There are so many events in Eureka Springs during the month of May! The Sphere, Mugs, Music Park --
to find out more about these and more see this site:
www.EurekaSpringsFestivaloftheArts.com

Ken Starbird and Sandy Wythawai Starbird have quite a history with Eureka Thyme -- and we're happy to say they will add abundantly to the story on
Saturday, May 25, 2013 during their annual show.

"Working with another artist to create a single collaborative work is educational. It stretches your creative skills and requires you to set aside your ego. If you are lucky, in the end you have something that is MORE than either of you could have imagined and you may have learned in a shorter time what might have taken years to achieve working alone. Letting go of your ordinary studio routine and the idea that you know what happens next is freeing in the most remarkable way. Your approach becomes more like when you first began to create and every moment was filled with delight as each step is gradually revealed through your hands and heart. 

Ken and I have made a number of collaborative pieces over the past nine years, usually clay with woven basketry. This one is unique because the form of the clay foundation required that I find new materials and new processes to partner with the fascinating shapes he had made. In the end I learned that this one is all about contrasts -- hard and soft, light and dark, secrets hidden and revealed. And it is ultimately about Growth, and the Ancient Wisdom of the moist, dark, recesses of our Deep Woods...the Otherworld.

The contrasts between working with clay and fiber are stark. Ken pours his heart into the work, relying on the clay body of the earth and the moisture of the air and then surrenders it to the fire.  I work with the softer elements and all along I know that I have options to change where I am going, but I also know that my work does not last forever, that it ages like we do, it fades and perhaps becomes soft around the middle. Clay work endures. It may be found thousands of years later intact, the fingerprints of the one who formed it still visible. My work is more reflective of a moment in time, a lifetime perhaps. It is mortal, as we are. Perhaps clay and fiber used together become a metaphor for our temporary physical self and our eternal greater Self.  
Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Ancient Enigma"
clay creation by Ken Starbird