Conversations at the Log #2

“You say it’s [your work] is about the material and the mess. Why is that significant? Why is that enough? For the ‘art’ to be about the material and the mess?”

Long pause

“ummmmmmm” laughter

“Now you’re nervous, but aren’t there larger implications?”

“ummmm, does is ‘have’ to be about other stuff?”

“Are there larger implications for you and/in your work?”

“For me and my work?”

“Besides melting stuff……no?”

“I mean there’s nothing political about it.”

“But isn’t it about pushing limits?”

“Yeah,”

“and isn’t there some sort of metaphorical parallel?”

“ummm, just pushing material limits, I’m not…I don’t know…I guess it’s just about experimenting. It’s pretty base.”

“Do you feel like…REALLY? You feel like it’s pretty base?”

“Yeah, I feel like I’m not-

“So you’re a hedonist?”

“-well, I feel like what I do is pretty base. It’s not like I’m trying to change the world, I’m just trying to experiment and push this material.”

“To what end?”

“I don’t really see an end to it, that’s what I like about it so much, is that by pushing one material it draws an interest to another material, and it’s a continual cycle of just wanting to learn about what happens when I put a little bit more of this in until I put way too much in and then I find out something different.”

“And it’s just, that’s enough? That’s it? And the goal, the thing you want to leave is that you pushed feldspar as FAR as it can go?”

laughter

“I mean you’re sort of an art geek aren’t you?”

“yeah, sort of. I’m more of a materials geek I think. I’m more interested in just watching oil drip out of a can.”

“But do you know why?”

“NO [laughter] that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“So you want to know why?”

“Yeah, I want to know why. I mean, I think about ‘why’ when I’m making, but I don’t know why. I just know-“

“Now wait. You said you lived with engineers and geologists and the like. There is definitely an end to their questions. There is a means to their ends, but what you are saying is you don’t know what your end is?”

“Yeah, I don’t see an end to the series or the way that the work is progressing. Before I saw an end to the machine objects I was making. I reached this point where I figured out the level of craft, mixed media and all this stuff, and I felt like I had finished it. And I don’t feel like I’ve finished the experimenting?”

“OK, so I could see how something like this work (we were looking at a sculpture by Jessica Jackson Hutchins) relates to what you are interested in, but I don’t really see how you see it as one material.”

Jessica Jackson Hutchins "Couple"

“I guess I just sort of see it as this big blob of residue.”

“OK, so then it’s history? Is it a visual poem?”

“hmmmm.”

“How would you help somebody understand this work?”

laughter

“I’m having a hard time understanding it myself!”

much laughter

“I mean it’s tough. It’s a pretty tough blob.”

“Well okay, let’s say you go to grad school, and you get a teaching job and there is an Art Appreciation class on your roster-

laughs, “yeah”

-and you’re like, ‘Dammit’ and then you’ve got, y’know…”

“I probably wouldn’t show this, because I can’t describe it.”

much laughter

“I would talk about shit I know about.”

“Well what would you talk about?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never had to deal with that. I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Okay”

“But for this woman [Jessica Jackson Hutchins] and that piece, definitely more than these pieces. The work with the couch definitely transcends these other works. [Here we are comparing the work “Couple” to the work with the vessel setting on velvet pants in an old chair]

Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Velvet Hand, 2009, chair, vase, velvet pants, 33 x 21 x 20".

Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Denim Vase, 2009, ceramic, denim, 9 x 7 x 5".

“Yes, I definitely agree this work is a stronger object than the other.”

“Umm, I wouldn’t really know how to. These [the chairs] are way less interesting to me.”

“So it’s the brown chair with velvet pants sewn together holding a ceramic vessel and the other vessel is lined with denim. Earlier it was said that these brought to mind Meret Oppenheim. So, Why are these less interesting? Are they just worse compositionally?”

“Yeah, I think when you are stripping the material down, this basic, she’s sort of losing control of the form on the one with the denim. It’s sort of formless and just a blob with white and blue.”

“Yeah, it looks like bad Ceramics I”

“and, I don’t know, it’s bad in a way that there’s no way of knowing where the control was or where that level of craft was. That’s sort of like the big issue.”

