John Rodgers on tue 24 oct 06
Sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger of the clay world because I do a
lot of slip casting with molds that I make from art which I have sculpted.
Repeatedly I encounter resistance to mold made items by "the powers that
be" when I express interest in shows, displays, calendars, etc, etc. It
is the right ,of course, for "the powers that be" to set their own
qualifying requirements, but I see it as a prejudice based in ignorance
of the process. In my own experience I have found that many wonderful
pieces of ceramic work cannot be created in any other way, so a part of
the ceramic world is being short circuited by the prejudicial attitudes.
Granted, reproduction with molds is a production process, but it is
certainly adaptable and useful to the studio clay artist. And I make
good use of it. But I still chafe under the prejudicial attitudes toward
slip cast work.
I would love to hear from any clay artist who is into using molds - not
the hump, slump, and press molds of the potter, - but the molds made
from their own sculpted models which they recreate with casting slip in
the molds.
Thanks,
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Slip casting like crazy for the upcoming holiday season.
Alyssa Ettinger on tue 24 oct 06
i throw, handbuild, and slipcast. i've never felt resistance, but then again
i've always felt like more of a designer than a potter. and a lot of my
molds were made with industrial design techniques.
that said, i don't feel my slipcast pieces are any less artistic than the
thrown or handbuilt ones. but others do, because i can make an unlimited
number of replicas.
then again, i was the one who toiled over the piece that i made/designed to
make the cast from... so is that a piece of art?
i don't know. chicken or egg. as far as i'm concerned it's all art.
alyssa
www.alyssaettinger.com
Janine Roubik on tue 24 oct 06
Hey John,
Although I don't do too much sculpture now, when I was in school I used molds for stuff - and it didn't seem to be an issue. But the forms were all altered after they came out of a mold - I did an installation of about 500 "almost" anatomical hearts. There were about a third completely handbuilt ones too. When they came out of the molds they were paddles, pierced, thrown around, bitten, yada, yada...
But for functional work...hmmm. It seems like sometimes when people get a bug up their butts about something, just a change in the wording can fix it. How about "cast and altered" (if you do that) or "cast from handmade mold" (to show that you didn't buy the mold from a slipcating place and just use it as-is) or a different wording like that to show what you do with it or where it came from.
Do you have any pictures to post so we could take a look? Would you give more info on what you do with these?
Hope that helped a little - even though I don't use molds anymore, well little sprig molds sometimes...
Janine
John Rodgers wrote:
Sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger of the clay world because I do a
lot of slip casting with molds that I make from art which I have sculpted.
Repeatedly I encounter resistance to mold made items by "the powers that
be" when I express interest in shows, displays, calendars, etc, etc. It
is the right ,of course, for "the powers that be" to set their own
qualifying requirements, but I see it as a prejudice based in ignorance
of the process. In my own experience I have found that many wonderful
pieces of ceramic work cannot be created in any other way, so a part of
the ceramic world is being short circuited by the prejudicial attitudes.
Granted, reproduction with molds is a production process, but it is
certainly adaptable and useful to the studio clay artist. And I make
good use of it. But I still chafe under the prejudicial attitudes toward
slip cast work.
I would love to hear from any clay artist who is into using molds - not
the hump, slump, and press molds of the potter, - but the molds made
from their own sculpted models which they recreate with casting slip in
the molds.
Thanks,
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Slip casting like crazy for the upcoming holiday season.
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John Rodgers on wed 1 nov 06
To see some of what I do - visit my old web page at
http://webpages.charter.net/jhr/
The site is old, bet reflects the range of my work.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
John Rodgers wrote:
> Sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger of the clay world because I do a
> lot of slip casting with molds that I make from art which I have
> sculpted.
>
> Repeatedly I encounter resistance to mold made items by "the powers that
> be" when I express interest in shows, displays, calendars, etc, etc. It
> is the right ,of course, for "the powers that be" to set their own
> qualifying requirements, but I see it as a prejudice based in ignorance
> of the process. In my own experience I have found that many wonderful
> pieces of ceramic work cannot be created in any other way, so a part of
> the ceramic world is being short circuited by the prejudicial attitudes.
>
> Granted, reproduction with molds is a production process, but it is
> certainly adaptable and useful to the studio clay artist. And I make
> good use of it. But I still chafe under the prejudicial attitudes toward
> slip cast work.
>
> I would love to hear from any clay artist who is into using molds - not
> the hump, slump, and press molds of the potter, - but the molds made
> from their own sculpted models which they recreate with casting slip in
> the molds.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> Chelsea, AL
> Slip casting like crazy for the upcoming holiday season.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
>
> 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.
>
>
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