Elizabeth Priddy on mon 18 dec 06
I am still working on the "bone" idea--is it about
hands or eyes--skill or
judgement?
Thanks to all, I've loved this discussion!
Gay Judson in San Antonio, TX
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When you really get the idea of bones, your hands and
your eyes will work in concert without that issue of
your brain trying to translate it through.
When you are looking at the piece and the top needs to
be wider by what your eye sees, your hands will adjust
without thinking about it. It can only come from
practice. You read all about blind potters and all
that hoopla when you are falling in love with clay and
when you are in it for the long haul, eventually, you
get to a point where you don't look at it just with
your eyes and all that blind potter stuff becomes
meaningful and not just a dog and pony trick with a
blindfold and a bunch of willing rubes in a pottery
studio.
The bones of a piece are the essentials, that without
which there is no substance.
Consider that for a moment and think about a pot you
really respond to. Start stripping it of everything
until you don't have a pot anymore and then back up
one step. So a teapot: no glaze decoration, no
glaze, no knobs, no spout, no twig handle, no carving,
no basic form...wait back up. What is there? bones.
Skill or judgement.
Good judgement in making craftwork is the correct and
appropriate application of skill.
So you make fantastic knobs...so what? If the pot
doesn't need a knob, are you crap out of luck? Or do
you have something deeper than a bunch of tricks and
gizmos to attach to your forms.
This is what Kelly appears to be struggling with in
"simple is hard". Can your pot exist without it's
crutches and marketing gimmicks? And if it does, will
people like it anyway? Would it work aestheticly,
functionally?
Good judgement is an editing practice to develop in
conjunction with skills.
An old ethics professor taught me a lesson:
In every situation, there is the ethicly correct thing
to do and there is the right thing to do. Only
sometimes do those two things co-incide. Wisdom is
being able to determine the difference. Integrity is
being able to act on that wisdom.
Art is like that. You have knowledge, then skill,
then craftsmanship, then artistry. You can read about
it. Then you try to do it at all. Then you learn to
do it well. Then you learn when to do it at all.
A thorough knowledge of bones is the first step in
skill for people who are learning to be artists in the
end. A thousand workshops to learn what are basicly
magic tricks won't help you with it. Only a thousand
pots, many times over for some forms. Maybe a
thousand hours or days or moments with the right
teacher (which could be that pot in front of you!).
But people also have to be ready to learn and willing
to learn from a good teacher. Not every teacher and
student are good matches. Not every student is ready
to learn. Not every good teacher is patient with
every student. A good fit is everything.
Find a teacher that is a good fit, that you can listen
to without the static of uncomfortable personal
interaction getting in the way of the message coming
through.
As a teacher, I am almost empathic. I can tell what
you need by sitting next to you. Or so I have been
told by many students through the years. This bizarre
talent does not translate over the internet. I am
also funny. But not so much in writing. In real
life, I make people laugh a lot. I am extremely
self-deprecating and very willing to tell you the
sometimes funny route I took to the piece of knowledge
I am offering up. And yet I take pots way too
seriously for some students. People who are just out
to kill time for an afternoon are not my students.
And that is ok, too. Others like the no pressure of
beginning students. I like students ready for a
challenge and ready to do some homework.
My point is, that there are very few one size fits all
teachers any more than there is a perfect student. If
you want to learn bones, you need to study them. The
best first step is to start with a pefectly round
closed cylinder form and work your way through every
form in between that and a flat plate, all iterations.
It will take a while. You might spend days or years
on one particular step in that continuum of pots.
Maybe even a lifetime.
That is why potters are lucky. The things they want
to know can't be learned by "a Holiday Inn weekend
conference and then they are done". Although the
right weekend conference at the right time with the
right teacher can change your life, completely
redirect you and your creative energy. And then you
are back to your daily journey, one pot at a time,
each one moving you away from where you have been and
a little further toward skill, judgement, and mastery.
This is the source of Bliss for me, the process of
learning, not the money or the notoriety or the
thousands of pots out there. Each time a student or a
former student makes progress that I can see and they
can feel and that I can trace to a moment when I saw a
light go off in their eyes...these are precious and
the important part for me.
And now that my boy is two and can fend fend for
himself a little, I am back to it.
Good journeys,
Merry Christmas,
Happy Holidays,
and a Joyous Winter to All!
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Priddy
Beaufort, NC - USA
http://www.elizabethpriddy.com
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Lee Love on tue 19 dec 06
On 12/19/06, Elizabeth Priddy wrote:
>
> When you really get the idea of bones, your hands and
> your eyes will work in concert without that issue of
> your brain trying to translate it through.
This is closer to what I thought Gay was asking about. "Bones"
sounds too reductionist/mechanical/intellectual to me.
Heart/spirit/feeling/soul works better .
I recall when Warren MacKenzie was here in Mashiko and Jean and
I were invited to dinner at Matsuzaki Ken's home ...
(hey, check Ebay out: http://tinyurl.com/ybx2ca
, with the MacKenzies and Shimaoka Sensei. The Matsuzaki's served
us using the work of young Japanese potters. MacKenzie liked the, I
think it was a cup and saucer, he was using. He said he liked it
because, "It doesn't try too hard. I have been seeing a lot of work
today that 'tries too hard', and this work doesn't."
It is like Rob Bernard's teacher asking him what a
desposible lighter was, setting it on the table. This was after
looking ar Rob's work from the electric kiln, that he worked very hard
with, to duplicate wood fired work. He asked Rob, "What is this?"
putting the lighter on the table. Rob said, "It is a disposable
lighter." The teacher then asked, "What is it for?" Rob said,
"Starting firers" The teacher asked, "Does it do what it promises?"
Rob said, "Yes." The teacher said, "You work doesn't." I think
the cup and saucer was not overstated and had a good feeling. It
delivered on what it promised.
Most entry slides at the Smithsonian craft exhibition
"try too hard." Certainly, the people were competing using work that
photographed well. They wanted to catch the judges eye, but it lacked
"heart", is mostly over done, and has lost feeling.
Maybe it is a reason why pottery competition should be judged by
the actual pots and not by slides or digital images. The first cut
can start with images and the last cut the actual pots?
I am guessing the pots at the actual festival are much
more approachable and have fewer "dodads."
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
"When we all do better. We ALL do better." -Paul Wellstone
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