The good-byes

The final week has come and gone. I'm writing these last few posts on the plane to Seattle and uploading them from home.
The frenzy of finishing my project, packing the work, and exiting the program lasted with intensity into the final day. By Friday noon, I had everything that I made, along with my molds and tools packed and paletted at the loading dock in the factory, and we watched it being put on a truck to start its journey to Seattle.

Everything I made is boxed up and ready to put on palettes for shipping.  40 boxes, 1790 lbs. total weight

I cleaned out the studio for the next resident and, on my way out, disposed of the safety glasses and the "clown shoes" (clumsy, heavy, steel toed work shoes) that we all have to wear at all times in the factory. My badge expired at 5pm and, after that, I could no longer enter the factory. The residency was over. "The Garden of Eden" is closed forever. Kind of a sad moment, especially considering that the factory was a home away from home for 13 long weeks. It has been a place in Kohler I was the most familiar with, where I was the most comfortable at, and where most of my social interactions took place.

Finally, exchanging these...

...for these

Going from a newbie who does not know anything or anybody, screws up, gets in the way, and generally clueless about the world of the factory, to be accepted and welcomed, showered with questions and silly stories, greeted by smiles and small talk every time I walked through the factory. Being addressed by various versions of my name (the idiosyncrasies of pronunciation of which I would always find entertaining, while being appreciative of the sincere effort) and being looked after by these rough and gruff men of heavy physical labor made the factory a very comfortable place. They joked on my vegetarianism and petite physique; fixed my bike; fed me from their lunchboxes; kept tabs on my comings and goings, on how much I worked and how little I rested; wanted to know what an artist does and how much money it makes (zero?!); what my life of university teaching was like; and how we "out there" in the state of Washington are doing in this bad economy.
I learned to love the factory, and to very much appreciate the workers and their lives.

In late November, I realized that a natural next step for me is a second but no less involved project that uses the same molds toward a different conceptual direction. One that directly addresses the laborers. When we talked, the associates often complained about their perception of the management who sits in their high ivory towers and of being treated by them not as individuals but as numbers and parts of a machine only designed to hit a certain quota of production.
Day after day in talking with these men, it became clear to me that the sluggish economy is an undertone of all these conversations. The labor that they do and the respect and pay that it receives are in the forefront, a concern for their families and for the negative health effects of the repetitive and heavy physical work are much on their minds.
The idea for the new project occurred to me in an instant: Taking beautiful portrait shots of the associates and accompanying them with pieces of these mold fragments that are personalized by using the graphics of the worker's favorite work shirt. I talked to them about the fact that the molds were tools being used for a while then discarded after no longer being found useful. I often wondered if they  understood this to be a metaphor the same way as I did, as an analogy of their own lives of physically consuming labor.

ceramics pins I made as good-bye presents for the associates

I was amazed when I got the go ahead Kohler (most of the factory can be red tape galore!) and then received the help to make the photo portion of this project possible. Getting it all organized in less then a week was no small effort, which required all the diplomatic skills and connections of the wonderful A/I program assistant, Cara Camp, and amazing pottery technician, Shari McWilliams. Out of the 16 workers I asked to let me take their pictures, most obliged and we took the photos in two sessions on the week before my final week of residency. Two photographers helped me to make it possible, Brad Allen, of Kohler, and Jeff Machtig of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

one of the casters, Jerry in his (and my) favorite T-shirt

and the same graphics inlaid with color slip on the piece

Each associate posed somewhere around his own work area. The poses reveal powerful and manly characters while the actual photo-shoot  will always be memorable for me for the awkward exposure and intimate momentary connection created by being stuck on either side of the camera's lens while the shutter opened.
I only had time to make one test piece, out of one of these photographs (see above). I would need months of testing and execution to develop the work into what I imagined in my head.
 For that, I would have to come back to Kohler sometime soon, or attempt to finish the project by holding on to the initial inspiration at home.

biking home from the factory in early December with the sunset in my back