Marian Morris on thu 9 dec 99
I'm sorry but I have to write even more about this topic in hopes that it
will help you to help your students "birth" their ideas. I am a veteran of
23 years of a love-hate relationship with academic ceramics. I totally fell
in love with the feel and substance of clay in a class I took in a parks and
recreation class 23 years ago. God made a big empty spot in my brain for the
stuff, and I knew it was filled the minute I got my hands into that clay.
The teacher just turned us loose and let us wallow it in, giving instruction
in technique only as we requested it in order to do things we wanted to try.
Every week she demo'd throwing, and then let us have at it. It was the usual
struggle to learn to center, etc., and since I don't enjoy a lot
repetitiveness (a curse of creatives) I got bored when I hit the first wall,
and turned to handbuilding to enjoy the clay. In the 23 years since then, I
have studied under seven teachers in several college settings.(and
eventually did learn to throw on the wheel, even though it not nearly the
outlet that the handbuilding is.)
The relationship I have with clay is almost perverted in my passion for it,
and some of these earnest teachers just did their level best to kill that
passion with their legalisms and their protocol for teaching. Not that they
were trying to, oh no, far from it. They surely saw my love for the material
and wanted to help me and the other students to reach our potential in using
it to create art. They realized that I would never make things I dreamed of
if I couldn't manipulate the material with skill.
But how to get from unskill to skill without killing passion and creativity-
that is the vexing thing. I had subsequent teachers, two notably, who had
strong design agendas. One was deeply entrenched in the traditional
functional forms, though knew she shouldn't push that agenda on students as
they were trying to find their way with clay. But she just couldn't pull it
off. She couldn't hide her aesthetic preferences, and of course subtley (and
not so subtley) pushed the agenda by who and what she acknowledged. It was
really a very dishonest position.
Another was all caught up in whatever the trend is called in which the work
is highly decorative and sculptural- the stuff you see so much of in CM ( a
lot of it I find humorous and delightful, and altogether masturbatory, as an
earlier thread described it). This teacher has no love of the clay at all,
it is just a convenient scuptural medium, and though I do appreciate his
lack of legalisms, he has no heart whatsoever for the processes of ceramics.
He has no time to waste helping students learn the basics of just handling
the clay. He is totally lost in his "artistic statements," and he is a
hopeless art snob.
So I have found my way with the clay largely on my own, though studying with
several very competent potters along the way like my first teacher, who
would let the students move into it at their own pace. I have always done it
as a hobby as opposed to a profession, mostly due to my own skill
limitations, which maybe at this late date in my life I would be ready to
address with a teacher who has a strict regimen for skill building. But I
could really only do that because I am now at a place where I can see
possiblities that I cannot realize because of skill limitations.
I teach clay "pre-school" (to adults), just like my first teacher. The
approach I use really does bring out creativity in almost everyone. I teach
a love of the material- its color, its feel, its origin, and let the
students take it from there. The ideals I "preach" are how I feel about the
sensuality of the clay. Our first forms are handbuilt, often out of floppy
cut slabs- the easiest to make, and I only ask that the finished product
look like it was made out of clay- so the more goofs, the better. I want to
see that it was clay first before some humanoid tried to shape it! We use
terra cotta and some commerical glazes, mostly greens, but just as contrast,
not to envelope the piece, so that they can experience how lovely that iron
red looks next to its color opposite.
>From there we move to hump molding and I have a closet full of plaster and
bisque molds of wonderful small forms, many of which were made for me by
good potters. This brings in "incidental learning" about fine forms, though
I never talk about that directly, because it is too early in the game to set
up an ideal that can't be reached with what we have in our skill repertoire.
It just lets them see what some nice forms look like, and they experiene
them in the hand with finished projects that are the combination of nice
forms and some surface embellishments.And so it goes from there. Someone
almost always wants to try my wheel, which I am glad to let them do, and the
next place you find them is in the college classroom, just like it went for
me.
