primalmommy@IVILLAGE.COM on sun 3 feb 02
If Ceramics monthly seems chilly, austere and highbrow to some clayarters, think of it this way: PMI is a like potter's guild, CM is a museum or fine gallery.
PMI is helpful and chatty, a bit cluttered, but cozy. "Homey" articles, informal tips, a casual tone, some pretty nice pots and a few dorky ones.
Ceramics monthly visually powerful, the one I leave on the coffee table and it grabs my attention every time I pass. The images are glorious, like work behind glass or on a pedestal-- well lit, but inaccessible in a way that makes you really search out detail with your eyes. Some thrill me and some bewilder me. Some fascinate me (even "ugly" ones) -- and I study them long and hard to figure out why. Sometimes reading a bit of the text afterward adds a new layer, like the one word title on a museum piece.
I think there's room for both kinds of journalism. CM is the one I leave out for clay students to leaf through. It gives them permission to think past "pinch pot", talk about texture and abstraction, make something "ugly" or weird. If everything we see/read/learn expands our range, why eliminate anything, especially things that strike us as extreme?
As for being intimidated by the language: years ago I signed on to clayart, thinking it was a collection of hobbyists, threw out a few beginner questions, and finally quit because 90% of the posts were way over my head, and the rest off topic. Chemistry, electronics, heatwork, elements of design, glaze calculation/materials, vitrification, physics...
Now I'm back, and every year that I hang in there, I understand more of what's being discussed. I have read more clay books, taken more workshops, tried new things, and have a wider understanding of some of those things, despite being a relative "beginner".
Same with CM. Is there some puffed-up, self-important, deliberately obscure nonsense in some of the artist statements? Sure there is. Accountants do it too, and architects, and literature profs, and your uncle Bob.
But language is a tricky thing to wrap around art/pottery. We see a pot/sculpture, feel it inside, experience it with our hands, with our emotions -- but talking about it is like making love by morse code.
So there HAS to be "artspeak". Those who want to TRY to put it all into words (optional, of course) have to invent the language to do so. Otherwise we'd sound like a bunch of stoned teenagers standing in front of a work of art... after "ooooo" and "wow, man"... where do you go? So we learn a vocabulary of art, and agree on the meanings. Not (ideally) to flog people with or put on airs, but to try to express in the "code" of language what we feel on such a primal level.
My husband and I do often giggle over incomprehensible art with bewildering artist statements. And we sometimes make each other laugh. We look at some blunder (-- a dropped blueberry pie splattered across the floor/wall, or a kid-flung plastic triceratops imbedded in a leatherhard vase) -- and we launch into some ludicrous artist statement -- using the words "juxtaposition" and "human condition" as often as possible ;0]
Yours, Kelly in Ohio
P.S. I get a kick out of looking through old cms and seeing how, despite the wide range of work represented, 70's pots look so... 70s. And I wonder what will look dated about today's pots in a decade or two, when I reach the youth of my old age...
_________________________________________________________________
iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
http://www.ivillage.com
becky schroeder on mon 4 feb 02
Kelly,
what an excellent post. i am definately going to us this art speech babble
next time i screw up a project at work and see if it can get me off the hook
or at least be more original than "the dog ate it".
becky schroeder
>
>My husband and I do often giggle over incomprehensible art with bewildering
>artist statements. And we sometimes make each other laugh. We look at some
>blunder (-- a dropped blueberry pie splattered across the floor/wall, or a
>kid-flung plastic triceratops imbedded in a leatherhard vase) -- and we
>launch into some ludicrous artist statement -- using the words
>"juxtaposition" and "human condition" as often as possible ;0]
>
>Yours, Kelly in Ohio
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
>Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
>http://www.ivillage.com
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Bob Hanlin on mon 4 feb 02
Well, I recall being in the ACC a decade or three ago. Was even OK state
rep. to the organization for one year. I kept getting the magazine for a few
years after that. I dropped it finally because there was nothing of use for
me in it. I couldn't see what ACC was doing for the guy that sits astraddle
a wheel for hours a day and stays up nights peering into the peep hole to
see if and when C10 is going to fall. CM is approaching that level. In
short when CM stops being useful I'll quit taking it. It's getting more
upscale with each year. But, occasionally it has something I can use.
If I'm look for inspirational pots, etc. I can always drag down Peter Lanes
books and others.
So, for now I'm keeping CM because it comes every month (the academic
schedule is a bit bothersome) and at times something useful is in
there...also some things are inspirational. It is however approaching
marginal for me.
I'm a potter, an not at all interested in all that avaunt guarde stuff, it's
one person's treasure and another's trash.
Bob H.
bobhanlin@earthlink.net
one of the whosoevers.........
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 6:50 PM
Subject: cm, pmi, artspeak
> If Ceramics monthly seems chilly, austere and highbrow to some clayarters,
think of it this way: PMI is a like potter's guild, CM is a museum or fine
gallery.
>
> PMI is helpful and chatty, a bit cluttered, but cozy. "Homey" articles,
informal tips, a casual tone, some pretty nice pots and a few dorky ones.
>
> Ceramics monthly visually powerful, the one I leave on the coffee table
and it grabs my attention every time I pass. The images are glorious, like
work behind glass or on a pedestal-- well lit, but inaccessible in a way
that makes you really search out detail with your eyes. Some thrill me and
some bewilder me. Some fascinate me (even "ugly" ones) -- and I study them
long and hard to figure out why. Sometimes reading a bit of the text
afterward adds a new layer, like the one word title on a museum piece.
| |
|
