Redemption Song

This week has been tough. Since last Sunday's post, things went downhill wicked fast. I spent the better part (worst part) of twenty four hours in the local hospital with what we were afraid was a heart attack. After every bizarre test known to man, it was declared that my heart was fine, but lots of other things weren't.

By the time I left the following afternoon I had been diagnosed with diabetes (which I didn't have pre-surgery) and an anxiety disorder. Nifty eh?

Not like I have anything to be anxious about right?

Closing the studio down has been far more difficult than I thought it would be. Every time I try to explain it to someone I am met with doubt or questions about other ways of working... folks just really dont seem to get it. I guess I have to be okay with that.

Some part of me wonders, if people are actually bothered by us closing, where the hell have they been for the past half-decade? We've done mass mailings on so many occasions: Holiday studio sales, seconds sales, Art Trail... and each year we've seen fewer return customers. Weird to say the least.

Moving on to something new seems the most logical progression. I haven't been shooting as much this month. It has just been too damned hot to think, much less shoot. As I sit here, nearly 10pm, the house is well over 80 degrees and I cant stop sweating. A cold shower sounds inviting. I can't wait for this heat to break, for the wind to blow and for it to pour down a cold soaking rain.

So what does all of this have to do with Joe Strummer and Redemption Song? Hell if I know. Joe just makes me feel better. Something about his timing/rhythm and the depth of his lyrics... it just sits well with me. Helps soothe my frustrations and allows some semblance of peace to wash over me. I've heard dozens of folks cover this tune. From Bob Marley all the way to some folks I won't name for fear of embarrassing myself by admitting that I have seen some very odd bands. I wish I had seen Joe Strummer perform. Watching his life stream by on dvd just isnt the same.

Here are the details about the closing of the studio:
August 21st, 9am-noon... three hours.... that's it. Pots are available NOW!
YES, the prices GO UP every hour of the sale.
Think scarcity, think collector's item, think about the fact that I won't be making more pots. Zilch.

Get here early and save yourself the frustration of wondering why all the pots are gone. We are already out of some things: ice cream bowls, soup mugs, pitchers, oval vases. We have LOTS of plates to choose from. Tons of bowls. But at noon on Saturday the 21st, we close this chapter. If you want pots, don't wait till the very end. The best selection of pots is NOW.


Postcards are at the printer. Should be in the mail to everyone sometime the first week in August. An email blast will go out in about two weeks. Between now and then the pots are flying off the shelves as tourists are flocking in every day.

I've Asked You All Here Today To Discuss...

The Future of Cold Springs Studio:

This was shot five and half years ago. Seems like such a long time ago.

This an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a dear friend, mentor, teacher and potter.





I have put this letter off long enough. I apologize for not writing back sooner.

I am grieving.

This is a long story. If you want the short version, skip to the end. It's all there in the last
paragraph. Otherwise....

Not long after NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) I took a long (and far too dangerous) drive to the Cleveland Clinic to have a long talk with the best colo-rectal surgeons in the US. I really should have either flown or had someone else drive. We didn't know it at the time, but have since learned that one of the side effects from this coma has been that I have developed extreme obstructive sleep apnea. Apparently I haven't slept real sleep since before surgery. The exhaustion caught up to me about a month ago... but I am getting ahead of myself. Before the drive to Cleveland, we knew that I was exhibiting extreme sleep exhaustion. I had a hard time staying awake on the drive into town(Ithaca) each day for PT. I had fallen asleep at the wheel at least 1-2 times a week. Bad stuff. But I knew I needed to get to Cleveland,
and Nancy doesn't drive. Friends offered but I figured it would be no problem. Luckily I took Aurora with me and she acted as my conscience. When I started to doze she was adamant that we get off the road and made me sleep.

Even with all of our precautions it was still a rough drive.

And that was the easy part.

Walking into a hospital, of my own accord, under my own power... to submit to more
tests, probings, and worse....

It was rough.

Finally I was able to see the surgeon with my clothes on for his assessment of my candidacy
for a "reversal or takedown" procedure. I will spare you the lesson in anatomy and say only
that my chances of a simple surgery fall into the category of slim to none. He wasn't optimistic.
He gave me a few options and a final ulimatum - lose 50# or he wouldn't even consider me for surgery.

I asked him how he would repair my abdomen so that I would no longer have this monstrous herniation at the colostomy site. I also asked him how soon after surgery I could actually RESUME my life as a potter.