“It’s like when we were talking about your functional work and being able to see the intent.”

“yeah”

“But what’s interesting to me is being able to see in the reviews about her work. The reviewers talk about seeing the intent in it. But do you think that goes back to the New York art world not really knowing…”

“I think that’s the difference between the ceramic world and the art world, and the craft with a capital ‘C’ that hangs over us.”

“Because we can’t look at it without knowing?”

“yeah, We can’t look at it without saying, ‘UGH! I can’t fucking see that! I can’t believe that! Are you kidding me?’ Y’know? We all-technique is EVERYTHING in the ceramic half of the art world.”

“it is”

“and I guess for us who are involved in the ceramic part, we can’t look past the craft or the lack of craft, whatever you want to call it.”

“Do you feel like you have that problem too?”

“Looking past a lack of craft? Oh yeah! Oh yeah! [keep in mind this is a person who classifies his work as a mess] Remember I have a hard time looking at certain pots because of little things that bother me.”

“Well I guess that is true.”

“Little things that are common on a lot of pots. I just can’t handle it.”

“Well, it’s different levels for everybody in regard to that, but why do you think that…Why isn’t Jessica’s work or Arlene Shechet’s work [more largely] recognized by ceramics?”

“I can see Arlene’s work being more recognized in Scandinavia or elsewhere in Europe. Her work reminds me a lot of works that are coming out of Denmark and Sweden.”

“y’know the other day I was talking to a friend and he was saying the conversations that are happening in Denmark are way more theoretical and way more interesting and way beyond any questions of craft that we’re having here. Why is that?”

“because they are better than us?”

laughter

“They’re just better.”

“But there are people here in the states who are interested in those questions too. Is it just about momentum? Is it just about geography?”

“I think they have a lot of history that got them past some of these things or got them to a point where they don’t even give a shit about craft because of all the production potteries they’ve had.”

“So they just did it to death? Do you think we haven’t done it enough yet? Not concentrated enough? Not a collective concentration to get past-

“I don’t think…the way that ceramics was introduced in Europe was such a different way too. They wanted fine china, the porcelain….well I guess there was stoneware, but I think of the European porcelain craze and after that….maybe that wore them out.”

“They wanted a different question?”

“Yeah. They were pushing ideas about sculptural vessels and function and questioning all of these things with Meissen porcelain, so…and we’re still doing that here. You don’t see potters over there just making sculptural vessels. They are way over that.”

“right”

“and I think that’s because of a lot of the history before.”

“But I think a lot of the questions you are asking in your work are way over it too.”

“yeah”

Couple of Hot Tips

OK, maybe "hot" is not the right word. The article referenced below was published on October 31, so I'm almost two months behind. Lawd knows, I'm scrambling to catch up though!

Still, if you don't know about this yet check out:

Adobe Airstream Magazine

and a great article written by Ellen Berkovitch, "The 'Piss In': NCECAs Critical Santa Fe"

It is a scathing review, but I think she hits on a lot of points we all need to hear. The article also led me to a great interview with Arlene Shechet at BOMB Magazine. I have to wonder why the likes of Arlene Shechet and Jessica Jackson Hutchins are not on sites like Access Ceramics. If it is only because the site shows work of folks who submit their work, then I have to say it is succumbing to the same old belly-button gazing narcissism ceramics always falls into. How can the mission truly be to enhance ceramic education world wide when it only looks inward? When will the collective gaze shift to the horizon?

Conversations at the Log #1.5

This morning, early in the studio I was caught without my tape recorder. My second edition of “Conversations at the Log” is already recorded and transcribed, but this was such an interesting conversation. I knew I would need to try to reconstruct it and at least recall the high points. Please understand the conversation below is paraphrased. And by its very nature, paraphrasing can only attempt to capture the ephemeral nature of early morning candor.

The point at which I would have pressed play on the recorder was when we were admiring recent rewards from a kiln. There were some fairly lovely pitchers sitting on the top of a table…

“Don’t you just love a good pitcher?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Yeah, these are not like some pitchers. You can get your hand down into them and clean them.”

