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teaching, generallissimo to flake

updated tue 21 dec 99

 

elizabeth priddy on mon 20 dec 99

Here is my take on this,
generallissimo to flake,
(those would be the appropriate
extremist factions here, right?) ;^}


carrie jacobson wrote:

...
>Cripes, I'd have walked the first day,

teachers who are interestested in teaching
technique and staying out of the heads of their
students, would find that appropriate and
preferred. I don't take the fees til the end
of the first night. If they don't want the
class at that point, that is cool with me and I
have a list handy of other class options in the
area that they might prefer to explore (one of
these is my handbuilding course, which is run
differently)

>more importantly, I can help someone to love clay and use it to find the
>creativity and soul in themselves.

frequently, my students come from these classes
and complain about their feeling that they would
have liked a more skills oriented approach.
I usually tell them to count their blessings and
pull their hats on tight, because they are about
to get what they wished for, no bitter
complaining allowed.


>The pieces these people make absolutely astound me. Their creativity and
>ideas are so much beyond mine, so different from mine, it blows me away. A
>truly amazing thing is that though these people learn at my hands, they do
>not make pots that look as though they have come from my hands.

I have said the same thing, almost verbatim, in
other threads about teaching, about my students.
I infuse them with a love of technique that
gives them the freedom to make what they want.

I assure you that if I ran it as a bootcamp, I
would probably have to advertise my classes, and
since I don't, I am assured that they are happy
with the results. They seek me out, usually
after learning to love clay from someone like
you. More power to you!

>
>The students are working to develop not mastery of the clay, but a
>relationship with the clay, a relationship that allows them to know the
>material and guide it, and to know themselves and use the clay to draw out
>the parts of themselves that this world would kill.

What a cynical view of the world.


>Master the clay?

One relationship with the clay that is available
is one of mastery over it, whereby one gains the
ability to express ones deepest feeling with
confidence that it will make it through the
firing and out into the world.

>Really, if we wanted true mastery of the medium, would we be doing this?

yes, that is why I have done it for the
past 18 years. I will be there.

>Isn't part of the allure the whole vibrant and
lively nature of the material?

yes.


Elizabeth Priddy

email: epriddy@usa.net
http://www.angelfire.com/nc/clayworkshop
Clay: 12,000 yrs and still fresh!>



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