Clark & Julie Kent on mon 8 mar 99
I know that this discussion has become heated and many have offered reasons
within reasons for their stated positions. Both sides have their validity,
and have stated their opinions eloquently....fearless communication is a
wonderful thing to exercise.
So I have to bring this up, because the discussion has not been clearly
defined, mostly because of the emotional attachment to the issues on the
part of many of the respondents. And the ideas mentioned are worthy of
examination (why have a discussion group if we shy away from the biggies?).
The way I see it, we've been tossing around several ideas and letting them
blur around the edges into one another....
1. Copying (i.e., someone looks at your work and imitates it completely,
perhaps even competing within the same geographic area for your clientele)
2. Cultural appropriation (i.e., copyists/manufacturers take a style from
a certain culture, without having any true understanding of it's inherent
meaning and reproduce it cheaply for profit). There are many more levels
to this, but let's just examine the one that affects commercial pottery for
now.
3. Learning from the past....using models of ancient cultures as
inspiration for form, imagery or meaning to lend to the present-day
creation.
I think that most of us participating in clayart have a great deal of
respect for each other's work, and each other's respective artistic vision.
We may get cranky about what appears in CM every month, for whatever
reason, but I think that honestly every artist out there is doing the very
best that they can. The definition of an artist is someone trying to
create anew their OWN aesthetic. If a copyist could make the art that we
make, don't you think they would? I'm not excusing it, but I really feel
bad for people who need to copy. There they are, afraid of what they can
bring to the art themselves. There they are, thinking that they're getting
away with something, taking the easy way out. Look what it does to
them....
This can be applied to the second item, cultural appropriation. We in the
United States are starved for spirituality in our commercial, anything goes
culture. We've deconstructed everything that had any meaning or importance
beyond the almighty dollar. So, many people now turn to the original
peoples on this continent, as well as ancient cultures around the world,
for a renewal of the old ways. If you look at this trend in context, it is
an amazing reversal of public opinion, and could be considered a triumph to
the respective ancient cultures who basically lost everything to the
"christian" mind set.
I can't say whether this is right or wrong, good or bad, appropriate or
inappropriate. I can only say that it is typically human at our current
stage of social development. As an artist, I believe that the landscape in
which we live, and the people that we are surrounded by constitutes a great
deal of influence on what we express in our art. The more we allow it to,
the more it is affected. I personally think that our country is permeated
by the ancient american culture, and it positively influences us whether we
intend it to or not.
Does that mean it's ok for me to copy an Acoma pot my parents brought back
from their vacation for me? Depends on what I'm using it for. If I'm
making one for myself, to try and understand the methods, to learn with
respect the way the woman who made this pot was creating, then maybe. If I
make a hundred of them all just like the first to sell at a craft show,
then no, it's not ok.
Is it ok to make southwestern "style" pots if I take the workshop with
Dolores and Emma Lewis at Taos Art School (this month's CM pg 98)? They
advertise that the classes are taught by tribal members on site. I guess
that its ok, since we are paying them for the privilege of learning from
them. And they are controlling the learning environment. But personally,
as an Italian and British hybrid, I would be embarrassed to put up a sign
and sell wares identical to those these families make, even if I had a
certificate and pictures showing that I learned from the source. But
that's just for ME.
It doesn't mean I don't desperately wish that I'd been born into an
artistic or spiritual family, that I don't wish I had a wise old
grandmother to teach me right from wrong instead of having to glean it
secondhand from books. I don't even have a distant Cherokee (or Lakota, or
Ojibwe) grandmother a few generations back to give me some mystical blood
level understanding of what's going on. I have no excuse at all, in fact,
for my interest in tribal ways, other than the poor excuse that it feels
right. And certainly better than the way we are living now. So these
cultural wishes definitely cross over into pottery. Some poor stressed out
working mother in suburbia, with three television sets and her kids in day
care is wondering what she's missing. And maybe she just loves what she
calls "Southwestern Art". Is it wrong for her to own that just because
she's not Zuni or Hopi? What if it affects her deeply on a daily level and
she becomes more spiritual and begins to make pots. And the first pots she
makes imitates the ones she has bought. Poorly perhaps, but they teach her
something. Something about the vessel as a sacred vessel, about her own
body as a sacred vessel. We'll leave her learning to her. And then she
becomes better educated about the people and culture that formed the art,
because the feeling of making is changing her, making her into a more
spiritual person. And as she educates herself, she begins to assimilate
some of the values inherent in that art. She becomes less material, more
spiritual as time goes by. Her whole world can be changed by the extent to
which the art affects her.
Is that ok? Is it ok if she takes that knowledge and becomes a political
activist for Native American interests? Is it ok if she begins to
participate in ritual with Native Americans? If she is respectful and holy
in her thoughts and approach? I'm just trying to formulate the boundaries
here. Not trying to challenge or evoke pain, but trying to see where the
proper use of this dynamic asserts itself. Because like it or not, we as
artists are trying to influence people. See, this is what I see when I
look at that world. Do you see this, too?
And as an aside, please take a moment, look in your old pottery history
textbooks. Now compare Southwestern Pottery, Aztec pottery, Minoan
Pottery, Cycladian Pottery, Akkadian pottery, Iranian pottery, Tunisian
pottery, Chinese pottery, Celtic pottery, and look at most of it between
2,000 and about 200 b.c. There is definitely a period in almost every
culture where potters produced ware with oxides/slips painted over unglazed
terra cotta type ware in deep swirling patterns/geometric
patterns/spirals/tiny straight lines et cetera. Imagine that. We are all
human. We all eat, we all sleep, we all dance, we all sing and we all
pray.
Now when we meet aliens for the first time, then I'm looking to see some
seriously original pots. =:^o
That said, we should all take responsibility for educating each other with
honesty and integrity, but above all with kindness. It's easy to say, but
very difficult to do (like making a pot with good heft).
Personally, I think education and learning are the foremost spiritual tools
that we have at our command. If we want to make better art, then we can
keep learning, keep feeding our souls and our intellect, and marvellous
things will happen. This is what makes us superior humans, superior
artists, and superior craftspersons. And it will eventually create a
better community of artists.
One last thing, and then I'll be quiet for another month. I was once again
reading through Robin Hopper's book, Functional Pottery (you know how you
get a little something new every time you re-read a book?), and I came
across this little quote by Confucius (which I've de-sexed because I can't
stand to think of a superior person being exemplified only in a man). So,
like a fortune cookie, I oversimplify to the extreme and leave you with:
"The superior person knows what is right,
The inferior person knows only what sells."
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