open in our lives, in the world? What if I were to leave more of my hollow forms empty open, what kind of small space would be achieved, and in that space, how would light cascade and sound re-sing itself? Doesn’t emptiness result in some gorgeous sort of fullness? Perhaps empty open is actually fullness purified?
I reckon making something empty and open leaves space for freshness, change, new growth. Perhaps the key is to make yourself empty and open from time to time, like spring cleaning — a purge! Out with the old and in with the new! Like a bite of pickled ginger after a nibble of sushi, a cleanse of palate. Perhaps empty open requires daily work, just like everything. How does empty open affect our relationships, our work, our time?
What I want to do with empty open, out in my studio, is this: I want to feel comfortable leaving an enameled vessel this way. I want to arrive at a point where I know it’s ok to leave it empty open. I want to feel comfortable with the starkness and the space, the way I’m comfortable on a mountain, in a douglas fir stand, all by myself. I don’t want to fill things out of habit. I want my intentions to rule over material fullness. I want to be free and safe in the empty open spaces I create.
Today, I’m going to try again. Now that I understand more of the WHY behind this exploration, I feel more confident that I can create something that is bare and sweetly vulnerable. The studio has been warming up for an hour now, I’m going to go get in it.
Have a glorious Monday, all of you. This is your chance to make a new beginning, every week. Go forth courageously, I will too.
xx
