Brandon Schwartz on sat 22 may 10
Hello Clay Art,
I've been reading through some of the discussion about language which is
pretty interesting and seems to be a perfect precursor to my email:
I=3D92m taking a language/culture class over the summer and the mid term pr=
oj=3D
ect
is about language patterns of a particular culture. So I decided to explor=
=3D
e
the culture of clay artists or potters. I=3D92m required to do at least on=
e
interview. But then I thought =3D93I can interview a good portion of the
culture with one email to Clay Art!=3D94 So if you feel like responding to=
s=3D
ome
of the questions below it would help me a lot and I hope it provides some
interesting discussion.
Give a general description of the culture (clay artists and potters) or
share how you personally fit in with the culture.
What are the social patterns of ceramic artists and potters?
How important is language to a ceramic artist/potter (and in what way)?
What is the relationship between the language and the culture of
ceramics/pottery?
What are the characteristics that make this group unique?
What are some words unique to creating ceramic art/pottery (or words with
unique meanings)? Give a brief definition or tell how these words develope=
=3D
d
or evolved.
What are the best resources to help a novice learn the language?
Some of the questions are somewhat vague. Interpret them however you wish
and apply them to the culture in general or on a more personal level.
Thanks for your time and effort!
Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
Art by Fuzzy
Pottery Making Info
douglas fur on thu 27 may 10
Brandon
I think that applying the vocabulary of language theory to pottery is
dubioius.
It's reminicent of the expression "20/20 hindsight" but more complex.
It's more like looking at cultural history with a telescope named "language=
"
while ignoring the facticity of such a language telescope and the
approriateness of that telescope for observing that culture.
A brief history (dates approximate and maybe more graphic than accurate)-
500 years ago- printing press, 5,000 years ago written language, 50,000
years ago spoken language, 500,000 years ago...............1,500,000years
ago oldest tools ergo people were making things with these tools.)
There is therefore a huge stretch of time in which humanity evolved making
tools in which language was not the dominate form of communication it is
today.
(The 50,000 years ago date for lanaguage refers to "Cro Magnon" cultural
which has been used as a marker as the oldest "modern man" that had the
physiology for speach. This theory is questionable in that it may be based
more on "Cro Magnon" looking European and equating that with modernity and
the intellectual capacity for language nor does it address what language ma=
y
have existed before "complex language" developed. Be that as it may even i=
f
we pushed spoken language back to 150,000 years ago that still leaves 90% o=
f
human development in which making things dominated our intellectual process=
)
This leads back to the appropriatness of that telescope. If 90% of our
development was spent making things rather than talking about them what do
we miss in understanding the nature of making things and therefore the
nature human-ness by using "talking about things" to explore "making
things"?
As potters who make things we are thereby making a critical commentary on
our language dominated culture. A rude "shut up and just use the thing!"
What are the social patterns of ceramic artists and potters?
How important is language to a ceramic artist/potter (and in what way)?
What is the relationship between the language and the culture of
ceramics/pottery?
What are the characteristics that make this group unique?
What are some words unique to creating ceramic art/pottery (or words with
unique meanings)? Give a brief definition or tell how these words develope=
d
or evolved.
What are the best resources to help a novice learn the language?
Some of the questions are somewhat vague. Interpret them however you wish
and apply them to the culture in general or on a more personal level.
Thanks for your time and effort!
Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
Art by Fuzzy
Pottery Making Info
Brandon Schwartz on fri 28 may 10
Martin (and anyone else that's interested),
Well, I don't think its going to "go" anywhere. I'm not expecting any huge
insights or discoveries. I just have to research the language of a
particular group/culture/profession (for example potters/ceramic artists)
for a midterm project in a Language and Culture class. Your message is
interesting because the 2nd paragraph beautifully illustrates one of the
"values conflicts" in our textbook. Basically one view says humans are all
alike and the other view says humans differ according to culture (both view=
s
are valid, there isn't a "right answer"). So when I say "what makes potter=
s
unique?" I'm thinking of all the potters in the world as one group and how
that group might be different from, say, all the lawyers in the world. Are
potters more likely to be frugal? Do most potters have an outgoing
personality? Are most potters do-it-yourself-ers? Do most potters learn
from books instead of the Internet? Like to get dirty? Choose chicken ove=
r
fish? There are going to be individual differences in the group but are
there any common characteristics that most potters share? I don't know a
lot of potters personally so I'm asking other potters via Clay Art.
