Said D. Wayne Higby, director of Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred University, quoted in "Get Lost in Clay, Even if It’s Just for the Weekend/Pottery workshops like those at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Maine are filling up with people who want to connect with others instead of screens" (NYT).
What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?
I know it's not very physicalistic of me, but I looked up "physicality" in the OED. The relevant meaning is #3: "The awareness of the body or of bodily sensation; a bodily function or experience." And: "the quality of being physically demanding; physical intensity; strong physical presence or appeal." Here are the quotes to orient you:
I was interested in the way I didn't get a spellcheck red dotted line under "physicalistic," which I felt I was just making up. In fact, it's a word, though it's not — as I'd intended — an adjective based on "physicality." It's an adjective based on "physicalism," which is "The theory that all reality is explicable in terms of physical properties and laws."1844 Southern Literary Messenger 10 576/1 It is a curious circumstance that in his ‘Whims and Oddities’ of by gone years, the majority of them by far turned upon some painful physicality.1849 J. S. Mill Lett. (1910) I. 143 Take again all the delicacies respecting bodily physicalities which savages have not a vestige of.1930 E. Sitwell Coll. Poems 126 This bestial consciousness that is desire Is the hot muscles' vast fluidity, Muscular life, not physicality.1972 C. L. Cooper in W. King Black Short Story Anthol. 218 The trunk of her, he saw self~consciously, with a tiny tickle of physicality, was full to bursting with youth under the plain dress.1991 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 27 Dec. 29/4 Nolte tends to think his career comes from his ‘physicality’ and that certainly accounts for his watchability, popularity and star-power.1994 Canal & Riverboat Feb. 25/1 Meanwhile I was operating all the locks and loving the sheer physicality of the work.
OVERHEARD AT MEADHOUSE:
Me, reading out loud: "Clay is the opposite of the cellphone."Meade: "No, it isn't. They both have the essential ingredient: sand."
(Meade did a 3-year apprenticeship at a traditional pottery in North Carolina in the late 1970s.)
AND: Here's a photo of Meade in his traditional pottery days (posted before, here):
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Dig in the garden. Feel the warm loam.
Although it's becoming, increasingly, this year water the garden!
Very clever Meade.
"Clay is the opposite of the cellphone" is a dumb statement since so many things are the opposite of the cellphone. The statement would work better by acknowledging one crucial similarity.
"Although both can be used to dig a hole, using a shovel is the opposite of using a cellphone." See, like that.
Most articles of this sort go with the "high tech vs high touch" angle.
"The theory that all reality is explicable in terms of physical properties and laws."
Where would Neil Degass Tyson be without this theory?
Construction workers, plumbers, landscapers, machinists, maids, nurses... pottery can offer you nothing because you have too much physicality in your life already.
Replacing a rotted out fence post (with gate attached). Digging out the clay soil and rocks--this is called Boulder for a reason-- and levering out the old concrete is literally physical. All the measuring, sawing and cementing the new redwood post into place, keeping the needed distance for the old gate and hinges in mind adds a physical element to the mind as well. Today the concrete is cured, time to attach the old gate, see how well I did.
If we necessarily must talk about joining physicality and clay, we need to go straight to Cassius Clay, now remembered as Mohammad Ali.
His biography was called "King Of The World: Muhammad Ali And The Rise Of An American Hero."
"Clay is the opposite of (a) cellphone."
What a great line when stripped of context. ("A" cellphone works better than "the.")
"What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?"
Sex.
Three of a NYTwoman's friends take up a new hobby and -- Shazam! -- it's a national trend!
Dancing, mostly swing and argentine tango, and sculpture classes.
Posting "STAY OFF MY LAWN" signs.
I recall, early 70s, my step mother while pregnant with my one and only brother (I have sisters) developed a clay craving. She had seen the clay (caliche in Spanish) at a construction site, and directed my father to go and get her some, which he dutifully did. The consumption must’ve taken place away from prying eyes, because I don’t remember that part. They later re-told the story and over the years it became legendary, among family and friends.
Running is quite physical. So is goldsmithing.
"What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?"
I worked on an old motorcycle yesterday. One quickly gets out of practice. The immersion in the worlds of oil and metal and gasoline (horror!) seems almost shocking if its been awhile. And some mistakes can be very hard or impossible to recover from so everything must be carefully thought through and executed with precision. Then you ride it on a dirt road to a trail. Now thats physical!
Household chores like dish washing also involve physicality, with water instead of clay being used by the hands. But clay physicality produces a lumpy coffee mug or poorly glazed vase one can give an unsuspecting family member or friend as a very personal gift that lasts as long as the item doesn't fall to the floor with a crash. Dishes clean in a rack get only brief appreciation, no matter how crusty the lasagna pan was before your physicality upon it.
Thus is it demonstrated by aesthetes that art is more important than household chores. Art is almost eternal, while dirty dishes come and go.
But every dish washer also knows that aesthetes get diarrhea just like everyone else if the dishes aren't cleaned properly.
Apply your physicality wisely in life. Do the dishes before ambling off for a weekend pottery class.
Ann put up this post to lure Lazlo back.
"What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?"
Cutting down a stand of cherry trees I planted a quarter-century ago, some of which are 30 feet tall. With a handsaw.
they are really pure eloi aren't they,
"My father worked in profanity like other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium. A master."
