Nikom Chimnok on sat 1 jul 00
I live in a production village. There are a few artists here also, but they
have a hard time making ends meet. They have too much slack time and
hangover time--the artists like to stay up late and talk art, while the
production potters aren't interested in art. They only seem to be interested
in making money. They don't play with clay for fun. The artists can't wait
to open their kiln and see it; the production potters, so long as they get
paid for their throwing, have no interest in the fired results.
The production potters don't complain about their fates, which is often the
same as that of their fathers and uncles. They don't want to be artists,
which is just another word for "skinny", in their vocabulary. The artist all
think they need a good long production run to get things going the right
direction; until they start doing the work, that is, at which point they
bitch and moan and go crazy.
The difference between the two groups is that the artists are educated at
colleges and universities, while the potters learned their skills by growing
up here. The potters know pottery as one of a very limited number of
occupations available to them, unless they want to pull up stakes and go
work contruction in Bangkok. Everyone has to work, and being a potter is no
worse than any other.
The artists know a little about a lot of things, including the price of
coffee cups in the USA and how to jigger. They find it hard to settle down
and be content with their lots, since there are so many alternatives and
different approaches.
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