Aesthetic
Realism and Beatrice Wood's Lustrous Glaze;
or, the Beautiful Dissatisfaction of Art
In 1938,
in the midst of despair about a relationship, Beatrice Wood writes that
in an antique store, she bought 6 small lusterware-glaze plates, thought
she might try to make a teapot to go with them, and enrolled in a pottery
course in LA, where she lived. Her whole life changed as a result, because
she fell in love with ceramics.
I
believe there is a logic for why this occurred which Aesthetic Realism
explains. Two of the opposites that are awry when we are wrongly dissatisfied
are heaviness and lightness [see
http://www.TerrainGallery.org]. When we are dissatisfied, Mr. Siegel
explained, we are both too heavy and too light:
We
can, for ego reasons, find things more burdensome than they are; also more
empty, lightsome, laughable than they are. The only way not to be dissatisfied
is to feel that when we find things light, gay, airy, we are using the
same self that finds them serious, massive....That is hard, and the only
way to get it is aesthetics; there is no other way.
In her
pottery--and those brilliant, deep glazes which Beatrice Wood took such
a scientific delight in--we see the resolution of heaviness and lightness
and the result is tremendously satisfying.
I
believe, as she wanted to be fair to the world through a new art form,
the weighty materials of clay and terra cotta and the brilliance of a luster
glaze came together with more beauty than anything she had ever done before.
She wrote:
Pottery
for me is not a pursuit of glory, but a daily discipline of pursuing accuracy.
And as
she writes about her search for just the right glaze there is a beautiful
dissatisfaction--the kind we want, and a oneness of seriousness and lightness
as she describes their depth and brilliance:
The
pursuit of rare and beautiful glazes is like the chase ...of the rainbow.
One is always tantalized into finding lovelier and lovelier glazes. One
is impassioned to imprison sunlight,
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One
takes a...measure of glaze formula, weighs carefully to the hundredth of
a gram the colorant...and starts on a new research for the intangible.
In her
ceramics, such as Tall Footed Bowl, 1965,
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she
has wanted to bring out the best possibilities of earth: to show graceful
and strong form, and give earth the most gorgeous color. Ms. Wood labored
to get these amazing colors. When you see these in person--you see the
colors shift, shimmer, change as you move around the pot. Was she trying
to compose warring things in the world and in herself? Most of us see the
solution to dissatisfaction as making everything smooth and "nice," and
having the world bend to our wishes. But art doesn't see it that way: art
says we have to see the imperfect and perfect, roughness and smoothness,
difficult and easy. I feel this work is truly satisfying because it is
not perfect--the color has imperfections and the shape is not just
smooth--it has ripples or ridges. And don't you feel weight and lightness,
the glowing and the earthy are beautifully together here? The artist has
taken heavy material--clay--and felt as Mr. Siegel said: "I will get form
out of you! I will show you can be brilliant and graceful while still being
heavy, earthy matter."
I
have loved seeing how Beatrice Wood's life and work show Aesthetic Realism
is true! Women and men are fortunate now to be learning how they can give
beautiful form to their dissatisfaction. We want to be able to look at
ourselves and feel, "I am not hoping to dislike, I am using what
I see and meet--in love, the family, at work, with people--to be fair,
to see fresh, new meaning and value in the world!"
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