Kelly Savino on wed 23 jul 08
Ok... leaving aside the issues of who said (wrote) what, and whether it
was appropriate, and all that...
I see perfectly good reasons to accurately attribute any glaze, whenever
possible. These reasons have nothing to do with book sales, or egos, or
any of that.
I think it is no more acceptable to claim and name a glaze because you
tweaked an ingredient, than it is to publish a cookbook full of recipes
you took from somebody else's cookbook -- but added a pinch of salt.
It matters to me, the origin of a thing. I am funny that way. I want to
know if grapes came from Chile, if these are local strawberries, if they
were sprayed, and with what, and when. If I recognize a specific brand
of milk from a local dairy because I know it's from grass fed cows, then
that's the one I buy. If a competitor sells it cheaper in the same glass
bottles, I need to decide whether it's the same stuff before I make a
choice. I don't expect others make choices based on my same criteria,
nor should they -- but to me, it matters. So I need information about
where a thing came from.
Just to say: if I know a specific glaze to be good on my clay body, with
my firing methods, and it meets MY picky, semi-paranoid standards, then
I will mix it. In my case, that means I like when it's been tested, and
results published somewhere, with a range of acceptable tweaks and added
colorants. Many ^6 electric kiln potters (like my students) feel they
don't have enough information to be able to work without a net on
glazes, and I recommend the same approach: use the tested ones.
I do know enough to formulate my own simple base and liner glazes, using
stuff we all know to be inert. I give them names for my own use
(sometimes after the big white food co-op buckets they are stored in :
"Tahini liner" or "almond butter base"). And my quirky sense of
carefulness means I don't want barium in my studio any more than I want
nitrites in my bacon -- no matter how many people roll their eyes and
claim to thrive on the stuff. I don't feel the need to argue the points
of safety and toxicity, at all... my approach suits me,and seems to
comfort the customers who plan to culture and ferment acidic foods
against my glazes.
So: it matters to me, the origin and ancestry of a glaze recipe.
If farmer A says his beef is "all natural", it might mean an organically
fed animal with a grassy pasture and a decent life. If Farmer B says
natural, it might mean "I kept it in a warehouse, fed it ground sheep
and shot it full of drugs, but it's 100% meat with no fillers or dyes".
If it is certified organic by an outside agency, that means something
else completely.
If potter A says a glaze is safe and stable, it might mean "tested in an
Alfred lab to a narrow percentage of leaching". If potter B says a glaze
is safe and stable, it might mean "I'm not dead yet, it doesn't pop off
the pot between kiln and shipping, and as far as I know, none of my
customers has ever been killed as a direct result of using my pots."
So my question is always, "Who stands by this
glaze/product/formula/dubious batch of corn dogs?" If nobody's name is
on it, I don't always trust it.
Kind of like clayart posts. When a question is asked and there are a
dozen conflicting answers, you have to consider the source to make a
judgment. If it's terra sig, I go with Vince. If it's taxes, I listen to
Chris. If it's tools, I pick Phil. And we all have our favorite glaze
gurus. (I write down anything Edith Franklin tells me about pottery, but
if she offered me a casserole recipe, I would flee. The woman is the
quintessential potter, but if she invites you over for dinner, bring
dinner.) :0)
Yes, glazes, and all info helpful to potters, should flow freely. And
no, we don't always have the entire pedigree of a glaze we've come to
rely on.
But I think it is helpful for a name to remain attached to a formula,
and it's not unreasonable to expect writers to do a little homework if
they plan to publish a glaze. Google search in the info page makes it
quick and easy. That way the reader can make some judgment calls.
There is a lot to sort out, especially for newbies -- old library books
full of lead glazes, asbestos products and outdated material safety
information... well meaning friends who don't know about toxicity well
enough to advise. The learning curve is steep and we all draw our lines
in different places. So info is a good thing.
Yours
Kelly in Ohio
busy building an octagonal dovecote, drying food for
backpacking/camping, and working hard to get my body back into shape
after two years of school stress, commuting and food-on-the-run.
