still-sound 7. Treefingers

Since moving to Los Angeles in 2006, Rob and I have moved house too many times.  Nearly once a year in fact.  It wasn't necessarily our intention, it just happened that way.  Last November we relocated to Echo Park.  The apartment is tiny and has no space for me to use as a studio (one of the reasons I started learning pottery - a way to make things without requiring a workspace of my own).  Thankfully an entire wall of the living room is glass and looks over Elysian Park so the space doesn't feel as tiny as it actually is.

My neighborhood isn't particularly beautiful except for the expansive park where I have the pleasure of walking my dog.  The other day I walked her as the sun was going down.  It wasn't the first time that I noticed the trees that line our usual route - they tend to be noticeably dramatic and expressive. Against a setting sky, even more so.  The dark branches extend like inky fingers.  I thought of Radiohead's song Treefingers from Kid A.  For a while I listened to this track incessantly.  It describes a deep blue primordial space with pools of light emerging like nebulae.

The treefingers seem particularly fitting on this, the first evening of autumn.  I am grateful to Rosie (the dog) for being patient with me while I stop repetitively to take pictures.

still-sound 6. Ink

When Rob and I packed up the pug and left London in 2006 it was to live in Paris.  I was offered a place at the Cité International des Arts, an impressive Corbusier-like building perched on the Seine, right by the Hotel de Ville.  It's a residence program for artists set up in the 1960s by Monsieur et Madame Bruneau (back then things like this actually happened...non-profit organizations set up to benefit the arts in prime areas of cultural capitals - kind of hard to imagine now and I'm grateful to have been able to benefit).

We spent months without a tv or sofa - we didn't need them, the Marais was our backyard.  Rob read a lot and cooked.  Rosie tried to stay cool during the heatwave by spreading out on the tiles.  I tried to get some painting and plaster sculptures made but the three of us seemed to find ourselves just walking around the city most of the time.

The Mariage Frères tea shop was a short walk away on rue Bourg-Tibourg.  You can imagine it; dark wood paneling, slow ceiling fans, large tins of loose tea weathered in a way to suggest they traveled the seas from Ceylon or Formosa, sales assistants dressed in linen suits (sometimes seated in a small-booth caisse where they would accept your money in exchange for goods).  You wished that you could pay with colorful, massive bill notes rather than a little plastic chip-and-pin card. Obviously I sniffed every tin of tea, every candle and every incense. Many times.

Throughout the months of the residency I bought small boxes of the various incenses (all based on the scent of tea) - and ultimately favored the one that went by the name Encre de Thé.  The scent of ink and tea, 'inspiring the hearts of poets', or so it said on the box.  The sticks themselves were inky black.  When I eventually bought the larger box which contained a silver incense holder, the purchase felt like a ceremony and large investment (considering we had almost no money and a huge relocation ahead of us - it was).  The box has endured an unromantic journey to the US via United Airlines and several apartment moves throughout Los Angeles county.  Battered around the corners, I keep the box in a drawer and burn one of the remaining sticks only once in a great while.

This year I started dabbling in sumi ink, mostly for the smell. Choosing the brushes and rolls of rice paper completed the overall satisfying process of preparing the sumi-e experience.  So far the preparations have been more satisfying and fun than the drawing process itself.  Honestly, I'm not very good.  I've only practiced a few times, to ornament paper I then use to wrap ceramic objects offered to friends as gifts.

The first not-tiny object I made in porcelain was a simple cylinder pot.  To my surprise and slight initial disappointment, the pot warped into something elliptical and developed a golden burn along the top edge.  I now consider these irregularities to be the most interesting aspects of the piece.  I hold my ink brushes in this pot  - it's the correct size and the burn matches the color of the bamboo handles. The brushes stand upright, awaiting the next time the scent of of sumi ink lures me into drawing again.

still-sound 5. Full Moon

There is a full moon tonight, in fact it's the Harvest Moon.  I suspected as much when I walked the dog yesterday and noticed the almost-full moon hovering above Elysian Park.  September moons have caught my attention in past years as well.  They appear particularly big and bright, almost impossibly-so.  The air feels ripe for some kind of a celebration - and in many other cultures the Harvest Moon calls for one, but I suppose in the West we don't really pay much attention to things like that.


