Parallel to my painting goes the thinking related to my ceramics. Here I know with more certainty how to do it and there is always the scope for improving the technique, but I lack the confidence in trying new things. I find that I can’t put aside a period of time and experiment, freely, to find new directions. I feel obliged to stay with my standard production. If I adventured in a period of discovery, I would feel suddenly very anxious and try to gather conclusions too early. I think that in a studio with other artists I would be able to ask for the support of others. I could talk it aloud and find the solution and I would have the strength to persevere in the experiment, without looking for the answer.A lot of ideas form in my mind all the time but I postpone the time to use them. It is easier to write than to make.
In the Easter holiday I went to New York for the first time and I found the architecture very exciting.
James Trilling came again in my aid when looking at the reflections of old building on the glass walls of the new. He, born and brought up there, writes:
“ the past alone does not change, though the ways we see it and use it are always changing. It is like an older building that we renovate to suit our need…In recent years, the need to reconcile past and present, or at least to let them coexist has struck me in every visit to New York. The smooth glistening facades of the last half century stand out against the lush textures of the older city, but the combination has an energy beyond simple contrast. Reflected in huge expanses of tinted glass, premodernist buildings have a ghostly second life, while the newer structures borrow the ornament they meant to eclipse.”