I often put on cowboy music (here in northern Michigan yet!) or some old
time gospel music, because along with the clay, I love that wonderful corny
music, it makes me happy, and it removes the last possible fear that anyone
will be doing the art snob thing in my class, (and it sure keeps the art
snobs out!)
Once the fear of criticism is gone, and the pure physical enjoyment of the
clay is experienced, the ideas and the creativity come and come and come!
THEN the desire is there to embark on the disciplines of learning technique.
At that point, I say teachers shouldn't try to suppress their aesthetic
agendae. It won't fly. It's inauthentic and no one learns from a dishonest
teacher. You can be totally sold out to a particular school of thought, and
it won't hurt your students at all, as long as you own it as your own
preference, and share it with joy and not overbearance.
I say these things from the standpoint of near ignorance when it comes to
art theories, or even the history of this craft, which is to my discredit or
my credit, depending on where you stand. But I share the ideas as things to
try so that you can free up a little more creativity in your classroom in
preparation for passing on your obvious passion for functional design.
Well, OK, that's enough for now. This is much more to the point than my last
stupid post. It took me a while to lock in to the issue. You really got me
going!
>From: Ray Aldridge
>Reply-To: Ceramic Arts Discussion List
>To: CLAYART@LSV.UKY.EDU
>Subject: Re: teaching ideas (long)
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 17:26:26 EST
>
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>At 03:54 PM 12/6/99 EST, you wrote:
> >----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >Dear Ray,
> >I am winding up a semester with General education students many from
> >business majors. If they had an idea , any idea, I'd be thrilled. I have
> >spent the best part of the semester trying to get them to think up an
> >idea. Many sit there as you say, doing nothing. Finally they have been
> >working doing sculpture or throwing pots. I do not practise "memes" of
> >how to make something like what I make. We have gone through historical
> >pieces, to pieces made for specific functions of their choice.
> >But, geez, some students even art majors don't have ideas. This is the
> >most challenging to teach to students. I don't think Mel disagrees with
> >that either.
>
>I hear you. It must be very frustrating for someone who has a surplus of
>ideas to deal with students who seem so needy when it comes to ideas. As
>you say, the solution is not to give them some of yours... but this is the
>approach many teachers seem to resort to in the end.
>
>It's a shame that those who devise curricula don't include a course on
>developing ideas, or "creativity." I really don't believe that there are
>people who can't be creative-- I think they just haven't been given the
>tools they need. There are brainstorming techniques that can be taught--
>for example, there's Gabrielle Rico's "clustering" technique, and there are
>others.
>
>I think one of the problems is that the creative people who are attracted
>to teaching the arts find it difficult to imagine that other people have
>repressed their creativity, and conclude that these people have some
>essential lack. It's not that way, in my opinion. Some children are
>musical prodigies who toddle over to the piano one day and start pounding
>out show tunes. But almost anyone can be taught to make music of some
>sort, if they're willing to try, and if only prodigies were encouraged to
>make music, it would be a quiet world. In the same way, some young people
>have a natural ability to evolve ideas, without any training, but most of
>us can learn to be creative.
>
>It's my opinion that many teachers who profess to teach ideas are teaching
>their own ideas, which is a much more limited category. I think the
>evidence for this is the remarkable consistency in the stylistic directions
>taken by each year's crop of MFA candidates. When I used to read CM
>regularly, I was frequently appalled by the sameness and ineptitude of
>graduate exhibits, and I can only attribute this common observation to the
>teaching of pet ideas.
>
>I don't know what the solution is, unless teachers are willing to devote
>some portion of class time to the ways that ideas can be generated. In the
>case Marcia cites above, involving business students taking electives, I'd
>be tempted to teach them technique and not worry much about forcing them to
>be creative. It probably can't be done. Give them lots of technical
>exercises and wait. Those who were seduced by the touch of clay (and I'd
>guess there's always one or two) I'd try to give creative exercises to, to
>make the point that ideas are there all the time. We just need to learn
>how to mine them from the deeper layers of the mind where the motherlodes
>lurk.
