Lee Love on sat 25 oct 03
There are difficulties when you make really good pots in the beginning
too. :^)
My first three "keeper pots" that made it to a critique were
hand-built and earthenware. The routine was that you had to take
handbuilding at the UofMN before you could learn throwing.. I contructed
them in my kitchen and at the studio arts building, ferrying them back &
forth in special foam padded crates that I built for the purpose. They are
in storage in Minnesota.
My first pot was a vase, decorated in engobes with a diver on one
side fetching a pearl at the bottom of the sea and on the other side, a
dragon emerging. It was related to my Buddhist name, Dairin: "The
Golden fish who jumps through the net to become a dragon. This was about
16" tall, slab built.
My next pot was paddle and coil, about 24" tall and was decorated
with scraffitto fish on burnished iron slip. It was a shape based upon a
Jomon pot I saw a photograph of. I formed it on a birthday present: one
of those inexpensive "low boy" shimpo banding wheels.
My third pot was a life sized copy of my favorite Hawaiian shirt
that was disintigrating. It had fish decoration on it. I had it in the
State Fair show and the late Senator Wellstone's office was considering it
as "Minnesota Art" for his Washington office.
While I am much more skillful and am a much better craftsman now,
I've not gone beyond these first works, in the area of feeling and
expression.
--
Lee In Mashiko, Japan
http://Mashiko.org
Web Log (click on recent date):
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/calendar
| |
|
