J. Forest Ocean

 Bennett

CLAY

ARTIST STATEMENT:

For many years up until September 11, I worked in the maritime industry as captain and pilot of submarines and towing vessels. I loved my work: I loved the sea like it was my family, and for many years it was. I knew her moods, her gnarly waves, her serene beauty, and all her strange creatures. I always said, "They'd have to pry my cold dead fingers off the controls" to get me out of that job. However, the universe had other plans for me.

The week after September 11 found myself and the other senior pilots suddenly out of work for economic reasons as the bottom dropped out of the industry. The thing that I had feared most had come to pass; I was 42, out of a job, out of a career, a female in a "man's industry", holding a big mortgage. I knew, instinctively, that I was being given the gift of a unique opportunity to begin something else wonderful. I was being given the chance to start over, to reinvent myself, to live another dream. When one door closes, another opens somewhere. My job now was to find it.

I sold my home with old, lush tropical gardens near Kaneohe Bay, to allow myself the freedom to do some very deep soul-searching. It was a time of quiet upheaval and many nights of sitting in the dark at 4 a.m. I began to have physical, emotional and spiritual awakenings but this was also coupled with extreme despair and pain and anguish. Old memories and wounds surged upwards. It was during one of these "Dark Nights of the Soul" that I heard a loud and love-filled voice that was not me. For the first time since I was 2 or 3 I remembered how it felt to have that presence with me, in me, and feel to have it's hand upon my heart. We are not alone. This I knew again beyond feeling or thinking. It was knowing. Something in me shifted.

I suddenly felt a calling to do my artwork full-time, rather than waiting for "someday" or my retirement. Someday had come. As I took that leap of faith into the unknown, strange events began to occur. Joseph Campbell said that "for every step you take towards the gods, they take ten steps towards you".

 Coincidences of great importance happened regularly. I began to cultivate them and actively seek them out. I realized that I did indeed see things that most others did not, and I had always done so. I thought everyone could see them, but chose to ignore what they saw. It finally explained my oddness as a child, and why I always had felt "crazy".

I was finally home, and clay was the medium that allowed me to make physical the invisible things I knew. That was the door! I felt a rush of wind on my face as it opened wide. I picked up clay and began experimenting with whatever pleased me. In the quiet whispering of the heart, the clay began to speak. I knew not what I was making, only that I heard a voice saying, "tear here" or "pull there". I trusted in that and let it lead me. I was really present with the clay, and had little memory of how I made any of the pieces. Strange ethnic, primitive and indigenous beings began to show in my work; I called them "Spirit Forms" as they had a quality of otherworldliness and a life of their own. One day they began to have faces, eyes closed in deep concentration and meditation, journeying within. I had found deep inner peace and trust. This is what life is supposed to be like. That was my Truth. This is why I¹m here. The Spirit Forms then began wearing masks, and began singing, dancing, lamenting, breathing!

It turns out that my wounds are also my greatest gifts, for they are the openings for spirit to enter. My work is spirit manifesting itself through the unique filter I know of in this life as "me". There is a physical presence in the work I do when I successfully get out of the way to invite a spirit in. The negative space is creation of new space that must be filled, since Nature abhors a vacuum. My intent, my reverence, allows Spirit to mirror the invisible and calls it into focus, amplifies, that which we need most in our lives for healing, understanding, wholeness. That is why only some of my pieces call to you. We each have our different work to do. They subtly reach out to your energy and connect, reverberate with it.

I am not into the Technical aspects of the work. I come to the work with the knowing that we already know what we need to know, that our consciousness is directly connected to all others, that accidents are not accidents, but Spirit's way of making changes to my work that are necessary.

I work from instinct, guided by something else, pushing the limits of the clay right up to the edge of possibility. I don't keep notes and charts. I don't do drawings. I don¹t have any idea preconceived when I sit down to work, and I do not repeat myself. There are too many possibilities. I feel too many Spirit Forms behind me, waiting to come through, waiting their turn to enter this plane. I also like to use things found in Nature to lend an additional sense of place.

There is no time in the place where I am in doing the work. A white tube, a river of creative consciousness runs through the room like a river, where art and magic and inspiration come from. I love discovering the magic, the timelessness, the mystery, all over again afresh in each piece. I prefer to use almost no glazes, choosing instead to keep the energy of the creation most visible to the observer, finding that glazes tend to obscure this energy, this feeling. Often I only use contrasting clay colors of natural hues for their earthiness I find my life is way too short not to dig in with both hands and make what I really want to in this life, whatever it is. I dare to be afraid and uncomfortable, and watch the magic happen.

Contact information

J. Forest Ocean Bennett, Waialua, Hawaii

email: J. Forest Ocean Bennett

Web Page:

www.jbennettsculpture.com