Studio Notes · Feb 2025
Tree of Life representation at Ishak Pasha Palace, Ağrı, Turkey.
ON MY MIND
This Land.
Over the years, I’ve been told repeatedly that Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is “medicine,” and yet it’s sat on my shelf since 2020. A dear friend lent a copy during the pandemic, and it was eventually “gifted” to our family. This year, one of the wisest people I know reminded me of its power several times, gently nudging me to read it. Then, I noticed a commuter on the train completely engrossed in the book. And already, I’ve promised to pass my own copy on to another dear friend. It feels as though the book’s magic has been at work, braiding its way into my life even before I read the first page.
The title is both a topic in the book and an allegory for how Wall Kimmerer, a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, skillfully and poetically describes the interconnectedness between indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. The book is rich with many stories and insights, but the core message I take away is this: despite the dominant cultural narrative to the contrary, we are in a mutually caring relationship with the Earth.
And how do we cultivate this relationship if it’s been barren? Wall Kimmerer says that “to be native to a place, we must learn to speak its language, its grammar of animacy.” She discusses how the English language overwhelmingly skews toward common nouns, establishing a grammar that orients the mind to see all non-humans as objects. Taking, using, and breaking “it” becomes much easier when we treat something as devoid of personhood. However, Wall Kimmerer’s study of her native language as an adult opens her mind to the fact that non-humans are active participants in the interdependent dynamic of life on Earth. The grammar of animacy is a key to unlocking that.
I draw so much energy creative energy from my connection to my former homeland that as I read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s words, I reflected on what it means to acknowledge my relationship with this part of the world, especially after 25 years of living here — in Connecticut, New York, and now Pennsylvania. How much of the language of this geography have I truly "picked up"? What would it feel like to more explicitly cultivate this relationship with the land? And how might this influence my art?
Testing ways of mimicking red clay using white stoneware.
WITH MY HANDS
In relationship.
Between 2013 and 2015, I returned to Istanbul, taking a two-year break from life in the US to see if I could build a life as an adult in Turkey. During this time, I took my first ceramics classes—starting with the wheel and later exploring hand-building. It was then that I also attended a talk by Danish artist Anne Mette Hjortshøj.
Hjortshøj lives on the island of Bornholm and sources her clay from that same island. In her talk, she described her morning routine of “harvesting” red or green clay from the ground. The iron content of the clay determines the oxidization and, therefore, the hues of the clay. She carries a bucket and carves into the earth with her bare hands to collect the 600 grams of clay she needs for each day’s work on the wheel.
My clay comes in 50-pound boxes that I order online. My sourcing mostly involves optimizing cost and solving the logistical project of bringing a literal ton of clay to my studio. I stack the boxes around the studio and rely on the plastic bagging to maintain its moisture.
I primarily use two clay bodies —red terra cotta clay and white stoneware. I have a complicated relationship with both. Red clay produces warm and vibrant hues when glazed, but it is also an unwilling participant in my work. It cracks easily, it doesn’t want to be flat, and it can be messy to carve. It gives me grief. On the other hand, stoneware, white, is so much more robust and easier to work with for the kind of sculpting and carving I do. But the results when glazed are more muted, subdued, restrained.
Recently, I came across footage of Anne Mette Hjortshøj from 2013, right around the time I heard her speak in person. In her quiet, unassuming way, she said, “You need to take good care of the clay. It’s like she is your grandmother. You can’t leave her alone. She needs care.” Perhaps what I needed was this reminder—that as an artist, I’m in a mutually caring relationship with the clay, and it requires my adapting to its temperament, being in an open dialogue, and paying “honest attention,” in Hjortshøj’s words, to its true nature. Just like in any relationship.
She is a Tree of Life. A beautiful card I received a year ago from loving friends.
FROM THE HEART
Seasons.
A motto that I’ve adopted during the pandemic is “When in doubt, go for a walk.” (Another one is “When in doubt, sweep the studio floor.”) Whether I need to clear my head, get some fresh air, or procrastinate, going for a walk in the woods near my house is always a dependable way to do so. This week, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of being cancer-free, and I am confident that any sense of vitality I enjoy from now on is in part due to medicine from my doctors and also in no small part from the woods.
However, I realized I know virtually nothing about the trees surrounding me along my walks. I enjoy their presence but have not actually made an attempt to get to know them. This feels like having a meal with someone while avoiding eye contact. So, I reached for another book that’s been sitting in my library for a long time: Leaves in Medicine, Myth and Magic. In flipping through its beautiful illustrations, I learned that its author wrote her first book at 87. This made me chuckle at the nagging idea of procrastination and feel a surge of optimism for all seasons of life. Maybe the woods will help me get to the studio through it all.
And while I contemplate mid-life matters in the woods, I realize they also help my daughter find her emotional and physical balance navigating three-year-old matters. During a recent after-school visit, she turned to the rock she had just been sitting on and said, “Thank you for coming.” Normally, I might have corrected her confusion in English, but in that moment, with Braiding Sweetgrass in mind, I realized something: why get in the way of her accidental—or perhaps innate—fluency with the grammar of animacy? Why suppress a moment of poetry? Instead, I tried to practice my own lesson to learn: “Thank you for having us.”
Until next month, hoşçakalın!