“Is that what makes a good pitcher?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why don’t you just get a bottle brush? Why can’t the form dictate the function?”

“Well it can, but I’m not going to that much trouble for a pitcher! I already do it for Tara Wilson’s tumblers. Those are sweet.”

“Hmmm, this is interesting. I’ve only heard men make this complaint and it seems I’ve heard it many times. I wonder if there is some larger thing going on here. Are men more pre-disposed to voicing their discomfort and women socialized to accept and adapt? [of course] Women have been washing dishes a lot longer than men and maybe a bottle brush doesn’t seem like such a big compromise?”

“Maybe, but that’s not the only thing that makes a good pitcher. At least these pitchers are trying to BE pitchers. They hold more than one cup of water. I hate those pitchers that only hold one or two cups of water. ‘Here, I’m drinking with myself.’ ”

“You sound the same as the last conversation I had about pitchers. You are making a distinction between functional work and sculptures of functional work?”

“Yeah, there are so many people making pitchers that really could care less about whether or not they offer practical functionality. “

At this point, it’s hard to ignore the conversant is standing next to a cart full of functional work that was purposefully cranked out in a slap-dash manner. There are cups with anti-feet, roughly hewed bowls and Flinstonesque buckets a plenty.

“Well yeah, but this isn’t trying to be good function. This is poking at function. Look at Chuck Hindes.”

We’ll leave that connection hanging there in the ether and turn to the work on the cart, which is actually pretty awesome. I find the work delightful and can see the intentional purpose in the marks made, in the handles. There is too often a subtle purpose in the objects stored there, especially when I take them in as a collective. I ask if I can use one to see if I actually like drinking out of a sculpture or if the novelty wears off after a few days.

“Sure, pick one out and see how it works. You could even have it if you wanted it.”

“How would you show these?”

“What do you mean?”

“In an exhibition, how would you display them? Do you see them as an installation or would you just go with standard pedestal presentation?”

“I dunno. Standard pedestals I guess. I really just want to show my sculptures, but pots make money,” smiles.

“You’ve spent an awful lot of time cranking these out for them to just be about money.”

Somewhere in here we addressed the fact that the pieces would need to be seen in a collective state for a viewer to really buy-in to the intent. Individually the point might get lost especially when nestled among straight-forward, pots with refined functionality.

“Yeah, but people like pots. I dunno, I think I’m just going to let them sit here for a while-

“and let it stew?”

-yeah. I need to not think about it for bit, just hide them in a corner.”

There is a pause as we go to fill our cups. Mine fills fine and I delight in the ridiculousness of the form and the purposefulness of the handle. It strikes me that I have to be very careful about lifting it to my mouth because the rim has high and low spots and a spill is inevitable if I don’t pay attention. Oh, how many potter’s statements talk about wanting to cause the user to slow, to be mindful of the moment shared, to commune in a never-ending collaboration with the user?

“Well, mine doesn’t work,” is yelled across the studio.

“What do you mean?”


“I poured the coffee in and it hit the bottom of the cup and went right up the wall and out the other side.”

“You made a roller coaster for coffee?”

“Yup!”

“Cool. Well maybe your cup just dictates a slower pour than others.”

That summed up the first part of the conversation. The second half got into territory about ceramic and craft and the inherent “how-to” conversation locked inside the field, even when work gets taken to a new level. I don’t think I’m going to be able to reconstruct it without a revisit, but I will have my recorder ready then.

Theaster Gates' Collisions

Do you know who Theaster Gates is? Do you know what he is doing? Here is a link to a 2007 interview on "Bad at Sports". By the way it is a podcast worth following while you are working in your studio or driving down the road or just enjoying a relaxing beverage after a long day.

On to Theaster. Last Spring, March 25-27, 2010 there was a "convening" at the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. It was called "At The Crossroads: Community Arts & Development Convening". And it was there that I first heard of and heard what Theaster Gates had to say and to see what he was doing. The work he shared was a work realized at the Milwaukee Art Museum and a collaboration with Dave the Potter. Here is a video of his lecture about "Speculate Darkly".

