I am still not up to full speed, but life is settling back into a

routine. Last night, with Jeff out of town, I loaded up the kids and

drove to EMU, left them at Diana’s and went to printmaking to work on my

etching of a beetle collection (in rows, on pins). Afterward, Ben

Bigelow the printmaking TA and my roomie Patrick Green picked up a stack

of pizzas and we all had supper together before heading back down the

highway.

This afternoon I’m off to the clay studio with a box of greenware and a

head full of ideas. On the night I stay over, I can work late and come

back early, so if my body can keep up with my brain, I’ll be able to do

something about a notebook full of NCECA sketches.

I was supposed to take Patrick’s dancing shino mug to his old prof Dave

McBeth at nceca, and failed… David, I’ll ship you the pick of the next

litter. Sorry, both of you, for being such a bad messenger.

The benefits of NCECA are still making themselves felt. I realize that

the majority of the people in my life –though generally supportive and

non-confrontational — really have no idea why a “pottery hobby” is

worth disrupting family life, finances and schedules. After all, it’s

just pottery, right? So spending a few days in the company of folks who

“get it” about pots will keep my battery charged for a good long time.

(of course, a portion of the pot-heads can’t understand why I would

bother with children) ;0)

Maybe next year at NCECA we should have a clayart room gathering one

afternoon for parents with kids at home, to brainstorm about the

logistics of it and share some support and advice. Half a dozen

clayarters spring to mind who are in the midst of this same balancing

act, or are letting one side or the other win out. Elizabeth, will you

be at NCECA next year? Ken Nowicki and I talked about time issues

briefly, and Lana Wilson’s panel discussion on parenting and pottery

barely scratched the surface.

I am no stranger to the mommy-guilt-overcompensation-dance, but since I

took on school, I have noticed a lot of unintended benefits to my kids.

It’s heartening and I’d love to talk about it with others in the same

boat.

I ran into a clayarter or two at nceca who seemed to think I had

“crossed over to the dark side” now that I am in grad school… that

surely, next, I would be looking down my nose at unschooled potters, and

fluent in incomprehensible artspeak. I don’t suppose I could convince

anyone whose preconceptions are firmly rooted, and maybe some more

ethereal programs demand that sort of thing… but so far what I have

learned is that the key is TIME. How many years a potter has been in the

field seems more important than whether they learned at Alfred or from

an old timer with a wood kiln in the back 40. The number of hours I am

forced to put into my pots, because I am in school, has pushed me as far

as the prof looking over my shoulder.

Being assigned to work on the stuff I am worst at has been a valuable

exercise, but I still believe what clayarters have always said: that if

you took the time and money required to do an MFA and put it into your

studio and equipment, you’d be as far ahead — especially if you can

recruit seasoned potters with a good eye for ongoing critiques. For me,

though, without a semester’s demands, that kind of time would constantly

be eroded by all the other obligations in my days… and I don’t have

the self discipline to make myself do what I hate and what I am bad at,

without the prof over my shoulder holding a big stick.

A friend said, “You’re all about alternative education, why not just

homeschool yourself the degree?” and there’s only one answer, as far as

I can tell: you can’t get hired to teach at the college level with a

homeschooled degree. The credential is the coin of the realm, and if I

have to choose between selling at street fairs or working in a well

funded university or college setting, the second one has a certain

appeal. Especially now that I am getting excited about wood, salt and

“big melt” — none of which seem very practical in a home setting.

Anyway, I’m done for the year in at the end of April, and will spend the

summer making pots-to-sell to finance next year’s tuition. It will be

interesting to work in a private place with a monetary goal in mind, no

prof, no big stick.

Yours

Kelly in Ohio

http://www.primalpotter.com

Next post:

melvin wrote:

“diana pancioli has many wonderful glazes for cone 6 redu.

but, she is a `supreme smarty pants`.

she got in bob anderson’s face…big time. a long breakfast

and lots of talk. `don’t make raku, make stoneware, get your

new kiln done, make things that will last forever, make hard

pots, not soft pots etc.etc.etc.`

he did a great job defending himself…logical, good discussion.

but, she did not believe him. i think he is working on his new

kiln shed right now (5 a.m.)….he sees her coming out of the dark with

a big louisville slugger……………………..whack, `make

stoneware`.

bob’s big purple/red/platter in the clayart room convinced her….`if

he can make pots

like that one, why waste time with raku? just her opinion…

`but, we all see what kelly witnesses.` power and opinion.

good stuff. god, do i hate wishywashy.

mel

————————————————————————

——————————————————————-

Mel, are you implying that my prof is opinionated, outspoken, or direct

in some way?

