2020 has been a rough year. They come that way sometimes. But it’s been a year, and it’s winding down. The universe doesn’t care about our calendars. It’s like when you cross a state line and nothing really changes. Borders and calendar dates are just things we made up in our minds in an attempt to define certain things, and then we act like our silly demarcations rule the thing we superimposed them over.

Anyway, it’s been a wonderful year, too.

Collectively, we’ve been given the opportunity to see things a little differently. To appreciate things more. To appreciate people more.

The first day of January will look a lot like December, kind of the way Wisconsin looks a lot like Minnesota.

My house is almost empty this year, on the night before Christmas Eve. We’ll get through this, a little more self reliant than we were. There are fewer people to drink the egg nog, and eat the pie. Fewer of us on the couch watching movies.

I keep getting that feeling that I’m doing the same thing over and over…

I repeat themes. I do it again and again, yet each one is a little different. So I’m putting drawings of fish on pottery. They swim out of the stylus and onto the clay. If I caught 20 herrings in Lake Superior, I bet they would all look pretty similar. I’m developing my voice in my pottery, and I need to allow the pieces to look congruous. I don’t put fish on every piece. When I do put fish onto a pot, I hope it’s obvious that this is something I did. I’m leaving my mark.

There is no reason for me to feel bad about it.

In the place where I have my genealogical roots, they’ve been decorating ceramic pots with fish for hundreds of years. It makes me feel somehow connected to my ancestors, to adopt that motif in my own way today.

What I’m doing in clay feels like a continuation of what I often paint.

Over the past month or so, I’ve been working on a commission painting. It may be more honest to say I’ve been avoiding working on it. I love to paint. I paint for fun. But when another person has an expectation about what it will look like, I kind of freeze up. Again, there is no reason for me to feel this way. When the deadline is looming, I no longer have the choice to put it off.

I give myself pep talks.

I paint a little bit, and then throw another pot, or decorate one of the pots that are in various stages of drying. I’m not usually meticulous and full of self doubt about my art. I think that what I’m feeling finds its way into the work. I need to relax and enjoy the process. I feel what I feel and I do what I do. Besides, what an honor to have someone want an image painted by my hand.

Tonight is the darkest night of the year. Our Christmas lights are glowing for any passers-by, and we lit a bonfire beneath a hazy moon. We need to be comfortable in the dark, or we’ll miss out on half of our life.

It’s not so cold out, and there’s no wind. I chopped up some wood and Raymond and I looked into the fire remembering those we’ve lost, and the things that made us feel gloomy this year. It’s not sad to let go of the gloominess those things brought. We will always remember our loved ones. Though we still grieve, we release the grip of sadness and watch it waft up in smoke, through the branches and into what lies beyond.

Others were here and left us for other places. We wish them well. We are different because they were here.

We live, we learn, we live some more until we don’t anymore. Then others can throw a piece of wood onto the fire and remember us.

There is more light coming. Let’s not waste it.

I definitely consider myself to be a spiritual person. We’re made of physical matter, and animated by something spiritual. The tangible part of us expresses what the invisible part bids it to. That intangible part isn’t a passenger in the body, just as we aren’t hitchhikers in the universe. We’re made of stardust, and our spirits are made of synapses firing between our cells.

The latest smartphone is useless without the software, and the software is nothing without the device that makes it work.

That’s how I see us. When the device no longer works, we burn it or bury it.

What an amazing thing a fully functioning body is! It can see and hear and move around. It can reproduce. It can eat and drink and do work. It can draw conclusions. It can observe and contemplate. It can wonder and express. It can share its conclusions and inspire others through creative expression.

If another person finds what I’ve done beneficial, that can be a wonderful thing. We can enhance the experience for each other. While we are all different, we are also very much alike.

If you share with me what you have spent a lot of time thinking about or working on, I can understand or at least be aware of it through your generosity.

Each one of us is different from each other. If you have a mental or physical disability, it doesn’t make you less than the highest functioning athlete or genius. You will have something to say that they will not, just because you are you. Your experience is valid and valuable.

You might get praise for your talent or insight. You might get criticism. Enjoy it or learn from it, but please don’t let it make or break you.

Twinkle your own bit of stardust while you can.

I keep saying I don’t ask my clay pots to be perfect. That’s not (just) an excuse for producing imperfect pieces. I don’t want my work to be sterile or prissy. I want it to have a unique identity. I want it to have a personality of its own, which, I guess, is the personality of the maker.

I’ve been looking at 15th, 16th, 17th century red ware from New England. These pieces are humble and beautiful, clearly designed for use. The colors are rich and aged looking, and even the chips and wear make them more attractive. The jug forms are voluptuous. The glaze patterns are often haphazard. The drips are believable. The forms are not ornate, and the art is primitive. They don’t look fussed over. They look like they could hold a nice serving of gruel or stew, and keep it hot.

Some of these pieces now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What would the potters who made them think of that.

After hundreds of years, they will now be displayed carefully behind glass, maybe handled with white gloves.

They’ve endured, and I can see them and be inspired.

I never know what is going to inspire me. I go about my life doing all the things people do, and I do various creative things, as I have always done. I don’t need to try to be inspired. It’s counter productive for me to look for the next big idea. That turns the wonder of discovery into work, and tends to result in something that feels contrived.

So like I said, I go about my life, and notice things that connect me to something deep inside me already. One thing leads to another. One significant observation or realization opens the door to something connected to it.

When my mother died, I became interested in my ancestry. I looked at old photos of my bygone relatives and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know them.

The generation before mine leads me to their parents, and they take me back to their parents. At each level, I unlock new stories about them, and about me.

With each level I unlock, the crowd doubles, and I begin to see, as never before, how we are all related.

I’m interested in pottery from early New England and paintings from mid 20th century Finland. My ancestors find their way into my writing, my pottery, into my drawings and my brother’s drawings. Rather than try to copy 18th century red ware jugs and pitchers, I admire them and add them to my visual lexicon. The things I care about are bound to influence what comes out of me. I love simple pottery forms. Nothing too ornate or perfect.

I don’t really feel like I choose anything. I don’t remember choosing acrylic paint, except that it dries faster than oils, doesn’t require so many ingredients, and is easier to clean up. As some point, I switched from charcoal and pencil to oil pastel and watercolor, but I don’t remember the choice. I dabble in all of them. For now, I’m working mostly in acrylic paint and clay.

Creative work comes pretty easily, because I try to avoid expectations and focus on enjoying the process. I think a lot while I’m painting, but not about the technical aspects of painting. I’m thinking of the story, like I do with my ancestors, who bubble up from deep in my DNA.

It’s a wonderful feeling to let my mind and my body be active. It’s a private land of dreams. No one is looking over my shoulder telling me what I should be doing rather than doing what I love.

When my life is over, I want to be remembered for being authentic. I don’t want to be like anyone else.

I want to follow the rules that make sense to me artistically, even if it means I use the medium differently than anyone else.