late nights

Last night I stayed up (really way too late) finishing up an order for RISD Works. I was applying decals to glazed pieces, and for some reason it took me hours. I was thinking of Amelie when she composed the lost love letter by combining cut up passages from existing letters. Amelie was shown in fast forward during her process, I wish I had that fast-forwarding power. New ideas kept coming to me, and I had to take some time to make them work.

Decals are a perfect medium for a graphic designer who loves layout (me). The process goes like this: I search vintage books for etchings (which are in the public domain), I scan the images in, I print them out on decal paper with a special ink cartridge, I cut out the images and arrange them on a glazed vase, plate, cup or bowl.

I love that the end result becomes a functional object to interact with on a daily basis. I'm a big proponent of surrounding yourself with art, and using it.

The decal-ed pieces from last night are in the kiln, firing away, and will emerge tomorrow morning. I'll take some pics of my new ideas then. In the mean-time, here is a poem from Rumi I was experimenting with a few months ago.



This poem works better when it travels over a series of plates. The viewer has time to reflect on each passage while moving from plate to plate. Plus, you can have a table set with Rumi's words, how fantastic.

This series is in the collection of Karen Fleer, a writer.