primalmommy on mon 10 oct 05
It occurs to me that after attending a lot of workshops, I find myself
learning way more than what is being demonstrated by the presenters.
I was blathering at length about this last night, and hubby suggested I
write about it on clayart. I would love to suppose he values our on-line
exchange of ideas here, but I rather suspect he was eyeing the clock and
thinking how early he had to get up for work ;0)
And anyway, I would have to tread very lightly to make the kind of
generalizations I was making aloud. Perhaps worth the effort, anyway.
Over the years I have come to recognize patterns in workshop presenters.
I am especially interested in the difference between studio potters and
academic potters.
They say that when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat
everything like it's a nail; it's interesting to see how different
potters teach from their different vantage points, and the assumptions
they make about who potters are in general.
I don't mean the kind of attitude stuff that has ruffled feathers here
in the past -- y'know, "academics are snobs and elitists, and studio
potters are artless sellouts..."
But in week long workshops or one day sessions, weekend gigs and NCECA
demos, magazines or any venue where I can see the potter, work and
context in one place, I am making observations that -- maybe long
obvious to others -- are new to me.
Where you work -- and where your living comes from -- determines what
you make. How much of it, as Tony C. points out, but also how big it is,
how detailed, how time consuming, how traditional or cerebral, popular
or puzzling.
I don't just mean that people's regional impressions are expressed in
their work. I mean that I would be more likely to make sculptural work
on a large scale, and go through more layers of trial and error, if I
had a car kiln, a big clay mixer and a student to wedge and recycle for
me.
I would have a wider palette of glazes to choose from if I had a glaze
tech and huge glaze bins, a spray booth and somebody else mixing my
tests. If I didn't have to nickel-dime my cobalt and mason stains.
I would be more likely to value personal expression and narrative vision
if I didn't have to worry about what would sell in the street. And if I
had a paycheck and bennies, I would never learn to make the boring
repetitious little pots that sell like hotcakes.
Academic potters, when they talk about pricing and self promotion, seem
to share a few perspectives in common. One is, "Price your work low, let
it go be used somewhere, make new work" -- which seems to address the
grad students or relative beginners who price as if they were Voulkous.
(Meanwhile studio potters are saying, "Don't undercut potters trying to
make a living! Just because you can afford to consider it a hobby
doesn't give you the right to undervalue pottery in the public eye by
pricing like it's a garage sale!"
Another academic theme seems to be, "Self promotion and marketing are a
way to sell work not worthy of its position, and we should be above
prostituting ourselves for something as common as money." Again, an
attitude possible for those who are well fed by another hand. Studio
potters often see two parts of the same equation: the pots you make to
pay the bills/feed your kids, and the pots you make to bring you
joy/feed your soul. Or there are the potters who have successfully
negotiated that old formula: sell 1000 ten dollar pots a year, or 10
thousand dollar pots.
I do not mean to imply judgement, here. I know profs are not making a
ton of money, for the most part, and work hard to earn what they are
making -- often are stuck reliving their beginner-potter-student days
over and over (like that groundhog day movie) with a changing array of
younger, more energetic students. I am not sure I would be able to do
that job. Even my little bit of teaching at the guild drains some of the
energy that would otherwise be channelled into my own studio.
I also know that many of our famous artists and composers were not
ditchdiggers and rag pickers, but grew up in relative luxury, were
educated formally, and thus were able to give the world the gift of
their creativity.
I know some of the most interesting work I am seeing these days is
coming from academics whose jobs allow them to focus on, read about,
write about what they are doing and why, and who are surrounded by
students with the same focus. How could they NOT move farther, faster,
than those of us who steal hours and energy from other jobs/roles to be
in the studio?
When studio potters act like cash flow is the only yardstick of success,
they are wrong. But when clay profs assume that the most talented kids
will go bfa/mfa and become famous/cm covers/profs one day, and that the
rest are "just hobbyists" or will fade away... well, they are wrong too.
I have attended workshops by potters who make a living at potting. They
are often without a BFA/MFA to their names, and maybe it is because I am
in that same camp that I often appreciate their balance between dreaming
and logic, extravagance and frugality, imagination and practicality.
