mel jacobson on thu 30 jun 05
one does not have to return to 18th century wheels
to make decent pots.
a modern wheel, tuned and slowed will give you the
same feel.
i do not do production work on a kick wheel. i could.
but i choose not to. i would never want to be that guy
in india, working on a wagon wheel all day...firing with cow dung.
that is awful work. if he could, he would switch to a new
brent tomorrow. he just can't afford that. and, he has no place
to plug it in. and, if you ask him to define throwing...he would
snort and say...`watch this`. and then he would say....`you call
yourself a potter and don't know what throwing is? you have to be
the dumbest potter on the face of the earth.`
i use a modern chain saw, drive a modern new car, have
battery powered tools. they are wonderful.
all i ask is that people learn to slow these high powered
wheels down. most have a system in the foot pedal to
decrease the max speed. turn a button a half turn down
while the wheel is moving. see it slow down.
many potters have demanded more torque and speed in wheels.
they want
a wheel that will throw 400 lbs. but, they never make a
pot over 8 pounds. it is like having a muscle car...goes
145 miles and hour...but never leaves the neighborhood
of 30 mile an hour speed limits. ego driven maniacs.
high speed centering is a throw back to kick wheels.
you had to get up a head of steam if you where going
to center 10 pounds.
a modern wheel will center anything at low speed.
our new brent, pacifica, axner, baileys will throw most anything
you can center. they are quiet, reliable and will last for years.
they are marvels of modern technology.
it is not morally correct to use a kick wheel. it is choice.
we hear folks talking like we are zombies of technology...that
is not true. amazing how folks can be using a new mac, talking
across the world...flying in planes at 600 miles an hour...and
romanticize their tools to another century. it is just a choice each
person makes about the tools you have and use.
i love it that warren uses his old kick wheel...but that is his choice.
no mine.
if you make the wheel fit you, lift it, get the proper chair, build your
throwing space into an ergonomic work area, you will throw for years
without pain. then add a clay that fits your work...wow, wonderful.
if you plop down a brent, turn it to max speed, have a chair that is too
tall...have no sense about ergonomics...well good luck. it will not work.
if lee wants to use a korean wheel..have at it. just don't ask me to use it.
i won't. it has zero interest for me.
i made 14 teapots yesterday, 31 big bowls. i am doing my own work now.
not joe's/mel's. my wheel fits me. it is slow and powerful. 30 years old.
my work space fits me. the studio was built to fit me. just like tony a
sheila...
the studio fits them. their kilns and glazes have been developed for them
and their customer's needs.
like david hendley's studio and kiln...it is his...it works for him...he is a
professional. i admire that a great deal.
he does not have time to work on `urinal art pots`...he has to make a living.
research and new ideas are critical. i can afford to give up a year to
to the `iron saga`. i owed that to joe. that is over. done.
now i move on. the last pots are on my clayart website.
leaves. a wonderful collaboration with susan karrasch and bob anderson.
it worked, was a perfect finish to this project.
now the pots will go to china. a show in hong kong, shanghai, and we will
take about 20 of them for the museum in jiang. they are going home.
we are proud of that. joe leaves in october for three weeks in china.
i will go, i think, in the spring.
david armstrong has asked to be the agent for this work. we could not
have a better person, and a more trusted agent to handle this project.
i made all the 690 pots in the `iron saga` study on my wheel. in my studio.
in minnetonka, mn. with clay that joe sent me, glaze that joe sent me, and
firing protocol that i created. it was a collaboration with each member of the
team having autonomy to think things through. that is why it worked so well.
mel
from mel/minnetonka.mn.usa
website: http://www.pclink.com/melpots
pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on thu 30 jun 05
Hi Mel, all...
A little more hasty ramble on the notions...
How it seems to me...
... is that what the practioners in earlier decades or eras had for an
advantage, in many ways, was a better 'feel' for, and awareness of, the
impirical conditions of their materials and processes.
The mediating devices, Machines or methods did not rely on brute force to
bully things.
This is very true in Wood Working, as well as in Pottery.
The advent of cheap horsepower, sadly, while potentially a great liberator
and aide to the sensitive or experienced Artisan, is a ready corruption and
a
confusion to the novitiate or neophyte, especially when no one notices their
being seduced by the use of ready brute force, instead of being seduced by a
sensitive and aware relationship with their materials and proceedures.
For all of us, in everything, but in these things too of course, what we had
been told by others in earlier phases of our educations, was of course,
quite important.
Often, more important, is what for various reasons, tended to be left out,
or omitted...maybe because the awareness was no longer there in them to
communicate anout it to us.
I used to fan through Wood Working Books, sometimes also Pottery making
Books...
I recall nothing about true fundimentals of advocating those 'directions'
in which one finds a 'feel' for what one is doing, and, for how one does it.
Seldom are guidences communicated from the 'inside'.
More often they seek to be over-views of a kind of objectivity or
impartiality which ignores that one can have a feel for anything. Or, that
one's self and one's Work would benifit if they did.
How many small Wood shops have their three horepower plunge routers, their
one and a half horse screaming belt sanders and five horse table saw with
the biesmier
fence and so on...
Yes, almost none of these people could do much with a Hand Saw, for ripping
or cross cutting, n o nothing of how to sharpen one, and likewise are of
little facility with accomplishing the tasks with non power
Tools.
