Richard mahaffey on thu 30 sep 99
Hello fellow CLAYARTERS,
I while ago I posted asking for donations of slides from potters in North
America for a talk on AMerican Pottery to be given durring a workshop in
Beijing at the Central Academy of Arts and Design. This workshop focuses
mainly on functional ware. We will be joining groups from Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts and Music, and Andalou University in Turkey.
The idea that Kathy Holt (who is going with us) and I had was to show some
slides of potters from Ohr thru Binns to Volkos and so on, including some
Native American Potters. In addition we wanted to talk about CLAYART,
it's members, and the community on the internet.
To that end, I requested slides from
CLAYART members. One slide each with a business card and any information
that you want told. The slides would be donated to the Central ACademy of
Arts and Design in Beijing. (Possible Resume line for slides in the CAAD
collection if you want).
So far I have recieved five slides. THANK YOU FOR THE RESPONSE! I
figured there would be more responses. Maybe it was posted at a bad time.
Anyway if you would like to be included in this slide show please send
your slide to:
Rick Mahaffey
Art Dept.
Tacoma Community College
6501 So 19th St.
Tacoma, WA 98466 USA
Thanks in advance
Rick
Bonnie Staffel on fri 1 oct 99
Sept. 30, 1999
Dear Rick,
I replied to your first request through Clayart but it evidently did not
get through.
I have a serious problem with this sharing of slides of American
potters. I was in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and saw some
pottery at a very low price which was an almost exact copy of one of our
very good potters. It was made in China. When I was in China in the
70's all they were doing was reproducing the historical sculptures by
pressing the clay into molds. I did not see any original work being
done or presented for sale. Due to Mao's heavy handed influence on not
allowing free expression, there are quite a few generations of people
who only know copying. Since the thumb of communism is still on the
good people of China, I feel that they want pictures and methods of our
potters so that they can copy them. If you have first hand knowledge of
a change of work processes in China, I think it would be a good idea to
pass this along.
The Chinese government approached the Smithsonian a few years ago to buy
some of our historical quilt patterns so they could reproduce them. The
American quilters put up such a fuss that this was not continued. They
could undersell the American potters, same as the pot I saw in the
grocery store.
If you have any other knowledge that they do not intend to do this, then
pass this information along. We certainly have enough books in print
that show our potters work as well as methods. Why not just teach them
methods and let them become creative in their own culture.
This is just my opinion.
Bonnie Staffel, Charlevoix, MI
CNW on fri 1 oct 99
Rick- I would have been glad to reply and was in fact mulling over which
slide to send when I re-read your post. Horror of horrors you only wanted
functional. Since I am pretty much non-functional :^) that left me out.
Celia in NC
cwike@conninc.com
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