Lee Love on sat 25 mar 00
>
> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 16:16:15 EST
> From: madwa
> > ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >I do not see a Herr Professor
> Dr. of Ceramics in Berlin exchanging glaze recipes and dialogue (in
public)
> with an amateur in Bayreuth, although I may be quite wrong! Perhaps this
is
> only possible in the "Land of the free and the home of the brave"?
<...>
>Jean
> "Lang may your lum reek"
>
> Jean, I will have to second that - in our school, it is studio policy to
> share glazes, make your own glazes and share those, and to help anyone
with
> respect to skill, technique and process in the studio. Such a policy and
> attitude brings about far greater learning and some awesome glazes!
>
Jean & Sharry,
It wasn't always this way in the USA. I recall reading or
hearing a story about when Hamada, Yanagi and Leach were touring America in
the '50s. I either heard MacKenzie tell of it at a workshop or I read what
he wrote about it, can't remember (has anybody read this story?.) Handmade
ceramics were just being revived in the States and potters were very
protective of their "secrets." Someone at one of the demonstrations said
something to Hamada like: "I'd really like the recipe for this glaze you
use, but I know it is probably a secret and you can't share it." They were
dumbfounded when Hamada gave them the recipe. So, maybe Hamada and Leach,
with his Potter's Book, were an influence on our open information.
Now that I think about it, I believe I heard MacKenzie speak
about this Hamada story at a workshop, because I recall he said something
about secrets interfering with progress. Also, MacKenzie told the story
about how he started making his salt shakers that look like a flattened
sphere, with a cone on the bottom part going into the middle of the shaker.
He said that he was doing a workshop once, and a young student came up to
him and asked him to figure out a saltshaker one of her teachers use to make
but wouldn't share the secret to. MacKenzie had no idea how it worked,
but he played with the design during the workshop and figured it out and
showed the student and the rest of the workshop how to make them.
MacKenzie said that he demos them at all his workshops, because he didn't
believe in secrets.
--
Lee Love
2858-2-2 , Nanai
Mashiko-machi
Tochigi-ken
321-4106
JAPAN
Ikiru@kami.com
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