There are things I may never know if I don't pursue the bfa/mfa road,
and at this stage in my life that's probably how it will be. But there
are also things no university program can teach, things I have learned
from potters who have worked, often in solitude, year after year, making
and making and making. Things their own hands taught them.
Like how this pot can be beautiful, yet time-efficient. How it can be
well crafted, yet artful, yet easily reproducible, yet marketable. While
I love to hear an academic potter like Julia Galloway asking questions
like, "Where in your body do you experience this pot?", the potters
whose voices echo in my studio and in my head years later are those who
shared their "light bulb" moments -- every repeated step of the way,
from centering to trimming to board to kiln to glaze to ez-up or website
or gallery or pot-shop. This tip, trick, tool; this bucket, twist, this
ritual born of intention and practice.
Which is not to say I would pick one workshop over another based on
whether the potter came from a big university teaching gig or from the
patch of woods on the riverside where the wood smoke rises from a hand
made kiln. Potters differ more from one to another than they do by
"category". And I can think of a handful of potters on clayart who are
really, truly in touch with both the academic and the
production/marketability issues.
The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more to
do with the heart than the head.
If you are passionate about what you do --
if you talk to a room full of potters with respect, as your peers and
not your students --
if you keep moving forward, breaking new ground with your work --
if you know that the way you twist a cutoff wire can mean as much as
what inspired your thesis show --
if you can tell a good story and laugh at yourself once in a while --
Then I'll pay to sit on a hard metal chair for two days and drink grey
coffee just to watch you make pots, when I should be home making my own.
Yours
Kelly in Ohio... looking forward to seeing a couple of clayarters at
mel's workshop in Perrysburg on the 21st/22nd. I will be going straight
from the workshop Friday evening to my annual campout with half a dozen
wonderful women friends, in a lovely tent site along the Maumee river.
Always in October, always good fall color, noisy V's of migrating geese,
late night smoky campfire and the kinds of stories/secrets/jokes we
would never tell anywhere else. And always I sleep in the bright red,
Civil war style wool "union suit" with the button flap in the back. And
always somebody takes my picture crawling out of my tent in the morning,
disheveled and smelling of woodsmoke. Only this time I am going to brush
my teeth, grab some campfire coffee and head back to mel's workshop, day
two. Who wants to sit by me? :0)
_______________________________________________________________
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Carolynn M. Palmer on tue 11 oct 05
In a message dated 10/10/05 10:22:48 PM, primalmommy@MAIL2OHIO.COM writes:
<< -- and where your living comes from -- determines what
you make. How much of it, as Tony C. points out, but also how big it is,
how detailed, how time consuming, how traditional or cerebral, popular
or puzzling. >>
Having made my full time living from pots for over 35 years - I have always
said that if I were to come into money, real money, I'd still make pots, but,
boy! would they be different pots!
-Carolynn Palmer, Moscow, Michigan
Kathy Forer on tue 11 oct 05
On Oct 10, 2005, at 10:52 PM, primalmommy wrote:
> Where you work -- and where your living comes from -- determines what
> you make. How much of it, as Tony C. points out, but also how big it
> is,
> how detailed, how time consuming, how traditional or cerebral, popular
> or puzzling.
Wonderful observations, Kelly. It sounds somewhat like an analysis of
expressions of free will and instances of determinism.
There's a theory called Principles of Emergence* that would seem to
address some of the problems of seeing a system as one of nurturing and
hierarchical academia vs diverse and decentralized marketplace
experience. 'Emergence' states, according to Wikipedia, "An emergent
behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple
entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex
behaviours as a collective." Flocking behavior.
We can choose our own colonies and generate out own galaxies. The
Clayart list is a great example. To borrow another Wikipedia phrase,
"This unity in diversity causes the complexity of emergent structures."
Some might say BS, but look at all the problems we address and solve
through distributed work. It helps when we have others alongside us on
related paths.
> The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more
> to
> do with the heart than the head.
As long as they're not mutually exclusive.... We all struggle with
balance of heart and head. Sometimes going too far against our nature,
sometimes being seduced or tricked by one or the other. It's hard to
say where one stops and another begins. That said, yeah, definitely, we
need passion and some kind of connection to communicate. Laughing at
oneself is just what separates us from our own beastly nature, we laugh
therefore are human, perhaps even filled with divine joy (not to be
confused with pesticides). And knowing your own ABCs can only further,
it helps with the static.
