Struggling with Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris. Some really interesting writing but there’s also a semi-comedic, steampunk/faux-Victorian tone for some of the sections that I don’t like. It’s odd experientially though because I really like the content but dislike the style. And the line is very blurred between style being diversion and intentional distraction from the more consistent unsettling, quite violent content of much of the book, and being more comedy for the author’s pleasure.
Trying to stay calm. Sort of always feeling a little on edge, a little like I need to be doing something. Blindboy, who I’ve recently found and been listening to a lot talks about experiencing a constant low-lying sense of threat, of danger, basically all the time ever since covid. I’ve got a sort of complicated relationship to covid that this is making me think about, but, basically, I really agree and didn’t realize how much I agree until hearing him talk about it. You can find a link to the podcast here.
Thinking about Andy Goldsworthy. I really liked Goldsworthy going into grad school. My girlfriend recently called him a coffee table book artist (though, she was also talking about being deeply influenced by him), and a tutor got really excited a couple years ago in school when I mentioned Goldsworthy because it had been years since anyone mentioned him (the convo, at least on Goldsworthy didn’t get much farther than that). I really like his work and I like it as a way of engaging with the world around you. I don’t have a studio for art right now, so I think a lot of my work is just going to be going out into Atlanta and doing things. There’s a whole different social/economical/political set of questions to making slight interventions in the urban landscape. I’m a bit worried about that. A few days ago a concerned retiree asked me some very sensible questions about why I was plucking the petals off his daisies to attach them with water to his fence post. I also kind of don’t like Atlanta? Haven’t found my place in it. The very awkward fit of a Goldsworthy inspired land-art approach to the city of Atlanta feels like a good challenge and a good way to get to know the city.
Goldsworthy, sycamore leaves edging the roots of a sycamore tree Hampshire, 2013
Goldsworthy woven branch circular arch Dumfrieshire, 1986
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a couple of my own little interventions on a recent walk:
I am currently living in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am an independent potter working out of a small studio in Inman Park. I moved to Atlanta with my brother in August of 2025. I’m still new to the city and figuring out how to operate as a small business owner. I keep the website for the pottery here for now because I want to emphasize its relatedness to my other interests. I’m a potter, but I’m also a sculptor and installation artist, a musician, and a writer. Pottery makes its way into the mix not only as a material, but in the case of this business as an economic form. I’m deeply ignorant of the financial side of the art world. Partly by education, partly by choice. I’m in Atlanta partly because, while working on my MFA at Goldsmiths in London, I was quite disappointed by the type of cultural ecosystem that surrounded art. The art itself was great (a lot of it), it’s London, of course it has some of the best art in the world, however, the sense of needing the art, of it being something vital and collective and integral to the healthy functioning of the community, that was missing in my experience, missing in a way that it wasn’t in the “backwaters” of Alabama.
Atlanta Studio Pottery is a model for how I want to make art. It’s a model very much in its early stages. But there are two things I really love about craft work and pottery in particular. One is the ability to see your work used in the community around you and in people’s daily lives. I love the intimacy of that. Second, I love the rhythms of working in a pottery studio. There’s a consistency, a pulse to it that structures time in beautiful, meaningful ways. That finding of a pulse in daily life is something I know I care about and that I have trouble keeping. I’ve got a lot of interests, I’m distractible. I work hard but there’s a lot of flailing, lots of side projects. Through the pottery, I hope to work on forming meaningful connections with a local, art-purchasing community and to find my own rhythms and cycles with which to structure my life. These feel like the two areas I’m least satisfied with in my education and so these next few years will be a practical learning experience that I’ll share through this site.
Alongside (as part of?) setting up the pottery, I’m also keeping a blog which may branch into different writing projects, some focused on the daily running of the pottery, others on random musings. And I make things, play music with friends, and cook (that’s the real low key, slow burn, long term creative outlet, so, more coming on that front in like, 2029).