Dave the Potter was a slave potter and he is known by a few names, but mainly he is known because he was literate and he left poems and thoughts etched into the vessels he made in the 1800s. In the above lecture, Theaster speaks to his own education in ceramics (by the way, he also earned degrees in Urban Planning and Religious Studies) he indicates the history of American Ceramics was filled with White Californians and Asian History. He did not see himself in this history, but he knew these figures wanted to make him a better potter. He was motivated to seek out a history in clay, a purpose with the material he could relate to. This is how he met Dave. The fact that Theaster had to FIND Dave is one of those omissions from history which is disappointing if not surprising. It's not surprising we need to thoroughly reexamine academia and not from a corporate viewpoint, ah but another day.

Still, I have to indulge right now and say, Ron Dale at the University of Mississippi did present an inclusive history of ceramics and Dave the Potter was among the artists presented. I don't know whether or not that was because of the time I found myself in school, or because Ron Dale is an inclusive thoughtful human or because I went to school in Mississippi and there was such a focus on that campus to not repeat the errors of the past. And yes, that history is certainly a worm hole we could go down, but let's just be grateful there was a combination of things at work which did not exclude a variety of makers from the presentation of art history in my education.

But, back to Theaster and the work in Milwaukee. The way he told the tale in St. Louis was that the museum was looking at their statistics and noticed a lack of contrast in their patronage. To say the least it was sorely lacking in the area of black patronage. They knew of Theaster's work. They knew he was part of the 2010 Whitney Biennial, knew he was eloquent and charismatic, they knew he could engage the audience they were missing.

Theaster agreed to be the Milwaukee Art Museum's Bridge. He proposed a radical idea: the reason few of color came to the museum was that there was little of color to view at the museum. So he put together and exhibition of work created in conversation with Dave the Slave Potter. Theaster also put together a choir of over 300 people from Chicago and Milwaukee to traverse the museum floor singing old spirituals, and singing "Bowls, Jar, Teapots. Buy my wares."

It is a powerful work. A powerful body of work.

He has also gone into abandoned Chicago neighborhoods and created site specific works which generate community dialogue. He has said, I'm sick of the self-aggrandizing conversations in ceramics (okay, I'm paraphrasing here and infusing with my own luggage) and want to find other connections between the two cultures prominent in his ceramic experience. Potters are forever on about function and so he combined soul food with asian cuisine and opened up a neighborhood restaurant with German Festhalle seating, presented the food in vessels he made and invited the whole neighborhood in to eat and TALK. Communities of race who rarely sit down and chat, who rarely humanize each other.

This June he was at the Museum of Contemporary Craft whitewashing previous performances as part of the "Gestures of Resistance" a focus on contemporary craftactions: work that deploys craft to agitate for change through direct political statements, public interventions, or dialogical, community-specific projects.

I have wanted to write about Theaster's work since I heard him speak last March. I was so excited, almost to a manic state, about what he was doing. I wanted everyone in ceramics to see what it was that he was doing. The ceramics world spends so much time pondering its bellybutton it fails to see the bigger picture of potential. Theaster saw the brick wall, the same brick wall we all see and then, rather than beat his head against it, he looked around for other connections, which he calls COLLISIONS. I think they are collisions because, like any great art, his works might not give us answers, but THANK THE LORD he is opening up new questions and bringing folks together in the process! Admittedly, I have a tendency to want art to change the world and I don't know if I'll ever be able to let go of that altogether and don't think I should have to, but don't let my personal slant turn you away from really examining what Theaster is doing. He is expanding the dialogue of ceramics because he abandoned the dialogue of ceramics. Yes! I vote yes! I want more of that!