He looked me in the eye and said it was time for a career change. I am glad Aurora was there. I might not have been able to walk out otherwise. From the looks of things, I will not ever be able to do what I could do so easily before.

No lifting of things greater than 20-25#. Definitely no heavy lifting. No moving of kiln shelves. Or boxes of clay. Or buckets of glaze. Or boxes of pots.

I thought about this on the six hour drive home. There were hour long stretches where Aurora and I said nothing. The Clash, The Pogues and U2 screamed through the stereo. And now and again, she would find me crying. Sobbing. Trying hard to keep focus.

The following week I met with my cardiologist who let me know that my heart had a scary story to tell about my sleep issues. Short version: I was a prime candidate for a stroke. My heart was being tortured every night... first from lack of oxygen and then from racing constantly to wake me up and start that adrenaline racing. Bad combination.

I just finished my second sleep study a week ago. I am finally sleeping for more than two hours straight. It has been over eight months. As I talk to the doctors they are all remarkably surprised I am even here at this moment.

Since sleeping I have had more cognitive function again... (I have had virtually no short term memory for months. Would realize I was somewhere and have no idea why or how I got there)
Being able to think has been a radical relief. Nancy jokes that my brain running on half-power puts me in the position most folks are in every day. That is simply not acceptable.

So... now that I am sleeping again, I have had more time to think and greater focus during the day. I have been trying to figure out how to dig myself out of this hole I have pulled my family into. We are broke. Well, worse than broke. We started looking at bankruptcy back in March.
Since then things haven't gotten better... until this past week.

So where am I going with all of this? What is the point to this lengthy blathering?
To say that I am letting go of my dreams in clay. I had high hopes years ago, that I would be teaching young college students by now. I had visions of classrooms with students ready for a challenge. Kiln pads crowded with ware carts loading and unloading firing after firing. Smoky air filling the quad as wood kilns and raku firings finished up. Ironically I have never had any real course of study planned. I sure love teaching. Strangely enough, I think the only thing I have ever really wanted to impart is my love for learning.

Which leads me to where this is all going. In letting go of clay, I am taking up my camera again. Fortunately this seems doable. I am finding myself capable and competent. Building a new career is daunting but exciting. It hasn't come easily though. I have been ruminating on this since waking from the coma.

Letting go of my dreams though, has been hard. Walking into my studio and finding nothing to trim, no pots to load into the kiln... and dust and cobwebs where there should be plastic sheeting... it has been difficult. I can still throw pots. And I may. I think if I can find a way to make enough of a living to have spare time again, I would love to make pots as time allows. I don't think that my expectations for this business were ever going to be realized, so this is something of a wake-up call. I love the idea of making the pots I WANT to make, firing them any way I feel like firing them and then, once a year, having a nice studio sale where folks can come and pick out what they want. No orders. No galleries. No showroom. Just pots.

For now, this means we are planning to close the studio and gallery in September... maybe sooner. I am ready to turn the showroom into our new photography space. A clean room with places to sit, to shoot, to review work, to see big prints... who knows? Having said all of this (which I am sure has been far too long a letter for anyone to read) I must apologize. Knowing that you have followed my progress, success and failure alike, means a great deal to me. I know there is a bright future ahead, but letting go of clay has been .... well, you can imagine.

All the best,
Alex

Some Friends Help

And some friends help hide the body parts.

Marc is one of those guys.

He may be the most squeamish chickenshit in the room, but when I was tied to every fuckin' hose in the ICU, he was there. When my body was blown up to twice its normal size and wires and IVs were coming out of every orifice... he was there.

Every bone in his body said flee! but he came anyway.

When I started coming out of the coma, I was hooked to a trach-tube. That meant my mouth was open and suffering from chronic cotton-mouth. Due to the tracheostomy and the other abdominal surgeries, the nurses wouldn't let me drink until I had passed the swallow test. The "bedside" version of this test requires the patient to swallow applesauce doped with mega-blue dye. Then they ask you to cough. If the blue dye ends up anywhere other than DOWN your throat, then no solid foods, ice, water, etc.

I began my swallow testing while Marc and Carol came to visit. I wasn't uncomfortable, but I really wanted something to drink. I was stoned out of my mind on Fentanyl and other narcotics of the day. Meanwhile Marc kept making jokes about ArtTrail and offering to go "help" with customers.

I wanted to laugh so hard, but the drugs kept me nearly paralyzed. Even now, remembering that moment, I can hear the laughing in my mind, knowing full well I couldn't tell Marc how funny he was. Thank God for good friends. Each and every time Marc and Carol showed up, everything in my world improved.