Two years ago we took a trip to Wiltshire.  During the ten years I lived in England I never managed to visit Stonehenge although I always meant to.  I was too busy drinking wine and watching telly in our one-bedroom flat in SE4.  Since leaving England I've come to fictionalize the country in a way, romanticizing certain aspects of the geography and culture. I'm more interested in the England of leylines and Morris dancers. Samphire and stone circles.  I've somehow erased the realities of Tesco, the Oyster card and discarded chicken bones on the streets of New Cross that my dog consistently noticed well before I ever got to. 


The trip to Wiltshire was specifically devoted to mythic England.  We followed leylines from Avebury to Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall. We met a man named Peter who showed us West Kennet Longbarrow.  We entered the prehistoric cave and took turns standing against the stone doorway separating us from something beyond while Peter played a rhythm on a shaman's drum.  He described how he and his mates regularly snuck to the top of Silbury Hill and drummed all night against the backdrop of a full moon.  If I lived in Wiltshire I would be joining them.  I decided to take more notice of the moon's cycles, perhaps let them permeate my subconsciousness.  I wanted to start relating time to natural cycles rather than to a calender.


Shiragiku and Kyara Seiran by Seijudo


I was interested in the Shiragiku incense by Seijudo because I read that it contains a beautiful expression of kyara (a high-grade aloeswood) despite not containing actual kyara (according to the brand's description). The sticks are remarkably thin and hard, like graphite refills for a pencil.  The scent is breathtaking.  Dry, pure and woodlike.  To my nose it smells of kyara.  A subtle sweetness, comparable to a toasted marshmallow floats in the background.  I immediately recognized this as special and decided to only burn it on full or new moons.  Shiragiku's name in English, White Chrysanthemum seems to relate to it poetically rather than literally - the scent isn't at all floral.  That the image of a white chrysanthemum resembles the glowing circle of the full moon further emphasized that this was to be my lunar incense from now on.

I ordered a mini-stick sampler of the Kyara Seiran (or Heavenly Orchard) by Seijudo for the sake of comparison to Shiragiku.  It's considerably more expensive because it officially contains kyara.  I didn't expect it to smell like an orchard and it doesn't.  Admittedly I haven't spent much time with Seiran because I'm happy to take my time focusing attention on the white chrysanthemum.  Seiran is more dear so I suspect the raw materials are purer and will produce even more nuanced, transcendent scents - although it's hard to imagine anything that much more beautiful than Shiragiku.  Nevertheless I shall wait for a rare, extraordinary event to experience Seiran - perhaps a total eclipse. 



The Harvest Moon, 7:30 pm, 12 September 2011



still-sound 4. Music that sounds like water



What I saw one afternoon when I came out of the Long Beach pool after swimming laps.


I've always had a thing for ethereal music. Within the ethereal music category sits a subgenre I like to call 'Music that sounds like water'.  Songs that fit this description I find impressionistic and synaesthetically pleasing. I break this subgenre down thus:

The Rocking Waves Song  
Long Time Coming by The Delays begins with a sound that's hard to describe - something like a whistle from a boat, perhaps announcing its arrival on a foggy morning. The sound makes me think of a lighthouse just as the sun is beginning to rise - the waves reflecting a silver light.  Strumming guitars and a marching dreambeat softly appear, setting the rhythm of gentle waves thinning out on shore.  It's one of the most bittersweet sounds I've ever heard in my life.

Porcelina of the Vast Oceans by The Smashing Pumpkins is a beautiful example of the musical equivalent of lapping waves.  A buoy rocks back and forth.  This technique was ingeniously used by Herbie Hancock in Maiden Voyage.  A simple theme repeats over and over, never really coming to a point, just rolling along.  A little rhythm played on a cymbal offsets the waves, creating a rocking motion.