Kathy Forer
* which if I was an academic I'd know a lot more about, or might not
bother to mention because I know so little. Instead I glom and play at
gypsy scholaring, hoping someone else perhaps will see and like what I
like too and maybe explain it all back to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
John Rodgers on tue 11 oct 05
Interesting, Kelly.
I wonder where I would stand. I have never really been in a position to
be able to wonder about my work "is it art?" What I made simply had to
sell, period. Consequently, I have been very commercial in what I do,
what I make. If something I make happens to turn out and can have an
"Art" label put on it, then it is indeed a most fortunate happenstance.
But I always had to run to hard to worry about it. I have no long
pedigree of performances....... shows that my work has been in,
galleries, or what not. To put my history up against others it would
look pretty shabby. Oh, my figurine work has been featured in a couple
of national magazines, but it's not a consistent thing. I've never done
a gallery show, or any serious art show that is geared strictly to the
arts or fine crafts. I do things like the local Spring Home and Garden
Show, or the Ladies Conference Show, or the Annual Hunting Show ....
things like that. Nothing fancy to put on the ole resume'. Yet I have
sold everything I have ever made and I get good prices for them. Even my
flop pots - my abject failures - pots that simply collapsed on the wheel
while being thrown have sold.. I don't discard them . I already have
work in them, and by golly I want to be paid for that work, flopped or
not. So I finish them ....... and I have sold them all. I don't even
have a representative sample on hand. At this point in time, I do
mostly bowls. And blue bowls at that. Floating Blue pretty much sums up
my glaze pallette. I used to make bowls of many colors, then one day I
realized that my stock of colors of bowls on the shelves was
increasing, but I had no blue bowls. It dawned on me that I was selling
off everything blue, and bringing home all the other colors. So I now
make only blue stuff. And mostly bowls. Why? 95% of my customers are
ladies, and every lady needs a good bowl. And it shows in my sales. Now,
I confess to playing a bit now and then and making the occassional
ornametal bean pot, or platter, or bread baker. But those are not my
mainstay. That is bowls. Bowls and pots with a commercial attitude ....
thats me. I tend to follow Mel's advice and philosophy. I stay away from
art and craft shows - to expensive for what they do. I try and sell in
a fifty mile radius of where I live and that seems to work. And I try to
simply make good pots.
So my approach in teaching would be very much colored by where I have
been with my work, and there would most likely be a strong commercial
flavor to what ever was presented.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
primalmommy wrote:
>It occurs to me that after attending a lot of workshops, I find myself
>learning way more than what is being demonstrated by the presenters.
>
>I was blathering at length about this last night, and hubby suggested I
>write about it on clayart. I would love to suppose he values our on-line
>exchange of ideas here, but I rather suspect he was eyeing the clock and
>thinking how early he had to get up for work ;0)
>
>And anyway, I would have to tread very lightly to make the kind of
>generalizations I was making aloud. Perhaps worth the effort, anyway.
>
>Over the years I have come to recognize patterns in workshop presenters.
>I am especially interested in the difference between studio potters and
>academic potters.
>
>They say that when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat
>everything like it's a nail; it's interesting to see how different
>potters teach from their different vantage points, and the assumptions
>they make about who potters are in general.
>
>I don't mean the kind of attitude stuff that has ruffled feathers here
>in the past -- y'know, "academics are snobs and elitists, and studio
>potters are artless sellouts..."
>
>But in week long workshops or one day sessions, weekend gigs and NCECA
>demos, magazines or any venue where I can see the potter, work and
>context in one place, I am making observations that -- maybe long
>obvious to others -- are new to me.
>
>Where you work -- and where your living comes from -- determines what
>you make. How much of it, as Tony C. points out, but also how big it is,
>how detailed, how time consuming, how traditional or cerebral, popular
>or puzzling.
>
>I don't just mean that people's regional impressions are expressed in
>their work. I mean that I would be more likely to make sculptural work
>on a large scale, and go through more layers of trial and error, if I
>had a car kiln, a big clay mixer and a student to wedge and recycle for
>me.
