Watershed Auction/WhoWhatWhere/Why (current statement of practice)

Can't wait to get your hands on some of those fortune tellers? The last of them are available through following venues:
VIX Emporium (50th/Baltimore Ave)
or
the Watershed Center for Ceramics Fall Auction  (with work by other incredible, real and established artists to bid on)
or
by chance: support West Philly's Mariposa Food Coop and get a raffle ticket
or by direct contact (see contact page). But let me tell you, they're slim pickin's, so get the good ones while you can!

In other news, I'm happy to announce a few things: I will be manning Heidi Paul's booth on Thursday Nov 11, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show from 5-8 pm. Come check out her stuff! Hope to see you there!
I am also happy to say that I'm finally, actively making some new work, and I've switched gears completely. Being out of school, I've allowed myself the permission to make the work I've wanted to make, but feared wasn't "art school" enough. What can I say, I suppose the real world could care less to give you the time of day to listen to your concept. I realize that some of my more successful work hinges on concept and gimmick (to which I euphemistically refer to as "accessibility of the object"). I'm not here to say that I've come to embrace the one liner, because (third-person switch) face it Tracy, despite your post-school reality check, you're still a dweller and thinker (trust me, I don't say that to flatter myself. I say it to state a fact of my making-process).
Gimmicks and one-liners aside, perhaps it's easier to say that's an irrelevant conversation. The conversation at hand is in fact, more about the idea of "relevance" itself: What makes an object culturally relevant? Is this a question that is inherent to anything made in craft media? How do we insist that our object is relevant, without overstating its craft-ness?
If you are familiar with any of my work, process, or me as a person, you'll understand that I have a thing with words. Particularly words of binary opposition (positive/negative, male/female etc). I've sort of formed my own vocabulary with the upcoming set of work. I don't see the words as opposed, but directly related. One begets the other: Accessibility/Excessibility. Don't look it up, I just made it up.

Access/Excess. 


It seems to have a direct relationship to my current relocation to an urban environment, as well. I am surrounded by means (access) to virtually anything and everything (excess) I want (except for living/studio space). The insatiable want of the city, and the urban mentality perpetuates the hunger and need for more. When you're not in it, the city is the notion that there is just so much more to want, and you are utterly entitled to it-- even if you don't know what "it" is.
We identify ourselves with the things we consume (or refuse to consume), and I am here as a defender of the "relevance" of objects beyond the mindless consumption of ubiquitous factory goods...
There's something to be said about using a familiar form or object and subverting it's context, and I guess I'm trying to say that something here!
I'm challenging myself these days to tackle more specific subjects. The fortune tellers and terrain were a nice introduction to these ideas of familiarity and subversion, but were a bit too vague to state anything beyond technical proficiency.
I admit that I am here struggling with my own identity as both a person and an artist. I am overwhelmed with the paralyzing amount of options for things "to do," without much reason to "do" anything" other than to quell the boredom of loneliness, and anxiety of an urban pace. Eat out, go to a bar, see a concert, buy some things, spend some more money, drink some more coffee, eat some more... by night, drink some more. Do we go to these venues to passively set the stage for serendipity? How hungry are you, really? I want to know what the impetus is for certain habits of consumption. Perhaps it starts with loneliness and evolves henceforth.
What? You want me tell you already what it is I'm making? Psh. What's the fun in that...

Watershed, pictures, philadelphia&tc

Some images from Watershed Session VI with Nina Hole and Ann-Charlotte Olson. Check out more of Nina Hole's monumental sculptures. A scattered presentation of some of the wonderful friends I made this summer. Incredible human beings! I love and miss you all! nostalgic, a bit? Settling into my place in Chinatown. It's really quite incredible to be here. It's been only a week and it feels like a month has gone by. The security and quiet of the bucolic setting where I resided for four years really puts Philadelphia into contrast. It's an exciting change; I feel as though I've already learned a lot about myself this week alone. (I learned to parallel park, be an asshole city driver, acquired 7 new keys, walked my half dead bike across the city to fix it at the amazing Bike Church ...) I've been attentive of my surroundings, more self aware. I can feel a seed of inspiration being planted-- I'm sure once things get settled, some grain of creative concept with have been cultivated. Words and images that have been swimming through my head of late: urban detritus, rubble, ornament, pattern, grid/map, direction, keys, that incredible brick wall on 10th/Vine... My work at The Clay Studio starts next week. Our duties as work exchange aren't necessarily exciting enough to elaborate on, but as soon as some work gets made, I'm sure I'll have something to post about it. see you at 50th and Baltimore tomorrow at noon? (check previous post for details!)

that bread recipe

Because of the many requests I've had for this recipe, I thought it would just be easiest (and a convenient navigation to my blog) for me to post the recipe here.

