kterpstra on sat 10 apr 04
Dear reliable, responsible, good friend, Joyce,
When you sent me your post yesterday I didn't realize you sent it to
clayart too. I thought about it and realized that you made some comments
that most teachers hear from students. I wondered how many on clayart
have thought about the same things.
I remember you telling me that you were wanting to make some burros, a
road runner, and petroglyph drawings. And I remember telling you to go
out and do it. I know you would not make a clone of my "Buddyonny" or
"Trigger and Queenie". Yours would be yours. During the process I
imagine that the materials for the armature would be subtly different
even If you used wood. And did you mention cacti? Your materials and
pots would be different. The way you tie the pieces together would be
different. I imagine scale would change. You would discover something
uniquely yours in the process.
I don't have a patent on horses. I would share any of my methods just
as john and ron share glazes. That's why we do workshops. That's why we
teach.
I have a couple assignments that require some research in the library. I
tell students to find an historical vessel or work from a well-known
contemporary and reproduce it in some way. They are not allowed to make
a clone of it. They learn about detail. They learn that different forms
inspire different people. It's that way with all of us and continues
on.
Once in awhile a student will copy one of my cup forms or drawings.
These things are sitting around the studio and they see them and want to
challenge themselves to make the same thing. Most of them ask me first
and I tell them go ahead. I know that it's a learning process for
students. So far no one has ever made a clone that I know of even if
they try their hardest.
Here's a story about cloning from Jack Troy. An "well established"
potter was invited to make pots in jack's studio to be fired in Jack's
wood kiln. The person made several big jars just like Jack's. They
were clones. Jack didn't say anything. Jack just quietly watched the
guy make his jars. The firing was a success. While unloading the wood
kiln, Jack was carrying one of the guy's jars to the studio and wouldn't
ya know it! Jack dropped it. It shattered into a thousand pieces. You
all can guess whether it was an accident or not. Jack pretended it was
his own and said, "Oh crap. That was a nice one." The guy just stood
there in disbelief and didn't say a word. I hope the guy learned his
lesson about cloning.
Chris Ostrowski wrote yesterday," I'm sure countless people have, and
will continue to steal inspiration from your bank of ideas.
I'm honored that someone would think other people would be inspired by
my work. We are all inspired by other people's work at sometime or
another. However if someone made a clone of one of my horses, I would
make Craig sneak out to their horse barn in the middle of the night and
shoot it. If he got caught I would say, "That horse I sold you had a
bad leg. Had to shoot it."
So Joyce, get to work. Make stuff and do line drawings. Send me
pictures.
And, don't worry about Nilsie not being able to live it down. As Mel
says, "He's older than dirt. He can handle it."
Karen Terpstra
La Crosse, WI
http://www.uwlax.edu/faculty/terpstra/
http://www.terpstra-lou.com
ps. I still can't figure out why some of my posts are filled with =20,
lose the formatted paragraphs and all that when I read them on the
digest. It happens sometimes with other people's post too. All that
=20=AO stuff. Are we doing something wrong? Do we need to set our pc's
to Plain Text? Or mess with the settings in some way that I don't know
about? Does it just happen with the digest? Is it my computer? Is it
just me? Now I'm the paranoid nut case.
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