Mark Mecklenborg on tue 5 feb 02
I have two items to address in my role as Director of
Publications for The American Ceramic Society and Publisher
of Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated.
First, Cindy Strnad suggested posting photos of work
published in CM on a website to facilitate critical
discussion. This idea certainly has merit. We are looking
into ways that we can help make this happen, possibly by
creating a forum on the CM website.
We will participate only if we can do it in a way that
protects against copyright infringement and ensures that
individual artists are not libeled in any way. We also
want to respect the preferences of the artists whose work
is shown in CM, and will not include any image on this
forum without first obtaining the artist's permission.
Of course, you are all free to personally rant or rave
about any piece published in CM, but if we facilitate
criticism on a public forum or website, it's a little
different story. I do want to remind people that posting
something on a website is tantamount to publishing it in
print; therefore, copyright and libel laws apply.
If we go forward with this initiative, we will need to find
a way to monitor the postings either by a CM staff member
or by a volunteer moderator -- just as Mel serves so
effectively as the volunteer moderator of Clayart.
We will get back to Cindy and the people championing this
initiative in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your patience.
Second, I want to thank you for all the feedback regarding
CM and PMI on Clayart. It's great to know that people care
enough to debate whether or not we are meeting their needs.
Rest assured that we do listen to your comments and act on
them in many cases.
Ruth Butler and the CM editorial staff constantly encourage
submissions on all aspects of ceramic art and pottery,
including practical, "how-to" information, artist's
profiles and exhibition reviews. Altogether, CM publishes
over 600 pages of editorial material each year and at least
that many high-quality images. We know that not every
article and every image will inspire you. We also know
that we won't meet the needs of everyone involved in
ceramics, but you can count on CM to try.
As some of you've mentioned, different people have
different needs. That's why we launched Pottery Making
Illustrated five years. Bill Jones, PMI's editor, works
hard to acquire "how-to" articles for beginning to
intermediate potters and to clearly illustrate techniques.
We're glad to hear that many of you find this magazine
useful.
As a nonprofit, professional society, ACerS strives to meet
the needs of the worldwide ceramics community in many ways.
One way we serve you is by supporting and hosting Clayart.
We have found the feedback provided to us on Clayart to be
very useful. In fact, it was Clayart feedback and the
support of Clayarters that indirectly led to the creation
of Potters Council. We hope that the Potters Council will
grow and enable us to meet even more of your needs.
Once again, thanks for your input. As always, if you have
any comments or questions regarding The American Ceramic
Society, CM, PMI, or any of our publications, please feel
free to e-mail me at mmecklenborg@acers.org or call me at
614-794-5829.
Your feedback does matter to us.
Mark J. Mecklenborg
Senior Director, Publications
The American Ceramic Society
614-794-5829
www.ceramics.org
Klyf Brown on wed 6 feb 02
Mark,
Thank you. That was the most well thought out post I think I have
ever read. Your willingness to help the ceramics community is
commendable. I for one really appreciate your efforts. I too think this
idea of Cindy's has a lot of merit. The adding of the pictorals would
expand this forum greatly. I hope you can work out all the legal stuff
and bring this idea to fruition.
As to the CM debate; a lot of the material in CM is either of no
interest to me or I don't understand it, but there is always so much that
does interest or stimulate me that the magazine is always of value to
me. Through the years you have had so many pots pictured that made
mme run to the studio to try to copy them. I rarely succeede, but I
always learn something new and sometimes a new direction.
Thank you for your magazines, this forum, and your work in the
future.
Klyf Brown in New Mexico
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