Makes 4 loaves

3 cups lukewarm water
1.5 Tablespoon active dry yeast
1.5 Tablespoon kosher/sea salt
6 1/2 cups all purpose flour
olive oil
extra kosher salt for sprinkling
dried rosemary


stir the water, salt, and yeast. Add flour and mix into a dough. Cover with plastic and poke holes into it. Let sit in a warm place for 2-5 hours. preheat oven to 425. put a baking sheet in the oven to preheat, also. (or a pizza stone if you have one). rip/cut dough into about 4 or 5 grapefruit sized portions and tuck all of the loose ends underneath itself to give it a pretty loaf-shape. work on a floured, overturned baking sheet because you will need to carry the loaves to the oven and transfer them to the preheated baking sheet. if the dough is really wet, coat your hands in olive oil to prevent sticking.

brush loaves with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and dried rosemary, pick them up, toss them into the oven onto the preheated baking sheet. Bake for about 30-40 minutes. Just until the crust is golden brown. When you pull them out of the oven, you can brush them again with olive oil while they're hot.

In the original recipe, they also have you stick a pan with water on the lower rack while it's baking. The steam apparently gives you a crustier bread, but I haven't really found the difference significant enough for the extra trouble.

This recipe is super flexible: I've done it with half whole wheat, half white, walnuts, cranberries, oats and sunflower seeds. You can fold some shredded cheese into it when you're shaping the loaves, and sprinkle some cheese on top... let me know if you concoct some good variations!

Happy bread baking. More requested recipes to come.
As for this evening's menu:
Hoisin Honey bbq ribs, creamless carrot soup, fresh bread as described above, tomato and beet salad with feta and mint, fresh arugula salad, and cookies of some kind that I haven't decided on yet...

an update for no one

I do often wonder what the traffic is like on these silly little blogs. For whom do I make these updates (except myself, only to placate some ounce of obligation I have towards career-building, self advertisement)? Perhaps I rely on the off chance that some hopeless reader will stumble across tracyjlee.blogspot.com. In the name of serendipity, to those single pair of eyes out there, here's the update for you and only you (don't you feel so special?): I have graduated, had a show, and relocated from the sticks of Upstate New York to the sticks of Maine. Watershed Center for Ceramics in Newcastle, Maine to be specific.

I have been hired as one of two kitchen staff for the summer and am responsible for preparing healthful, balanced meals with a concern for local foods. I'll fit studio work in there somewhere, eventually. I think my artistic inclinations have manifested themselves through the cooking (this may just be a fancy excuse for my lack of ceramic output). Fortunately, each meal seems to have been a success (pictures to come, someday) i.e. this evening's fried chicken (yes, fried chicken), fried tofu for the veggies, curried wild rice salad, rosemary and sea salt loaves, cream of carrot soup and salad from the farm down the road. Being a good cook is a good way to make people like you, it seems. The resident artists are wonderful, and each session (which is only two weeks long) holds true every time. Dan Murphy, Dean Adams, and Trevor Dunn are heading a wood-kiln building session this time around. The progress sounds like it's going well (at this point, I wouldn't know, as I reside up the hill in the kitchen most of the time). Yes, all is so well and quaint in this hippie-clay-commune...
After all of this, I move on to the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA in the fall. Hoorah! Now. I just need some roommates, a job and a place to live. Hmm.

Finally, the point of this update of sorts was simply to state that I am resurrecting this blog for the gajillionth time, and am in the process of fixing things, uploading images, resume, and making things look pretty. Pardon the shoddy design flaws that can be such an eyesore. I'm doing my best with a shitty internet connection, a mediocre blog-server-thing, and next to no html/web knowledge.