The HELL you say!

I’ll be honest… there are days when I fantasize about being enrolled

in some self-esteem-camp program, where the profs just pat your head and

tell you everything you make is a wonderful exploration of your

individuality… (not sure where these mythical programs are, but one

hears stories…)

It didn’t take long to learn what kind of pots and comments would get

the hairy eyeball from Diana. We don’t make ashtrays or bud vases, we

don’t weave convoluted artist’s statements or wax on about “narrative”

work, we don’t dip our plates half-in-this-and-half-in-that, and god

help the newbies who ask where the raku kiln might be…

Every prof has biases, favorites, influences from their own teachers,

and pet peeves. Diana’s favorite pots are the ones made several

centuries ago (though she dislikes pots that mimic bronze vessels, and

flips past Iznik slides in a hurry.) A couple thousand years of pots to

choose from for inspiration is not too shabby, though.

Do I always think my profs are right? Nope. Do I like things that I am

not making in the MFA program? Sure. But I am here to learn what my

profs can best teach me. They know what that is, so I don’t spend much

time arguing a point or digging in my heels. I’m a good dog, I do what

I’m told. That’s what I signed up for and dammit, I want my money’s

worth.

I have my own studio (and the rest of my life) to make whatever moves

me. We veteran grad students, now just weeks away from the end of our

first year, have a sense of having come a long way. Our work shows it,

and our resilience in the face of, um, pretty straightforward crits. It

took time to get used to, and we’ve formed a small, tight group in the

process.

At first I felt protective of newbies to the program, offering hints and

“cliff’s notes” on how things work. Frankly, though, as I get more

involved with the challenges of my own pots, I spend less time worrying

about new students and their ups and downs. I have lost the clay-camp

feeling that we should all hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya. I just want to

be in my cave, and get my work done, and folks can sink or swim like I

did.

I am starting to appreciate the space the profs created as a grad

studio, apart from the main classroom — not because we grads think

we’re superior or somehow special, but because we’re in a different

place at this point. We’re planning our own firings, critiquing each

others’ work, sharing ideas, and we know and trust each other. The

general yabber of the classroom is distracting, and a student or two are

sufficiently annoying that I plan to bring earphones – plugged

into nothing but my back pocket — rather than make conversation when I

have to make clay or glaze pots in the shared studio.

(I’m such a shy, quiet little thing, anyway…)

Yours, home to a hubby who called me last night at EMU to say he’s

forgotten what I look like, after NCECA overlapped with his trip out of

town, then I left for school…

Kelly in Ohio

I haven’t checked this out yet, but the N
CECA podcast is apparently at

http://web.mac.com/brian.kohl/iWeb/NCECA.Podcast/NCECAPodcast/NCECAPodcast.html

Also, just a note to folks who have written to express dismay that we

don’t do raku at EMU:

The way I see it, college programs specialize, just like restaurants do.

The profs bring their strengths and dislikes with them, and if the

program thrives, it gets a reputation for that strength (ie: functional

stoneware.)

If I am craving sushi, I won’t pick a Mexican restaurant. If I was in

love with raku, I would have applied to Piepenberg’s program, another

half hour down the road: he’s a marvelous man and his program makes very

exciting work.

While I think it’s nice for ceramics programs to provide a wide range of

approaches and techniques, I’m not sure any program can try to do

everything and not spread itself too thin. I’ve had the luxury of a lot

of years and a lot of workshops to try this and that, and there’s a

whole lifetime more of things I haven’t tried. What I have learned so

far in school, though, is that I could spend two years of focused energy

and not master a plate, bowl and cup, much less a teapot — so I am

trying hard to sit on my ADD attention span and stay focused. Too many

choices just boggle me.

My dream restaurant would only have three things on the menu ;0)

Yours

Kelly in Ohio, at the library while two kids are at piano and a third

browsing teen fiction… then off pick up slides and stop at the bank,

then to walk laps while the kids do homeschool sports at the rec center,

then saxophone lessons, then home for family house-cleaning and laundry

and what-the-heck-is-for-dinner. Still worrying over the sound I heard

in the quiet kitchen, this morning, while having my coffee… it sounded

a lot like the mumbledy-squeak of baby raccoons in my kitchen ceiling…