Queunda@aol.com on tue 31 aug 99
Dear Clayart
For the person who is trying to decide if slip cast is good as thrown plates.
I for one, will admit that I would respect you less if you did decide to slip
cast. There are huge number of your peers who feel the same, it is just
nobody wants to come out and say it. Vince Pitelka almost just came out and
said it in his post
Fwd: Baby boomers in ceramics (was ego problem and ceramic envy)
" I have nothing against the old style hobby ceramics shops, but there is not
much creativity involved in painting greenware."
Also, I think the person who originally asked the question, probably feels
the same, that is why she had to ask to begin with.
Flame away
Diego
goatnose on wed 1 sep 99
I think what you believe about slip-cast
versis thrown depends on how you regard
the entire mass production process and
the extent to which you are interested in
construction or decorating. You have many pallets, easily, if you're
"into" deco-
ration.
D. Kim Lindaberry on wed 1 sep 99
Queunda@aol.com wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Dear Clayart
>
> For the person who is trying to decide if slip cast is good as thrown plates.
>
> I for one, will admit that I would respect you less if you did decide to slip
> cast. There are huge number of your peers who feel the same, it is just
> nobody wants to come out and say it.
I'll probably step on some toes here but, Oh PLEASE! There are probably just as
many people that will still respect you if you do what is necessary to do the
project properly. As I understood the original post, if she was going to do slip
casting she was going to make her own pattern. Then she was going to make her ow
mold. Then she was going to slip cast them. Then she was going to decorate them.
Sounds almost too simple doesn't it? Well it isn't. I have a feeling that people
who haven't ever made a mold think this is an easy way out of having to do work,
and thus makes the idea less valuable (for some reason). Making a good mold take
some real skill. I'm curious how many people that think doing slip casting from
an original mold is less respectful, would be willing to give up their hump
molds. After all, in reality hump molds aren't really necessary if you know how
to coil properly. I personally will respect anyone that has a creative idea, and
that can execute it well. If the creativity only comes during the decorating
stage that doesn't make it less valuable. We can go back to Picasso and look at
the work he did decorating ceramic forms. I doubt that anyone of us would be so
foolish to throw one his pots out in the trash because we didn't respect the fac
that he didn't make the form he decorated. A mold is just one more tool availabl
for an artist to use. I say do what you need to do to carry off the idea in the
best possible
Kim
--
D. Kim Lindaberry
Longview Community College
500 SW Longview Road
Art Department
Lee's Summit, MO 64108
USA
to visit my web site go to:
http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/humanities/art/kiml/
to send e-mail to me use: mailto:kiml@kcmetro.cc.mo.us
Ray Aldridge on wed 1 sep 99
At 01:12 PM 8/31/99 EDT, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Dear Clayart
>
>For the person who is trying to decide if slip cast is good as thrown plates.
>
>I for one, will admit that I would respect you less if you did decide to slip
>cast. There are huge number of your peers who feel the same, it is just
>nobody wants to come out and say it.
I sure hope you're underestimating these folks. I believe most of us
understand that artists should care a lot more about the esthetic worth of
the object being created than the technology used to create it-- though of
course these are usually closely related.
But I'll say this about thrown versus slipcast plates. I've never thrown
dinner plates for sale, though I've made some as gifts. I've been a potter
for 30 years and I'm a fairly competent thrower, but I can't economically
throw plates as structurally good as the plates I buy at the Dansk factory
outlet store. And those are the plates we use on a daily basis, not the
fancy ones I've made. The cast Dansk plates stack well, the glazes are
simple but beautiful, and most important, they are light and don't hurt my
wife's arthritic hands, on those occasions when the kids and I are hiding
and can't be dragooned into setting the table. Food looks really good on
them.
I don't buy Dansk soup bowls, because I can throw a soup bowl that's
technically as good as and, in my opinion, more beautiful than a Dansk soup
bowl.
Different objects, different approaches. If I were to be overwhelmed by a
desire to produce dinner plates, I'd cast them or jigger them. The product
would be better, in my opinion, and this is what should be important to the
maker, not the ritual of process.
If I were rich, I'd buy a set of plates from John Glick or one of his
disciples. I'd love them, but I think I'd still be eating most of my beans
and rice off the Dansk.
