Richard Aerni on sun 23 jul 06
John,
I hope you didn't think I was slamming moldmakers. I can do a few tricks
with plaster myself. It is as demanding as working with clay, in some
ways. When I opened my big mouth on the subject, I was encouraging people
to learn how to make their own molds, rather than hiring others. If
you're going to use them, it makes sense to know them from the inside
out. Of course, I feel the same way about kilns, making clay, designing
glazes, etc.
Hope that your chalices and patens worked out well.
Best wishes,
Richard Aerni
Rochester, NY
John Rodgers on sun 23 jul 06
No, I didn't think you were slamming moldmakers. Quite the contrary. It
gladdens me to see people taking up the art and craft of moldmaking. It
can open whole new vistas in clay. Some amazing work can be done with
the use of molds. While I can and do make molds for pottery sometimes -
both for slipcasting and for jigger/jolly work, my specialty is making
highly detailed and complex porcelain figurines, and then finishing
them with china paints as opposed to glazes. My idol in the porcelain
world is/was Edward Marshal Boehm, a porcelain artist in the 70's around
Trenton, NJ who specialized in complex porcelain art work. He made a
piece called "Sugar Birds" for which there something like 500-600 mold
pieces and a single mold set weighed in at 6000 lbs. That is 10 pallets
of 100 lb bags of plaster at 600 pounds per pallet to create the molds
for one art piece.
Boehm clearly demonstrated that moldmaking for ceramics can get really
serious.
BTW, it was a pair of porcelain mute swans created in the Boehm studio
that Nixon took to China as a gift to the People of China from the
United States. No insignificant gesture.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Richard Aerni wrote:
> John,
> I hope you didn't think I was slamming moldmakers. I can do a few tricks
> with plaster myself. It is as demanding as working with clay, in some
> ways. When I opened my big mouth on the subject, I was encouraging people
> to learn how to make their own molds, rather than hiring others. If
> you're going to use them, it makes sense to know them from the inside
> out. Of course, I feel the same way about kilns, making clay, designing
> glazes, etc.
> Hope that your chalices and patens worked out well.
> Best wishes,
> Richard Aerni
> Rochester, NY
>
>
>
Richard Aerni on sun 23 jul 06
Hi all,
I'm going to open my big mouth here again, and probably stick my foot in
it, as well as offending numerous people here.
We call ourselves craftspeople. We make objects. If we want to make a
piece that calls for a mold, either because we can't make the piece any
other way, or because we want to produce in quantity, it's very easy to
simply batch it out to a moldmaker. Of course, if you follow that line of
reasoning, it's just as easy to outsource the making of your pots to
someone else as well. Why are we in this business?
I believe that if you choose to work with molds, your work has more
of "you" and carries more authority if you teach yourself how to make the
molds and make them yourself. Of course this is a slippery slope, leading
to the questions about what one should do oneself, and what one should
have done (making your own clay, tools, kilns, etc) and we don't want to
have purity tests, but at some point you've got to make yourself aware of
what you choose to do, and what you choose not to do, and why.
Just my .02,
Richard Aerni
Rochester, NY
John Rodgers on sun 23 jul 06
Richard ........ Now you have gone and done it!! Don't you know that
bringing up molding, mold making, making things from molds, and claiming
they are art or craft is to cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth,
faintness and general mal de mure amongst the elite in the world of
pottery and art??? Gad, man, what have you done??
Ok, so I am tweaking you a bit, but there is more truth to what I have
said than I want to admit to for my brethren and sister in clay. I think
making things from molds has gotten a bad rap as a consequence of the
growth of the hobby ceramics industry. There was - and maybe still is -
the view that "Ceramics" is all about buying green ware bunnies at a
green ware store, where the store operators bought commercial molds - no
personal art involved - cast clay green ware bunnies and sold them to
the hobby and decorator crowd. It became so prevalent that many people
lost sight of what molding and production is all about.
Oops!! Did I say production??? Well, yes, I did. Why? Welll, that is
what mold making is all about - PRODUCTION!! I just finished doing 400
chalices and 400 plates. They all look alike. That is what my client
wanted. There were other potters that were approached about that project
before they found me. It scared hell out of everyone. Nobody would touch
the job. Why? Well, the potters in my area had no idea how to even begin
to produce that kind of look-alike volume of pieces. They apparently
envisioned years of hand carving on every piece. Well, the folks
stumbled across me, I took one look at what they wanted, and said,
"Sure, I can do it. I will have my proposal over to you in a couple of
days." And it was a done deal. It happened because I have a long history
in ceramic production where multiple pieces are required. So it was easy
for me. The trick was, I knew how to go from a single model to multiples
in production. Most folk don't have a clue as to how to do that. Without
that understanding, most clay folk - not all - but most - look down
their collective noses and say " Oh, that was made from a mold - it has
no place here". Well, understanding is everything. It changes the way we
see the world. I encourage everyone in clay to engage in mold making at
one time or another. And more that just a few stamps or press molds,
either It will give you insights into a whole 'nother side of the clay
world.
In my own practice of the craft of mold making, I have to first be a
designer, sculptor and model builder before I can be a mold maker and
productionist. Wrapped into all that is the need for skills in
carpentry, machine shop, and painting. After that, I can then be a
ceramist and kiln master. All of these things come into play before the
first production piece can be sat on the table for anyone to admire.
