Conversations at the Log #3: Concerning Critical Writing

One of the most wonderful things about having the opportunity to work at Red Lodge Clay Center is the privilege to engage in conversations with folks who are at the top of the field. On a good day the location is a nexus of energy and I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to look behind the curtain. We are leaving for NCECA tomorrow and it will be an NCECA like no other for me, because my perceptions have shifted so dramatically in the past twelve months. As is my nature, I am simultaneously excited and terrified by the prospect of what's to come. Before I post the next edition of "Conversations at the Log" I want to address a concern of mine regarding NCECA. I have heard many complaints about NCECA, complaints from voices I never would have heard had I not been given the opportunity to sit where I now sit. As someone who was grinding it out in the hinterlands for almost a decade, removed from and unseen by the broader ceramic community, I want to speak up for NCECA. The conference provides ignition for newcomers and a much needed revival for folks who work in isolation around the country. I'm always excited to see what is new and to have the opportunity to hear new ideas, to have notions validated, to make connections and to see countless works of art. It is my goal at this NCECA to review a couple of exhibitions and see if I can't hit the note a distant colleague and I discuss in the conversation below. This is the third transcription from the "Conversations at the Log" series of posts.

As always, comments are much appreciated and I encourage you to subscribe to the blog and share the posts. I've added a couple of new features as well. Explore and respond as you like.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE LOG #3: Concerning Critical Writing

I don’t know what academic writing is.

Don’t you think it’s about finding a reference point in history and connecting it to the thing you are discussing? The topic you are discussing is either restating an important historical part of the canon or it’s reacting strongly in opposition to the canon. Essentially your topic has to be validated by a minimum of three other sources so it’s not just “stuff” you are cooking up in your own head, although if Newton hadn’t cooked “stuff” up… But he had to prove it with examples--tangible things that were occurring in the world. So I think that is a large part of academic writing. We have to look outside of our own little worlds if we’re going to state something new. Where else is this happening in the cultural subconscious?

You can’t really make a seamless parallel between creative writing and ceramics, but there is an energy about creative writing or a feeling about it I can attach to what I do in the studio. Something about writers, the best writers write for themselves and are seduced by their own writing. I think good ceramic artists can be seduced by their own work and then they can send it out to a larger audience. Don’t you get seduced?

Yes. By my own work?

Yes, when it’s good, strong and right?

Yes.

I do. I don’t get seduced by everything, but… An introductory text to “The Best Short Stories” says, “Stories are like jars full of bees. You unscrew the lid and out come the bees, maybe in the end that’s all guest editors do. We choose the stories that contain the most bees. The tales that sting us good, leaving us surprised and sore at first, then free to worry at our leisure, the tender inflamed spot, our attention focused, ourselves wide awake and alive.” That’s just beautifully written.

Well yes, because he’s making a picture in our head. I think, obviously, that’s what great writing does.

But is that an academic paper?

I don’t know, no. I don’t think what he was writing was an academic paper. That was a statement of intent. But, you know, I have so many College Art Association Journals that I want to read. I mean to read them. And I spend an awful lot of time beating myself up for not reading them. But I just can’t pay attention to them because there is not a strong narrative in them.

Right

And I want there to be a story.

Well, a piece that Peter Stempel wrote, I would say it's academic writing wouldn’t you? It’s in a narrative form.

Yes, I agree. Have you read “The Botany of Desire”?

No

It’s the same style. I think if you are a good academic writer, and by good I mean accessible, you can make valid academic points and support your theories without alienating your audience. But not everyone is a performer, not everyone is a storyteller.

Right

So maybe that’s the sweet spot of documentary or non-fiction or critical writing, when you capture the sweet spot of both styles.

Yes, I agree. Glen Brown is one of the top critical writers in our field, but after a paragraph I’m done.

Laughter

But do you feel bad about it?

Yes, of course. I feel like I’m not smart.