The Shimmering Water Song
In Delius from Never Forever, Kate Bush pictures a shimmering stream reflecting sun (or moon) light in little piano sparkles.  The drum machine, hare krishna instrumentation and buzzing insects complete the picture.  My favorite pixie witch sings of a 'summer night on the water'.  Anyone who's into this kind of thing needs to do him/herself a favor and watch a clip of Kate performing this song on television.

The Oceanscape
The Cocteau Twins joined with Harold Budd and made The Moon and The Melodies in 1986.  The album is made up of dreamy soundscapes - or in this case, waterscapes.  Why Do You Love Me? was always my favorite track.  When I was in high school I had a digital alarm clock that glowed with blue numbers and featured a built-in cassette player.  Every night before going to bed I would set the clock so that I could wake up to this song.  Arpeggios repeat on a watery sounding piano (a very Cocteau/This Mortal Coil sound) while an abstract, crystal clear guitar tone soars overhead; gliding down and up like a seagull.  I liked to wake up to this song because it was a gentle way to end my sleep, like a waterbirth.  In actual fact it was the little click noise the cassette player made when transitioning from pause to play that woke me up.  There was another track on the album, The Ghost Has No Home that suggested a hot, windless, summer day by a lake. A saxophone plays lazily as still water evaporates into the air.  I didn't like to wake up to this song as it sounded humid and hazy.  I required something more bracing.

still-sound 3. Aoud

A few months ago I met a man named Faruk who is possibly one of the most interesting people I've ever met. A businessman who sold most of his business and has more time to devote to his passions, namely woodworking and wood appreciation. He also makes and collects extraordinarily beautiful Arabic calligraphy and speaks seven languages. He happens to know everything there is to know about aoud/ oud/ agarwood/ jinko/  aloeswood (this stuff has a lot of names apparently) and collects specimens and aoud oils.

Aoud is basically the result of the aquilaria tree reacting to a fungus in the same way that grapes can magically transform into the honeyed fruit of Sauternes wines. The tree reacts to the rot by creating a resin which melds with the wood resulting in a precious substance with an indescribable scent. Aoud, which basically looks like driftwood, can then be ground into a powder and burned like incense or extracted into oil. The practice of burning aoud is relatively common in the Middle East and in Japan where it's called jinko or kyara (a particularly high grade jinko). Apparently you can't really force aquilaria trees to become aoud so when it's found in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, it comes with a hefty price tag.

Because I expressed quite a bit of enthusiasm over Faruk's aoud collection and because he happens to be wonderfully generous he gave me five vials of oils; a bag full of aoud chips of various origins along with ground kyara and ground agarwood from a now extinct tree. He came across the latter in a Chinese herbal apothecary in Hong Kong and named the wood Elysium.

I wasted no time in making an appropriate vessel for these gifts. I made a covered pot in porcelain. It was my first attempt at making a lid which in reality was much trickier than I anticipated. The inside of the pot is glazed transparently and the outside is bare. The lid didn't fit exactly, in fact it's more a suggestion of a lid. To keep the inside somewhat airtight I placed a rose quartz on top to weigh it down a bit. The contents deserve better protection so I've since made several more covered pots. I'm not sure how many 'lids' have been made and tossed in the making of the final pieces. As soon as they're out of the kiln I will give the aoud a better home.

I made pouches for the ground kyara and Elysium with rice paper decorated with a little bit of sumi ink drawing and bound them with string.  I haven’t been able to meet up with Faruk recently because he's been in Asia for most of the summer but when I next hear from him I have a covered aoud jar waiting for him.

still-sound 2. Peaches

I didn't know that I liked peaches until I was in my thirties. I grew up thinking that peaches were syrupy and came in a can or that they were kind of hard and tasted like water. The first time I ate a perfectly ripe peach was in my friend Fiona’s home in Burgundy, France and I was struck by the beautiful balance of tart and sweet. And the succulence. I got it - finally. The same is true about tomatoes. I didn't know that fragrant, ripe tomatoes could be magical. I knew they were technically fruit but I didn't know they could taste like fruit. When I lived in Long Beach I used to go to a Japanese restaurant in Torrance that served a tomato salad dressed with soy sauce and sprinkled with a little grated celery. I could be wrong, but I think the tomatoes were served in a tenmoku-glazed bowl. I associate that restaurant with the black/bronze gleam of tenmoku.

