The Promise of Potential

 

Yesterday’s reality – snow!  So I started the potential -- a still life with tulips started in my sketchbook.

This one is an experiment – how can I make the vase look like Uncle John’s crystalline vase.  I’ve seen other crystalline vases recently and the potter has said it’s their discovery.  This one I inherited from my grandmother; she died in 1958.  The one she got was an experiment.  He did perfect his glaze and his formula is at the DIA.

I’ve tried still lifes a few times but never really worked at it.  Time to try; awhile back my spouse decided we needed to get rid of things so our son didn’t have to go through everything.  To me everything is a memory of my life before Ed and our life since.  I had decided to start sketching the things with the thought that I would put them in paintings. The vase was one.   Our son has since told us he didn’t want us to get rid of anything – hooray!  But the still life idea is still percolating.

Another quick sketch today is a potential.  This time I was trying colors thinking of something else to put in a still life with the vase in an actual painting.  And another piece by Uncle John, his sugar bowl. Another from my grandmother and this represents the first time I knew I had an Uncle John.

 

I often stayed a few days with my grandmother and after she closed her shop she would take me to a movie downtown Detroit.  One such evening after the movie we were walking to the streetcar stop and she stopped to look at some pottery in a gallery window.  The gallery owner came out and began to explain to her that the pottery was by John Foster and it is going to be featured at the Worlds Fair in Brussels.  She said she knew, “he’s my brother-in-law.”  That’s the first time I knew that I had an uncle that was an artist. I don’t recall how old I was, not very. I was over the moon to think there was a real artist in the family.

Back to my week, the rest of it – a few more sketches.  I decided my 100 days didn’t need to be consistent, I’m not going to worry about losing a day or doing more than one in a day to make it up which I did this week. Here are a few more that I did get done.

 

I'm happy with some of them but not beating myself about what I don't like, it's all learning.