MS01.10.01 - Box 02 - Folder 05 - General Correspondencce, 1978, Part 1

[HANDWRITTEN]

Jan. 5, 1978

Prof D,

Happy New Year! Hope '78 will be better for all of us. I appreciate your thoughtfulness during the Christmas season. Thanks so much.

Returned to Atlanta Dec. 27th. Went to a lovely party New Year's Eve.

Not much else happening. My job search continues. January will definitely be my last month here. My folks have put down the LAW!! Don't plan to be at home too long.

Like the Christmas card you sent so much that I'm having it framed.

Hope to be in D.C. before end of January.

Closing now. Wonder how Leo is doing in Saudi Arabia? (ha)

[SIGNED]

Derrick

[ON ILLUSTRATED HEADER STATIONERY]

[HANDWRITTEN]

Jan 10, 1978

Dear Professor Driscoll,

I am a volunteer for the Plymouth Community Arts Council. We have a "picture Lady" program in the elementary schools to show art prints to the students. We have several "Black Artists" portfolios but are short of background information. We noticed your name on a TV program and that you would be willing to send out some information.

Anything you can send us would be greatly appreciated. The children seem to love the program and are very interested

[HANDWRITTEN]

(2)

in the background of the artists. If you have any other suggestions we would love to hear them.

Sincerely,

Martha Ahern [INFO REDACTED]

or

Plymouth Community Arts Council Main St. Plymouth, Mich. 48170

[PLACARD OR CARD]

[HANDWRITTEN]

HERE/NOW an exhibition of new works by Charles Counts Hunter Museum of Art 10 Bluff View Chattanooga, Tennessee opening 11 February through 2 March 1978

[WHITE HANDWRITING ON A BLACK BACKGROUND]

HERE/NOW

the show is on.....each pot a part of me in the hope that it involves YOU.....a record of my January energy (new leaf turned).....trying to remember the warmth of April's first sun bath and July and August's hottest days.....October's splendid color/four distinct seasons shaping my memory as I work: no condition is permanent.....

and now to be exhibited at the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.....a record of a mere month's workings with the kiln.....but also the hint of a forty-four year search to be HERE/NOW..... pots representing [underlined] feelings [/underlined] and [circled] ideas [/circled] as well as function.....a coffee service with cups and saucers and space for cream and sugar.....a special baking disk for a favorite recipe .....a large container to remember yellow and white daisies in June.....fourteen large vases from the primeval urge to draw and paint and make new images caught up in a search for truth/goodness/beauty.

as a potter HERE/NOW.....the medium of my message a process, a living change from common clay with its everyday struggle to identify who I am beyond the fact of being a potter here/now.....still a pre-industrial practicioner [practitioner] .....I have a degree (like a dentist) and a license (like a poet!).....I pay my taxes [crossed out] like [/crossed out] as every citizen.....negotiating with LIFE and ideas to relate.....pushing and tugging as FIRE transforms clay with permanent vessels.....coming full circle.....seeking purpose.

Something deep down inside will explode definitely fused on vases as tall as I dare make, being a conservative craftsman, trying to touch reality amidst the wholeness of everyday existence.....living in this economy.....balancing value and price.....I have burnt my soul like Icarus......but have continued to be here/now.....taking risks and ruining many ideas.....considered by some to be too conservative to be an artist or too much an artist to be conservative. I change in TIME like Prufrock in mid-life, mid career to be alive and fresh with new ideas, restructuring old truths: that the cup should fit the lip the handle should help the hand the knob grasp back at the lifter the shape contain

I am not ashamed to be a maker of pots and a sharer of thoughts.....for while pots are humble in material they can also be bold in character with a concern for the living traditions.....I want my work to communicate that I felt a cold wind blow, experienced thunderstorms, watched nature tease tallest trees in icy wonder, melting in noonday sun before bends become ugly breaks. I have respected the wires of electricity marveling over our landscape.....since 1934.....I have [underlined] wondered [/underlined]...... I have been in awe of ideas and power as I became aware of politics and science, art and life...... sensing a fragile interdependence.

These are my works.....each in its own way a gesture toward the whole dance with life.....a pause.....a celebration: HERE/NOW.

Charles Counts Rising Fawn, Georgia 1978