j e motzkin on sun 5 jun 05
All this talk of copying brings up some feelings and thoughts... a few vignettes...late night rambles and experiences...
A few years ago I applied to a national show located in my area and was wait listed. I have noticed that some shows will waitlist a local artist, knowing she/he is more likely to be able to fill the space in the case of a last minute cancellation. A person who had taken a workshop with me was accepted into the show. It is the show promoters and jurors who have chosen the knock off. It is not the doing of the student, who is just trying to do what we do as we develop our work and market. She had the slick new slides. She is a school teacher, full time, however, and her school paid for her to take the week long firing workshop with me. My income is for the most part from selling my work.The work this person showed was very close to mine in form and surface. More than one person who attended the show mentioned the resemblance, asked me if I knew her. I wonder how much she had to deal with people asking her about my work.
I teach about firing technique and variations that I have developed over 20+ years. No one was teaching it then. I taught myself. I read and conjectured. I went through times of trial and failure. When I teach, I try to be forthcoming about technique and inspiration. I try not to let it be about technique only. I try to help focus on the right fire for each piece, on the principles of the fire, on experimentation. I try to include the experience of the attendees, who are often quite experienced. I hate to think that i have to be protective in teaching. It flies in the face of my intent. I hate to feel uncomfortable about exposing my "secrets". I expect these student potters to respectfully use and develop these techniques into their own as I did. Otherwise is is just stuff. Teaching is a gift i give back to honor everyone who ever taught me, whether they know it or not. There are people on this list and beyond who have taken workshops with me, whose work is developing and growing,
who I respect and who do not knowingly compete with me. Thanks for that. I understand that when someone loves the work produced with a particular method, they will do anything to learn about it. This includes stealing, borrowing and copying. Someone has said that students copy, artists steal.
Years ago a woman attended my open studios and kiln unloading, asked endless questions about the method while I was attending to customers. I did not mean to be rude to her, but did not have time for all of her questions. When her work showed up at one of my galleries, looking so much like mine that even I was confused, I suggested to the gallery that I should remove my work, since they did not need to have two people showing such similar work. The next day they called her and asked her to remove that new line of work she had brought in. She moved away and I thought she moved on, though she told someone who knew me, these many years later, that I had been mean to her. hmmm. That hurt.
Just a few weeks ago I got a call from someone who wanted to replace a pot belonging to her husband which she had broken. I asked them to bring the shards with them. As I opened the bag of shards my first thought was, "this isn't one of my best, the surface color is muddy, not the way I like it." Then, " this isn't my burnish". then I looked at what was left of the foot, not my foot, mine are deep, extreme, this is wimpy. then the shard with the signature appeared and I knew that this was not one of mine. The collector had bought my saggar pieces, but also those of another potter. this was his. they were embarrassed, but not unhappy to replace it with one of mine.
I was thrust back to the memory of my first interaction with this potter. I was setting up at an ACC wholesale show. The guy next to me arrived with a halogen lit, architect designed, formica (read very slick) booth. It was just going up as I began to unpack my work. He exclaimed that he had been admiring my work for years and proceeded to pull out work that was as close to my own as I had seen. He had gotten in off the wait list, it was his first wholesale show, his prices were way below mine. Oops. Bad for me. He did quite well for a couple of years, badly affecting my sales to galleries, though I think he is no longer at it.
I remember when our own Richard Mahaffey of the other coast and I showed up at an ACC show with work that was similar in form and fire and intent. I made sticks and stones, he made sticks and stones. His were more architectural, mine more organic. Both saggar fired, lines from wires, etc. Neither of us had seen the work of the other. We were living on the extreme edges of the country. I felt clearly that we were on the same wavelength and had randomly intersected. I loved that. We could teach or work or learn together. Still could.
I did not invent saggar or pitfire. I learned from everyone and everything I read or saw. I learned from Bizen and tamba, turner, neugebauer, salt and soldner, native american and mexican indian and more. ( I wonder if there is some potter or artist out there resenting something I have appropriated from him or her. For that I am sorry. I hope I have left you enough to work with when I took from you.) Mostly I learned from my experiments. I developed my variations, unique to my clay and kilns and time and life. I persevere and delve more into the personal. It helps my teaching. It furthers my work. I do not depend so much on a technique for my identity. It is just a tool. I do my work. I try not to dwell on the learning curve of others. It damages my ability to make art and teach well. My experience is that the well will fill from below. Perseverence furthers. G'night.
Jude
Judith Motzkin
motzkin/studio
7 Tufts Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-547-5513
jmotzkin@yahoo.com
http://www.motzkin.com
http://spiritkeeper-urns.com
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