eden@sover.net on sun 7 mar 99
When I was at Berkeley, Nagle was pushing low-fire electric for all it was
worth. If you didn't get on board there was something wrong with you. But
I was in the throes of inspiration by Pete Voulkos and it was high-fire all
the way. Me and Nagle had this huge fight about it and I almost didn't
graduate, since Pete was on sabbatical and it was Ron-at-the-wheel.
That was 1969. I stayed in highfire exclusively til I went to SJSU for a
Masters in 1980. I needed to find out what I would be doing in clay if I
was not making my living making pots. I flailed around for awhile while
almost everybody in the dept was playing with Middlebrook and EZ strokes.
As I have a background in painting, and after all I had been breaking my
neck getting a real palette at cone 10 for years, the writing was on the
wall. So my MA was lowfire. But still I made all my dishes at cone 10.
Five years later I unloaded an old electric-turned-raku kiln off a moving
van on my new land in Vermont, built a pole-and-plastic tent around it and
called it a kiln shed and started trying to earn a living once again. I
couldn't afford the purist position, it was low-fire or no-fire. So I
relearned how to make dishes at lowfire and the painterly surface stuff
I'd been doing found its way in pretty quick.
Here in New England low-fire is generally not understood, just the same
kind of prejudice we're talking about here. They don't know Nagle from a
hill of beans or the California School, I'll call it for want of a better
term, people like me grew out of. I get alot of raised eyebrows and
comments about "is that plastic" and "boy that sure is bright". My
daughter rolls her eyes.
Why am I telling y'all this? Maybe it's I was just in CA and "feelin my
roots", maybe cause of the combination of this thread and the thread about
Rosen/ACC makes me want to add my 2c worth. I just think this is a real
unproductive debate, whether slip-cast is inferior, whether lowfire cuts
the mustard. Art, and value, are where you find it for yourself.
Eleanora.....snowed in and ready to boogie down to the studio......
.....................
Eleanora Eden 802 869-2003
Paradise Hill
Bellows Falls, VT 05101 eden@sover.net
Joan & Tom Woodward on tue 9 mar 99
This list is a hoot! A great resource for a novice potter. Had to respond
because my roots, too, are in Calif. I graduated Boalt Hall (law ) in 1969
and after a brief hiatus in Wash., D.C., moved north like you -- on the
other side of the continent, Alaska. Having retired from the judiciary in
fall1996, I immediately enrolled in pottery classes. Said I'd never need my
own wheel. I have one. But I would never do my own firing. I bought a
kiln. And god knows, mixing glazes would be too technical for me. Well,
that part may be true, but I'm starting. Having a ball and love picking up
bits of info on this list. To northern potters!
-----Original Message-----
From: eden@sover.net
To: CLAYART@LSV.UKY.EDU
Date: Sunday, March 07, 1999 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: electric kiln and Heresy
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
When I was at Berkeley, Nagle was pushing low-fire electric for all it was
worth. If you didn't get on board there was something wrong with you. But
I was in the throes of inspiration by Pete Voulkos and it was high-fire all
the way. Me and Nagle had this huge fight about it and I almost didn't
graduate, since Pete was on sabbatical and it was Ron-at-the-wheel.
That was 1969. I stayed in highfire exclusively til I went to SJSU for a
Masters in 1980. I needed to find out what I would be doing in clay if I
was not making my living making pots. I flailed around for awhile while
almost everybody in the dept was playing with Middlebrook and EZ strokes.
As I have a background in painting, and after all I had been breaking my
neck getting a real palette at cone 10 for years, the writing was on the
wall. So my MA was lowfire. But still I made all my dishes at cone 10.
Five years later I unloaded an old electric-turned-raku kiln off a moving
van on my new land in Vermont, built a pole-and-plastic tent around it and
called it a kiln shed and started trying to earn a living once again. I
couldn't afford the purist position, it was low-fire or no-fire. So I
relearned how to make dishes at lowfire and the painterly surface stuff
I'd been doing found its way in pretty quick.
Here in New England low-fire is generally not understood, just the same
kind of prejudice we're talking about here. They don't know Nagle from a
hill of beans or the California School, I'll call it for want of a better
term, people like me grew out of. I get alot of raised eyebrows and
comments about "is that plastic" and "boy that sure is bright". My
daughter rolls her eyes.
Why am I telling y'all this? Maybe it's I was just in CA and "feelin my
roots", maybe cause of the combination of this thread and the thread about
Rosen/ACC makes me want to add my 2c worth. I just think this is a real
unproductive debate, whether slip-cast is inferior, whether lowfire cuts
the mustard. Art, and value, are where you find it for yourself.
Eleanora.....snowed in and ready to boogie down to the studio......
.....................
Eleanora Eden 802 869-2003
Paradise Hill
Bellows Falls, VT 05101 eden@sover.net
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