Lily Krakowski on fri 12 sep 03
>I don't want to be associated with those potters who use somebody else's
>gear. I don't get excited about somebody's dedication if their spouse is
>bringing home wads of money.
Bless you Lois for catching this one!!!!
Lettuce (again) go back a week or so. WalMart is BAD because it deals with
"the masses." (That "The Masses" is bad we already got lectured on.)
WE are as refined as commercial white bread, have High Cultural Tastes which
we should teach The Masses... And are supposed to live entirely of what we
make as potters. Right!
What exactly "other people's gear" means is unclear. Are published glazes
"other people's gear"? Is renting rather than owning the studio space
"using other people's gear"? Certainly riding a bus or subway IS.
If I can use public transportation, and electricity I do not generate, and
commercially dug and prepared clay and glaze materials, and use the glazes
such as RonJohn published after years of work (time is money) and testing
($$$) why exactly would I be condemned to eternal hell fire (oxidation/
electric, please) if I "borrowed" a big Bailey Slabroller if my own s/r is
not wide enough, or used someone else's kiln for something too tall for
mine????
As to spouses bringing home wads of money. Yes. Oh, yes. Totally. People
marry (a term I use losely as generic for all sorts of relationships)people
they relate to, people of same educational level, general social
background, and same intelligence. Ergo: those of us who chose clay
couldha'been doctors and lawyers and like that. And people with more
intelligence and education as a rule make more money than those without.
A very drunk attorney at a party once asked me why I was a potter when I
"had the brains" to be a doctor, lawyer, professor, blah blah. My reply is
that thank goodness, I had the brains to be a potter. Period.
When I wrote "Taking Care of Reality" (CM) almost 20 years ago I pointed out
most of us, like most in the Arts & Crafts Movement, come from middle class
or higher economic backgrounds. Today this has changed a bit, as loans
allow poorer young people to go to clay school. Still our cultural
aspirations are around there. So our life-partners etc are likely to be in
same stratum and likely--in this world--to make good money.
I expect there are people on the list who have chosen lives of poverty. For
religious reasons, ecological reasons, whatever. And there are potters out
there who acquired that life by teaming up with a missionary, or a rural
nurse, or someone in another craft. I admire and respect them, but poverty
alone does not make them superior to those who teamed up with a banker,
accountant, architect etc. The assumption that it is shows a total
non-understanding of what relationships are about.
So a potter who otherwise would lose every tooth, and have to send the kids
to a rotten school, is able to get dental work and send kids to good school
because Spouse (Co-Parent) makes money. Bravo, bravissimo!
I do not wish chilblains on anyone. But let me say this, and I speak from
personal (ouch) knowledge. If you have not had chilblains because you could
not afford winter shoes, because you were sacrificing all for clay, give it
a rest.
Sophie Tucker said: "I have been both rich and poor. Rich is better."
Elizabeth Bowen said, about the Newly Rich: " Better late than never."
Blessém both.
Lili Krakowski
Constableville, N.Y.
Be of good courage....
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