When I made these bowls I didn't intend for them to be peach bowls per se. I was just trying to make bowls. I made them in late winter using black clay. One is glazed in tenmoku which is well suited to black clay. The other bowl is glazed with shino, quite thickly to allow the crawling patterns to occur. I think their hard, dark surfaces compliment the orange-red-fuzziness. As the tenmoku bowl is smaller I think it would be perfect to hold cherries as well or maybe a few satsumas in winter.

still-sound 1. Begin

How do you start a blog? I've been asking myself this lately as I've been collecting photos and tossing around different ideas for the title. I suppose you just begin. And I decided to start with this picture.

This is a porcelain incense holder I made sitting next to the incense I recently bought. As this blog will focus specifically on the things I make on the potter's wheel and the incense I burn, this picture seemed to be the right one to kick things off. Although pottery and incense are not obviously related; they're not peas and pods or even peanut butter and jelly - I somehow associate one with the other. 

I've been making things with my hands for a long time (mostly sculpture) but I haven’t thrown clay on a wheel until this past January. The materials, methods and tools are foreign. Learning pottery when you have a background in sculpture is like learning Spanish when you can get by in French. Some words are similar but it's not just learning words, it's discovering a culture and way of thinking differently. I am starting this blog partly to keep track of my fumblings, discoveries and fascinations as I learn what to do on a wheel.

And incense... I've always had a particularly close relationship with the sense of scent. I just like to smell things. The Fragrant Arts (I think I may have just made that title up) are perhaps the most effective in telling stories in a profound, immediate and unintellectual way. I have been increasingly interested in (particularly Japanese) incense not only because of the pleasure I receive from the scents but because it helps me focus when I meditate.

The incense holder was one of the first things I made when I started throwing porcelain in the spring. I started off with simple, small objects. It’s a little bit obnoxious of me to show my rudimentary porcelain next to Sho ran koh by Kyukyodo, commonly referred to as a masterpiece in Japanese incense and according to Japanincense.com, the very 'essence of Buddhism'. But it's my most recent discovery and I feel honored to have it begin my blog. When I received it in the post I was immediately impressed with the kiri wood box, gold-speckled label and well, its size. The sticks are so much longer than I had expected, in fact half a stick is more than adequate at a time. The scent of the unlit bundle was surprisingly edibly-spicy.

And the burn? I didn't really form an opinion at first. In fact, several burns later I still don't really have a definitive take. This is the problem with anything with a superlative reputation - you expect the earth to tremble, maybe hear the voice of God and suddenly have a new view on life. I was so busy asking myself 'is this it? is this it?' that I barely noticed the scent. It's an incense that whispers -it does not have a thundering voice. It's slightly sweet. 7-Up?  Pond's Cold Cream? It's slightly aromatic and every now and then a trail of aloeswood appears.  When the stick goes out the scent seems to disappear - it's not a lingering house guest.

Although I still can't describe with any confidence the scent of the incense, I can say that it definitely transported me to another time and place. I found myself in the house where I grew up. Suburban Philadelphia, as a young teenager, maybe 1987. I don't think the incense is even slightly reminiscent of the cologne I wore at the time (especially as it was Drakkar Noir) or the smell of my house itself, but I was transported nonetheless...like portal-transported. At times the wisps of smoke resembled the sweet, chalky smell of the smoke machines that fog every school dance - after a hissing sound accompanies the opening chords of 1999 by Prince. I don't know if the koh artisans from Kyukyodo are Prince fans or if they went to school dances.

I can tell that Sho ran koh is going to challenge me. It's elusive, quietly beautiful and I am burning it regularly now in the desire to understand it better. I know this with certainty however; whether or not it's the power of suggestion, the meditations I had while this incense burned were some of the most focused, fundamental and complete meditations I've had so far. The very essence of Buddhism?