primalmommy on thu 31 aug 06
When somebody asks me, "What do you do?" there is an implication that
he/she is asking me how, or whether, I am gainfully employed.
Otherwise, when asked "What do you do?", I might run through the course
of an average day -- morning coffee, breakfast, homeschooling, lunch,
laundry, studio, baking, making dinner, and the internet being recurring
themes.
Or I might just list the things that seem unique, since many people have
morning coffee, meals and daily chores. I'm a beekeeper because I keep
bees, a mother because I have children, a homeschooler because I school
at home, a writer because I write, a potter because I make pots, and
until recently I was a gardener because I tended a large organic garden.
I will be a student starting 9/11.
Some words seem to transcend the "occupation" connection, and most of
these are in that category... though a real beekeeper with a honey
operation and hives all over the county would either smile or flinch at
my claiming the title due to my one back yard hive. When among
professional beekeepers I do them the courtesy of adding the word "back
yard" or "hobby" to the appelation, however apologetic that might be --
just to show then I know the difference between my hobby and their
livelihood.
But certain words seem to imply "for a living". I will say
conversationally that I am an adequate cook, but despite the hours I
spend preparing food, (three meals a day, canning tomatoes and
applesauce, baking in a wood fired clay-cob oven) the answer to "what do
you do?" is not, "I am a cook." My family's meals are for the most part
nutritious, fresh and tasty, but it is not my vocation, avocation or
passion... and I am not especially gifted in my ability to produce
culinary works. If I say I am a cook, the response will be, "where"? If
I claim to be a chef, (which seems to be "artist" to the more humble
"potter") -- it had better be someplace fancier than my cluttered
kitchen.
I think a lot of our insecurity over words has to do with money, and
social/economic class, connotation, and internalized social snobbery. A
person who is gifted musically, no matter how prolific, doesn't often
say, "I am a musician" unless the official stamp has somehow been
affixed... "I am a music major" for students, and then somehow musician
status is connected to making money at playing music. It doesn't matter
whether the person makes more money at a walmart day job than playing
with the band on weekends. It's annoying enough to be pigeonholed by our
jobs as it is, so I say we all get to decide which paycheck defines us.
But it's the paycheck, still, that most folks are inquiring after.
Otherwise they would ask, "So, who are you?" or, "What do you love?"
"Homemaker", even, is a fine bit of defensiveness in the face of a
society that looks down its collective nose at the cluster of jobs
entailed, traditionally those things left to servants or slaves. House
cleaning, laundry, child care, all farmed out for generations to the
"unskilled" for low wages. "Homemaker" inserts that Victorian reminder
of the home as the center of all worthwhile human culture, and gives the
one who makes it run smoothly a pat on the head.
It's dated, though. Most of the homes in the new development behind us
are empty boxes full of expensive toys. Everyone is off to
work/daycare/school before dawn, meals are drive through, and only in
the evenings do the flickering screens show signs of anyone being home.
This is not a critique of those choices -- just an example of how "home"
is less and less the center of anything, and "homemaker" on its way to
quaint archaism. Often accompanied by the word "displaced".
But back to potter/artist. Nobody seems to balk at "potter" for a person
who makes pots -- good, bad or indifferent. Granted, people who have
raised a family on their pottery's income or made a lifetime pursuit of
it and "paid their dues", might get that professional beekeeper
smile/twitch when someone who takes an occasional class introduces
himself as a potter... but in general, I would think that:
a) those who do not yet know they are in the shallow end of the potter
pool will learn it soon enough,
b) considering yourself a potter is the first step in becoming one,
and c) it's a better thing for Mr. Professional Potter to be supportive
and encourage a love of clay than to make sure he gets his props by
smacking down the "hobbyist".
"C" seems especially relevant because we all learn before long that the
deep end of the pool keeps extending itself.
I might be the best potter on my street, but when I move to potter-town,
I'll be humbled by how far I have to go.. then when I feel like the best
potter in potter-town, a move to Potter City will put me back in rube
status... and there's no end to it.. on to the Planet of Potters, the
Solar System of potters... and every move a humbling one, leaving us
embarrassed about having claimed the status before... just like we wince
at the very first pots we held up for applause. The longer somebody has
been in the game, the better they know about the endless learning curve.
Maybe that's why the best artists/writers/potters out there can be the
most humble in describing what they do... or why world reknowned
musicians answer strangers' questions by saying, "I play the guitar"
instead of "Don't you recognize me? I am the famous Eric Clapton..."