>
>I would have a wider palette of glazes to choose from if I had a glaze
>tech and huge glaze bins, a spray booth and somebody else mixing my
>tests. If I didn't have to nickel-dime my cobalt and mason stains.
>
>I would be more likely to value personal expression and narrative vision
>if I didn't have to worry about what would sell in the street. And if I
>had a paycheck and bennies, I would never learn to make the boring
>repetitious little pots that sell like hotcakes.
>
>Academic potters, when they talk about pricing and self promotion, seem
>to share a few perspectives in common. One is, "Price your work low, let
>it go be used somewhere, make new work" -- which seems to address the
>grad students or relative beginners who price as if they were Voulkous.
>(Meanwhile studio potters are saying, "Don't undercut potters trying to
>make a living! Just because you can afford to consider it a hobby
>doesn't give you the right to undervalue pottery in the public eye by
>pricing like it's a garage sale!"
>
>Another academic theme seems to be, "Self promotion and marketing are a
>way to sell work not worthy of its position, and we should be above
>prostituting ourselves for something as common as money." Again, an
>attitude possible for those who are well fed by another hand. Studio
>potters often see two parts of the same equation: the pots you make to
>pay the bills/feed your kids, and the pots you make to bring you
>joy/feed your soul. Or there are the potters who have successfully
>negotiated that old formula: sell 1000 ten dollar pots a year, or 10
>thousand dollar pots.
>
>I do not mean to imply judgement, here. I know profs are not making a
>ton of money, for the most part, and work hard to earn what they are
>making -- often are stuck reliving their beginner-potter-student days
>over and over (like that groundhog day movie) with a changing array of
>younger, more energetic students. I am not sure I would be able to do
>that job. Even my little bit of teaching at the guild drains some of the
>energy that would otherwise be channelled into my own studio.
>
>I also know that many of our famous artists and composers were not
>ditchdiggers and rag pickers, but grew up in relative luxury, were
>educated formally, and thus were able to give the world the gift of
>their creativity.
>
>I know some of the most interesting work I am seeing these days is
>coming from academics whose jobs allow them to focus on, read about,
>write about what they are doing and why, and who are surrounded by
>students with the same focus. How could they NOT move farther, faster,
>than those of us who steal hours and energy from other jobs/roles to be
>in the studio?
>
>When studio potters act like cash flow is the only yardstick of success,
>they are wrong. But when clay profs assume that the most talented kids
>will go bfa/mfa and become famous/cm covers/profs one day, and that the
>rest are "just hobbyists" or will fade away... well, they are wrong too.
>I have attended workshops by potters who make a living at potting. They
>are often without a BFA/MFA to their names, and maybe it is because I am
>in that same camp that I often appreciate their balance between dreaming
>and logic, extravagance and frugality, imagination and practicality.
>
>There are things I may never know if I don't pursue the bfa/mfa road,
>and at this stage in my life that's probably how it will be. But there
>are also things no university program can teach, things I have learned
>from potters who have worked, often in solitude, year after year, making
>and making and making. Things their own hands taught them.
>
>Like how this pot can be beautiful, yet time-efficient. How it can be
>well crafted, yet artful, yet easily reproducible, yet marketable. While
>I love to hear an academic potter like Julia Galloway asking questions
>like, "Where in your body do you experience this pot?", the potters
>whose voices echo in my studio and in my head years later are those who
>shared their "light bulb" moments -- every repeated step of the way,
>from centering to trimming to board to kiln to glaze to ez-up or website
>or gallery or pot-shop. This tip, trick, tool; this bucket, twist, this
>ritual born of intention and practice.
>
>Which is not to say I would pick one workshop over another based on
>whether the potter came from a big university teaching gig or from the
>patch of woods on the riverside where the wood smoke rises from a hand
>made kiln. Potters differ more from one to another than they do by
>"category". And I can think of a handful of potters on clayart who are
>really, truly in touch with both the academic and the
>production/marketability issues.
>
>The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more to
>do with the heart than the head.
