audacious

 ... that's the word that came to me during this morning's mediation and my word for the day.  So I'm rolling it over in my mind, looking up the definition, seeing how it feels.

au-da-cious / [aw-dey-shuhs] / adjective

1.extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless

2.extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas; highly inventive

3.recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law, or the like; insolent; brazen

4.lively; unrestrained

I'm rather liking #2 and #4.  Audacious, maybe it should be my word for awhile, maybe I should make it my mantra.  

I have enormous admiration for people and work that I consider audacious, what I perceive to be the underlying confidence and strength.  There's that Geothe quote ...   "Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." ... that I should staple to my forehead.  It's so much easier to be tentative, cautious, safe.  Suffice it to say, I do not consider myself audacious ... not yet.  For years I've said what I want to be when I grow up is eccentric.  Now I'm thinking that being audaciously eccentric would be even more better ... or is that redundant?  I don't know, whatever it is, it's not plain, it's not safe, it's not the status quo.

I've always been one to ease into the cold water,  tiptoe out to the end of the diving board and peek over.  Daily, I'm pushing myself towards the precipice for I know deep down ('cause I've experienced it many times), that when I leap the net will indeed appear ... it always has and it always will.  This is my grail quest but it's not a fairy tale or a purely abstract concept.  It's quite real ... I can almost touch it, very nearly taste it.  It's that itchy skin thing again.  My skin's been feeling very small lately.  Surely it's the force of nature, spring growth and rebirth, renewal and upward momentum.

The bud bursts forth in an explosion of audacious color and texture.  Actually, that should be about me ... my new work burst forth in an explosion of audacious color and texture.  Oohh, I rather like that as well.

As for new work, I've just bisque fired some prototypes of the vessels that will accompany the Talismans For Fellow Travelers Elements series.  The texture is very much there, color will come as a wash of mason stains (I haven't taken the time to mix up clay and stain for the inlays).  These little cylinders were built with clay thrown on the concrete slab in my yard - I think these stained will be lovely.  The front cylinder is about 2" across and 1 1/4" deep.  Not sure what I'll be lashing through the holes, maybe a leather cover, maybe decorative doodahs, maybe ... oh I'll just have to see what hits me.

  

And the full assortment of test pieces.  I just can't resist little pinch pot bowls - the largest is about 3" across.  They're quite thin and very light.  Next will be taller and more slender cylinders that will have stoppers - to hold the finished Talismans.

But it's time to get back to the wholesale orders and put experimentation aside for a couple of days.  This will be me, the audacious and delightfully eccentric artist going back to work. 

blessings - kvk

p.s.  blogger is doing something annoying with my spacing.  I did not write one huge paragraph - it wasn't me, really, it's the bloody program.
Ah well, not the end of the world, just accept my apologies for the block o'text.  I'll try to fix it later.

p.p.s.  so I centered the text ... maybe that's not so hard on the eyes ... sheesh