Joseph Bennion on mon 24 nov 97
Chris Campbell wrote something to this effect: Use your hammer, it's
only dirt. I have no problem with the hammer. Hammering pots is good
work. It frees clay from the shapes we impose on it. It can turn bad
pots into usefull road fill. It is said to be therapeutic. I winced at
the part about it's only dirt. My dictionary's first entry for dirt
says something like filth, obscenity or such. At best it defines it as
loose soil. The conotation was not the best. How do we value this
material we use. Is it only dirt?
===
Joseph Bennion "stay together
PO Box 186 learn the flowers
Spring City, Utah 84662 go light"
801-462-2708
joe.the.potter@rocketmail.com Gary Snyder
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Kathryn Whipple on tue 25 nov 97
As a potter, organic gardener, and sentimental tree hugger, dirt occupies a
central and honored place in my scheme of things. :) We are dust and to dust
we
will return--and that goes for the pots, too. So to call clay "dirt" is not
pejorative in my worldview--rather a, like, totally cosmic reference to the
eternal cycles of creation and dissolution...
As for the hammer, i personally prefer the hurl-and-smash method of
liberating my pots from their unsuccessful incarnations.
I usually do liberate my cracked pots. I figure the crack represents, in
most cases, a lack of attention at some point in the creation, an artifact
of carelessness. That only goes for _my_ pots though, since my intention is
to
make "tight" rather than "loose" pots. Also i think potting is a little like
drawing, in that it seems you should learn to do it well before you begin to
abstract. Beginner's mistakes of cracked feet and splitting rims are not in
the same class as the finger prints in the glaze on a master's raku
teabowl.
Just some thoughts.
Kathy
Brooker FL
PS i'm still desperately seeking that used Randall Wheel......
On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Joseph Bennion wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
> Chris Campbell wrote something to this effect: Use your hammer, it's
> only dirt. I have no problem with the hammer. Hammering pots is good
> work. It frees clay from the shapes we impose on it. It can turn bad
> pots into usefull road fill. It is said to be therapeutic. I winced at
> the part about it's only dirt. My dictionary's first entry for dirt
> says something like filth, obscenity or such. At best it defines it as
> loose soil. The conotation was not the best. How do we value this
> material we use. Is it only dirt?
>
>
>
> ===
>
> Joseph Bennion "stay together
> PO Box 186 learn the flowers
> Spring City, Utah 84662 go light"
> 801-462-2708
> joe.the.potter@rocketmail.com Gary Snyder
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> Sent by Yahoo! Mail. Get your free e-mail at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
douglas gray on tue 25 nov 97
It is interesting and intriguing how many different opinions we have on the
list. Just when it seems I could agree with one person's statement about
accepting cracks, I then find myself in agreement with another post stating the
opposing position. And then there are those post that I read, saying to myself,
"no way, you've got to be kidding...you can't expect me to believe that..."
I must admit that I live with some cracks, even grow to appreciate them and try
to repeat them. Some cracks I can't live with and they meet their demise either
with a hammer, a quick flight and even quicker landing (usually on a large flat
rock), or to use and Elmer Taylor term perhaps I use my "sensitivity stick" on
them--one good whack for not being sensitive.
In defense of the "it's only dirt" attitude, I must admit that I try to teach my
students to think of it as only dirt. Well, I say it is "only clay." I don't
tell them that to devalue the time, effort, and talent that goes into the
process of making objects from clay. I don't tell them that to minimalize the
age old processes we are undertaking. I don't tell them that to marginalize the
magnificently malleable nature of the medium.
I tell themit is just clay to help break down that initial fear of creating, to
teach a lesson in repetitive making, to teach them to be discrimnating in what
they produce, to help them establish standards. It is equal to the drawing
teacher saying it is just a blank sheet of paper. Without the imputus of the
artist, without the actions involved in process, without the ideas that shape
the material, it is in essence just paper, and consequently, just clay. But
that does not deny the potentiality of the medium.
I believe we can take our work too seriously sometimes. There is a quote, I
don't know from whom, that says something like "taking your work too seriously
is the first sign of a nervous breakdown." So, it is imporatant, sometimes, to
step back and judge things for what they are. Clay is clay, it comes from the
earth. Art is art, it comes from the minds on many many peaople. Ideas are
ideas, they too come from the minds of many people. Opinions are opinions, they
come from all over.
Maybe clay is not dirt, but is dirt just dirt?
enjoying the mutitude of interpretations; adding my own,
doug
============================================================================ =)
Douglas E. Gray
Assistant Professor of Art, Ceramics
Francis Marion Univeristy
Florence, South Carolina 29501
dgray@fmarion.edu
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