Mel Jacobson on wed 20 aug 97
let s keep our wobble.
I have been thinking a great deal about the concept of wobble since it got
started this week on the net.
the human hands make wonderful tracks on craft work. it is in many ways the
essence of craft. it separates us from the total machine made objects of
our time.
I can remember the shirts that my mother used to make for me. I loved to
wear them when I taught school. often kids would comment on them, ask
questions, wonder out loud about them. why are they crooked, or did
someone make that shirt? or, cool is that a home made shirt?...
but as often as not they would say, how can I get one of those? they
could see my mothers hands making them, they understood that they were
different, and of course that I really liked them. kids were always
boggled that a person could make clothing. (see how far away we are
getting from our roots.)
one of the favorite things about my cabin in wisconsin is that it is all
oak.....and it looks like it was chopped out of something...it is not
perfect, plumb and true...it has warped. but sometimes I just like to sit
in a chair and look at it. a wood butchers dream come true.
I am deeply concerned that we as craftsmen are trying hard to do a cover
up. don t let anyone know that we made it. cover our tracks. perfect
wheels, perfect slab rollers, perfect ramp fired electric kilns. set the
computer and get home from teaching early. perfect floating blue, perfect
red. and of course that famous perfect cone 6 glaze. are we still
craftspeople, or an extension of mikasa or wedgewood?
I do love modern technology, and I do not want to sell my truck and buy a
horse, but there is a kind of overpowering need to get some sort of
technical perfection that is eroding the human element from ceramics. I
have to stop now and then and look at treasures. I have a wonderful
crooked mug that dawn made, it was made for coffee. it works. I have a
set of mackenzie dishes that he made in 1956, they are real.
I have a dannon bowl that was fired in an updraft kiln, no pyrometer, no
gauges. just a box that fills with heat and she turns if off when it is
done. she looks, smells, and tastes that kiln. the pot is like a gift
from the earth. I remember a dusty pottery in australia, do not remember
the guys name, but he made bowls that I wanted to eat from. they felt like
food. and I will never forget that dancer/potter/maker of things in
india....his body moving with the wobble. just making do.
http://www.pclink.com/melpots
The Wrights on thu 21 aug 97
Mel Jacobson wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> let s keep our wobble.
>
> I have been thinking a great deal about the concept of wobble since it got
> started this week on the net.
>
> the human hands make wonderful tracks on craft work. it is in many ways the
> essence of craft. it separates us from the total machine made objects of
> our time.
>
> I can remember the shirts that my mother used to make for me. I loved to
> wear them when I taught school. often kids would comment on them, ask
> questions, wonder out loud about them. why are they crooked, or did
> someone make that shirt? or, cool is that a home made shirt?...
> but as often as not they would say, how can I get one of those? they
> could see my mothers hands making them, they understood that they were
> different, and of course that I really liked them. kids were always
> boggled that a person could make clothing. (see how far away we are
> getting from our roots.)
>
> one of the favorite things about my cabin in wisconsin is that it is all
> oak.....and it looks like it was chopped out of something...it is not
> perfect, plumb and true...it has warped. but sometimes I just like to sit
> in a chair and look at it. a wood butchers dream come true.
>
> I am deeply concerned that we as craftsmen are trying hard to do a cover
> up. don t let anyone know that we made it. cover our tracks. perfect
> wheels, perfect slab rollers, perfect ramp fired electric kilns. set the
> computer and get home from teaching early. perfect floating blue, perfect
> red. and of course that famous perfect cone 6 glaze. are we still
> craftspeople, or an extension of mikasa or wedgewood?
>
> I do love modern technology, and I do not want to sell my truck and buy a
> horse, but there is a kind of overpowering need to get some sort of
> technical perfection that is eroding the human element from ceramics. I
> have to stop now and then and look at treasures. I have a wonderful
> crooked mug that dawn made, it was made for coffee. it works. I have a
> set of mackenzie dishes that he made in 1956, they are real.
> I have a dannon bowl that was fired in an updraft kiln, no pyrometer, no
> gauges. just a box that fills with heat and she turns if off when it is
> done. she looks, smells, and tastes that kiln. the pot is like a gift
> from the earth. I remember a dusty pottery in australia, do not remember
> the guys name, but he made bowls that I wanted to eat from. they felt like
> food. and I will never forget that dancer/potter/maker of things in
> india....his body moving with the wobble. just making do.
>
> http://www.pclink.com/melpots
Thanks for the encouragement, I'm not the wobbley wheel person, I'm the
shaking wheel person and although I still want to fix it, what you said
about the quality of hand made things. I have a tendancy to be a bit
"anal retentive", a generational curse. And my ceramics professor was
quite picky about thrown forms, feeling that they should be as precise
as possible, and grade was lowered if not. So, it's kind of hard for me
to deal with warps and imperfections in my thrown forms. Hence I don't
have too many, because I trash so many. Yes, I could use them for glaze
testers, but I don't, unfortunately.
I remember a long time ago, in a Needlework magazine, a person wrote an
article about mistakes in needlework, which shows that someone made it
and gives it a personal touch. I loved that and applied it to my
needlework, but can't seem to make it click in my art and pottery.
Thanks for the encouragement. Flo
Jean Lehman on fri 22 aug 97
> I have a tendancy to be a bit "anal retentive", a generational curse.
Since I THINK you said you are an accountant and a bookkeeper, I think it
is a GOOD thing you are anal retentive. Isn't that a prerequisite??? I
guess what you have to do is have a split personality -- with your FREE
self as the potter!!
Jean
---------------------->
Jean Lehman, in Lancaster, PA
j_lehman@acad.FandM.EDU (that's an _underscore_ not a hyphen)
http://www.art-craftpa.com/lehman.html
Check out the 1997 Strictly Functional Pottery National at:
http://www.art-craftpa.com/art-craftpa.html
The Wrights on sat 23 aug 97
Jean Lehman wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> > I have a tendancy to be a bit "anal retentive", a generational curse.
>
> Since I THINK you said you are an accountant and a bookkeeper, I think it
> is a GOOD thing you are anal retentive. Isn't that a prerequisite??? I
> guess what you have to do is have a split personality -- with your FREE
> self as the potter!!
Yup you're right. And since I am getting out of the bookkeeping stuff, I
do feel myself freeing up. Actually, as I developed as an artist at
school, I could feel the conflicts between my "two personalities"
growing more and more. I'm glad I'm getting out of the bookkeeping,
except for taking care of my own stuff, which I didn't do very well,
while I was doing other peoples' books. you know, the shoemaker's
children go shoeless and the roofer's roof always leaks, does this mean
that the potter's family eats off of plastic?
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