When you discovered the word "greenware" what did you do? Did you look it
up somewhere? Talk to a more experienced potter? Ignore it and go on?
Guess at what it meant?
What do you think most potters do when they come to a word that they don't
know? These are some of the things I'm trying to find out.
Thanks for your message. It has inspired some deeper thought. And I'm
sorry if I'm like the annoying kid with a thousand questions but I'm
actually becoming quite interested in this stuff.
Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
Art by Fuzzy
Pottery Making Info
On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Martin Rice wrote:
> I'm not quite sure where this is supposed to go. Every profession has its
> specialized vocabulary. Sometimes we refer to it as just that, specialize=
d
> vocabulary, sometimes we might say jargon. And yes, of course something l=
ike
> greenware won't mean the same thing or even anything to someone who doesn=
't
> work with clay. I'm close enough to my clay beginnings to remember
> distinctly coming across the word greenware for the first time and not
> having a clue as to what it meant. But so what?
>
> I don't understand how the question about potters, which you pose, "what
> makes them unique," can even be posed. They're not unique, they're just
> people pursuing a profession, hobby, pastime, whatever. Well, I guess you
> could say that the practice of pottery making is unique in the sense that
> it's not mowing grass for a living, or being a newscaster. In that sense
> most occupations are unique. But again, so what? This doesn't seem to lea=
d
> to the possibility of any great insight.
>
> And my reaction is the same to the question "How does being part of the
> 'clay art' community affect communication?" Here, too, it affects
> communication the same way being a part of almost any specialized communi=
ty
> does. They use a specialized vocabulary, the community members talk about
> things that are particular to what they do (you probably won't hear many
> lawyers or members of any other professional group discussing pinholes in
> their latest firing).
>
> Of course I didn't see the very first letter in this thread, so I could
> easily be missing something here.
>
> At the same time, a strong case can, indeed, be made for the language of =
a
> group having an enormous impact on the overall language and, consequently=
,
> life of the community of which this group is a part. I'm thinking
> specifically now about the magnificent essayist, teacher, critic, and
> philosopher, George Steiner, and his "Language and Silence: Essays on
> Language, Literature, and the Inhuman," where he discusses how the Nazis
> essentially destroyed the German language with, among other things,
> neologisms such as Vernichtungswissenschaft, "the science of annihilation=
."
>
> So, I guess that in some senses being part of a community and its
> specialized language can have enormous repercussions; philosophy would be
> one, for example. Just look at what Hegel's use of "dialectic" led to. Bu=
t I
> don't think we'll find any consequences such as this in the jargon of
> potters.
>
> Martin
> Signal Mountain, TN
> On May 28, 2010, at 12:48 PM, Brandon Schwartz wrote:
>
>
aaron cortelyou on fri 28 may 10
Yes, the word for this kind of crap is nomenclature. Almost every
discipline where it's medical, industrial or engineering has their own
sets of words that are inclusive to the group. Things start to get
confusing over time since the new generation of any discipline
invariably change the nomenclature to set themselves apart from the
previous generation while the previous generation often times cling on
tenaciously to the old. This has been going on in ceramics for god
knows how long. You can get a pile up of different names for the same
thing i.e. flint, silica and quartz. Now compile that with people that
really mince these words and claim that flint (the material that you
bought at the time when people were widely using that word) is
different in it's refining process and impurities than the silica you
buy today, now you have a total cluster F.
Brandon Schwartz on fri 28 may 10
Douglas,
Thank you for such a well thought-out response from an interesting
perspective. I will definitely take this into consideration as I continue
the project. I debated whether or not to define "culture" and "language" i=
n
my original message. If you have time, here are a few more questions to
think about relating to your message:
Is there a "language" of creating things (specifically pottery)? Not so
much "words" but more like the elements and principles of design?
How much do the tools, and the things being made impact the language?