But then you hear people talk about anti-intellectualism. I’ve heard that criticism a couple of times in the recent past, folks concerned about a move toward anti-intellectualism and I wonder if what they are really saying is that they want to be part of an elite group and this society is moving toward an egalitarian way. Is the public “voting” for a more egalitarian discourse? Just because something is egalitarian (narrative) does that mean it’s anti-intellectual?

Well, the anti-intellectual complaint I hear refers to the arena of politics. I don’t see anti-intellectualism in our field at all. I think it’s definitely prevalent in politics, but I don’t see it in ceramic circles so much.

But what you are talking about… If we are saying we want someone who can write well and support their observations in a narrative way, keeping the reader drawn in without using alienating vocabulary, we will stand accused of being for anti-intellectualism. Essentially we are saying, “I need sugar to drink this tea.”

Hmmm. Well another point he touches on in his opening comments tells about a lecture he attended where the speaker was asked, “What is the point of literature?” The speaker replied, “To entertain and instruct.” And everyone was disappointed in the answer. The audience continued to get him to expand on the answer and he refused. It was only after the audience members had matured themselves that they realized he was right. We need a little candy, a little sugar to swallow the pill. I don’t know, I like that idea. To entertain and instruct, heck yeah! Who wants to read a story without a little entertainment along the way?

I have to agree.

Auctions for Japan

Once again, Ayumi Horie is leading the way with social consciousness, social networking and craft.

Get to the Handmade for Japan auction and tell your friends!

Check this out

Cuplomacy

Independent Labels

I am not a potter.

This was the most I could say for a long time.

I could not say what I was.

The statement housed a lack of confidence and a disconnection from my true self. When uttered aloud, the statement always sounded defensive, although defense was not my conscious intent. Maybe it was the use of a negative particle keeping the true intentions of my words at bey. Popular trends and rigorous methodologies have never come naturally to me, and I don’t really have much interest in them or time to cultivate them. So naturally, it would seem, my disposition is not that of a potter.

The only time I have peeked into the part of my soul which might identify with a potter’s was when I learned to make paper. In my mind I can recall the meditative peace welling within me as I couched sheet after sheet after sheet after sheet of vibrant pulp. The only other time I can consciously recall such peace settling on my mind comes from a distant memory of snorkeling. Silence, water, color. Writing it out like this I can see there is a connection between the two experiences. My point is that the heart of the potter, it seems, may not be totally foreign to me.

The sense of accomplishment from being able to make the plastic stuff grow into a form upon command of my hand was sincere. I have a manic love of and desire for multiples. Honestly, I find overproduction and bounty a pleasing sight. There is magic in the magnitude of multiples enabling a clear perspective, wherein everything else in the world, tangible and ‘un’ shrinks right down to a perfect and manageable size. Like a farmer must feel after harvesting a crop, looking out over a sea of bowls, cups, plates, dishes, etc. is an experience of self-gratification. But...

Day in. Day out. Admirable as the effort may be, it is too static an endeavor for my sensibilities.

Still, I have somehow managed to immerse myself in a world hyper-focused on one material. I have done so because of my own history with it, however low-brow those origins might be considered. My grandmother ran a slip-casting studio in a small town. She had about five kilns and countless molds. We used Duncan glazes and I can recall digging the crystal chunks out of the bottle to enhance the random speckled patterns that would become my bedroom lamp for the next two decades. My sister and I spent hours scraping seams off greenware and sanding the surface before bisque. (ahh, again as I write this brings the memory of the aforementioned meditative peace: scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape) The time spent in my grandmother’s clay studio was such a happy time.

But the whole affair went dormant in my mind. For years I forgot about it. When I decided to focus my studies on clay in college, a shop like hers was, and still is in some circles, the lowest denominator in our field. Thankfully that veil of shame is lifting as we move ever forward and open up permission and accessibility to all schools of the past. More importantly, as I mature in my creative life, I find the episodes from a small town pottery shop awakened in my mind, and as I flip through the memories recalling the peace and joy, I care less and less about feeling deficient as a production potter or the world of chemical romance so prevalent in contemporary ceramics.