>
>If you are passionate about what you do --
>if you talk to a room full of potters with respect, as your peers and
>not your students --
>if you keep moving forward, breaking new ground with your work --
>if you know that the way you twist a cutoff wire can mean as much as
>what inspired your thesis show --
>if you can tell a good story and laugh at yourself once in a while --
>
>Then I'll pay to sit on a hard metal chair for two days and drink grey
>coffee just to watch you make pots, when I should be home making my own.
>Yours
>Kelly in Ohio... looking forward to seeing a couple of clayarters at
>mel's workshop in Perrysburg on the 21st/22nd. I will be going straight
>from the workshop Friday evening to my annual campout with half a dozen
>wonderful women friends, in a lovely tent site along the Maumee river.
>Always in October, always good fall color, noisy V's of migrating geese,
>late night smoky campfire and the kinds of stories/secrets/jokes we
>would never tell anywhere else. And always I sleep in the bright red,
>Civil war style wool "union suit" with the button flap in the back. And
>always somebody takes my picture crawling out of my tent in the morning,
>disheveled and smelling of woodsmoke. Only this time I am going to brush
>my teeth, grab some campfire coffee and head back to mel's workshop, day
>two. Who wants to sit by me? :0)
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________
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>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.
>
>
>
>
Stephanie Coleman on tue 11 oct 05
I posted this monologue in another pottery group, so this may look familiar
to some of you...and I don't remember the name of the Grayson Perry article
I mention...but it's my 2 cents worth on art versus craft.
I agree. And I agree with Grayson Perry. Part of what I see as an issue is
that some people feel that craft is somehow less worthy than art. And that
is not true. To me craft implies technical competence and art implies
emotion and expression. They are not exclusive of each other. I feel that
there are craftspeople who are not artists - perhaps to be less
controversial a newsreporter is a craftsperson...but a poet is an
artist....and when that newsreporter is writing poetry he is an artist. Now
an artist has a craft....and may be competent or maybe practicing. Let's
take poetry. One could follow the rules of haiku to write an automobile ad
and that is low on the artistic scale, but successful on the craft scale.
Children's pictures are often high on the artistic scale (especially
therapeutic works) but because of their lack of skill, may not be high on
the "craft" of painting, drawing etc. Most of us work hard to improve our
craft so that we can be more successful and more pleased personally or
professionally with our expression. As a potter, I work on new skills and
improving old ones so I have multiple ways to express or build what is in my
head....my craft though remains mediocre.
I also think that one can become so focused on craft and technique that they
lose balance and find themselves with technically wonderful work that is not
very interesting or even personally satisfying. It may. however, still be
very profitable. I have an acquaintance who does wildlife art. His style
is pen and ink pointillism - and he says he pursues this because it sells.
He is very technically competent, but has works do not pull emotion from
folks - but they are very decorative and sell well. However, he is not
happy and doesn't enjoy doing these. But by his own admission, he keeps
score by $$$. (And fibs about his sales!)
Of course having spent the first half of my life in the corporate world, I
may have a different personal definition. I do believe that the business
person is a craftsperson...and can be very competent - even at high levels,
but not an artist. However, there is also an art to business that comes
from inspiration, creativity. To me invention is art. Alexander Graham
Bell's first phone is a work of art. But then I have some antique garden
tools that I feel are art...not in the "garden art" decorative sense...but
art because of the stories of use and gardens past that they evoke in my
mind's eye.
Well I have rambled long for a rainy Tuesday), I think I shall wander into
my
studio.
--
Stephanie Coleman
University of Phoenix Online
email:sjcoleman@email.uophx.edu
alt email: sjcoleman@starband.net
706.467.9579
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Rodgers"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 6:29 AM
Subject: Re: Academic and not so much
> Interesting, Kelly.
>
> I wonder where I would stand. I have never really been in a position to
> be able to wonder about my work "is it art?" What I made simply had to
> sell, period. Consequently, I have been very commercial in what I do,
> what I make. If something I make happens to turn out and can have an
> "Art" label put on it, then it is indeed a most fortunate happenstance.
> But I always had to run to hard to worry about it. I have no long
> pedigree of performances....... shows that my work has been in,
> galleries, or what not. To put my history up against others it would
> look pretty shabby. Oh, my figurine work has been featured in a couple
> of national magazines, but it's not a consistent thing. I've never done
> a gallery show, or any serious art show that is geared strictly to the
> arts or fine crafts. I do things like the local Spring Home and Garden
> Show, or the Ladies Conference Show, or the Annual Hunting Show ....
