Aspiring to be average

Rules direct us to average behaviours. Average is nothing to aspire to. If we're aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don't apply.-The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin I usually start a workshop by saying I don't have any rules. I try to have a beginners mind. Kids stop making Art when we adults teach them rules to go by. All kids are artists then presented with boxes to fit into they decide they are no longer artists. What I love about street Art right from the get go it has broken the rules of civility by tagging something that isn't a stretched rectangle of canvas. That is what most paintings are is stretched canvas on a rectangular frame. Street art can be the wall of a building, a box car, a bridge, a subway stop or a patch of sidewalk. For me they are a form of cave paintings. "When I was a caveman I had it all"- Greg Brown. Imagine a place to stay, a good meal, perhaps the company of another and a painting on the wall of the cave. How did we come to need all we want. When you have been doing something long enough it starts to be a box that maybe you need to step out of. That's hard to do when it has been a horse that you have travelled on for quite a distance. Maybe you raised a family, built a home, made a living. Cowboy logic says: If you have a horse ride it. Give the horse a rest, it's tired and so are you. You could wait for it to die and then get off it. One thing I've learned in this bizz is that you are only as good as your last kiln load. I'm starting to think about my residency at The Bray and I want to do something I haven't done before. Between now and Sept I'm going to do some prep work on colour and glazes. I'm high firing to Cone 11 and then applying 04 glazes to the surface and firing them in with my bisque to Cone 04. Low temp glazes have such intense colours. I'm trying to make room in my little ole brain for inspiration to keep me energized for another couple of decades.