Do you think creating and using pottery would be better without "language"
(as in "words")?
I would be interested to know your opinions on how humans communicated
before "language". I don't have a lot of knowledge about history,
especially "Cro Magnon" times.
And to others,
I've received some really good replies off list. Thank you to all that hav=
e
replied.
For some clarification, I'm looking more for the "language" of the present
day community of potters and ceramic artists. I know there are potters in
just about every country. What makes them unique? How does being part of
the "clay art" community affect communication? Do they use special
language? For example, "greenware" and "fire" probably have different
meanings to a potter than someone who has never held a ball of clay in thei=
r
hands.
Thanks again,
Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
Art by Fuzzy
Pottery Making Info
On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 3:26 PM, douglas fur <23drb50@gmail.com> wrote:
> Brandon
>
> I think that applying the vocabulary of language theory to pottery is
> dubioius.
> It's reminicent of the expression "20/20 hindsight" but more complex.
> It's more like looking at cultural history with a telescope named "langua=
ge"
> while ignoring the facticity of such a language telescope and the
> approriateness of that telescope for observing that culture.
>
> A brief history (dates approximate and maybe more graphic than accurate)-
> 500 years ago- printing press, 5,000 years ago written language, 50,000
> years ago spoken language, 500,000 years ago...............1,500,000years
> ago oldest tools ergo people were making things with these tools.)
>
> There is therefore a huge stretch of time in which humanity evolved makin=
g
> tools in which language was not the dominate form of communication it is
> today.
> (The 50,000 years ago date for lanaguage refers to "Cro Magnon" cultural
> which has been used as a marker as the oldest "modern man" that had the
> physiology for speach. This theory is questionable in that it may be base=
d
> more on "Cro Magnon" looking European and equating that with modernity a=
nd
> the intellectual capacity for language nor does it address what language =
may
> have existed before "complex language" developed. Be that as it may even=
if
> we pushed spoken language back to 150,000 years ago that still leaves 90%=
of
> human development in which making things dominated our intellectual proce=
ss)
>
> This leads back to the appropriatness of that telescope. If 90% of our
> development was spent making things rather than talking about them what d=
o
> we miss in understanding the nature of making things and therefore the
> nature human-ness by using "talking about things" to explore "making
> things"?
>
> As potters who make things we are thereby making a critical commentary on
> our language dominated culture. A rude "shut up and just use the thing!"
>
>
Martin Rice on fri 28 may 10
I'm not quite sure where this is supposed to go. Every profession has its s=
pecialized vocabulary. Sometimes we refer to it as just that, specialized v=
ocabulary, sometimes we might say jargon. And yes, of course something like=
greenware won't mean the same thing or even anything to someone who doesn'=
t work with clay. I'm close enough to my clay beginnings to remember distin=
ctly coming across the word greenware for the first time and not having a c=
lue as to what it meant. But so what?
I don't understand how the question about potters, which you pose, "what ma=
kes them unique," can even be posed. They're not unique, they're just peopl=
e pursuing a profession, hobby, pastime, whatever. Well, I guess you could =
say that the practice of pottery making is unique in the sense that it's no=
t mowing grass for a living, or being a newscaster. In that sense most occu=
pations are unique. But again, so what? This doesn't seem to lead to the po=
ssibility of any great insight.
And my reaction is the same to the question "How does being part of the 'cl=
ay art' community affect communication?" Here, too, it affects communicatio=
n the same way being a part of almost any specialized community does. They =
use a specialized vocabulary, the community members talk about things that =
are particular to what they do (you probably won't hear many lawyers or mem=
bers of any other professional group discussing pinholes in their latest fi=
ring).
Of course I didn't see the very first letter in this thread, so I could eas=
ily be missing something here.
At the same time, a strong case can, indeed, be made for the language of a =
group having an enormous impact on the overall language and, consequently, =
life of the community of which this group is a part. I'm thinking specifica=
lly now about the magnificent essayist, teacher, critic, and philosopher, G=
eorge Steiner, and his "Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literatur=
e, and the Inhuman," where he discusses how the Nazis essentially destroyed=
the German language with, among other things, neologisms such as Vernichtu=
ngswissenschaft, "the science of annihilation."