Conversations at the Log #1

Occasionally, I'm going to post conversations had at the Red Lodge Clay Center Studios and Gallery. We'll see if they evolve into anything interesting. For the past seven years, feeling quite removed from the ceramic community I wondered what sort of conversations folks in the thick of the community would be talking about. So far, it has been really interesting, and I feel privileged to have the opportunity of insight. Sometimes destiny/fate/luck/whatever puts people on a faster trajectory and it doesn't necessarily mean their is a difference in quality between someone on the fast-track and someone on the slow-road. I carry a tape recorder around with me, because I find myself in the middle of conversations with the residents on occasion where little nuggets of humor, irony or unique perspectives are floating by the fireflies in the night. When these organic conversations happen, I keep thinking, "I should be writing this down!" As best I can, I'm going to leave things anonymous to help focus on the content and reduce any potential embarrassment. They do know I have the tape recorder with me and I don't try to hide it when I start recorder, although it tends to quickly fall into the background.

We'll start off with a light-hearted conversations had over an impromptu evening potluck at the studios this fall. We were contemplating the validity of a "Conversations at the Log" project as well as the validity of art industry publications. Oh, I should mention the phrase "...at the Log" is a nod to one of the earlier Artist-Invite-Artists groups. Brad Schweiger, Von VenHuizen, Nicholas Bivins, Tom Bartel, maybe Ben Ahlvers (?) were here making, laughing, drinking, hiking (or so the stories go) and they had such a great time they made a t-shirt and dropped the "d" and "e" to a smaller point size and imposed an image of a log, so the shirt reads RED LOdGe. You'll have to get a more accurate story from one of the menfolk, but I would hate to not give credit where it is due.

At any rate, here is the beginning of the recordings:

Maybe there’s just not enough to talk about, y’know what I mean? …to warrant that sort of discussion

Would it be all work, across the board?

Yeah, and I mean it may not just be ceramic work; maybe there’s…I don’t know…

Well there has to be a focus doesn’t there?

Yeah, but I mean you could have the focus be just artwork or something. Because I think maybe it could just be ceramics but it would be good to have designers and industry right in there, Have a forum where everyone from all different parts of

Engineers too?

Yeah-everyone-like the people who make toilets up at the Kohler Factory y’know. Whoever wants to write in about the ceramic industry, they could write in, because I never hear what anyone has to say besides a potter. Coming here, I’ve heard more, but usually it’s just from the people you hang out with. And I don’t have any engineer friends, I never hear anything from people who work in ceramic industry.

What would you want to know?

I don’t want to know “how to” stuff, I want to know their perspectives of the ceramic industry, whether it’s their particular niche their in or how they see generally the whole industry or y’know whatever they have to say. But I don’t want them to say, “Well we mix our clay this way and fire it that way.” To me, it’s just—you can look all that stuff up; it’s just not that interesting.

I wonder if ARTNews is really doing that and we are unaware because . we don’t know that community. ARTNews focuses on a certain crowd, a segment of the population…

ARTNews is just self-Promo

Which is what the complaint is about Ceramics Monthly, so…

Everyone in Ceramics Monthly are already friends

My complaint is that I’m not friends with them

Much laughter

Well, eventually all the others will die and then you’ll be at the top

Chuckles

You’ll be old and talking about the days back in Red Lodge when you were just a resident

Yeah, I’ll talk about the sculptures placed outside my window and how I never recovered.

Then everyone proceeded to name what they thought other folks would be in 20 years, focusing on idiosyncrasies and stereotypes observed in the few months they’ve been together.

Design, Cognizant Intentions and Artist Statements

I can already tell you I'm going to cast too broad a net here. After six months in the role of Gallery Coordinator at Red Lodge Clay Center, I have had the opportunity to read many, many artists' statements. Not that I hadn't read any statements before, but certainly the reading was not of such a condensed nature. So artist statements are a point to ramble on about here, but the reason my attention was brought back to artists' statements was really because of a thought I had about aesthetic trends in contemporary ceramics. While unpacking some work (and I have been enticed by the imagery, the color, the design, the line, the form of many works unpacked over the course of the past decade) recently, my mind wandered to a conversation I had during the 2008 Presidential election.

Over some good and tasty beverages, I wondered about the dark side of design aloud as my two colleagues chatted excitedly about the "change" and the "hope". This manic excitement made me more than a little nervous. Now I was not particularly proud of our country's leaders at the time, but I'm also not particularly political. Nor do I have the sort of instant recall of facts that would aid me in a political/bar debate, so I waded into the question cautiously. I really did not want my voting opinion or my colleagues to be called into question. I just wanted to know SPECIFICALLY what "change" did they think was going to happen.