With the exception of things that are assumed to be hobbies, if we
disconnect the "occupation/paycheck" definition from our answers to
"what do you do?", we're on thin ice. I don't know what elements finally
lined up to give me the confidence to call myself a potter. Making money
at it certainly helped, and building a studio. Joining a guild. Teaching
classes. Hitting my 40s, and realizing I didn't need social permission
to do what I damn well please ;0)
We just have to allow for the right of listeners to hear our
self-imposed labels and think to themselves, "I'll decide". It's just up
to you whether you have the confidence to put it out there for nods or
derision.
When I liked to write but hadn't published, I would claim to be a
"pretty good writer". Eventually I became "published poet" and then,
when I started getting paychecks, "freelance writer". Now I can claim
"columnist". The fact that my tax return provides proof of that matters
in no way except that it gives me the nerve to say it without apology. I
could have mustered that nerve on my own, and likely should have.
If I make pots, I am a potter. If I make sculptural clay work, pots,
metal castings, batik, box constructions, collage, found object
sculpture and textile stuff, I am an artist because I don't feel like
trucking out all the media/categories. I don't walk around with a
resume, nor feel I need to prove my assertion. Who cares? If you say you
are an accountant, do I need to establish for myself whether you are a
good or a bad one? Whether you have formal training and are certified?
Whether I even understand the kind of work you do? No. I take your word
for it. I expect the same courtesy from others.
And I like to claim artist status. It's the impractical thing I wasn't
allowed to major in back in the early 80s when dad was paying my
tuition. It's the word that implies a non-functional human, off-kilter
personality, radical, nonconformist. My little June Cleaver world can
use a dose of that.
Besides, people cut me a lot of slack for things like showing up late
for meetings, painting african mud zigzags on my garage door, living in
general chaos and being a total flake. "Oh", they whisper. "She's OK,
she's just arty."
My kids are at grandma's this week and I am a little unsettled by the
quiet. I am off to blog about it. I have had requests from clayarters
offlist for updates on the grad school experiment, so I started a blog,
not wanting to clog clayart w/personal blather. There's access from
http://www.primalpotter.com
yours
Kelly in Ohio... where it's alarmingly fall-ish today...
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Liz Willoughby on fri 1 sep 06
Hi Kelly,
It seems so long ago now, but I remember the anguish I felt when I
was at an academic party in the late 60's, and a prof asked me what I
did. THEN, I was shy, easily intimidated by professor types (being
married to one myself), and said with pride, "I am a nurse, and work
at Women's College Hosp". His retort was, "well why didn't you
become a doctor?" Squashed big time.
In those days, all the house work was done by "the housewife", plus
the cooking, laundry, most of the gardening, child rearing, plus,
holding down an outside job because making ends meet was not easy.
It got even worse when I started working with clay and was torn
between making money that way or making money nursing. I could never
understand that mentality of putting a woman down because
of her choice of work, . . . or vocation, especially when she is
doing all that other stuff! (Memories of making 25 pumpkin pies from
the Halloween Pumpkins, etc. . . sewing most of the children's
clothes, and drapes, etc. . .)
I ended up giving up my part time nursing job of twenty years to
pursue my love of clay and making vessels out of clay. Now if anyone
asks, I say simply that I am a "potter", that is what feels right for
me, and interestingly enough, I feel that people admire my choice of
work and all that nonsense that went on before Betty Friedan's book
is pretty non existent now, or is it?????
Guess this might be getting political, I really do not even classify
myself as a feminist, but I do hope and wish for equality of the
sexes.
Potter Liz from Grafton, Ontario, Canada, who finally has got her
kiln stacked, and the pilots are on
Kelly says: (this and much more that I have deleted)
>When somebody asks me, "What do you do?" there is an implication that
>he/she is asking me how, or whether, I am gainfully employed.
>
>
>But certain words seem to imply "for a living". I will say
>conversationally that I am an adequate cook, but despite the hours I
>spend preparing food, (three meals a day, canning tomatoes and
>applesauce, baking in a wood fired clay-cob oven) the answer to "what do
>you do?" is not, "I am a cook." My family's meals are for the most part
>nutritious, fresh and tasty, but it is not my vocation, avocation or
>passion... and I am not especially gifted in my ability to produce
>culinary works. If I say I am a cook, the response will be, "where"? If
>I claim to be a chef, (which seems to be "artist" to the more humble
>"potter") -- it had better be someplace fancier than my cluttered
>kitchen.
>
>I think a lot of our insecurity over words has to do with money, and
>social/economic class, connotation, and internalized social snobbery.
>
>If I make pots, I am a potter. If I make sculptural clay work, pots,
>metal castings, batik, box constructions, collage, found object
>sculpture and textile stuff, I am an artist because I don't feel like
>trucking out all the media/categories.
>yours
>Kelly in Ohio... where it's alarmingly fall-ish today...
>
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