So, I guess that in some senses being part of a community and its specializ=
ed language can have enormous repercussions; philosophy would be one, for e=
xample. Just look at what Hegel's use of "dialectic" led to. But I don't th=
ink we'll find any consequences such as this in the jargon of potters.
Martin
Signal Mountain, TN
On May 28, 2010, at 12:48 PM, Brandon Schwartz wrote:
> For some clarification, I'm looking more for the "language" of the presen=
t
> day community of potters and ceramic artists. I know there are potters i=
n
> just about every country. What makes them unique? How does being part o=
f
> the "clay art" community affect communication? Do they use special
> language? For example, "greenware" and "fire" probably have different
> meanings to a potter than someone who has never held a ball of clay in th=
eir
> hands.
>
> Thanks again,
> Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
> Art by Fuzzy
> Pottery Making Info
>
>
>
phil on sat 29 may 10
Cluster Feldspar would of course be abbreviated Cluster F in technical
publications.
How about Cluster Felspar's last stand? ( any wittnesses left to give an
account? )
( Ohhhh, sorry, that was a couple groaners...)
----- Original Message -----
From: "William & Susan Schran User"
> On 5/28/10 5:57 PM, "aaron cortelyou" wrote:
>
>> Now compile that with people that
>> really mince these words and claim that flint (the material that you
>> bought at the time when people were widely using that word) is
>> different in it's refining process and impurities than the silica you
>> buy today, now you have a total cluster F.
>
> Are you Speaking of Cluster Feldspar? ;^)
> Soor couldn't help my self.
>
> Bill
Frances Howard on sat 29 may 10
Brandon,
Your web site is excellent and very interesting, and your pottery very nic=
e
too. And also interesting.
Keep asking those questions even though to get the answers you are hoping
for you will have to change the questions. Maybe narrow the focus.
I've been on lots of pottery classes/workshops etc and I find that most
people ask verbal questions to get information. Of my present class of 10
only one reads pottery books, and she reads and owns all of them. She also
uses the internet a lot. The other reader is the instructor who doesn't us=
e
the internet much. They all like to do glaze tests but don't get involved
much in glaze chemistry, they just write down the results, this must be the
original reason glazes have names instead of numbers, easier to remember.
They also expect me to feed them the most interesting parts of clayart as
none of them are signed up.
They are all good cooks and very generous with pot luck lunches; and sharin=
g
any pottery information they have.
They all sell their work but I don't think any of them would be interested
in say an MFA. Their age range is late 20s to 60s, and they are sometimes,
but rarely, male. Why I don't know.
Classes are always good as you can bounce ideas off each other and compare
notes, hard to do when on your own. Hope this helps just a bit.
Frances Howard.
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Brandon Schwartz"
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 8:33 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The language of pottery and ceramic art?
> Martin (and anyone else that's interested),
>
> Well, I don't think its going to "go" anywhere. I'm not expecting any
> huge
> insights or discoveries. I just have to research the language of a
> particular group/culture/profession (for example potters/ceramic artists)
> for a midterm project in a Language and Culture class. Your message is
> interesting because the 2nd paragraph beautifully illustrates one of the
> "values conflicts" in our textbook. Basically one view says humans are
> all
> alike and the other view says humans differ according to culture (both
> views
> are valid, there isn't a "right answer"). So when I say "what makes
> potters
> unique?" I'm thinking of all the potters in the world as one group and ho=
w
> that group might be different from, say, all the lawyers in the world.
> Are
> potters more likely to be frugal? Do most potters have an outgoing
> personality? Are most potters do-it-yourself-ers? Do most potters learn
> from books instead of the Internet? Like to get dirty? Choose chicken
> over
> fish? There are going to be individual differences in the group but are
> there any common characteristics that most potters share? I don't know a
> lot of potters personally so I'm asking other potters via Clay Art.
>
> When you discovered the word "greenware" what did you do? Did you look i=
t
> up somewhere? Talk to a more experienced potter? Ignore it and go on?
> Guess at what it meant?
> What do you think most potters do when they come to a word that they don'=
t
> know? These are some of the things I'm trying to find out.
