Thank you for the mention Adriana, its good to know there are fellow potters out there fighting the cause
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
adriana christianson: Is it enough?
adriana christianson: Is it enough?: Hey, good morning.. UK potter/maker Anne Castano has some interesting things to say in her latest blog post HERE "Is wanting to make just...
Monday, 23 January 2012
With these hands
I have been reading a lot and thinking a lot about making and what it means to make in the post industrial age when everything is mass produced at a fraction of the cost. Ashamed as I am to admit it my every day plates and bowls are from Tescos and Ikea. I can't afford nice hand made ceramics, just like every body else.
I find it hard to define what I do, I make non-functional ceramics that falls in a grey area between design art and studio pottery. A no mans land. The desire to make is integral to who I am, my brother is a carpenter, my mum knits, crochets and paints, my dad was a mechanic, my grandad another carpenter. Its in my blood. Its an urge, and I don't feel right if I don't have an outlet, if I don't make.
Check out this article by Edmund De Waal http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f50d924-4b63-11e0-89d8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1kJtcqp7Z. Here De Waal articulates in words far better than I could ever muster the innate need to make. This is a question I am becoming increasingly obsessed with. Why did I think it would be a good idea to give up a full time job and go part time so that I can dedicate 2 days a week to making pots which at the moment are stacking up in the garage while I wait to get the kiln wired in. I don't have buyers, or a show coming up, I just feel as though I have to make.
What about the 'Power of Making' exhibition currently on at the V&A http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/powerofmaking/ Clearly I am not alone. There are hundreds and thousands of makers out there. But what is our future? Are we evolving out, are we now a niche exclusive market only for the people who really feel the need to make and handle objects that are made.
Emmanuel Cooper Died on the weekend. The other week I was in the CPA shop opposite the British Museum http://www.cpaceramics.com/ holding a pot by Cooper. His hands held the pot and formed it and now he is gone. His pots will live on, with his finger marks and the traces of every decision he made while making each piece preserved. You can't get that from a Ikea mug. Across the road in the BM a Cycladic nipple pot, which has to be my favourite thing in the whole museum 1800-1550 BC. With every little mark left by that maker intact thousands of years later.
I guess I am trying to justify what I do, find a valid reason. Is just wanting to make enough?
I find it hard to define what I do, I make non-functional ceramics that falls in a grey area between design art and studio pottery. A no mans land. The desire to make is integral to who I am, my brother is a carpenter, my mum knits, crochets and paints, my dad was a mechanic, my grandad another carpenter. Its in my blood. Its an urge, and I don't feel right if I don't have an outlet, if I don't make.
Check out this article by Edmund De Waal http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f50d924-4b63-11e0-89d8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1kJtcqp7Z. Here De Waal articulates in words far better than I could ever muster the innate need to make. This is a question I am becoming increasingly obsessed with. Why did I think it would be a good idea to give up a full time job and go part time so that I can dedicate 2 days a week to making pots which at the moment are stacking up in the garage while I wait to get the kiln wired in. I don't have buyers, or a show coming up, I just feel as though I have to make.
What about the 'Power of Making' exhibition currently on at the V&A http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/powerofmaking/ Clearly I am not alone. There are hundreds and thousands of makers out there. But what is our future? Are we evolving out, are we now a niche exclusive market only for the people who really feel the need to make and handle objects that are made.
Emmanuel Cooper Died on the weekend. The other week I was in the CPA shop opposite the British Museum http://www.cpaceramics.com/ holding a pot by Cooper. His hands held the pot and formed it and now he is gone. His pots will live on, with his finger marks and the traces of every decision he made while making each piece preserved. You can't get that from a Ikea mug. Across the road in the BM a Cycladic nipple pot, which has to be my favourite thing in the whole museum 1800-1550 BC. With every little mark left by that maker intact thousands of years later.
I guess I am trying to justify what I do, find a valid reason. Is just wanting to make enough?
Grayson Perry
I am reading a book about Grayson Perry http://www.rbooks.co.uk/product.aspx?id=0099485168. This is what he has to say about making....
'My own creativity and art practice has been a mental shed - a sanctuary as well as a place of action - where I have retreated to make things. It gives me a sense of security in a safe e, enclosed space while I look out of the window on to the world. The shed was where I first learned to make things, where my subconscious was schooled in colour, texture and the concept of making. I still have that excitement now, of being very glad that i'm a maker and that my internal shed i always available. I can retreat into my head while I am in bed or in the bath - wherever I am - to think about things I want to make, and knowing that I will make them is extremely exciting.
This reminds me of my Grandad's shed. Under the sink I have a sharpening stone that belonged to my Grandad. Sometimes I like to unwrap it and take it out of the oily rag and smell it. It reminds me of all the time spent in the shed with my Grandad and my brother, making things out of wood. This must have seeped in. Me and Graeme (my brother) are both makers, he a carpenter, me a potter
'My own creativity and art practice has been a mental shed - a sanctuary as well as a place of action - where I have retreated to make things. It gives me a sense of security in a safe e, enclosed space while I look out of the window on to the world. The shed was where I first learned to make things, where my subconscious was schooled in colour, texture and the concept of making. I still have that excitement now, of being very glad that i'm a maker and that my internal shed i always available. I can retreat into my head while I am in bed or in the bath - wherever I am - to think about things I want to make, and knowing that I will make them is extremely exciting.
This reminds me of my Grandad's shed. Under the sink I have a sharpening stone that belonged to my Grandad. Sometimes I like to unwrap it and take it out of the oily rag and smell it. It reminds me of all the time spent in the shed with my Grandad and my brother, making things out of wood. This must have seeped in. Me and Graeme (my brother) are both makers, he a carpenter, me a potter
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Making!!
The bottom one is heavily inspired by a Cycladic pot from 1800-1550 BC. I saw it in the British Museum a few weeks ago. It was a special moment, it has nipples and everything I can't believe that thousands of years ago there was a potter who had a thing about nipples. I thought I was the only one! But no, I have an ancient brother or sister. I had to sit down in the museum just to take it all in, I felt part of a long line of clay people. I can't imagine my pots will find themselves in the British Museum in a few thousand years time. My pots will out live me though and that is a strange feeling, since they are such a part of me.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
My first kiln!
It's a bit of a banger, and its a bit small, just like a first car. But it is mine, all mine!!!
YES!!!!!
YES!!!!!
Monday, 9 January 2012
A New Life
Some pics of the new locale. I cannot argue with the views, the south downs loom behind our house (house, not flat!)
On a low cloud day, we live in the cloud! From the house you can see the sea and all the way across to Hastings.
The reality of the reduced income is becoming increasingly apparent. Although it is cheaper here, we have a house, we no longer get inner London weighting for our teacher jobs and I am working two days less per week. It's gonna be tight! I am to lead a less consumerist lifestyle! More time in my head working in solitude. It is worth the sacrifice. We can afford it. It just means less of the meals and little luxuries (I need to get a handle on compulsively buying things from amazon and ebay)
I have been making, I am on my second pot. I will post pictures soon. I need to sort a kiln and I can't afford to keep the studio in London. So next month will be my last at Archway ceramics. I need to start making links here soon or I will feel as though I have been cut adrift and I will float off of the south coast of England into oblivion!
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