Ray
Vince Pitelka on wed 1 sep 99
>I for one, will admit that I would respect you less if you did decide to slip
>cast. There are huge number of your peers who feel the same, it is just
>nobody wants to come out and say it. Vince Pitelka almost just came out and
>said it in his post
>Fwd: Baby boomers in ceramics (was ego problem and ceramic envy)
>" I have nothing against the old style hobby ceramics shops, but there is not
>much creativity involved in painting greenware."
>Also, I think the person who originally asked the question, probably feels
>the same, that is why she had to ask to begin with.
Diego -
This ain't exactly a flame, but you should be careful assuming what other
people mean. We go around and around on this regularly on Clayart, and my
friend Jonathan Kaplan is groaning seeing it coming up yet again. Jonathan
is a slipcaster extraordinaire, and deservedly proud of what he does, and
has always been completely honest with customers about what they are buying.
That is the secret here. If a studio potter is doing very high production,
and decides to employ assisted technology to produce multiples of THEIR OWN
DESIGNS, and if they openly admit and advertist that the wares are slipcast,
then I have great respect for their honesty and initiative. There is
nothing wrong with what they do, and those who make things one at a time
should not feel threatened by them.
In my post I was referring to the hobby ceramics shops where someone simply
picks a bisque-fired, slip-cast cookie jar that looks like Smokey-the-Bear,
and paints it according to the picture of the Smokey-the-Bear cookie jar in
the catalog. Nothing wrong with this at all as mindless entertainment, but
it ain't creativity by any stretch of the imagination.
But there are potters out there who make high-production wares by the
slip-casting process, and then advertise and sell them in gallery and
craft-show venues as individually hand-thrown or hand -built, or else the
design of the wares suggests that they are hand-thrown or hand-built and the
maker simply fails to point out that they are in fact slip-cast. Those
idividuals should be ashamed of themselves. They are accumulating a mega
load of bad karma which will eventually come back around and bite them.
Best wishes despite the rant -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - vpitelka@DeKalb.net
Home 615/597-5376, work 615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Stephen Mills on fri 3 sep 99
No one technique is "The Only One". All have a validity of their own,
and if the process of painting Smokey the Bear arouses someone's
curiosity and gets them casting their own, and then maybe getting
straight clay on their hands and under their fingernails, then WHOOPEE!
I'll bet there are Clayarters out there who have done that, or are on
the road. I'll bet some of our customers at BPS have gone this route.
Steve
--
Steve Mills
Bath
UK
home e-mail: stevemills@mudslinger.demon.co.uk
work e-mail: stevemills@bathpotters.demon.co.uk
own website: http://www.mudslinger.demon.co.uk
BPS website: http://www.bathpotters.demon.co.uk
Earl Brunner on tue 7 sep 99
On the other hand, why would I want to make everybody in the world into a
potter?
This almost sounds like that is the goal. Sheesh, then we get people on
here complaining about others copying their pots, (that would be next of
course)
Had a lady at a sale once ask me how much I would charge to make her a one
quart lidded jar to keep her sour dough bread culture in. At the time I
told her about $14.00 US. Even at the time (read that as back in the old
days) it was a good deal for a custom made pot requiring two peices, the pot
and the lid. She thought a minute and turned to her friend and said loud
enough for me to hear. "I guess I'll just have to take a class at the
University and make my own." Ticked me off, (sales were slow anyway) I
spoke up and said (sweetly of course) Fine, you take the class at the
University, it will cost $120.00 IF you can get in. Materials and fees are
an additional $30.00 I teach the class. At the end of the semester I will
make you the pot for $14.00.
You know, sometimes it's kinda fun to see people turn purple.
Stephen Mills wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> No one technique is "The Only One". All have a validity of their own,
> and if the process of painting Smokey the Bear arouses someone's
> curiosity and gets them casting their own, and then maybe getting
> straight clay on their hands and under their fingernails, then WHOOPEE!
> I'll bet there are Clayarters out there who have done that, or are on
> the road. I'll bet some of our customers at BPS have gone this route.
>
> Steve
>
> --
> Steve Mills
> Bath
> UK
> home e-mail: stevemills@mudslinger.demon.co.uk
> work e-mail: stevemills@bathpotters.demon.co.uk
> own website: http://www.mudslinger.demon.co.uk
> BPS website: http://www.bathpotters.demon.co.uk
--
Earl Brunner
http://coyote.accessnv.com/bruec
mailto:bruec@anv.net
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