Stuart Altmann on wed 27 jan 99
Marco:
I urge you to teach your left-handed 12-year-old on a wheel rotating the
same direction as your other students, namely, counterclockwise in America.
In Japan, wheels go clockwise, yet as in America the prepoderance of
Japanese are right-handed. And I have heard that on Okinawa, wheels go
counterclockwise. In short, the direction potters' wheels turn depends on
local tradition, not on people's handedness.
That being the case, your student will be handicapped if you have her
rotate her wheel clockwise. Learning to throw is difficult enough for
students without the extra (and unnecessary) burden of trying to do a
right/left reversal of every instruction and demonstration.
One suggested relationship between handedness and wheel direction is this.
Right-handed Japanese potters have their dominant hand on the inside of
their pots but right-handed Euro-American potters have their dominant hand
on the outside. This may account for a higher frequency of open-shaped
ceramic vessels in Japan. Documenting a causal effect of handedness on
such a subtle cultural difference would be virtually impossible. Beyond
that, the difference can be explained much more simply: a steady demand
for bowls in Japan--for rice, for noodles, for miso soup, for tea,....
Stuart Altmann
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