>
>Ray
>
>
>Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
>http://www.goodpots.com
______________________________________________________
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Ray Aldridge on fri 10 dec 99
Marian, terrific post. You hit a lot of nails directly on their flat
little heads. I'm not a teacher, but if I were, I'd take your analysis to
heart and try to put it into effect. I'm sure the best teachers have
arrived at similar conclusions.
Ray
At 11:18 AM 12/9/99 EST, Marian wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I'm sorry but I have to write even more about this topic in hopes that it
>will help you to help your students "birth" their ideas. I am a veteran of
>23 years of a love-hate relationship with academic ceramics. I totally fell
>in love with the feel and substance of clay in a class I took in a parks and
>recreation class 23 years ago. God made a big empty spot in my brain for the
>stuff, and I knew it was filled the minute I got my hands into that clay.
>
>The teacher just turned us loose and let us wallow it in, giving instruction
>in technique only as we requested it in order to do things we wanted to try.
>Every week she demo'd throwing, and then let us have at it. It was the usual
>struggle to learn to center, etc., and since I don't enjoy a lot
>repetitiveness (a curse of creatives) I got bored when I hit the first wall,
>and turned to handbuilding to enjoy the clay. In the 23 years since then, I
>have studied under seven teachers in several college settings.(and
>eventually did learn to throw on the wheel, even though it not nearly the
>outlet that the handbuilding is.)
>
>The relationship I have with clay is almost perverted in my passion for it,
>and some of these earnest teachers just did their level best to kill that
>passion with their legalisms and their protocol for teaching. Not that they
>were trying to, oh no, far from it. They surely saw my love for the material
>and wanted to help me and the other students to reach our potential in using
>it to create art. They realized that I would never make things I dreamed of
>if I couldn't manipulate the material with skill.
>
>But how to get from unskill to skill without killing passion and creativity-
>that is the vexing thing. I had subsequent teachers, two notably, who had
>strong design agendas. One was deeply entrenched in the traditional
>functional forms, though knew she shouldn't push that agenda on students as
>they were trying to find their way with clay. But she just couldn't pull it
>off. She couldn't hide her aesthetic preferences, and of course subtley (and
>not so subtley) pushed the agenda by who and what she acknowledged. It was
>really a very dishonest position.
>
>Another was all caught up in whatever the trend is called in which the work
>is highly decorative and sculptural- the stuff you see so much of in CM ( a
>lot of it I find humorous and delightful, and altogether masturbatory, as an
>earlier thread described it). This teacher has no love of the clay at all,
>it is just a convenient scuptural medium, and though I do appreciate his
>lack of legalisms, he has no heart whatsoever for the processes of ceramics.
>He has no time to waste helping students learn the basics of just handling
>the clay. He is totally lost in his "artistic statements," and he is a
>hopeless art snob.
>
>So I have found my way with the clay largely on my own, though studying with
>several very competent potters along the way like my first teacher, who
>would let the students move into it at their own pace. I have always done it
>as a hobby as opposed to a profession, mostly due to my own skill
>limitations, which maybe at this late date in my life I would be ready to
>address with a teacher who has a strict regimen for skill building. But I
>could really only do that because I am now at a place where I can see
>possiblities that I cannot realize because of skill limitations.
>
>I teach clay "pre-school" (to adults), just like my first teacher. The
>approach I use really does bring out creativity in almost everyone. I teach
>a love of the material- its color, its feel, its origin, and let the
>students take it from there. The ideals I "preach" are how I feel about the
>sensuality of the clay. Our first forms are handbuilt, often out of floppy
>cut slabs- the easiest to make, and I only ask that the finished product
>look like it was made out of clay- so the more goofs, the better. I want to
>see that it was clay first before some humanoid tried to shape it! We use
>terra cotta and some commerical glazes, mostly greens, but just as contrast,
>not to envelope the piece, so that they can experience how lovely that iron
>red looks next to its color opposite.
