SoulPancake

[SP EXCLUSIVE]

What does art have to do with the soul? That single question provides quite the opportunity for exploration. In Eye to I, we’re rolling up our sleeves and trying to understand the interplay between the two.

We humans spend a lot of time and energy trying to decode the mysterious emotions and rationales that motivate other humans—case in point: the fishbowl phenomenon that is reality TV. In a desire to feel more connected, we constantly search for insight about why people do what they do. At the same time, there’s this idea that through art, we can access a person’s feelings and conceptions about the world. A piece of art can be an eloquent expression of a person’s hidden, inner state, which is by its nature, abstract.

But how does art reveal the invisible? Take photography. We expose the film, but at the same time, the film exposes us: A photograph can reveal as much about the person who took it as it can about its subject. The photographer’s vantage point, the feeling of connection or distance you get from the image, the sense of mood, relationship and place—all of these present clues about the photographer, the subject, and us.

In “Imagine Finding Me,” Chino Otsuka takes this idea—that photographs reveal the hidden—a step further. She makes double self-portraits that place her present-day self into photos from her childhood. You get a glimpse of how the original photographers saw her as a child, but Otsuka also offers clues into her self-perception then and now. It seems to me as if Otsuka is, in a sense, standing next to her soul. Otsuka describes these photographs as a “time machine” and calls herself a “tourist” in her “own history”:

If,
again
I have a chance to meet,
there is so much I want to ask
and so much I want to tell.

As I looked at the photographs (before I even read Otsuka’s description), I thought about what it would be like to go back and accompany myself as a child. Who was that foreign girl in class photos wearing a Bavarian milkmaid’s dress in a classroom full of kids who were dressed like they were members of the Jackson Five? What have I lost and found since that time, besides a slightly more contextually-appropriate fashion sense? Otsuka’s profound thought process makes me want to explore the idea of retracing that which underlays the past in my artwork, and to think about it more consciously when I experience art in general.

If you’ve ever watched someone while they are creating art, you know it can be mesmerizing. For a moment, you have a superpower that enables you to look into another person’s soul. As a ceramicist, I particularly love watching a potter working on the wheel, turning a lump of clay into something that has symmetry, form, and function.

Isaac Button was one of the last old-school English country potters and was a very different sort of craftsman compared to the archetypal “artist” we might think of today. He made disposable ware for use in homes and taverns and, in just one day, could turn one ton of clay into 1,200 pots—a behemoth effort that nonetheless looks effortless, even Zen, when Button does it. Watching him work blows my mind.

Ceramics blogger Soubriquet says, “Button’s strength and endurance were Herculean. The ton of clay … he dug himself from the hillside. Each firing of his 500 cubic foot kiln had to be stoked with 2.5 tons of coal at six firemouths. That kept him up for 48 hours or more at a time, during which he would climb onto the hot kiln roof, even in gales, to pull out test firings. Once he had emptied the kiln he would begin barrowing to the wheel blocks of clay that he had processed: first blunged (mixed with water), sieved, dried on a stone floor heated by the kiln, and twice pugged (compressed); all the time he smoked his pipe."

When I watch the footage of Button making a cup every 22 seconds, I am inspired by his diligence, focus, and skill, as well as his utterly unpretentious approach to making beautiful, functional objects. Peter Highley, an English artist, said, “The old country potters did not think of themselves as artists. But there is a purity and an honesty in their work that is sometimes missing from more refined contemporary studio ceramics.” To me, Button is like a hollow reed, so grounded (literally—he is working with and in the ground) and centered that the work seems to flow through him. No fuss, no muss. When I see him work, I hope to become more like that. More disciplined, more humble, more productive. Ultimately, I want to get out of my own way.

Although they come from different eras and are vastly different in their approach, I am equally inspired by the thoughtfulness of Otsuka and the craftsmanship of Button. In Eye to I, I will hunt for treasures like these and share them with you. I’ll look at the traditional fine arts as well as the genre-bending, like biomimicry, cymatics, and sand animation. More importantly, I’ll want to explore those artistic efforts that stir your soul and inspire you.

SO: What piece of visual art recently blew your mind? What did it tell you about the artist’s soul—as well as your own?

:: Leili Towfigh