Thanks to Guido Downing for this post to the Itasca Empty Bowls blog – and for his long-standing support of the project!
I was working at MacRostie Art Center (MAC) when we set out on the Itasca Empty Bowls Project adventure nine years ago. We had a small start-up grant from the Northland Foundation—and not much else.
After close examination, bowls receive the Giduo seal of approval
Depending on your belief system, MAC’s clay studio at the time was strictly something waiting to happen: disaster or miracle. Opinions fell along predictable lines, but there was no overstating the challenge. We had virtually no gear (one wheel, no pug mill, a broken kiln); no clay (till the Northland check cleared); you descended to the kiln room, through a jagged hole in the brick wall, on a tiered deathtrap of splintered boards and broken chairs. MAC’s insurance profile hung in the balance everytime someone went down there. Or tried to get back up. Carrying a load of fired clay product.
But we did have the problem—hunger—and people, a community, willing to tackle it. Drifting around the MAC clay studio recently, between glaze applications on a beautiful bowl swiftly turning unbeautiful in my hands, I reflected on the differences, then to now.
More and better deployed gear and space. A metal door—lockable—to the kiln room. Tim Bonner’s magnificent welded-steel ‘Stairway to Heaven.’
The project has outgrown MAC. There are satellite partners. Pre-events. The bowls are better. The revenue stream, reliable. There’s a blog.
Is resolution inevitable? Maybe. To date, the problem is trending in the same direction as the project. More. Bigger. Counterintuitive, but there it is.
You have neighbors who are hungry. You can help. April 15, Timberlake Lodge, 11-2. See you there.