>
>>From there we move to hump molding and I have a closet full of plaster and
>bisque molds of wonderful small forms, many of which were made for me by
>good potters. This brings in "incidental learning" about fine forms, though
>I never talk about that directly, because it is too early in the game to set
>up an ideal that can't be reached with what we have in our skill repertoire.
>It just lets them see what some nice forms look like, and they experiene
>them in the hand with finished projects that are the combination of nice
>forms and some surface embellishments.And so it goes from there. Someone
>almost always wants to try my wheel, which I am glad to let them do, and the
>next place you find them is in the college classroom, just like it went for
>me.
>
>I often put on cowboy music (here in northern Michigan yet!) or some old
>time gospel music, because along with the clay, I love that wonderful corny
>music, it makes me happy, and it removes the last possible fear that anyone
>will be doing the art snob thing in my class, (and it sure keeps the art
>snobs out!)
>
>Once the fear of criticism is gone, and the pure physical enjoyment of the
>clay is experienced, the ideas and the creativity come and come and come!
>THEN the desire is there to embark on the disciplines of learning technique.
>At that point, I say teachers shouldn't try to suppress their aesthetic
>agendae. It won't fly. It's inauthentic and no one learns from a dishonest
>teacher. You can be totally sold out to a particular school of thought, and
>it won't hurt your students at all, as long as you own it as your own
>preference, and share it with joy and not overbearance.
>
>I say these things from the standpoint of near ignorance when it comes to
>art theories, or even the history of this craft, which is to my discredit or
>my credit, depending on where you stand. But I share the ideas as things to
>try so that you can free up a little more creativity in your classroom in
>preparation for passing on your obvious passion for functional design.
>
>Well, OK, that's enough for now. This is much more to the point than my last
>stupid post. It took me a while to lock in to the issue. You really got me
>going!
>
Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
http://www.goodpots.com
eric nissen on fri 10 dec 99
I appreciate the discussions on teaching technique and creativitity. I
teach at several schools in the Atlanta, GA area. Some all levels
classe and some advanced levels. In the all levels I teach the basic
techniques but do it with show and tell approach. Then half way
throught the semester after everyone has some good skills I give a
'concept' project. It is just an idea or theme and the student develops
it through drawings and/or clay sketches. It becomes very personal and
the techniques chosen to bring the idea to reality are up to them. I
have had pretty good results with this approach. The advanced classes
start right off with the concept project because they already have the
basics down, but I add in more complex or new ways to do stuff as they
work through the project. Another approach I do is to work on my own
project throughout the semester so the students can see how I develop
my ideas and how I make choices on how my idea gets made.
Sandra Nissen
nissens@webtv.net
Marian Morris on sun 12 dec 99
Thanks, Sandra. Some of the most meaningful lessons I have learned have come
just that way- watching the teacher develop his or her own project. Showing
is always better than telling. I'm sure your students appreciate your
approach.
>From: eric nissen
>Reply-To: Ceramic Arts Discussion List
>To: CLAYART@LSV.UKY.EDU
>Subject: Re: teaching ideas (even longer)
>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 18:20:49 EST
>
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I appreciate the discussions on teaching technique and creativitity. I
>teach at several schools in the Atlanta, GA area. Some all levels
>classe and some advanced levels. In the all levels I teach the basic
>techniques but do it with show and tell approach. Then half way
>throught the semester after everyone has some good skills I give a
>'concept' project. It is just an idea or theme and the student develops
>it through drawings and/or clay sketches. It becomes very personal and
>the techniques chosen to bring the idea to reality are up to them. I
>have had pretty good results with this approach. The advanced classes
>start right off with the concept project because they already have the
>basics down, but I add in more complex or new ways to do stuff as they
>work through the project. Another approach I do is to work on my own
>project throughout the semester so the students can see how I develop
>my ideas and how I make choices on how my idea gets made.
>
>Sandra Nissen
>nissens@webtv.net
______________________________________________________
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