"I have to laugh. I've out-finessed myself... I'm gonna use you two guys to do my dirty work for me. Ha ha ha."
Recovering from a knee surgery and getting physical with my PT. But prior to the surgery...gardening and pickleball (the catalyst for the surgery).
Lem...look up 'pica'.
I was checking out of Kinney drug yesterday- a man who looked pretty pissed was there to fix some machine. Right store/wrong machine and he was polite but: no smile. I elbowed him gently and said: could be worse- you could be farming lol. He chuckled and said: yeah- I get paid to ride around and tinker(paraphrasing that) to which I replied: it’s going to be hot in the barn tonight;0)
let's take a look.. at The FACTS.
Clay is made out of clay.
Phones are made out of silicon integrated circuit chips.. Which are made out of clay.
Any difference that MIGHT exist between clay and phones is MERELY a matter of degree
I swim most days. 1 mile minimum, sometimes 2-3 miles. Short swim this morning: 2,500 yards.
Then working on the car after checking on the release of opinions from the Justices. I’m a little concerned about Jackson’s dissent in the labor sabotage case. Even Sotomayor and Kagan joined Barrett’s majority opinion. Jackson’s dissent was longer than the majority and concurring opinions combined. And it would be easy to conclude that she’s with the “mostly peaceful rioters”
Meade is hot!
My family often names prized possessions, like cars, etc.
Maybe I should start calling my cell phone “Clay” - short for Clayton.
Re: (Meade did a 3-year apprenticeship at a traditional pottery in North Carolina in the late 1970s.):
With a potter mid-state, perhaps in the Seagrove area just south of Asheboro? Outstanding quality Red Clay and Sand in copious abundance. And not that far from Petty’s Garage auto shop in Randleman. Had a crazy mostly fun day there circa 1972 on a photo shoot with my friend Kevin when both of us were in photography school in Asheboro.
@Kay
Very true!
Word on the street is that Meade dropped out after the tragic kiln explosion.
My wife did some ceramics in her BFA program. She wasn't very skilled, alas.
".........Meantime life outside goes on
All around you"
“ With a potter mid-state, perhaps in the Seagrove area just south of Asheboro? ”
Yes, he worked in Jugtown with Vernon Owens and C.J. Judson.
Well that's suprising. WHo knew 1970s Meade was into Pottery. If you'd asked me what he was up to in the 1970s pottery would be near the bottom of the list, slightly above "Started a SF Bathhouse".
But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8
God delights in physicality.
The physicality of mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow is as important as (sometimes more important than) the saving of money.
Depends on the weather.
"apprenticeship at a traditional pottery"
Damn hippie.
I thoroughly enjoy programming and thoroughly hated every pottery class, but maybe that's just me.
For many years, between graduating law school and some time last year, I did very little real medium painting, mostly just digital and some sketching. But last year I started playing with gouache and there's a pleasure I get from moving the paint around with a brush that I did not get from digital art.
Re: mikee:
Thus is it demonstrated by aesthetes that art is more important than household chores. Art is almost eternal, while dirty dishes come and go.
One of the pleasures of doing art with physical media -- one I am sensitive to today but wasn't as a child -- is precisely that it isn't eternal. Literally, that pigments like Rose Madder or Alizarin Crimson will fade over time as they have on many old and famous paintings. Other colours too. New pigments, like the Quinacridone reds, are supposed to be lightfast, and varnishes can help preserve art longer, but the impermanence of amateur art -- the idea the paper will yellow, the paint will fade, etc. -- to me has a kind of appeal of its own. Mono no aware.
Although I still look to use pigments that today we think are lightfast.
Clay tablets with cuneiform writing were the first intercity and inter-empire form of communication. Those tablets are still around, still being read (in the august recesses of museums) but I don't suppose our tablets will be dug out of the sand and read 3,000 years from now. Probably just as well.
PS I was unable to form a "pasta link" as several comments in other posts urged. Pasta link? Some kind of physicality in web access? I am (or was) researching the topic in The Internet for Senior Dummys but the print is so large that the book is several volumes long, all of them quite heavy. One of them fell on my face while I was studying the index and left a strange, square bruise that I'm tired of people looking at and looking away, and I've decided to postpone any further attempts at acquisition of physicality-type knowledge. Still, I wonder.
If you're looking for a pastime that involves both dirt and physicality, there's nothing to compare with naked mud wrestling. Not a sport for just everyone, especially as a competitor, but just watching can make you feel base and dirty and in touch with some primal feelings.
Bronze sculpture is pretty damn eternal. More so by far than any other material. It just doesn't change or oxidize or erode in an appreciable amount over many thousands of years.
I gave my share of physicality to my nineteen year old son. He can use it better than I can.
"What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?"
Walking. Anywhere from 2 to 4 miles a day. I get the steps for 3 miles just mowing my yard. Every other day I do upper body weights. That doesn't include all the other wandering around, fixing stuff, etc.
Balfegor, I read your comment and later looked at the dirty dishes in my sink, with the remains of chicken and rice congealing into greasy epoxy and pelletized concrete on the plates, and muttered "Mono no aware" several times to get into the right frame of mind to load the dishwasher. Thank you.
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