> things like that. Nothing fancy to put on the ole resume'. Yet I have
> sold everything I have ever made and I get good prices for them. Even my
> flop pots - my abject failures - pots that simply collapsed on the wheel
> while being thrown have sold.. I don't discard them . I already have
> work in them, and by golly I want to be paid for that work, flopped or
> not. So I finish them ....... and I have sold them all. I don't even
> have a representative sample on hand. At this point in time, I do
> mostly bowls. And blue bowls at that. Floating Blue pretty much sums up
> my glaze pallette. I used to make bowls of many colors, then one day I
> realized that my stock of colors of bowls on the shelves was
> increasing, but I had no blue bowls. It dawned on me that I was selling
> off everything blue, and bringing home all the other colors. So I now
> make only blue stuff. And mostly bowls. Why? 95% of my customers are
> ladies, and every lady needs a good bowl. And it shows in my sales. Now,
> I confess to playing a bit now and then and making the occassional
> ornametal bean pot, or platter, or bread baker. But those are not my
> mainstay. That is bowls. Bowls and pots with a commercial attitude ....
> thats me. I tend to follow Mel's advice and philosophy. I stay away from
> art and craft shows - to expensive for what they do. I try and sell in
> a fifty mile radius of where I live and that seems to work. And I try to
> simply make good pots.
>
> So my approach in teaching would be very much colored by where I have
> been with my work, and there would most likely be a strong commercial
> flavor to what ever was presented.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> Chelsea, AL
>
> primalmommy wrote:
>
>>It occurs to me that after attending a lot of workshops, I find myself
>>learning way more than what is being demonstrated by the presenters.
>>
>>I was blathering at length about this last night, and hubby suggested I
>>write about it on clayart. I would love to suppose he values our on-line
>>exchange of ideas here, but I rather suspect he was eyeing the clock and
>>thinking how early he had to get up for work ;0)
>>
>>And anyway, I would have to tread very lightly to make the kind of
>>generalizations I was making aloud. Perhaps worth the effort, anyway.
>>
>>Over the years I have come to recognize patterns in workshop presenters.
>>I am especially interested in the difference between studio potters and
>>academic potters.
>>
>>They say that when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat
>>everything like it's a nail; it's interesting to see how different
>>potters teach from their different vantage points, and the assumptions
>>they make about who potters are in general.
>>
>>I don't mean the kind of attitude stuff that has ruffled feathers here
>>in the past -- y'know, "academics are snobs and elitists, and studio
>>potters are artless sellouts..."
>>
>>But in week long workshops or one day sessions, weekend gigs and NCECA
>>demos, magazines or any venue where I can see the potter, work and
>>context in one place, I am making observations that -- maybe long
>>obvious to others -- are new to me.
>>
>>Where you work -- and where your living comes from -- determines what
>>you make. How much of it, as Tony C. points out, but also how big it is,
>>how detailed, how time consuming, how traditional or cerebral, popular
>>or puzzling.
>>
>>I don't just mean that people's regional impressions are expressed in
>>their work. I mean that I would be more likely to make sculptural work
>>on a large scale, and go through more layers of trial and error, if I
>>had a car kiln, a big clay mixer and a student to wedge and recycle for
>>me.
>>
>>I would have a wider palette of glazes to choose from if I had a glaze
>>tech and huge glaze bins, a spray booth and somebody else mixing my
>>tests. If I didn't have to nickel-dime my cobalt and mason stains.
>>
>>I would be more likely to value personal expression and narrative vision
>>if I didn't have to worry about what would sell in the street. And if I
>>had a paycheck and bennies, I would never learn to make the boring
>>repetitious little pots that sell like hotcakes.
>>
>>Academic potters, when they talk about pricing and self promotion, seem
>>to share a few perspectives in common. One is, "Price your work low, let
>>it go be used somewhere, make new work" -- which seems to address the
>>grad students or relative beginners who price as if they were Voulkous.
