In light of the recent flooding, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Red River Valley where I grew up (Fargo, ND, Wahpeton, ND, Breckendige, MN), and I’ve been checking back in with friends who still live in that area. One of my friends, Sam, is a potter. (I’ve more of his pics at the end of this post.) We went to high school together at Breckenridge High. He’s since become a professor at St. John’s University in Minnesota, a couple of hours away. Looking at his pots this morning (alas, only online), I was overcome with the power of what he’s doing as a potter and a person. Here’s an excerpt from the letter I sent him…
I was checking out your pots on your profile today. Quite stunning. Visually (since that’s all I’ve got access to, right?) I’m blown away by two of the pots in particular. The “small bowl with clover painting” is so very, very, Breckenridge. I think of the fields around your house in the winter. Frozen solid and covered with windblown snow. White, sure, but the black, turned soil underneath is still exposed at its rough edges. So a white, but clearly something dark, rich, and fertile underneath. And then the single, thin stalk of the plant. So exposed and strong and tensile against the expanse of white. And the leaves at the bottom. I sense the stark lines of the shelterbelts at the edges fo the fields present somewhere in this pot, too. I wish I could hold it. Run my fingers across the pock-marked glass. The impurities. I have a truly incredible pumpkin-sage-ham soup that would be perfect for this bowl.
And the “wood fired serving bowl,” too, is quite stunning. Less narrative for me. Much more visceral. The serenity of such a simple shape, altered just slightly in the violence of the fire. Still so strong and gestural, but only left so by a sort of violence inherent to its making. I love the giving over of control like this. The material settling into its own characteristics in response to such intensity. This bowl would be perfect for hot penne pasta, served with a light pesto, steamed peppers and onions. Served with a wooden spoon to a table of people who see the bowl and the pasta, as part of dinner, not just the pasta.
Your pots, matter, dude. The world helps me experience them. They help me see the world. Next time we see each other, I’ll tell you about Heidegger and how he thinks great art objects call forth and organize the world about them. You pots do that. Here in my house. In my life. In my hand. Thank you for that.
(Note about this post. I was thinking about calling it “What James Wright’s pots would have looked like if he’d chosen clay instead of words as his art.”)
James Wright’s pots indeed. Two of my favorite things intertwined – James Wright and pottery. Beautiful.
ps – I hope to hear about Heidegger and art too. Maybe you should blog this one? Please.
Hook
-James Wright
I was only a young man
In those days. On that evening
The cold was so God damned
Bitter there was nothing.
Nothing. I was in trouble
With a woman, and there was nothing
There but me and dead snow.
I stood on the street corner
In Minneapolis, lashed
This way and that.
Wind rose from some pit,
Hunting me.
Another bus to Saint Paul
Would arrive in three hours,
If I was lucky.
Then the young Sioux
Loomed beside me, his scars
Were just my age.
Ain’t got no bus here
A long time, he said.
You got enough money
To get home on?
What did they do
To your hand? I answered.
He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight
And slashed the wind.
Oh, that? he said.
I had a bad time with a woman. Here,
You take this.
Did you ever feel a man hold
Sixty-five cents
In a hook,
And place it
Gently
In your freezing hand?
I took it.
It wasn’t the money I needed.
But I took it.
~ ~ ~
The expression in those pots isn’t mine, but I took it. And it was just what I needed.