Yesterday Marc surprised me by just showing up to check up on me. After talking indoors for a while about all my current maladies and general feelings of malaise, we went outside into some seriously shocking sunshine. I had to catch a few images of Marc kickin' back with the alliums.

What really happened and what is up with Alex?

The best answer to both of these questions was answered this evening, by my lovely wife. In her blog.

Give her blog posting a read. You'll have probably more than enough information (probably too much info).

http://coldspringsstudio.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-stoicism-and-stomas-or-what-hell.html

At this point I am pretty glad no one took any pictures of me during my stay in the ICU. The earliest images post-surgery were shot at my out-patient physical therapy.

Letters Written and Never Sent

I have toyed around with the idea of putting some of my ongoing in-my-head conversations down onto paper (or in this case blog) as a way of sharing some of these unwritten letters. Sometimes these letters are to friends, peers, mentors, but always people I so seldom hear from.

I just wonder if that makes for interesting reading. Anyone out there curious?

______________________________________________________

Another topic for a later blog posting... maybe.
Anyone interested in hearing more about life in the coma? I have held off, mostly because things around here have been focused on trying to get me well. I have been trying to avoid looking into that dark corner. Instead we've had all of our attention pulled to the bright hot spot light of day to day survival and healing. With bankruptcy staring us in the face and another major surgery (to re-connect the colon to the rectum) on the way, tension has replaced peace and tranquility.

So... anyone want to hear musings from the dark side?

What's Going On In The Studio?

I get asked frequently: What's going on with the studio?

Well, errmm, uh, well... you see.. uh,.... there's this problem.... well... uh.
The problem is that making pots is a lot harder when your ostomy has herniated. My belly hurts a lot more than it ever did prior to being operated on. It makes it really uncomfortable to stand and lean against my stomach at the wheelhead. In fact, it makes things almost not worthwhile.





At first, my arms and chest had a really difficult time of things... due mostly to the muscular dysfunction I have been dealing with post-coma. The latest and more frustrating issue is this darned herniation. It is bad enough having a bag attached to my midsection, but now that it has grown in size to where I look like my tummy ate a coconut; it really gets in the way.





My hope is that within a year, I will find a surgeon willing and able to re-attach my plumbing and get this whole process reversed. The idea of another surgery is terrifying. (for those just tuning in, see my blog posts back in Nov, Dec and Jan for the exciting ramifications of coma-dreams)

You may ask yourself... so WHAT HAS been going on in the studio? For the most part, I am getting a small amount of pottery made each month since January. Not a lot, but good pots nonetheless. This month we managed to re-create a color we had been aiming for unsuccessfully for over 8 years: Matte Purple. I have been making teabowls and canisters and footed mugs mostly. Hannah has been making LOTS of plates and sorbet bowls. I have no idea what's going to happen when she leaves here at the end of the month. Ideas? Suggestions?



This week was spent photographing things instead of making pots. First series of images from today's shooting have been edited and here they are: TEABOWLS.

Doing More Each Day

For the past few days, my time in the studio has been growing steadily. Not always necessarily in mud up to my elbows... but there's always something needing doing. The last of the orders from 2009 have finally shipped. We are halfway to loading up the first big bisque firing of the year.

I think what is most exciting so far this year is the realization that we are participating in more exhibitions than we usually find ourselves in. I am sure part of the reason is my desire to move away from craft shows which has freed up time (in my mind, if not in reality) to make better pots (and hopefully save more of them this year!). The show that I am very excited about is Clay and Blogs: Telling a Story. This comes at an interesting time in my life. Between nearly dying in surgery, living through a coma and rehabilitation and now finally trying to get back into the studio, there has been a lot of grist for the blog mill. For more info on this upcoming show, please check out Meredith Heywood's site. And Meredith, THANK YOU... for pulling together all these potter/bloggers and being willing to organize this show. Kudos!

Clay and Blogs: Telling a Story.
Opening reception will be held at the Campbell House in Moore county from 6-8 pm
October 1st, 2010
Exhibition comes down on November 1st, 2010


On top of all of that, a wonderful local potter, Renata Wadsworth asked me to shoot images for her. Mind you, she asked back in December. At that point, I could only stand up for about 40 minutes at a time. January has always been my set-aside time for shooting new work. This time of year, everyone wants to get new images ready to send out for show applications and website revisions. Renata's aesthetic draws on the Japanese tradition of Shino glazing and brushwork decoration. The accent colors of copper red and Oribe green bring out the richness in her pots. You can find more images on her webpage and on the Ithaca Art Trail website. What follows are a few examples of her best work for the new year.

