MS01.01.01.B02.F05.0014
Facsimile
Transcription
[WHITE HANDWRITING ON A BLACK BACKGROUND]
HERE/NOW
the show is on.....each pot a part of me in
the hope that it involves YOU.....a record of my January
energy (new leaf turned).....trying to remember the
warmth of April's first sun bath and July and August's
hottest days.....October's splendid color/four distinct
seasons shaping my memory as I work: no condition
is permanent.....
and now to be exhibited at the Hunter Museum of Art
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.....a record of a mere
month's workings with the kiln.....but also the hint
of a forty-four year search to be HERE/NOW.....
pots representing [underlined] feelings [/underlined] and
[circled] ideas [/circled] as well as
function.....a coffee service with cups and saucers
and space for cream and sugar.....a special baking
disk for a favorite recipe .....a large container to
remember yellow and white daisies in June.....fourteen
large vases from the primeval urge to draw and
paint and make new images caught up in a search
for truth/goodness/beauty.
as a potter HERE/NOW.....the medium of my message
a process, a living change from common clay with
its everyday struggle to identify who I am beyond the
fact of being a potter here/now.....still a pre-industrial
practicioner [practitioner] .....I have a degree (like a dentist) and
a license (like a poet!).....I pay my taxes
[crossed out] like [/crossed out] as
every citizen.....negotiating with LIFE and
ideas to relate.....pushing and tugging as FIRE
transforms clay with permanent vessels.....coming
full circle.....seeking purpose.
Something deep down inside will explode definitely
fused on vases as tall as I dare make, being a
conservative craftsman, trying to touch reality
amidst the wholeness of everyday existence.....living
in this economy.....balancing value and price.....I
have burnt my soul like Icarus......but have continued
to be here/now.....taking risks and ruining many
ideas.....considered by some to be too conservative
to be an artist or too much an artist to be
conservative. I change in TIME like Prufrock
in mid-life, mid career to be alive and fresh
with new ideas, restructuring old truths:
that the cup should fit the lip
the handle should help the hand
the knob grasp back at the lifter
the shape contain
I am not ashamed to be a maker of pots and a
sharer of thoughts.....for while pots are humble in
material they can also be bold in character with a
concern for the living traditions.....I want my
work to communicate that I felt a cold wind blow,
experienced thunderstorms, watched nature tease
tallest trees in icy wonder, melting in noonday sun
before bends become ugly breaks. I have
respected the wires of electricity marveling over
our landscape.....since 1934.....I have
[underlined] wondered [/underlined]......
I have been in awe of ideas and power as I became
aware of politics and science, art and life......
sensing a fragile interdependence.
These are my works.....each in its own
way a gesture toward the whole dance with
life.....a pause.....a celebration: HERE/NOW.
Charles Counts
Rising Fawn, Georgia
1978
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