>
> Thanks for your message. It has inspired some deeper thought. And I'm
> sorry if I'm like the annoying kid with a thousand questions but I'm
> actually becoming quite interested in this stuff.
>
>
> Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
> Art by Fuzzy
> Pottery Making Info
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Martin Rice wrote:
>
>> I'm not quite sure where this is supposed to go. Every profession has it=
s
>> specialized vocabulary. Sometimes we refer to it as just that,
>> specialized
>> vocabulary, sometimes we might say jargon. And yes, of course something
>> like
>> greenware won't mean the same thing or even anything to someone who
>> doesn't
>> work with clay. I'm close enough to my clay beginnings to remember
>> distinctly coming across the word greenware for the first time and not
>> having a clue as to what it meant. But so what?
>>
>> I don't understand how the question about potters, which you pose, "what
>> makes them unique," can even be posed. They're not unique, they're just
>> people pursuing a profession, hobby, pastime, whatever. Well, I guess yo=
u
>> could say that the practice of pottery making is unique in the sense tha=
t
>> it's not mowing grass for a living, or being a newscaster. In that sense
>> most occupations are unique. But again, so what? This doesn't seem to
>> lead
>> to the possibility of any great insight.
>>
>> And my reaction is the same to the question "How does being part of the
>> 'clay art' community affect communication?" Here, too, it affects
>> communication the same way being a part of almost any specialized
>> community
>> does. They use a specialized vocabulary, the community members talk abou=
t
>> things that are particular to what they do (you probably won't hear many
>> lawyers or members of any other professional group discussing pinholes i=
n
>> their latest firing).
>>
>> Of course I didn't see the very first letter in this thread, so I could
>> easily be missing something here.
>>
>> At the same time, a strong case can, indeed, be made for the language of
>> a
>> group having an enormous impact on the overall language and,
>> consequently,
>> life of the community of which this group is a part. I'm thinking
>> specifically now about the magnificent essayist, teacher, critic, and
>> philosopher, George Steiner, and his "Language and Silence: Essays on
>> Language, Literature, and the Inhuman," where he discusses how the Nazis
>> essentially destroyed the German language with, among other things,
>> neologisms such as Vernichtungswissenschaft, "the science of
>> annihilation."
>>
>> So, I guess that in some senses being part of a community and its
>> specialized language can have enormous repercussions; philosophy would b=
e
>> one, for example. Just look at what Hegel's use of "dialectic" led to.
>> But I
>> don't think we'll find any consequences such as this in the jargon of
>> potters.
>>
>> Martin
>> Signal Mountain, TN
>> On May 28, 2010, at 12:48 PM, Brandon Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 9.0.819 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2901 - Release Date: 05/28/10
> 03:25:00
>
William & Susan Schran User on sat 29 may 10
On 5/28/10 5:57 PM, "aaron cortelyou" wrote:
> Now compile that with people that
> really mince these words and claim that flint (the material that you
> bought at the time when people were widely using that word) is
> different in it's refining process and impurities than the silica you
> buy today, now you have a total cluster F.
Are you Speaking of Cluster Feldspar? ;^)
Soor couldn't help my self.
Bill
--
William "Bill" Schran
wschran@cox.net
wschran@nvcc.edu
http://www.creativecreekartisans.com
rickmahaffey@COMCAST.NET on mon 31 may 10
I have had the good fortune to travel to other countries and meet many pott=
ers. The thing that sets them/us apart is our ability to "speak clay" as I =
call it. We communicate by looking at each others work, feeling the pot sen=
sing the glaze through touch and sight. Most potters will turn an interesti=
ng pot over to look at the clay, see the signature, or check the foot/trimm=
ing. I have handed a pot of mine to a potter whose language I could not spe=
ak and watched as he held the pot, turned it over and felt the unglazed cla=
y and looked at the trimming. He then flicked it with a finger to see if it=
rang and to sense the density of the clay. All the while I was checking ou=
t his work in a similar fashion.
So to sum it up we speak through our work using our fingers to create the c=
ommunication for others to sense.
Most potters seem to be good cooks.