>>(Meanwhile studio potters are saying, "Don't undercut potters trying to
>>make a living! Just because you can afford to consider it a hobby
>>doesn't give you the right to undervalue pottery in the public eye by
>>pricing like it's a garage sale!"
>>
>>Another academic theme seems to be, "Self promotion and marketing are a
>>way to sell work not worthy of its position, and we should be above
>>prostituting ourselves for something as common as money." Again, an
>>attitude possible for those who are well fed by another hand. Studio
>>potters often see two parts of the same equation: the pots you make to
>>pay the bills/feed your kids, and the pots you make to bring you
>>joy/feed your soul. Or there are the potters who have successfully
>>negotiated that old formula: sell 1000 ten dollar pots a year, or 10
>>thousand dollar pots.
>>
>>I do not mean to imply judgement, here. I know profs are not making a
>>ton of money, for the most part, and work hard to earn what they are
>>making -- often are stuck reliving their beginner-potter-student days
>>over and over (like that groundhog day movie) with a changing array of
>>younger, more energetic students. I am not sure I would be able to do
>>that job. Even my little bit of teaching at the guild drains some of the
>>energy that would otherwise be channelled into my own studio.
>>
>>I also know that many of our famous artists and composers were not
>>ditchdiggers and rag pickers, but grew up in relative luxury, were
>>educated formally, and thus were able to give the world the gift of
>>their creativity.
>>
>>I know some of the most interesting work I am seeing these days is
>>coming from academics whose jobs allow them to focus on, read about,
>>write about what they are doing and why, and who are surrounded by
>>students with the same focus. How could they NOT move farther, faster,
>>than those of us who steal hours and energy from other jobs/roles to be
>>in the studio?
>>
>>When studio potters act like cash flow is the only yardstick of success,
>>they are wrong. But when clay profs assume that the most talented kids
>>will go bfa/mfa and become famous/cm covers/profs one day, and that the
>>rest are "just hobbyists" or will fade away... well, they are wrong too.
>>I have attended workshops by potters who make a living at potting. They
>>are often without a BFA/MFA to their names, and maybe it is because I am
>>in that same camp that I often appreciate their balance between dreaming
>>and logic, extravagance and frugality, imagination and practicality.
>>
>>There are things I may never know if I don't pursue the bfa/mfa road,
>>and at this stage in my life that's probably how it will be. But there
>>are also things no university program can teach, things I have learned
>>from potters who have worked, often in solitude, year after year, making
>>and making and making. Things their own hands taught them.
>>
>>Like how this pot can be beautiful, yet time-efficient. How it can be
>>well crafted, yet artful, yet easily reproducible, yet marketable. While
>>I love to hear an academic potter like Julia Galloway asking questions
>>like, "Where in your body do you experience this pot?", the potters
>>whose voices echo in my studio and in my head years later are those who
>>shared their "light bulb" moments -- every repeated step of the way,
>>from centering to trimming to board to kiln to glaze to ez-up or website
>>or gallery or pot-shop. This tip, trick, tool; this bucket, twist, this
>>ritual born of intention and practice.
>>
>>Which is not to say I would pick one workshop over another based on
>>whether the potter came from a big university teaching gig or from the
>>patch of woods on the riverside where the wood smoke rises from a hand
>>made kiln. Potters differ more from one to another than they do by
>>"category". And I can think of a handful of potters on clayart who are
>>really, truly in touch with both the academic and the
>>production/marketability issues.
>>
>>The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more to
>>do with the heart than the head.
>>
>>If you are passionate about what you do --
>>if you talk to a room full of potters with respect, as your peers and
>>not your students --
>>if you keep moving forward, breaking new ground with your work --
>>if you know that the way you twist a cutoff wire can mean as much as
>>what inspired your thesis show --
>>if you can tell a good story and laugh at yourself once in a while --
>>
>>Then I'll pay to sit on a hard metal chair for two days and drink grey
>>coffee just to watch you make pots, when I should be home making my own.
>>Yours
>>Kelly in Ohio... looking forward to seeing a couple of clayarters at
>>mel's workshop in Perrysburg on the 21st/22nd. I will be going straight
>>from the workshop Friday evening to my annual campout with half a dozen
>>wonderful women friends, in a lovely tent site along the Maumee river.
