Nature of Collaboration:

We talk a good deal about collaboration. We’re struggling to understand the best practices for sharing information, contacts and connections.

I believe each of us brings resources acquired over a lifetime to our project. Each exploration completed during the thirteen weeks, the networking from Sara’s time as an architect, my year at the ornamental iron works, as well as our family orientation yields the days events. We bring intention to the focus of today’s task, yet our backgrounds can turn a simple exchange into a loaded miscommunication.

Steel Cables: Hanging the final panels

We find the task of building the steel cable structure more detailed and nuanced that anticipated. We’ve come a long way to simplify the design and connections, but the shop offers only fundamental tools to complete the task. A drill press, simple cutting tools for the cable and a vise grip with a design that grips without adjustment no matter the diameter of the material one wants to hold.

Setting up the cold rolled rods, requires a gig, simple rubber o rings one finds in faucets. These rings allow us to space the cables acting as stops as well as hiding the PVC grey pipe. The use of plastic pipe helps to reduce the shipping weight, as well as makes assembly more pleasant. The sound of metal on the bone china is a worse sound than finger nails on a chalkboard.

We each climb ladders when we hang the cables and level the system. We are suspended between the need for alignment on the outside panels to create a clean gap of 2cm between the cable and panels and the hand made nature of our panels. In the end, we are able to shim the panels and change out only a few to obtain an overall calm effect.

The best shim material we discover is white foam with grooves, used for weather stripping. A trip to the hardware store across the canal from .ekwc, affords another view of Zuid Willemsvaart. Funny how as simple a shift to across the street can change one’s vantage point.

Graphic Design Comes in Handy:

We compose an announcement to post as an invitation sent out by .ekwc and to offer as an introduction to our work that evening along with all the details of setting up and finishing our project.

Yoko Inoue

“Water Gets No Enemy: A Wishing Well” I explore the hidden connotations of banal commoditized objects that construct the emotional layers of life, compassion and personal attachment.

At .ekwc, I created a series of work made by combining porcelain casts of commercial plastic water bottles purchased at local supermarkets and mass produced Buddha statues that I found in the exotic-souvenir shops and discount stores in Den Bosch. This work explores the amorphous border between commercial corruption and spiritual purity.

Unifying these two things through the casting process allows base and spiritual notions about them to compete and intertwine. Through the forces of globalization, everything is a commodity for sale, even water, which was once considered sacred and a common heritage. Nothing remains without price tags. Through this work I hope the viewer might regain a deeper understanding of water, its transcendent nature, as the essence of life itself.

I wonder how human consciousness is given shape by images.

Carol Koffel _ Sarah Willmer

“Ties that Bind Us” features the Hand, Mind and Heart of the makers. In an age of increased social isolation, globalization and explosion of digital technologies this installation transcends the perfection of machine made ubiquitous products.

Three to six bone china panels, 35mm x 60mm, are suspended from steel cables creating an architectural skin and interior divider. An “Outside Skin” with finger rhythm hammered surfaces becomes a plane to capture and telegraph lighting conditions. An offset parallel plane of “Inside Skin” drapes as if shifting winds ripple fabric that binds humans.

The translucent interior divider has a metaphysical presence and highlights the unique physical characteristics of ceramics; fluidity, translucency and tactility as an architectural skin.

One Day in the Life of .ekwc Kiln Room

The kiln room is buzzing with activity, heat rising into the three-story space, warming most of the building. We’ve taken to eating dinner outside, as the kitchen is stifling hot.

Thinking and taking time to be quite and still when stacking a kiln is essential. Ly creates a culture of stillness and slow attention to detail that I hope to hold always. She is a wealth of information and potential solutions to the multitude approaches seen daily or yearly in the center.

Ly and Bart survey the scene and strategy for transferring his large mural pieces. He’s made these in an open studio zone on the first floor on large canvas. The idea was to transfer these to the kiln stack – leaving the canvas to burn. Yet, when he worked with the clay englobe – he’s gotten it on the canvas, preventing successful firing without damaging the kiln shelves.

Pieka and Madekia are stacking the biggest kiln. Since the top shelves are far out of reach, Ly styles an ingenious cherry picker from a huge plastic bucket, long nylon straps and the hand forklift. Creative solutions abound as we each solve the delicate task of maneuvering dry clay pieces not yet fired.

Yoko’s kilns are stacked and unstacked in succession so one can hardly track the details of how many pieces she’ll have for the final installation. Our final presentations occur on the same evening, at opposite ends of the building.

Remembering the Details:

Our photo shoot went well. Cox, our photographer has an excellent eye for detail and composition. We complete the photos in the morning, manage to unstack the kilns and participate in others progress at the center.

RE-Entry into Life OutSide .ekwc:

Home to sort details and start up life after the cloistered existence in Den Bosch. No longer are my days focused on a single unifying journey. As I retrace the week leading out from the last blog entry to our final presentation, packing and departure from the combined ekwc residency I recognize how many thoughts and experiences I’ve gained. Time shifted somehow during the combined residency, and I hope to look out from these new lens ground during my thirteen-week commitment.

Among the diverse self directed work I’ll start seeds for the following action: final presentation for the Lighton Grant, re-model my garage for ceramics completing the transition from ID consultant, help Rachael with her TIC unit, commit to Thesis Prep course at AAU, move my mother into an Alzheimer unit in New Jersey, enjoy friends, explore the city’s offerings, etc.

August 30, 2007

August 30, 2007
@ 30,000 Continenal flight 1702
returning home from placing my mother in an Alzheimer Unit

Cultural re-integration confronts me as I arrive in San Francisco, change out Euros for green dollars of the same size, color and net worth. Never one to translate either millimeters or Euro, I’ll re-enter life in the tree lined, hills, cloudless skies and wooden structures where I inhabit a Victorian built in 1892, full of my possessions.

Almost three weeks have passed since I landed at SFO. I traveled in a daze on one hour of sleep, searching for my flight information only based on a confirmation number.

I arrived at the gate with two liters of wine and one half liter of Jeneve. Shocked as the attendant placed these into the refuse bin. Where had I been? What was I thinking? Since the Jeneve was in a special ceramic bottle featuring a photo of the bridge at the corner of Zuid Willemsvaart, I returned and fished it out of the trash, emptying the contents over other’s absent mindedness.