Elizabeth Herod on fri 15 aug 03
I just finished a wonderful (for me) workshop with Norifumi Suzuki at the
Clay Art Center in Port Chester. His work and his father=B9s is in the Seto
tradition.
The workshop was 3 days with 10 participants. I was one of the least
experienced of the participants, and thus felt quite honored to have been
able to be a participant.
We had demonstrations, and hands on with many suggestions. One of the
regular teachers speaks Japanese fluently, so we had no communication
problems. Fumi understands English, and speaks enough, so we were covered
on all bases.
He taught us about all of the tools that he uses, his throwing techniques,
handbuilding and glazing. He gave all of the tools to the CAC at the end o=
f
the workshop. We also learned about his father=B9s techniques with glaze,
which has now been lost, since he was the only one to use those methods.
I have not had the fortune to attend many workshops. I have only been
working with clay again for little over two years, and bad luck struck 3
times regarding workshops. It almost made me fearful of signing up for
another one. Hopefully, the jinx is broken now, and I=B9ll get to more
workshops.
For those of you who give workshops, it really helps when you talk to the
participants individually, and find out what we are doing and where we want
to go, and give us suggestions. It helps to know if we are going in the
right direction, or if we need to focus on something else.
Since I cannot go back and live in Japan again, having a workshop like this
one is the next best thing for me.
Beth
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