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AAWAA ARTISTS
Susan Almazol
What is? What is not? These are the questions I want to provoke with ceramic forms that express multiple realities. My sculpture reflects my fascination with what flourishes beneath surface reality. Aided by paint and other embellishments, I create ceramic sculpture to both reveal and mirror the complexity within and around us. I aim to draw the viewer into a tantalizing dialogue of what is the real deal.
Healing from the twin losses of Paul Baum and Trina Grillo, beloved guides for 25 years, led me to reclaim my art and spirit. Exhausted from years of teaching workshops and with my daughter away at college, I felt empty. I had not nourished my creative spirit for a long time. My medium for the first 20 years of my life had been fabric, ever since my great aunt, Lola Chaning, taught me to sew at age 3 in the Philippines. Now there was no place in my life for a remnant. Then I remembered the teachers that Paul and Trina had suggested to jumpstart my creative process: Cassandra Light and Michell Cassou. In 1998, I reduced my workshop schedule to study first with Michell and then with Cassandra.
A long weekend in February with Michell in her San Francisco Painting Experience workshop awakened moments of pure joy as I allowed my paint brush to go where it wanted. Nearly non-stop, I created one painting after another, ending with a curious self-portrait: an Asian woman with juicy purple grapes for hair and a rainbow at her throat, arms outstretched so wide there was no room for her hands in the painting, her bare feet clutching at the earth with long finger-like toes.
In August, Cassandra Light's Way of the Doll introduced me to clay. At first, I was terrified by my commitment to journey with 10 strangers. The premise of the year was this: create a figure from ceramic and cloth, share our story in rituals, and await the revelations from the figures at the end of the journey. Meeting every week in Oakland, we soon settled into the comforting intimacy of a quilting circle as we sunk our hands into clay and shared our deepest secrets. For rituals created by Cassandra, we wrote stories, recited poetry, and delved inside for answers. We cooked feasts, and, on May Day, adorned our hair with wreaths of fresh flowers. It was both scary and liberating to share my truth. As the year progressed, I wrote a fairy tale about growing up in three different countries, and I was able to write poems, overriding a great fear since eighth grade when my efforts were derided by a teacher. During the year with Cassandra, I was also meeting weekly with Jungian analyst Marea Claassen. Her wise and gentle guidance nourished me and inspired me to begin a daily meditation practice, which has blossomed into my spiritual practice in the Vipassana tradition. Sculpting with clay was thrilling! I forgot my ego and rejoiced in whatever emerged. There were no mistakes, no regrets, only joy. I discovered a talent for creating faces alive with stories. I continued working one-on-one with Cassandra after completing our journey and went on to create 12 Guides, among them Grandmother, Grandfather, Giver of Blessings, The Healer, and Strength.
By August 1999, I had completed three figures — the first two life-sized and the last 24 inches tall. Coming first, the grandmotherly Reflection with sorrowful eyes represents my looking back at my life. Wide-eyed Rapture captures my joy and innocence at age 3. Both figures have big hands and relatively small feet. Recognition came last, a surprising depiction of me at the end of that magical year. I clothed her myself, as I reclaimed my legacy in needlework.
Reflection
Rapture
Recognition
My plan had been to make a mask for Reflection to cradle on her lap. But, as I worked the clay, a small head emerged instead and then a long neck, with the head falling backward, no matter what I did. Frustrated, I propped it up with a lump of clay, covered it up with plastic, and left. The next morning, after removing the plastic, I surrendered to the mystery that was unfolding and allowed my hands to move freely. Recognition was birthed with head facing the heavens, tiny hands wrapped across her body in self-embrace, big feet on the earth, and eyes closed inward at last.
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