Still. Back to the original point. I am not a potter.

In the first years of my immersion in contemporary ceramics, housed safely in academia thanks to the GI Bill my grandmother’s generation fought for, the people I met were always so balanced and delightful, and, yes--come on you can say it with me--EARTHY. This was the honeymoon phase to be sure and it lasted a long while. Actually, the mystique is still there a bit. So much so, that I desperately wanted to be a part of that club. They had so much cameradarie and presented a model of honest work paying dividends in tangible, utilitarian products. The lifestyle was an anchor and a metaphor for life. I wanted to be a potter, but only in an inclusive, come-on-let-me-be-a-part-of-your-group, theoretical way.

(Pause for a geeky non-sequitur: After seeing Star Wars, I wanted to unlock the power of my mind and gain the ability to levitate objects. I did not want to learn about the technology behind light sabers.)

Potters are tangible.

Certainly, there are intangible philosophies supporting their intentions, but so much of the productions potters world is bound in the tangible. They are alchemists first. Only some cross over into mystic status. And still, when I say, “I am not a potter,” I mean, or I meant, I am not worthy of the status. I have not earned the title. I do admire the production potter tradition. I also admire Dick Proenneke who built his own home in Alaska from hand-built tools at the age of 51, but it does not mean I want to busy myself with a similar endeavor. My life thus far has led me to know I have the mettle to make the journey to visit Mr. Proenneke and that, if I had to, I could be self-sufficient. My sister and I joke about how our family is built for disaster, meaning we are the stable ballast in a storm, and even if our assessment is as true as we think it is, it doesn’t mean that we want to hike for five days in snow to chop down and skin a tree, processing it into usable lumber for our home. Nor would we want to repeat the process the number of times required to realize a cabin.

The problem with this sort of thinking, “I am not a potter,” is that it did not name my strengths. It did not allow me to believe in what I did bring to the proverbial table. Always, there is this struggle between classes. Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” addresses this struggle. It is tricky to co-exist with another group, to grossly minimize the thesis. I don’t want to call production potters my oppressors, that goes way beyond the pale. I was oppressing myself.

The model illustrated by Freire is one where the oppressed are stood upon only until they are educated and then they are renewed and reinvigorated in their desire to take part in decisions which define their world. The hazard is that once empowered the prior “oppressed” can sometimes become the oppressor. It is crucial, Freire asserts, to embed the burden of continued education and shared empowerment on everyone. As one moves up, so to do the rest, if the burden is accepted. This is how we avoid the “culture of silence” wherein we would accept having a status quo thrust upon us.

There are countless pathetic anecdotes I could regale you with about being shut out of conversations with potters because I am just not interested in firing schedules, the nuances of chemistry, the hours and hours of labor required to pull a single bowl from a wood kiln. Here is what I know now thanks to inclusive mentors who broke open doors of technical language for me, language that is used sometimes only to make the speaker feel superior. I can and do understand, albeit at a rudimentary level, the science behind ceramics. I would understand it better through repeated practice, but I am more interested in the human condition than the condition of the flame.

I had to take myself out of the position of oppression, because I was the only one putting me there. In turn, I have to recognize that some of the alchemists and potters in the field are feeling just as excluded when talk turns to intangible subject matter. I have a responsibility to not be snide and condescending when a colleague shuts down a thought process because it intimidates them. It is so easy to go on the defensive and say, “Your lack of imagination will not impact my perspiration and progress.” A statement that could be easily delivered with defensive venom. Better such sentiments are spoken between friends who are reassuring themselves that their path is right for them right now.

I began this entry by saying what I wasn’t and admitting such a tactic got in the way of saying what I was. My personal, and surprisingly recent, revelation is that I am an artist. I have an affinity for, but am not limited to craft materials, from clay to macaroni. I have a personal mandate to empower people to find their creative voice and to see just how many people we can fit around the table. There is always room for more.