preview 15 pages

Art of Play by Nils Lou | Make Your Own Book

So maybe it’s just a pot. Maybe the Greek guys were right. Yet it strikes me, looking into the maw of this volatile and strangely comforting furnace, that our foolhardy canoe slipping downriver into the current of an unruly past is bringing back something that the future needs. A sense of the vitality of the frankly physical. The nitty-gritty joy of sheer cussedness. The primal and transformative power of clay and blood and bone and raw human doing-ness that can’t be conveniently abstracted away by the intellectual arbiters of an overcrowded lockstep world. The fugitive pleasures of fun. The potters, the weavers, the carvers, the hand people, are our wild children and our pioneers and our roots. Let them feed the fires. Let them float the canoes. Likely as not, we’ll be needing what they know. ~Bob Hicks, Free Lance writer for the "Oregonian".

2011 March firing, East Creek anagama

Art Scatter, by Bob Hicks, photos by Richard Yates

This is the story of the East Creek anagama—gorgeous photographs by Dick Yates and a compelling poetic tale written by Bob Hicks, capturing the nuance of twenty-six years of
woodfiring in the Pacific Northwest. Read it at:

http://www.artscatter.com/general/circle-of-fire-tending-the-anagama-kiln/

The Goat Who Ate My Art

"The Goat Who Ate My Art" is characterized by a sculpture constructed by my good friend and colleague, Totem Shriver. The "Goat" periodically finds new "positions" around the art building—sometimes on the roof (as in this case), sometimes under a bush. But always watching for a chance to eat "My" art. He is illustrated in the book, often at the end of a chapter, symbolizing the threat of falling victim to imitation. He is, after all, the god of the authentic.

I've had this core sample for years knowing I would ultimately find a home for it. It was cored from a brick wall for some purpose, but now rests on a curved part of this chunk of clay fired in Jim Busby's Caboose kiln. Woodfired to C12 in 40 hours. The "core" is removable for use as a doorstop.

Meta-Figures, 2009, 48" X 60"

Meta-Figures is the latest in a series of experimental "ceramic paintings". The process starts with some surface painting with latex (in this case, black) leaving some areas unpainted. Clay slip is prepared in a variety of consistencies and poured while the canvas is angled from flat to vertical. Turning the canvas while pouring, shapes the pour in interesting ways, and I then let the process dry. I use liquid acrylic medium added to the slip to plasticize the medium so it is fixed to the canvas. When it is dry I introduce three basic chalks, charcoal, red conte and white. These are used to define and shape images that emerge as I work. I have no image in mind when I begin—the final result is the product of the play impulse I have developed and write about in The Play Book.

'38 studebaker/hood

This is an attempt to manipulate an object that has some historical residue (at least for the older amongst us), ritualize the form as an icon of sorts and formalize the presentation so it is regarded in an esthetic state. i.e., frame it for attention. The fun part was the finding of the metal fragment in a junk yard, banging it flat, shooting at it as a target for what I call "mystery/history", and finally dealing with the presentation. All the while, I am intrigued with the potential implications of iconic ambiguity—forcing the viewer to imagine and create possibilities of past and now. Play!