JOYCE LEE on sun 18 dec 05
I never see Richard Aerni's pots that I'm
not inspired to try for that Aerni look; the pots represented in his new
digital pictures are certainly no exception. I know though that when I
try once again, starting with the last two first because I already make =
a
fairly similar form, that I'll not make it. However, I've come to =
realize
through Dannon and Liz, Mel, David, Craig, Tony, Ron, John et al that=20
trying to create
an Aerni pot is not a worthy goal (gulp, can't believe I'm saying that =
but
I DO now believe it to be true.). My goal is to become a better, more
professional potter with good craftsman skills. Using The Best as a =
model
(much as painters do every day in the Louvre) is one way to at least =
build
a little understanding of what a Good Pot can be. =20
So that's my search for awhile..... to consciously attempt to understand =
HOW
some of you achieve that pulled together look.... whether you throw =
loosely
or in a less loose manner. Look at Nils Lou's work on his recent =
videos. AND
then find a Ceramics Monthly from the last couple of years with his, in =
my
opinion, Very Loosely Thrown work ...... or, to trace
his form changes even further, look at his pots in his book about =
firing. Seems
to me that he's gone through some dramatic changes during the last ten
years or so. Yet, I do believe that I can see Nils in each of his =
evolvements.
If HE can continue to evolve, so can we all.
For that matter, track Mel's work over the past 15 years through his =
articles in
CM and elsewhere. Incredible. He had to have made a conscious choice=20
at some point to branch out Beyond Mother-In-Law Blue. Who would have
thought it? With Mel's grounding in his Asian experience, influenced so
much by MacKenzie, operating as one of the few czars of =
shinoshinoshino....
the How do you change shino? Why, layer it with more shino, of course =
...
school of pottery........ the cursory reader of Clayart would never have
expected the mayor to change...... why fiddle with success? As with =
Nils.....
because he's a living, breathing, evolving human being..... not an =
icon.....
Great thing is that each of us intermedies struggling on our way to the =
next
level are also given permission to copy, to change, to experiment ... =
without
apologies.....=20
Joyce
In the Mojave spending too much of the morning drying a no-longer-white
westie about every 15 minutes. She goes to every outside door to see
if the rain is out there, too..... runs out in it..... dashes happily =
back into
the warmth of our first fire of the season ... and sits expectantly =
awaiting
a warm towel to make her presentable for the next dash........ pretty
soon she'll likely Dash&Crash and then I can get some work done around
here........... OR............. maybe I'll try the dash routine =
myself..... finish
with the first hot chocolate ..... sounds like a plan........
Richard Aerni on sun 18 dec 05
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:01:08 -0800, JOYCE LEE wrote:
> I never see Richard Aerni's pots that I'm
>not inspired to try for that Aerni look; the pots represented in his new
>digital pictures are certainly no exception. I know though that when I
>try once again, starting with the last two first because I already make a
>fairly similar form, that I'll not make it. However, I've come to realize
>through Dannon and Liz, Mel, David, Craig, Tony, Ron, John et al that
>trying to create
>an Aerni pot is not a worthy goal (gulp, can't believe I'm saying that but
>I DO now believe it to be true.). My goal is to become a better, more
>professional potter with good craftsman skills.
Joyce,
Thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate hearing them, since I am
probably like most others on this list, which is to say, a very harsh critic
of one's own work and far more likely to see the "wrongs" in a piece of my
own than the "rights". And that gets me to my point, which is that we are
all embarked on long journey with this "clay thing" and we're all looking
towards that next plateau on the journey. So the great equalizer is that
all of us are striving to get better...as I heard spoken earlier (I think by
Lili), this isn't a competition in the normal western sense of the word.
It's a bit more like a runner, who's running a long and lonely race, and the
end result is to finish a bit better than one's personal best.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the many who have written me (on
and off list) with your thoughts on my images. They are first efforts, and
they can get better. More than anything else, I wanted to see what my
homemade photo setup could do, and to that end I am encouraged. The session
was happening yesterday between a rock climbing exercise undertaken by
Garrett, Ted's ten year old son, and a lunch date. Consequently, we were
rushed for time, and often distracted by a curious and hungry young man. I
am mostly impressed that I was able to get the rich background (worked
better with digital than film, as my digital equipment is able to focus on a
more discrete area than the SLR camera, and so could enhance the contrast)
than the fact of where the transition happened on the seamless roll (light
grey seamless). Some of the setups were literally just put up and then
clicked away, given the time constraints. There are framing issues that can
be cleared up by going back to the original shot (in RAW format) which
allows for editing, cropping, exposure enhancement, etc, most of which I'm
just beginning to try to learn. I have learned an awful lot about doing
photography in the past week; among other things, the fact that wrapping
foam core or coreplast reflectors (so homemade!) with aluminum foil makes a
huge difference in reflectivity and sharpness of overall image. To those of
you who have mastered clay, photography, the technology of website
development, etc, I take my hat off to you. It's a whole raft of other
skills that have to be added to the "what makes a potter" list, since most
of us can't afford to hire these things out.
Anyway, to answer some of the questions that have popped up on this thread:
My name and my email address were added to the scaled down jpegs by my
friend Ted (on whose website these images are appearing temporarily). Ted
is a physics teacher, but among other things he is one of the world's
foremost scientific photographers (check out his website...the stuff he has
invented to do high-speed, time-lapse, and robot controlled photography is
pretty amazing), and is acutely aware of issues of accredidation (is that
the right word?) as images are downloaded and spread around the web. When I
put images onto my website (whenever that happens) or submit them to juries,
they will be without the name tag.
As to my techniques for making the pots, well, they've been pretty well
documented over the years, but I make cone 10 stoneware, lightly reduced,
ash glazed, and single fired. How I do the slip has been told several times
over the years on clayart, so I'm sure it's in the archives, but it's just
simple stoneware slip, aged and decanted for several years, and applied via
common condiment containers available in any restaurant supply store. I
bought mine in the 1970s when I was in the restaurant business, and they're
still going strong. It's a gestural thing, but having the slip at the right
consistency and having a "loose wrist" is essential.
As for the rest, I'll try to cover it in a follow up post, but this is
getting too long and I know my archive connection has already been timed
out, so I'll have to cut and paste this and resubmit, or it will be eaten by
ACERS, the way my first follow up reply was earlier today.
Thanks again for taking the time to give me your thoughts...
Richard Aerni
Rochester, NY
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