Lee Love on thu 24 jul 08
On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Kelly Savino
wrote:
> So: it matters to me, the origin and ancestry of a glaze recipe.
I agree Kelly. It hinders documentation and attribution when
authors try to keep folks from sharing their glazes. For example,
with the glaze in question, it could have been searched for on the web
to find its attribution if it was widely availabe.
--
Lee Love in Minneapolis
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
http://claycraft.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi
Taylor Hendrix on thu 24 jul 08
You seem really thick, Lee. There is no dearth of documentation for
that glaze, if in fact the young lady did unwittingly get it third
hand from MC6G. It is printed in every copy of MC6G. Any competent
professional would go to the source John appropriately provided and
look it up. Then she would find a copy of the CT number in question
and would compare the two glazes. That is what someone who is serious
about all this would do.
Are you telling us that instead we have to go to the internet for
clarification? Should we use google or yahoo? If we find conflicting
information do we use the number of google or yahoo hits to break the
tie? I say, do your damn homework before you submit your article. At
the very least let the reader know that you copied the killer glaze
pictured on page 00 from someone who wrote it down from somewhere.
Any serious, professional potter who has to look on the internet for
the source of a glaze in his glaze book AFTER publishing it in a
supposedly professional clay magazine should be spanked with a wet
noodle. If you're not willing to do the work of a professional, you
should reconsider publishing as one.
Trading glaze recipes at the local clay club is just fine. Trade two
ash glazes for a sweet carbon trap shino. Write them down, put them on
your cat bowls. But don't forget to say so when you publish that
article for remuneration, be it money, a t-shirt, whatever. If CT is
going to publish like a three page stapled newsletter from the 3rd
Baptist Church, they should lower the price, and they should change
their guidelines to contributors if they are not going to adhere to
them.
This bitching and moaning about not getting to play with John and
Ron's red firetruck needs to stop. Try discussing that separate issue
on the list with John in a new thread. Quit trying to sell us a
cracked kettle of bad fish.
Taylor
On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 8:11 AM, Lee Love wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Kelly Savino
> wrote:
>
>> So: it matters to me, the origin and ancestry of a glaze recipe.
>
> I agree Kelly. It hinders documentation and attribution when
> authors try to keep folks from sharing their glazes. For example,
> with the glaze in question, it could have been searched for on the web
> to find its attribution if it was widely availabe.
John Hesselberth on thu 24 jul 08
On Jul 24, 2008, at 9:11 AM, Lee Love wrote:
> For example,
> with the glaze in question, it could have been searched for on the web
> to find its attribution if it was widely availabe.
What a hoot. The glaze in question is in the hands of over 14,000
potters and is also in numerous libraries and community studios. It
is probably one of the best shared and most rapidly shared glazes in
history.
Regards,
John
John Hesselberth
http://www.frogpondpottery.com
http://www.masteringglazes.com
Lee Love on sat 26 jul 08
On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Taylor Hendrix wrote:
> You seem really thick, Lee.
Thanks! You seem very crunchy. Is that peanut butter on your nose?
--
Lee Love in Minneapolis
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
http://claycraft.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi
Lee Love on sat 26 jul 08
On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 2:42 PM, John Hesselberth
wrote:
> potters and is also in numerous libraries and community studios. It
> is probably one of the best shared and most rapidly shared glazes in
> history.
>
Great! Please post it here!
--
--
Lee Love in Minneapolis
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
http://claycraft.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi
Taylor Hendrix on sat 26 jul 08
Touche, Lee. Funny, though, I don't remember asking you to eat me.
Peanut butter and Dr Pepper make the world go round.
Taylor, tongue in cheek dislodging the peanutbutter, in Rockport TX
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 1:06 AM, Lee Love wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Taylor Hendrix wrote:
>
>
>> You seem really thick, Lee.
>
> Thanks! You seem very crunchy. Is that peanut butter on your nose?
| |
|
