karen gringhuis on mon 29 dec 03
Chris -
Your "advice to a young potter" is great and you've
obviously given your future a lot of thought.
But I must take issue with one point - you say to
"sell stuff using others glaze recipes.....is
stealing." (Complete quote below) Yes, you clearly own
this opinion as yours but IMHO it's fairly
wrongheaded. While I applaud glaze study and
development, I think this is taking it a bit far.
Somehow it harkens back to the secrecy of medieval
guilds when recipes were closely guarded secrets.
As you say, "reputation is built on the quality of
work" and quality is a TOTAL of many things of which
glaze is only one part.
Indeed,there are unique recipes which people have
developed for which I would never think of asking the
recipe. But most published glazes have been willingly
shared by their publishers - sometimes even for money
(!) as in books. They are handed out freely at
workshops, etc. (Some of the biggest names in ceramics
hae been the most generous over the years.)
Note that the "publisher" may or may not be the person
who actually did most of the testing and development
work on any given recipe. Many many glazes have
originated from glaze class student assignments and
some of the teachers of those classes regard the
results as "public property." Over the years, some
schools or groups of students have even gathered their
glazes together and published them in a booklet. One
of the finer things about ceramics is the sense of
community & mutual helping that this sharing of
recipes fosters.
Any published glaze recipe is fair game. For you to
pass up a great glaze which would work well for you
just because YOU did not originate it strikes me as
silly and shortsighted. Take it, (tweak it or not)
use it and get on with improving the rest of your
work. As my absolutely favorite motto says "You'll
screw it up more than that in the firing!"
[Chris said >> My reputation will be built on the
quality of my work and I refuse to sell substandard
garbage. I also refuse to sell stuff using others
glaze recipes, not because they don't meet my
standard, in fact most exceed them, but for me using
anothers work is to succeed is stealing, at least when
applying the situation to myself. << ]
=====
Karen Gringhuis
KG Pottery
Box 607 Alfred NY 14802
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Keisha on tue 30 dec 03
Christ hey
I feel you. Your opinion is your own and we shouldn't
call each other's opinions stupid just because we
don't agree with them. If you feel that taking another
persons glaze is stealing then it's cool. If someone
feels that it would not be stealing then that's cool
too. If your conscious says it's stealing then don't
go against it. It's your own opinion. You should be
able to talk. You did say in your post that you are
applying this all to yourself. Take care and
blessings.
Keisha
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Chris Clyburn on wed 31 dec 03
Keisha,
I wasn't offended by Karen's statement, I just wanted to clarify in case
the disagreement had more to do with a misunderstanding. I am not the
greatest at communicating my thoughts, my wife's the writer. As to
disagreements, they are probaly the best thing that our species does to
improve itself.
If someone didn't think that higher firings were better in some way than
low fire, we would still all be working in earthenware, not that
earthenware is somehow less superior (hopefully that is not misconstrued
) For that matter if someone didn't feel that fired clay held water
better than woven baskets lined with clay we wooyuuld all be basket
weavers. For every invention we have made as a species someone has felt
there way is better, which has made us diversify and created a relatively
successful species.
I just do not want a disagreement to be based on a misunderstanding, for
that is non productive.
Besides, no matter what I write someone somewhere will disagree and/or take
offense and if you worry about that, then nothing will ever be written of
value. All you can do is make sure your point is understood to the best of
your ability and if you are still disagreed with, then you listen, see if
there argument has merit for you and adjust, or not, accordingly.
Opinions are what makes the world change, and without them we would still
be swinging from trees and eating the insects off each others back while we
groom (non-evolutionists insert your own analogy here....more than
enough room for all). Live and let live, love and learn.
Chris Clyburn
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 17:18:56 -0800, Keisha wrote:
>Christ hey
>
>I feel you. Your opinion is your own and we shouldn't
>call each other's opinions stupid just because we
>don't agree with them. If you feel that taking another
>persons glaze is stealing then it's cool. If someone
>feels that it would not be stealing then that's cool
>too. If your conscious says it's stealing then don't
>go against it. It's your own opinion. You should be
>able to talk. You did say in your post that you are
>applying this all to yourself. Take care and
>blessings.
>
>Keisha
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