>>Always in October, always good fall color, noisy V's of migrating geese,
>>late night smoky campfire and the kinds of stories/secrets/jokes we
>>would never tell anywhere else. And always I sleep in the bright red,
>>Civil war style wool "union suit" with the button flap in the back. And
>>always somebody takes my picture crawling out of my tent in the morning,
>>disheveled and smelling of woodsmoke. Only this time I am going to brush
>>my teeth, grab some campfire coffee and head back to mel's workshop, day
>>two. Who wants to sit by me? :0)
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
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>
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Steve Irvine on tue 11 oct 05
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:52:27 -0700, primalmommy wrote:
>...The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more to
>do with the heart than the head...
>Kelly in Ohio...
Hi Kelly,
I was at a weekend conference once that had two well-known, accomplished potters giving
presentations, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
The morning session was a lot of, "I did this..." "I did that..." "my, my, my" "me, me, me." It left us
all a little cold.
The afternoon session was along the lines of, "Have you ever tried this..." "What do you think
about..." "You have the resources within yourself to..." The emphasis was more on all of the people
there, and a collective exploration of ideas. A stimulating experience, and a sharp contrast to the
morning lecture.
A good teacher, and/or potter (both academic or back-woods) sets up opportunities for discovery
in others and self, and grows a bit each time the class begins, wheel starts up, or the kiln lid
opens.
Steve
http://www.steveirvine.com
Ivor and Olive Lewis on wed 12 oct 05
Dear Carolynn M. Palmer,
Once in a while give yourself a holiday. Put aside everyday work. Open =
your mind. Open your heart. Make the things of your dreams.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
S. Australia.
lee love on thu 13 oct 05
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, Steve Irvine wrote:
>
> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:52:27 -0700, primalmommy wrote:
> >...The measure of a potter as a workshop presenter, in my view, has more=
to
> >do with the heart than the head...
> A good teacher, and/or potter (both academic or back-woods) sets up oppor=
tunities for discovery
> in others and self, and grows a bit each time the class begins, wheel sta=
rts up, or the kiln lid
> opens.
To take liberties with an old zen saying: "Hand, head, and heart in a=
ccord."
My teacher wrote the paragraphs below and they are in his first book=
:
"We can say that practice has two aspects: to constantly seek Truth and to =
go into the human world.
"If you want to be a pianist, devote yourself to studying and practicing th=
e piano. This is the mind that seeks Truth. But though you may eventually r=
each a lofty stage as a musician, it is not good enough. You have to descen=
d into the human world as well. Your life, your presence, your personality =
must touch people's hearts directly. This means you have to go beyond being=
a pianist.
"It is relatively easy to teach people to be musicians, but it is not so ea=
sy to teach them how to go beyond being a musician. If you would teach this=
to others, your mind must be based on compassion. When you teach, you have=
to pierce the human heart and take away the flag of ego. So your compassio=
n must extend beyond the words you use. Then your penetrating words will te=
ach and not injure."
--Dainin Katagiri Roshi
--
Lee Love
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
"To the ambitious for whom neither the bounty of life nor the beauty of the=
world suffice to content, it comes as penance that life with them is squa=
ndered and that they posses neither the benefits nor the beauty of the worl=
d. And if they are unable to perceive what is divine in Nature which is al=
l around them, how will they be able to see their own divinity, which is s=
ometimes hidden." - --Leonardo Da Vinci
Donna Kat on thu 13 oct 05
You have written a great piece and generated very interesting replies. I
have very little to add other than to once again voice my sadness at how
little craftsmanship or academy is valued in this country at this time.
Children seem to be directed to do that which will make them the most
money. It had been "become/marry a doctor or lawyer!" Now it is "get your
MBA!" It seems that only that which has a high price tag is valued which
certainly supports the idea that our work should not be sold for low
prices. I happen to believe that the only excuse for keeping a poorly made
pot is that this is your one and only attempt at the craft and you are
keeping the piece for yourself for memories sake. Otherwise until it
reaches an acceptable standard it should be learned from and then broken
with a hammer to learn more from (how good were your walls - is there any
carbon coring - etc.). You can always take the pieces and make a mosaic
ceramic tabletop. :)
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