Hluch - Kevin A. on wed 4 sep 96
Is there anyone out there who has a list of apprentice-type opportunities
for people interested in making pots? I have had students who are
interested in this route for learning pottery. In the past I have suggested
the standard Haystack, Penland, Arrowmount possibilites for intensive pottery
experiences. However, these experiences are different than working in a studio
for a particular person or group of persons particularly in the "who pays
who department" .
If you know of any apprentice-type possibilities please let me know.
Thanks alot.
Kevin A. Hluch
Frederick, MD - USA
Hertz Pottery on thu 5 sep 96
Kevin
I can tell you of one apprentice-type opportunity. if you dont mind a 150
mile commute.Im on the eastern shore of Maryland...near Ocean City...
But I could use an apprentice, in the past I've paid a modest hourly wage
and offered the reasonable use of materials and firing and an occational
lesson for about 10 to 15 hours a week. duties include cleaning, pugging
clay, waxing, glazing, and some production.
I can be contacted by e-mail: Hertz@dmv.com
or Phone at (410) 641-8769
Erik Hertz
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>Is there anyone out there who has a list of apprentice-type opportunities
>for people interested in making pots? I have had students who are
>interested in this route for learning pottery. In the past I have suggested
>the standard Haystack, Penland, Arrowmount possibilites for intensive pottery
>experiences. However, these experiences are different than working in a studio
>for a particular person or group of persons particularly in the "who pays
>who department" .
>
>If you know of any apprentice-type possibilities please let me know.
>
>Thanks alot.
>
>Kevin A. Hluch
>Frederick, MD - USA
>
>
erik hertz
Vince Pitelka on sun 15 sep 96
I am very interested in this question of apprenticeships. It is true that
there are far fewer apprenticeship opportunities than there were some years
ago. And I have a hard time understanding that. There still seem to be a
great deal of people who want to be professional potters, and they are doing
the BFA routine rather than the apprenticeship route. I think the best
training would be to do both, but Doug Gray is right on the mark in his
statement that most students in BFA programs are taught to think and create
individually (as they should be), and after that it is hard to commit to
making someone else's wares for several years. And yet it is such good
training. We have a very fine raku potter in Murfreesboro, Tennessee named
Harry Hearne. Harry was a Baptist Minister somewhere in the mid-Atlantic,
and in his preaching made frequent analogies to clay and potters. His
congregation gave him a gift of pottery lessons, and he was smitten. He
quit his job and accepted an apprenticeship with Lewis Snyder in
Murfreesboro. After two years he struck out on his own and did every little
craft fair he could find. He has never looked back, and he is doing well.
At the Craft Center over the years we have had a fair number of BFA
graduates who have gone on to apprenticeships. It is just another kind of
discipline, and when properly handled, it is excellent discipline and
training. As an academic in charge of a BFA program where we have sculptors
and potters coexisting peaceably, I am especially appalled by the situation
Doug Gray mentions, where so many BFA programs have abandoned the wheel and
any notion of functional pots. It is a sad thing indeed that so many art
academics, in the Post-Modern age, are narrowing their horizons rather than
broadening them. In many cases it is simply turf paranoia. Eliminate other
programs and it increases your own chances of survival. As the potential
victim of such a scenario, I can speak with authority on this issue. Like
corporate downsizing, it is invariably a dumb move. I have no doubt that
those departments which have excluded craft media will regret their choices,
if they survive at all. Fiscal belt-tightening is a contemporary reality,
but should it mean abandoning the areas of study which provide the most
direct and effective professional career training? Of course not. As a
determined optimist, I have to believe that reason will prevail, even in
academia.
But, since our aspiring and emerging potters seem to show considerable
autonomy and self-direction, any potter with good sense will give the
apprentice the opportunity to do some of their own work. Let me just jump
in deep here by saying that any notion of applying the traditional Japanese
apprenticeship system here in the States is ludicrous. If we are doing our
jobs as teachers and parents we are teaching our children and students to be
autonomous individuals, and almost without exception they are unwilling to
relinquish that autonomy. Unless one is ideologically prepared to accept
Japanese-style apprenticeship, it is self-defeating. Within our culture an
apprenticeship must be a situation of give and take. The apprentice should
be expected to work his/her butt off, and by the nature of the situation
must do the "master's" bidding, but they should also have the opportunity to
maintain their autonomy and further their individual creativity. A potter
who feels threatened by this should not consider accepting apprentices. At
the same time, any potter who is seriously committed to the future of our
media should be considering and promoting the apprenticeship system. This
is something we need to talk about a lot more.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - vpitelka@Dekalb.Net
Phone - home 615/597-5376, work 615/597-6801
Appalachian Center for Crafts, Smithville TN 37166
| |
|
