Craig Dunn Clark on tue 13 apr 04
indeed a contemplative activity for me!!
Ivor, you have succinctly and poetically described the aspect of raku
that is most profound to me. Indeed, when talking to anyone who is
interested I will talk about what has been a philosophical journey.It all
began twenty something years ago on the island of Hawaii in a mathermatics
classroom. I was a member of Uncle Sams Canoe Club at that time and was
taking advantage of free college courses offered to enlisted personel.
The professor had just finished a problem dealing with related rates and
the discussion shifted to "time" and how we quantify it. He looked at our
class, smiled, paced back and forth a bit and then asked us all a question.
He said, how many of you can relate to this statement, as in understand what
I am basically trying to say......."there is a beginning and there is an end
of time." I raised my hand. looked around me and noticed that there were a
number of other folks of Western decent who looked very much like me that
had their hands in the air. I also noticed that my buddy, Jaun Gumataotao,
who was a practicing Buddhist and who was from Guam had his hands in his
lap. A number of the folks in the room who looked more like Gumataotao and
were of Eastern decent did not have their hands up either. I probably did
not make the East/West cultural extraction connection at that moment but it
is nice to think that I was bright enough as an 20 yr old to do so.
The professor nodded his head and asked another question, "....how many
of you understand and can relate to this statement....there is no beginning,
middle or end of time. It is just there." The group of us Westernized folks
dropped our hands and many of the other folks raised theirs.
The professor went on to make his point about various types of references
and the difficulties of quantifying things, even when what is being spoken
of is obvious, or not as it turned out.
He then told us all to go home and think a bit about this very vital and
apparant difference between Western and Eastern cultures that had been
demonstrated in a math class. The different notions of time. In the West
there is a general linear construct that has to do with the birth, life,
death and possible return of a certain historical figure. In the East there
is not beginning, middle or end. It's all just there. Kinda like a John
Coltane riff, Jackson Pollocks painting, Newmans Obelisks or one of Hamadas
pieces. THose guys understood. Atleast in their souls, if not their consious
minds, as is evidenced by their work.
This concept blows me away to this very day. I can intellectualize about
it ad nauseum but I will not ever really be able to honestly relate to it. I
just wasn't socialized that way. It was not programmed into my basic
circuitry. The Western manner of thinking was.
My interest grew as I was increasingly perplexed or confounded by what
may have been easily understood if I just let it perculate through my
subconcious long enough. I intentionally tried to experience the
transcendant/sublime via various mechanisms, including strapping myself to
the top of the helo hanger on the USS Robert E. Perry while we were running
through a catagory II Hurricane in the South China Sea. It was nothing short
of a life altering experience. I was experienceing nature in all of it's
granduer and force. We were but a grain, moving through a cosmic turbulence.
It was a total sensory type of captivation. I was transfixed and in awe.
The next day when the sea that had been running with wave heights up to
30ft was calm as a lake I still did not really understand what the Eastern
way of looking at things was. I do not to this day nor do I think I ever
will.
Fast forward to the first time I ever watched a raku firing demo in a
university classroom. I had been making very classical forms, because I like
Greek Pottery, Architecture, Philosophy, etc, and had been glazing most of
them with a nice black Temoku which I dusted with a Soto Slip. Thought that
was a real nice augmentation of the form. Clean, articulated, clearly
defined linear construct.
Then I saw the flames, did I mention I'm a real fire freak, the random
patterns of color, the smell of the burn, thought about the what had been
said about there being no begginnning, middle or end of time several years
before and made a connection! The randomness and the patterns of color from
raku are a visible connection to the East for me. The classical forms are a
physical connection to the West. They are one in the same. They are
different manifestations of the same thing. I could feel what I had only
been thinking.
I made the decision to combine, to juxtapose, these two visually
contradictory things togetther. Started raku firing classical forms and have
been doing it ever since. They are absolutely vehicles of contemplation and
reflection for me though there are times that I need to be reminded of why I
started doing this to begin with.
Thankyou
Craig Dunn Clark
619 East 11 1/2 st
Houston, Texas 77008
(713)861-2083
mudman@hal-pc.org
This still doesn't mean that I think anyone should be using raku pottery for
utilitarian purposes. LOL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ivor and Olive Lewis"
To:
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 1:25 AM
Subject: Re: raku fruit bowl.....raku is for decorative purposes
only...repeat..raku is for decorative purposes only
> Dear Craig Dunn Clark,
> You shatter my illusions saying that <<...It is incomprehensible to me
> that one would suggest that it is somehow ok to use Raku for anything
> but decorative purposes....>>.
> It had been my impression that Raku was for contemplation and
> meditation, about willingness relinquish control of our creative
> impulses to forces that we really do not understand, of being able to
> mystify people with seemingly incomprehensible natural powers.
> So sad to be limited to seeing things only in terms of the decorative.
> Best regards,
> Ivor Lewis. Redhill, South Australia
>
> .
>
>
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