YMMV,
Rick
douglas fur on wed 2 jun 10
Brandon
Me neither (regarding my knowledge of the history of language)
Like I said the Cro Magnon date was covenient for Europeans at the height o=
=3D
f
the imperial age because it supported their self image of superiority over
=3D93the little brown men=3D94 (how akward would it be if language had deve=
lped=3D
in
Africa?)
Be that as it may, I believe that we have evolved making things for longer
than we have evolved with language. My rough sense of it is that tool use
made bigger brains which could therefore make bigger thoughts and the
language with which to process those thoughts- =3D93Gee, that=3D92s a neat =
cutt=3D
ing
stone. I wonder what I can make with it?=3D94 If the reverse was true, lan=
gu=3D
age
before making, how could you say =3D93cutting stone=3D94 if you hadn=3D92t =
experi=3D
enced
=3D93cutting=3D94 =3D93stone=3D94 or the utility of being able to cut?
So my reluctance to apply language theory vocabulary to making things is to
emphasise the primacey of making things vis-a-vie language.
Our culture is dominated by language to the point that this primacey is
invisible. I think the sense of dread exppressed in
computers-take-over-the-world stories is a fear of losing the connection we
have with making things. (In Kubrik=3D92s 2001 when the coumputor says =3D9=
3I=3D
=3D92m
sorry Dave, I can=3D92t let you do that.=3D94 Dave=3D92s universe explodes =
into c=3D
haos)
Setting aside my neo-Luddite paranoid phantasies, I think some of the
essential elements of the non-language of making are kinesthetic sense and
the sense of empathy. Putting these together in a simple formula we have
=3D93making sense=3D94 which is the process role and raison d=3D92erte of m=
aking.
Michael Crawford=3D92s *Shop Class as Soulcraft ,* that Mel has been promot=
in=3D
g
has some good stuff (pg38 cf) on industrialization and the loss of
meaniningful work. I think that language is the medium of this alienation
and the cultural function of our work is as a criticism of this process of
alienation.
DRB
Burien
steve graber on wed 2 jun 10
"industrialization and the loss of meaniningful work"=3D0A=3D0A=3D0A=3D0Aho=
ly cow t=3D
his stikes right to my heart!=3DC2=3DA0 =3D0A=3D0Aaside from some fun produ=
cts i ha=3D
ve in pottery stores or on john deere, Case and CAT vehicles, my 31 years o=
=3D
f engineering design sure hasn't been very meaningful.=3DC2=3DA0 PLUS no en=
gine=3D
er i know who has kids, have kids who will follow in their footsteps.=3DC2=
=3DA0=3D
=3D0A=3D0Aa very sad state for engineering in usa!=3DC2=3DA0 =3D0A=3D0A=3D=
0A=3D0A=3DC2=3DA0Ste=3D
ve Graber, Graber's Pottery, Inc=3D0AClaremont, California USA=3D0AThe Stev=
e To=3D
ol - for awesome texture on pots! =3D0Awww.graberspottery.com steve@grabers=
po=3D
ttery.com =3D0A=3D0A=3D0AOn Laguna Clay's website=3D0Ahttp://www.lagunaclay=
.com/blo=3D
gs/ =3D0A=3D0A=3D0A=3D0A----- Original Message ----=3D0A> From: douglas fur=
<23drb50@=3D
GMAIL.COM>=3D0A> To: Clayart@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG=3D0A> Sent: Wed, June 2, 2010=
10:=3D
48:14 AM=3D0A> Subject: Re: The language of pottery and ceramic art?=3D0A> =
=3D0A>=3D
Brandon=3D0A=3D0AMe neither (regarding my knowledge of the history of =3D0=
A> lan=3D
guage)=3D0A=3D0ALike I said the Cro Magnon date was covenient for Europeans=
at =3D
=3D0A> the height of=3D0Athe imperial age because it supported their self i=
mage=3D
of =3D0A> superiority over=3D0A=3DE2=3D80=3D9Cthe little brown men=3DE2=3D=
80=3D9D (how akw=3D
ard would it be if language =3D0A> had develped in=3D0AAfrica?)=3D0A=3D0A=
=3D0A
| |
|
