Mike Carroll on sat 25 apr 98
Raku is the black velvet painting of pottery, owww! Incoming! I like to
raku and fire
my electric kilns and when I'm asked and time allows, I drive 400 miles to
fire an anagama kiln with friends. It is hard work but it is fun and
rewarding and generally my back is just as sore after 6 hours of raku as it
is after 8 or 10 hours
at the firebox of the anagama. Your statement is very general and smacks of
intolerance, but maybe you are just trying to fire up the weekend for us.
I'll bet you are fun at parties too! If it is any consolation, my interest
in raku led to my interest in wood firing and just today the town called
and said my permit was ready to pick up for my summer project, a big ole'
wood kiln.
Leslie Ihde on sun 26 apr 98
I find myself thinking about the "raku is the black velvet painting" of
pottery remark off and on during the last several days. In a way, there
seems to be a certain truth to the remark, but in the end I think it is
unfair. I wonder if there isn't a tendancy to valorize the difficult
among potters? Just because something is easy doesn't mean it isn't
lovely. Just because something is hard, doesn't mean the opposite. A
good artist will go to great lengths to acheive the effect he is
interested in. But does that mean he isn't a good artist if in order to
create his desire effect he needs only rearrange three rocks (ie Zen
garden)?
I think the best trait
of an artist is vision. The rest, important and difficult as it may be,
is merely the technicality of representing the vision- brutal as that may
seem to those of us, like myself, who spend months and even years trying
to solve technical questions in our art.
Leslie
Vestal NY
NgtvSpace on tue 28 apr 98
I recently rakued some pieces, it had been at least two years, I forgot how
great the experience was, I really was into the colors I got. About an hour
later the Lab Tech and I decided that Raku is "goofy". This had me thinking
as I was presenting my MFA Thesis, mostly a sculptural body of work that in
many ways was one big test tile, a sort of tour the force and a screw you to
the Painting Dept. who never seem to get the conceptual ideas of glazing, and
when you tell them its an engobe they get nervous as if they are being asked
to be bilingual and bi-cultural...I think that Raku in a way reflects some of
the fundamental aesthetic issues within Ceramics, namely that it is
experiential and temporary, John Dewey in "Art as Experience" talks about this
issues, but with Ceramics we can go back to ancient philosophies that justify
the temporary experience of aesthetic pleasure, many paintings within the 80's
where sold at outrageous prices to corporations with materials that are now
falling apart...and where hideous to begin with.
Lorca
| |
|
