Author: drharris

Composer, Musician, Artist, Writer

Death and Rebirth of a Pot

I go to a Korean Master Potter’s twice a week for two hours and make porcelain objects. (Many examples on this blog.)  In April of this year, I designed and constructed a large, 20″ x 24″ oblate spheroidal vessel, laughingly named “Bouteille de Parfum.” It took about eight hours to construct. Since it is totally asymmetrical, it was not thrown on a wheel but painstakingly constructed from 1″ wide slabs. When nearly finished I took a photo of it in the studio.

Bouteille de Parfum ~20″ x 24″

After some discussion, including not painting or decorating it at all, I was pressured to cover it with drawings from my Nightbook Project. It was a laborious process, which I finished about a month ago. Last week, my master gave it a preliminary bisque firing. I found many places where the paint needed touching up. I spent last Tuesday doing that. Last Friday I was ready to finish touching up and then apply the over glaze. Before I started painting, my master, said he wanted to blow the dust out of the inside of the piece. Alas, when he put the compressed air hose in the spout of the “bottle,” it blew out of his hand and smashed on the stone floor.

He was devastated. I was upset but kept up a jovial demeanor saying, “Well, master, all pottery eventually breaks. Some just sooner than others.” While he was walking around feeling bad, I gathered the shards and took this photo of the resulting assemblage.

Cubist Parfum Bottle

I telephoned him on Saturday and told him I wanted to take the pieces to make the above as a real 3-D sculpture. He said he’d already ground them to dust. I am now double bummed.

 

 

New Nightbook Sketches

Recently for my nightly sketching, I have switched from pencil (8B) to ink using an  Arts Hybrid Technica 0.3mm pen by Pentel. I’ve also rediscovered my Shaeffer 585 gold nib medium-fine fountain pen.  This pen was a gift from a music composition teacher. For years, even after e-mail, I wrote 90% of my correspondence with this pen. Shaeffer black ink. (Not permanent).

There’s a certain harrowing esthetic with all the dark lines that I’m enjoying at the moment. The subject matter remains at the intersection of sleep and wakefulness where images, (erotic, mundane, and terrifying) meld into a surreal gumbo of lines.

Nightbook 174
Nightbook 175
Nightbook 176
Nightbook 172
Nightbook 171
Nightbook 170
Nightbook 169

Continue reading “New Nightbook Sketches”

DR Harris Entries Mobile Digital Art Contest

Here are my three entries in the Mobile Digital Art Contest. All three were made on an iPad using various art apps and my finger as a stylus. Unfortunately, due to a technical error on my part the images the judges received were thumbnails, not full size as required. So my entries were disqualified.

Self-Portrait in a Liquid Mirror

 

Last Dance

 

Polymorph

On The Death Of A Friend

I heard today about your friend, whom I never met, though I know he meant much to you. I trust he is at peace, even if you, a survivor may be confused and hurt.
It is difficult for me to properly frame my condolences. I only knew of him from your writing and snippets passed to me by others who knew him.
I do know that when someone dies alone far away, one feels cheated.
As if the deceased were a wounded pet who has forsaken you and crawled away to die a lonely death, ashamed of their own mortality.
As the days pass, I trust the light that you found in his being will continue to shine and you will remember fondly the things which made him a friend and lover.
That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been, 

Ecclesiastes