Mel Jacobson on tue 17 feb 98
some thoughts:
1. I have a very large slag heap in the back of my property.
it is the history of my pottery...it is my land, and the fired pots
are not trash, they are history....one day a thousand years from
now, it will be found...and my god will they have fun talking
\about what a lousy potter i was. at least it is not toxic, but
surely bad pots. (at least they are mostly in one place.)
2. chemicals for south africa:
i have had this discussion with toni several times...and i repeat
it for any that will listen.....i truly think that you should make glaze
from what is available.....keep working and making glaze from what
you have.....it is very difficult to send california ghertsley to s.a.,
consider the cost of shipping....
i feel that whatever continental clay, or minnesota clay has to offer
will be just fine for me. if i cannot make a decent glaze from what
they have, well, then to hell with it. i fully realize this gives me a very
big pallet....but, if i lived in mongolia i would have to just dig around
and find what was available.....it is something like trying to find
size 40 pants and underwear in hong kong....it just does not exist...no
matter how hard i wished.
there is one other consideration......the laws that make it almost
impossible to send soil from one country to another....filled with
small insects and bacteria......calcined soil is easy to ship....but
fresh....not likely. i even had to give my shoes to the customs
people in l.a. i had spent time on an australian farm...and i admitted
it to them...so...`give us those shoes pal`.
sometimes we are victims of our own internet system....it is too easy
to look at others images and want them for ourselves....i want to
fire just like jack troy, i want clennells shino, i want to fire in nils lou's
big anagama..............but sorry, those are not mine to be had...so
back to my stuff...and make it work. and then be at least a little
satisfied.....look to yourself, be influenced by your heros, but you
must make it happen with your stuff.
college and school fees:
i tried with the best of my ability to stay away from those fees....also i
did
not like taking and handling money....we just made do...spent most
of our money on clay.........then made our own glazes, tools, and whatever
we needed, and of course repaired all our own machines.
we could rip a shimpo apart in 10 minutes. kept all the odd bits of
parts around the studio, and always kept old broken machines for
parts.
remember: most administrators suffer from `anal repression`...it makes
them very nervous around us......they do not trust people
that touch poo poo. they do not understand the magic of our
`art material`, or the science and physics that children learn from
the seat of their pants. it is real...it is wonderful....but we will always
have to defend ourselves. college salaries for art teachers are at
the bottom of the scale, and budgets are lower than that.
only good, creative, solid teachers can beat that rap...the lazy,
poor, silly teachers of art only add to our problems.
mel./mn
http://www.pclink.com/melpots
Dannon Rhudy on wed 18 feb 98
----------------------------Original
message----------------------------
some thoughts:
chemicals
i have had this discussion...several times...and i repeat
it...think that you should make glaze
from what is available.....
...............
I must say I agree with Mel here: we probably should use what
is readily available to us, and not waste our time and energy
lusting after what we can't get. There are myriad possibilities
for glaze materials - that they vary from place to place is a
blessing and not disaster nor yet a punishment. Unless, of
course, one would rather find all potteries more or less alike,
pots and glazes uniform and to standard everywhere, like going
to the mall and seeing the same GAP or whatever stores time after
time after time, same inventory, same everything. Some really
terrific things have been done/made using truly local stuff. One
must experiment, and look for what works. There was an article
some time or other, think within past few years, in CM, dealing
with making glazes literally from your back yard, nice celadons
and tenmokus possible. No doubt there are particular advantages
and disadvantages to every place one might live - and without
doubt great frustrations when one can't get what one wants/needs
to make a particular thing. But such frustrations lead us to
an inventiveness that otherwise likely would not come.
..... want to
fire just like jack troy, i want clennells shino, i want to fire
in nils lou's big anagama....
I do wish you hadn't mentioned these particular things, Mel. Now
I feel really envious and greedy and want all those things too...
maybe I could order them from some catalog...no? Well. Sigh.
Life is not perfect. Pretty close. Almost. Maybe. Decent,
anyway. Sometimes.
Dannon Rhudy
potter@koyote.com
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