 Quite a few 2003 journal entries are in the online artist journal,
Hand Forged Vessels. Here
are some earlier entries from years past.
11/19/97 - Doing free paintings and drawings now makes me sad because it
brings to awareness how far away I've been from myself - way way up on the
surface. It aches. This might be how people sometimes feel, looking at my
work. I remember Dr. X commenting on how painful it was for him to look at
my little photo album of bowls. It was a shock to me to hear this, and
painful, because I don't want to cause anyone pain with my work. But I
think there's a good pain that's like a numbness coming back to life.
11/20/97 - Kept thinking of the story Caroline Myss tells about the
light-form rising from a car behind where the car accident was - because the
woman had said a prayer for her. Couldn't there be art that embodies prayer
in such a way that this kind of energy rises out of it toward anyone in need
of it? Art like this could be an endless reservoir of compassion. I think of
the six-armed Buddha statue I used to go look at, at the art museum in
Chicago. I knew nothing about zen or Buddhism, but I needed to look at that
statue.
1/12/98 - I feel as if I'm being summoned to a different world - a world of
magic, aliveness, co-creation, the four directions, the sacred, connection,
expansion, focus. I feel as if I'm being summoned to live again in a
postpatriarchal world, to live in That State of Mind, to dare again to make
bowls for a postpatriarchal culture and world. Well, why not? What do I have
to lose?
1/28/98 - I'm like the man Peace
Pilgrim talks about who says "yes, but I can't make any money at it."
1/29/98 - [Perelandra Studio Team] - Relax. Eagerness is fine - impatience
is only going to make everything take much, much longer. Don't rush. Go
slowly. Not to "get it right" but to surrender to ecstasy. Stop trying to
"get things done."
You are secretly thinking that if you can make some great bowls, you will be
able to justify what you're doing to other people, maybe even prove that
you're right and they're wrong, or you know more, etc. Release all that.
This doesn't have anything to do with anyone else, not now anyway. Be in
service to your soul right now, and let that be enough.
2/6/98 - One thing I noticed was that when I felt my guilt, I felt it in my
heart.
3/9/98 - Iron is at the heart of my spiritual practice.
5/3/02 - I had to take a lot of beads and wires off the bowl today. It was
instructive re the power or one or two very tiny objects. Even one in the
wrong place diminishes the bowl's power.
5/10/02 - Today the full deliciousness of making bowls came over me again -
as I was looking at beads for the first copper mesh bowl.
5/28/02 - This morning I realized that my relationship is "off" with the
copper mesh bowl because I want to use it to prove I'm OK - that I'm someone
worth knowing, worth being friends with, worth caring about. When I write
this, it puzzles me. I don't judge other people by this kind of standard.
....This bowl feels like a stranger. OK - so what? They're all strangers
till you get to know them. Suspend judgment and just get to know it.
12/16/02 - Started 2 new bowls. When I first woke up, I thought "oh, I
can't." So I lay there thinking of childhood memories, the way I used to do
before free writing on my novel. This seemed to work. Eventually I got up,
dressed, and came down to work.
10/7/03 - It's as if here's undisputable evidence that I can make something
beautiful - and I can't bear it - it makes me want to cry - and I don't know
why. It's not relief - it's that my whole self image is challenged - my
sense of who I am - that I'm an embarrassed failure - so shamed that all I
can do is stay in my room....I feel sad that I indulged in so much self
doubt and self pity. Yet now it makes me smile.
12/23/03 - Working with the copper mesh reminds me of the copper bracelets
my grandmother used to send me from trips to the southwest. They were made
by Indians there. I cherished the bracelets as a connection with the tribes
I'd read so much about.
1/1/03 - The gesture for "hurray!" is very close to that for "surrender."
Maybe I knew that?
3/2/03 - Reading
The Art of Possibility again, I notice the part of p. 31 - 'My teacher,
the great cellist Gaspar Cassado, used to say to us as students, 'I'm so
sorry for you' your lives have been so easy. You can't play great music
unless your heart's been broken." '
What struck me on the first reading was "well, I'm OK; my heart's been
broken." Then I saw the connection with the idea that one becomes a shaman
only by being pulled apart, bone by bone - disintegrating.
3/17/03 - My Unifying Principles are: Trust my hands. Trust Process. That's
enough.
3/28/03 - [a nice letter from The Universe]
Dear Cathy,
We at the Universe are pleased, even delighted, to inform you that you have
been awarded a four-year Artist Grant.
This grant is to enable you to learn to make the iron and paper and mixed
media bowl sculptures you have begun. Also, the grant will enable you to
establish gallery relationships so that your future work will have its best
sales. You'll be able to concentrate fully on both these tasks.
Congratulations and best wishes. Please keep us informed of anything else
you need in order to fulfill your creative potential.
Warm wishes,
The Universe
5/9/03 - Here's my three-fold intention. These are three aspects of one
process. First, to free the Artist in myself - to become fully alive and
present in the world. Second, to add a radiant energy of aliveness to the
world by my process of creating art. Third, to embody that energy in
physical works of art - bowls and paintings and collages - so that this
energy stays available to people and in the world.
The great thing is that this embodies energy doesn't get used up. It
doesn't get weakened or contaminated or corrupted. It doesn't absorb
what Machaelle Wright calls
"ungrounded human emotions." In this sense all real art, true art, has great
spiritual power.
5/21/03 - What interests me most in Jackson Pollock is his ability, his
success, in making art as nature - his tapping into the Nature inside
himself, the wilderness within. Because that's essential to the kind of art
I want to make.
7/6/03 - That's really what my life is about - enhancing the creative power
in the world - by fulfilling my own creative potential.
8/31/03 - Important discovery! Left hand took over the free drawing this
morning and sort of mocked my right hand. It almost seemed as if L hand was
purposely making crooked lines, loops with flat spots, etc. And - this is
the important part - the whole drawing was better - more alive, more
beautiful.
What a fool I've been, but it matters not a bit. Now I see how to go on.
If you get anything from these early journal entries, you'll probably enjoy
my online artist journal,
Hand Forged Vessels. This is a weblog to which I add almost daily. You
can also subscribe from its home page, so you get my journal entries right
in your email box.
More about Catherine Jo Morgan:
Press Release
Artist Information Sheet
Artist Statement
Bio
One Page Resume
Full Resume
Testimonials - Iron Morgan Bowls
Chronology
The Studio - Ecstasy Forge
Early Journal on Process
Weblog: Hand Forged Vessels, an online artist journal
eBay "About Me"
page
Typical alternate spellings for important words in this page include:
art sculpters
Additional keyword phrases that would help someone find this page
include:
John Campbell Folk School, Penland art school, blacksmith training
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