This had become an ongoing straw poll of mine. Educated folks, folks I looked up to as sound, reasoned and or creative thinkers were all pretty fired up about the election, but none of them could really tell me what exactly was going to change. None could tell me exactly what they hoped for, except something different. My students wore the t-shirts, there were stickers all over our little department, bumper stickers abounded in the parking lot. So the question I put out was, "I'm concerned people are getting seduced by the design campaign and really don't know anything about the candidate. I'm concerned the deepest level of understanding is the equivalent of 'Coke: THE REAL THING'." My colleague's calm, rational reply was, "Maybe that's enough for now. Maybe if the design gets the younger generation to the polls and engaged in the political process, maybe our country will turn a corner."

OK. Maybe.

The November 2010 elections and my now limited encounter with the younger generation, bring my original fears back to mind and make me question initiatives like the "Rock the Vote" campaign. If nothing else, we should learn design or propaganda has to be a continuous bombardment to keep working. Here's a cliff-note look at the history of such campaigns from a September 2010 entry at the blog Cruzine on Design and Propaganda and a snarky look at political design by the New York Times. Slick design gets our attention and motivates us into action. This can be a very positive effect, unless we are living in Nazi Germany. When the posters come down or when students graduate from college and the local college hottie campaigner quits showing up at the door to get us to Rock the Vote, does our motivation cease? It seems the answer is yes.

The focus of my concern is a slick design without deliverance of any substance or the creation of slick design without any cognizant intention behind it. November wasn't a total rout, so maybe some folks got mobilized and remained so after the posters came down, but I still have my concerns.

Now for the big leap back to ceramics and design and artists' statements.

There is some groovy work coming out from the hands of young makers. It's clean and sleek or it's candy colored and kitschy, but the quality of process (better known as craftsmanship) is not always present (and there is no sense of irony in the lack of it). What gives me greater pause though, is when I read an artist statement and I read the same thing from artist, after artist, after artist, after artist regardless of the aesthetic. To paraphrase one of the Red Lodge Clay Center residents, "...we know it's a cup! We know what a cup is for, tell me something I don't know." I couldn't agree more. Why are you working illustratively and why are you using the palette you are using? Why is everything so structured? Why is it unstructured? Why is it a functional thing when clearly the narrative is the focus?

Do they not know? Do they not care? It would be one thing if the work was always impeccable and cutting edge, but the highest quality is not always present. More though, I suspect it is a symptom of the justification academia requires of the arts which forces students through a process too quickly. A process of self-evaluation which takes years and years to understand. Cripes! It takes a lifetime to understand why we are doing what we are doing and then maybe we still won't have the perspective we need. Ask an artist about why they make what they make and you will get a different slant each time the question is put forth. It's a question worth pursuing, because it leads us to more discoveries, but why can't academia make it okay to say, "I don't know yet!" ?

Why is a verbal description of the art process important? I suppose I think it is because I want more people to value the handmade object. I want more people to understand the creative process. Even the untrained public knows when to call bullshit, they know it in their gut. But do you know what happens, even when they know something is a sham? They tell themselves they are not smart enough. They tell themselves they just don't get it and build their protective wall against art a little bit higher. I do believe it is important for makers to have some cognizant intentions, but I also fully believe in the magic of the creative process and being open to the unknown.

I just want us, makers, to do our best to be clear and honest about what we are doing and I suppose the only clear connection between the politics of propaganda and artist statements is: A slick product pulls an audience in and then, as if sucking on an opiate lollipop, the audience fails to grow or gain any depth of character.

I vote for pursuit of cognizant intentions. I vote for connection of dots. I vote for a enticing object or image with a kernel of truth in the ensuing artist statement, even if the truth is akin to, "I keep surrounding myself and my work in red and I'm not yet sure why, but I believe if I continue along this track I will find an answer eventually or learn something else along the way."