Another day of heat and haze, skies nominally clear, yet air clouded by a muddy miasma of smoke. It gives the day a muted feeling and appearance, as though our small world here has decided that the summer doldrums are a safer bet now.
Perhaps our world is right: These are days to stay indoors when possible, to conserve the earth’s energy and one’s own.
Still, despite the heat and the haze, the recent rains have done their work, and admirably. The grass is tall, and more desperately in need of cutting than it was already; the aspen and willow leaves are mostly full and bright. The hayfields, so recently cut, are growing again, and it feels as though summer is at last in full swing.
Even the wildflowers seem much more alive, bright petals rampant, new buds birthed daily. These are the flowering gifts of the summer skies, nurtured by water and warmth and light.
Today’s featured work embodies these gifts in the elegantly muted tones of a summer dawn. Of all of Camille’s work that we have carried, this one has always struck me as the most graceful, and the most gentle, too, one that evokes traditional forms in a contemporary fashion. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
Flowers and Checkerboards Pot
Camille Bernal (Taos Pueblo) creates a masterwork that blends old traditional shapes with contemporary expressions. Checkerboard patterns in warm red ochre arise and criss-cross like ancient paths from the base of the pot, their lines growing organically into the stems of gently-blooming flowers. Flower groupings are tipped in alternating Santo Domingo White, Laguna Blue-Gray, and charcoal shades. Stands 5″ high by 5.25″ across at the widest point, with a 2-7/8″ opening across the lip (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Tewa clay; plant-based paints
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
It’s a piece that tends to call thoughts of spring to my mind more generally, true, with its pastel shades that hint of laggard snows. But what from one perspective look like catkins can just as easily appear as tulips from a different vantage point, and its colors are soft and soothing, gentle in the face of the summer heat.
And as it happens, the natural color of the blue blossoms — the Laguna blue-gray — match our overhead midday skies perfectly, tinted nearly as pale as ice, yet warmer in tone thanks to the heat and the haze. I have always thought of this as a work for the winter, or the earliest days of spring, but I think perhaps it’s just as much one for the depth of midsummer: one to round off the sharp edges of heat and wind, a simple, spare invocation of a soft, gentle cool in a harsh season.
For now, we have at least one more day after this before the rains return, and that is only if the current forecast holds. We are in for some long hard hours of high heat and harsh winds. But there is gentleness, too, in the buds and blossoms, the dancing petals, the flowering gifts of the summer skies.
~ Aji
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