"Your Messes Always Turn Out Nice"

I heard this compliment (?) from a potting friend. Moi? Do I make messes?

Yes, actually. I rarely finish a throwing session (the wet part of making pots) without being covered in muddy clay.

 And are the pots messes? Well, yes. There are standard steps in making pots, and I have to add two: sanding sloppy bits of dried clay off my dry pots before firing them, and then washing off the sanding dust before glazing. That's because I forget to wash my hands clean as I trim my pottery.

Why do I make messes? Is it necessary to make messes in the process of making pottery? It is not a neat process. We start with wet clay, wet it more and shape an amorphous material into a chosen form. As the clay spins on the wheel, it must slide freely between the potter's hands, so it has to be wet. Potting is playing in the mud, no doubt. Still, there are potters much neater than I am.

Some of it is simply a fit for personality. I like the material, in its malleability, its openness to become anything, to express the movement of hands. I rarely appreciate precision. Once I laughed when an interior design teacher complimented a student by saying she is detail-oriented. It hadn't occurred to me that might be a good thing.

Precisely shaped and finished pots can be wonderful, like Ellen Fager's

or Merle Lambeth's.

I do like neatly finished pots, but would rather make loose forms that look grown, like this,

rather than constructed. I keep making leaf plates and want them to seem as though they just fell from the tree.

Messes with good outcomes sound just right.

May I Introduce You to Roberta Klein's Wonderful Pottery?

Roberta Klein just might be my favorite local potter. Beautiful graceful forms, stunning cone 11 reduction glazes. She doesn't advertise herself, so I want to.

Look.

Wow. I love it.

More on sandiegopotterytour.com 
              sandiegopottersguild.org
 

Artisans Alley next week

On Saturday December 8 I'll be at he Artisans Alley Craft Fair, Village Elementary School, 600 6th Ave in Coronado. I can't tell you what it is like, never been there before. It's a fixture in Coronado, its 46th year as a fundraiser for music in the schools, so a good event. 9-3, costs you $2 to get in.

Christmas shopping? Can I tempt you with new pots?

The Beautiful Line

Hearing the slow movement of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, I realized how important is the line, to what I find beautiful. It's a lovely melody, not much adorned by the orchestra. I listen, following the line (the melodic line, technically).

youtu.be/0aWmkcG9Sao

I love Picasso drawings, especially the simple ones, for the drawn line.

 

What about pots? Yes, it's the line that attracts me.  We all trim pots looking at the profile as a line, and trim until it looks right.

This marvel is by Jennifer Lee. Check out jenniferlee.co.uk


This is a painting, The Winter Road, by Georgia O'Keeffe.

What if it were the profile of a pot? Wouldn't it be marvelous?

 

The top edge of a pot can also be a wonderful line. I carve them sometimes and like the flowing line. In a master's hands, that can be gorgeous.

That's Ashraf Hanna's.


 How about the bottom? There was a period when people often made pots with an irregular, pushed up bottom.

From 500 Cups.


Yes, more interesting than a basic, standard, flat foot. Part of the beauty of Martha Grover's pots comes from the surprising line of her pot feet. See marthagrover.com

Are these line qualities the same thing? Drawn line is 2 dimensional. Pot profile is 3 dimensional: a line swung around the center on a wheel. Melodic line is drawn through time. You listen, following. But you look all at once. But you shape or pet a pot, following in time.

I am confused here. Don't understand, but I do see and hear. Perhaps that will do.

Tis the Season

for craft fairs. Not quite Christmas, but part of the run-up to it.

I'll be at the Lindbergh-Schweitzer Elementary School Craft Fair, on November 17, Saturday, 9-3.

It's a low-key, homey fair, not  too expensive, friendly. Come by if you like. Address: 4133 Albertine Av in San Diego, just off the 805 and Balboa Ave.

Carmel Valley Artists and neighbors

Hello. I'm at the Carmel Valley Artists show on Sunday. They've joined the Talmadge Art Show, so the geography spreads.

If you are interested:

And new pots of course. Some so new I'll be opening the kiln on Saturday.

Humility and Letting Go and Pottery

What heavy duty issues to associate with making pottery! In the February 2018 issue of Ceramics Monthly, Roelof Uys wrote an article about exactly this. He works at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, UK. Yes, the pottery factory/studio founded by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, the fathers of us all studio potters.

"Humility is the one thing we can teach to all about the art of making objects from earth and fire." Other than the example of better work, I have never thought to learn humility in learning to make pottery. But  I believe him.

In the "factory" part of the Leach Pottery, the making is really shared: "We maintain our standard by working as a team, relying on each other to do assigned tasks with care and consideration. One person will throw the pot, another will trim or handle that same piece, and someone else will glaze it and load it in the kiln." Imagine! Yes, they make standardized pieces for sale from the pottery, and do not so share their individual art pieces. But still, I've never met a potter, that I know of, who would let someone else choose a handle for their pots, or glaze them with a different eye.

In the shared studio where I work, we donate pots for fundraising sales, and sometimes leave these unsigned for anyone to glaze. We have already let them go after the making stage. I never do that, I sign mine to indicate that I want to glaze them, carry them all the way through the process before letting go. And there are people there so attached to their work that they find it difficult to donate their pots. That's extreme attachment.

Once I saw a pot I made in someone else's house, and said, without thinking, "oh, that's mine." No, it's not, it belongs to the people who own it and use it. I still felt it continues to be mine. Ongoing attachment.

They must get over the attachment and holding on, at the Leach Pottery. "One of the greatest revelations in working as part of a team in this extraordinary place is the way it has affected my personal practice. Preconceived ideas are constantly challenged and the immediacy of feedback from peers encourages quick development and forces you to experiment. " Before he worked there, Uys thought "The beautiful simplicity of their forms and the lack of ego with which they approached their work allowed the materials and processes to speak for themselves, producing pots with a sort of carefree swagger but with a mindfulness that always respected the user."

That's worth learning.