To me, molding and mold making is a very fine craft. There is a great
deal of art out there that cannot be arrived at in any other way. If you
are an artist that does one-off stuff, that is great - more power to
you. But for the average of us, we must take every advantage of
efficiencies that can increase our output, and using molds allows us to
do that. There are some times when molds are not appropriate. Other
times they are. Many get hung up on the issue of hand made vs made from
a mold. Who cares?? I sure don't - not as long as you made the original
model, make the molds, cast the pieces and finished them yourself, or
under your direct supervision if you used an assistant.
Here is one big YeeHaaa!! for the mold makers of the world.
My $0.02 for the day.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Richard Aerni wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to open my big mouth here again, and probably stick my foot in
> it, as well as offending numerous people here.
>
> We call ourselves craftspeople. We make objects. If we want to make a
> piece that calls for a mold, either because we can't make the piece any
> other way, or because we want to produce in quantity, it's very easy to
> simply batch it out to a moldmaker. Of course, if you follow that line of
> reasoning, it's just as easy to outsource the making of your pots to
> someone else as well. Why are we in this business?
>
> I believe that if you choose to work with molds, your work has more
> of "you" and carries more authority if you teach yourself how to make the
> molds and make them yourself. Of course this is a slippery slope, leading
> to the questions about what one should do oneself, and what one should
> have done (making your own clay, tools, kilns, etc) and we don't want to
> have purity tests, but at some point you've got to make yourself aware of
> what you choose to do, and what you choose not to do, and why.
>
> Just my .02,
> Richard Aerni
> Rochester, NY
>
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>
Erika Rogers on sun 23 jul 06
Thanks for the encouragement. I have just started to sculpt my first tile
for a mold - I am finding the whole process much more difficult then just
carving a one off tile or series of tiles.
Erika Rogers
Donald Burroughs on mon 24 jul 06
Bravo Richard! Couldn't have said it better.
Donald Burroughs
Snail Scott on mon 24 jul 06
At 04:37 PM 7/23/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>...that is
>what mold making is all about - PRODUCTION!
Well, that's one thing it can be about.
Molds can also be a route to unique, one-off
pieces which would be difficult or impossible
to achieve by other methods. Things can be
fabricated with the assistance of molds that
would be far more difficult by other means.
In contemporary sculpture, the use of elements
pulled from the real world, also called 'found
object' art, is a major thing right now. This
is (in part) because actual things bring their
own content to the piece in a different way
than a carved representation of that thing. To
make a mold of an existing object allows the
transfer of some of the meaning of that object
into the new medium (in this case, ceramics)
while simultaneously integrating it into a
larger work of the same material.
Casting in molds taken from found objects can
also be seen as a short cut to representational
sculpture, saving the trouble of carving the
likeness of something from scratch. But if the
intent is to have a close duplicate, is there
really an innate virtue in hand-sculpting the
form? Or is the intent better served by molding
the actual thing?
You may have seen 'life-cast' portraits in
various media. The effect of these is quite
different from a sculpted portrait. Not for
the better in some cases, but the point is, it
is different, and that difference is a thing
that can be used for the artist's purpose. A
direct physical connection to the source is
also a powerful thing, conveying some of the
juju that makes people collect stuff once
touched by celebrities: the 'George
Washington slept here' phenomenon. A work of
art incorporating cast forms taken from molds
of an actual thing have a look which is often
clearly identifiable, sometimes played up
by leaving parting lines visible. It says,
like a tertiary relic, 'this thing touched
something that touched the real thing', like
meeting a guy whose cousin knew Elvis.
Another use of molds is similar to production
multiples, but insteads of making many similar
separate objects, the multiples become part of
the same object. Objects repeated in quantity
have an effect which carries its own message
to the viewer. A repeated decorative pattern
has a rhythmic quality that just one thing
will not have. One sculpture of a house might
conveys a sense of the comforts of home, or
security, or family, while that same sculpture
cast and repeated 200 times says something
very different, perhaps about the anonymity of
modern life, or about suburban sprawl, social
conformity, or loss of natural patterns.
Even the use of pre-existing molds can have
a valid artistic intent. Using cast elements
clearly taken from manufactured hobby molds
makes the idea of hobbycraft a part of the
work, as social commentary or as nostalgia.
Molds are a tool like a wheel or a rib. They
can be used well or badly, as a labor-saving
device or for their particular properties,
and as a means to bring a nonfeasable idea
into the realm the possiblity, something not
achievable with other tools.
-Snail
Lee Love on mon 24 jul 06
We have moldmakers here in mashiko. You can even have master molds
made to make molds in. I worked next to the 77 year old
shokunin/craftsman for 3 years during my apprenticeship. My respect
for his craft grew over time.
It is a little iffy to totally dismiss any tool. There is
always a way someone can use a specific tool creatively.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Ivor and Olive Lewis on tue 25 jul 06
Interested in Mold making?
Reminder that Whitford and Wong, "Handmade Potter's Tools". ISBN =
0-9733565-0-2 has a very practical chapter on press mold making.
This includes instructions for the famous rectangular bottle.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
South Australia.
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