If they have Hand Tools at all, they are poor, low quality examples and in
poor condition
and dull.
What they usually lack for these deficits, is not only how TO use
the power Tools, but how to think about their materials or proceedures in
doing so.
Kinda like 'Jeeps' too...
A bone stock Willys CJ2 can still outclimb any humvee and fit through places
nothing but a ford "T" or a Mule can go, ascend grades and terrains almost
nothing
else can.
Yet, instead of leaving the integrity and genius of balance which the little
deep stroke side valve 4 Cylinder Engine posessed for the whole, instead of
respecting and admireing the excellent integrity of the whole, almost
everyone wants to put a smallblockchevy engine into them....so that they
will go 'fast'...
Can they climb a hill then at 1-1/2 miles an hour when steep and 'iffy'...?
No...
They are seduced by the feeling of 'power'...not by the experience of
responsive ability,
co-operation, patience, sense or understanding of how they are 'with' what
they are doing.
People 'learn' to do things 'to' things, not 'with' them...this also
characterizes much of their relations 'to' eachother...or of how to use
enough co-operative
careful 'force', in the right ways, at the right times, to be with what one
is doing, and to get it done
harmoniously and well...gets lost in the impatience...and substitutes.
Imposition supplants co-operation...brutality supplants a feeling 'for'
something.
Too, this is how most people were raised, and, how they were educated.
This is what was done 'to' them...
Not so good...
Not so good for the 'Arts' and 'Crafts' either...
Phil
el ve
----- Original Message -----
From: "mel jacobson"
> one does not have to return to 18th century wheels
> to make decent pots.
>
> a modern wheel, tuned and slowed will give you the
> same feel.
>
> i do not do production work on a kick wheel. i could.
> but i choose not to. i would never want to be that guy
> in india, working on a wagon wheel all day...firing with cow dung.
> that is awful work. if he could, he would switch to a new
> brent tomorrow. he just can't afford that. and, he has no place
> to plug it in. and, if you ask him to define throwing...he would
> snort and say...`watch this`. and then he would say....`you call
> yourself a potter and don't know what throwing is? you have to be
> the dumbest potter on the face of the earth.`
>
> i use a modern chain saw, drive a modern new car, have
> battery powered tools. they are wonderful.
>
> all i ask is that people learn to slow these high powered
> wheels down. most have a system in the foot pedal to
> decrease the max speed. turn a button a half turn down
> while the wheel is moving. see it slow down.
>
> many potters have demanded more torque and speed in wheels.
> they want
> a wheel that will throw 400 lbs. but, they never make a
> pot over 8 pounds. it is like having a muscle car...goes
> 145 miles and hour...but never leaves the neighborhood
> of 30 mile an hour speed limits. ego driven maniacs.
>
> high speed centering is a throw back to kick wheels.
> you had to get up a head of steam if you where going
> to center 10 pounds.
>
> a modern wheel will center anything at low speed.
> our new brent, pacifica, axner, baileys will throw most anything
> you can center. they are quiet, reliable and will last for years.
> they are marvels of modern technology.
>
> it is not morally correct to use a kick wheel. it is choice.
> we hear folks talking like we are zombies of technology...that
> is not true. amazing how folks can be using a new mac, talking
> across the world...flying in planes at 600 miles an hour...and
> romanticize their tools to another century. it is just a choice each
> person makes about the tools you have and use.
> i love it that warren uses his old kick wheel...but that is his choice.
> no mine.
>
> if you make the wheel fit you, lift it, get the proper chair, build your
> throwing space into an ergonomic work area, you will throw for years
> without pain. then add a clay that fits your work...wow, wonderful.
>
> if you plop down a brent, turn it to max speed, have a chair that is too
> tall...have no sense about ergonomics...well good luck. it will not work.
>
> if lee wants to use a korean wheel..have at it. just don't ask me to use
it.
> i won't. it has zero interest for me.
>
> i made 14 teapots yesterday, 31 big bowls. i am doing my own work now.
> not joe's/mel's. my wheel fits me. it is slow and powerful. 30 years
old.
> my work space fits me. the studio was built to fit me. just like tony a
> sheila...
> the studio fits them. their kilns and glazes have been developed for them
> and their customer's needs.
> like david hendley's studio and kiln...it is his...it works for him...he
is a
> professional. i admire that a great deal.
> he does not have time to work on `urinal art pots`...he has to make a
living.
>
> research and new ideas are critical. i can afford to give up a year to
> to the `iron saga`. i owed that to joe. that is over. done.
> now i move on. the last pots are on my clayart website.
> leaves. a wonderful collaboration with susan karrasch and bob anderson.
> it worked, was a perfect finish to this project.
> now the pots will go to china. a show in hong kong, shanghai, and we will
> take about 20 of them for the museum in jiang. they are going home.
> we are proud of that. joe leaves in october for three weeks in china.
> i will go, i think, in the spring.
> david armstrong has asked to be the agent for this work. we could not
> have a better person, and a more trusted agent to handle this project.
>
> i made all the 690 pots in the `iron saga` study on my wheel. in my
studio.
> in minnetonka, mn. with clay that joe sent me, glaze that joe sent me, and
> firing protocol that i created. it was a collaboration with each member
of the
> team having autonomy to think things through. that is why it worked so
well.
> mel
>
>
> from mel/minnetonka.mn.usa
> website: http://www.pclink.com/melpots
>
>
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