Surreality

Monday morning I head to the cardiologist for a stress test. From the sound of things, they'll put me on a treadmill, run me till my heart rate peaks, then pump some radioactive compound through my heart and take pictures. Hmmm. Needless to say, I am sleepless tonight. The idea of stressing out my heart doesn't exactly fill me with calm, collected thoughts. As a result, sleeptime slides away and my anxiety runs chasing after it. Not how I planned on spending my new year.

When I went in for my original surgery, I genuinely felt that it would go just as all my other surgeries had gone previously. I would wake up, groggy but aware, in pain but manageable. It had happened through my back surgeries, my sinus surgery... why not this one? When I woke up a month later unable to speak or move, all I knew was that all bets were off. When all I could do to tell Nancy I was in there was to cry hot tears, I knew things weren't okay. Talking was off the menu. Moving was impossible. I did my laughable best to try to write. Yeah, I couldnt lift my own hand, but I was sure I could write. Four weeks later I could barely fill out a form without becoming exhausted.

Here I sit, staring another sleepless night in the face. Marveling at the surreality of it all. I nearly died. It's very difficult for me to rationalize, because very few people I know have come close to death and not been irrevocably changed. My little brother Martin came out of his coma with permanent damage to his motor cortex resulting in some minor short term memory issues. When he and I compared coma time during his visit this fall, we found that our experiences were totally different. He got on his motorbike, felt/saw the impact and the next thing he remembers is waking up from the coma. No dreams.

At least I got to have the dreamtime. Since awaking from the coma, I have shared a few of the dreams with interested folks, a clergyman, my family (and once, in this blog). I realized this evening that my brain would not slow down as I tried to sleep. I don't know if this sleeplessness is caused by the lack of meds in my system (in prep for the stress test tomorrow) or if it is really a manifestation of the anxiety I am dealing with. Either way, the last four hours in bed were noteable for the total lack of imagery. It was as though my brain was left on hold and forced to listen to muzak.

Is it strange to miss being in the coma dreamtime? Sure, some of the dreams were hideous and difficult. But some of that time was wonderful, quiet, gentle even. I doubt I will ever forget the smell from the door of the roadside diner as I walked out into the snow covered parking lot. The surrounding spruces just smelled sweet and blue. In the darkness, blue smells differently than it looks. Over my shoulder the diner's amber light winked out, leaving me with the sharp snow in my nose and hope in my heart that a ride might come my way, saving me from a frigid walk home.

Even now, I feel like that scene is part of my history. It didn't happen in my past. It happened just the other day. I had given serious thought to putting all these dreams in a box (via EMDR) but I am not so sure anymore. Some nights they are good places to go and visit. The only downside is that now, it is just visiting. I don't live there anymore. And that feels surreal.

Small Successes

Yesterday was my first visit to Dr.Wang (our local traditional Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture practitioner) since May. When I last saw her, I was frustrated at my inability to lose weight... acupuncture can be very helpful in restoring/invigorating metabolism.

When Dr. Wang and I locked eyes yesterday she took a double-take and then looked like she might cry. My heart sank, knowing that she had no idea what I had been through. For the better part of twenty minutes we talked about the ordeal. Nancy had to do most of the talking because I totally lost it. I find it incredibly difficult to talk about what was done to me in order to keep me alive.

I had been worried about going to acupuncture because usually when she works on me, I am on my side and she fills my lower back and shoulders with needles. Yesterday though she kept me laying on my back. Apparently my "life force" was severely depleted by the month and a half long sedation. Yeah... I would have to agree. I have no stamina, no strength, and everything hurts all the time.

During acupuncture though, my body floated. No pain, no sensation. I wish sleep brought such relief. I am sleeping like shit. I might get 3 hours uninterrupted. Then I either am in too much pain to fall asleep or I have to go to the bathroom, or I simply cant get comfortable. Any one position too long just aches.

Sorry to bitch and moan.

The good news is that our friends Carol and Gordon loaned us their battleship of a recliner... this MONSTER Barcalounger. Finally I was able to get comfortable downstairs! This means we can get rid of the loaner from the rental place in town.
And it means I can nap without having to climb stairs to our bedroom.

Nice.