Arts on the Avenue Kaleido Festival http://artsontheave.org/festivals/kaleido-festival-2009/went well. The weather was not all that great. The first day we had to shut it down early or get blown away, Sunday the weather was still very windy so the venue was changed to inside. It was well attended and we look forward to next year. Bigger and better!
I do my first Clay Teacher job today. I am going to Victoria School http://www.victoria-school.ca/ to talk to the high school kids about being a potter, making pottery and whatever they want to talk about or watch. It will be fun. I wish someone could have come and talked to me at that age. All the potters I met growing up were hobby potters and they have a different outlook on pottery. I have been both a hobby potter and a trying to make a living potter, they are not the same. If some old fart potter had come and told me to run and become anything but a potter when I was 17, I wouldn’t have listened and I am sure they won’t either. So I tell the good side, show them some techniques and talk about skill, craft and art. The rest, they will have to take their life time to figure it out. That’s what it is, a lifetime/lifestyle choice. Being a full time potter has its commitments. It’s difficult to get started and can take a few years. The money is often not all that great. The work is hard. You have to find your place among all the other potters and stand out to a point where your pots will sell and sell enough to support yourself and perhaps a family. There is a skill level obtained when you make thousands and thousands of pots. You need to be a skilled potter to be an artist, but how skilled? You have to have control over your clay. However while production potters are pumping out the pots, hobby potters have the time to play with the one of kinds. It has been the oldest discussion since there has been a hobby and professional potter, who is the real potter. Is craft art or is it only that, a craft. You are what you think you are. If you think you are an artist, you are. If you think you are a craftsman, you are.As long as you have the skill to control your clay and the understanding and control of the process and you can make the clay do what you want it to do and not just take what you get, it really doesn’t matter what you or anyone else labels you, craftsman or artist. There is some very bad pottery out there that is seen as art and some wonderful work that is overlooked or just seen as craft. If what you make makes you happy, then you are doing it right. Keeping in mind, what makes you happy and feel good about your work will and should always be changing.Tomorrows work is always your best work.
Next Friday I work at a place called Sanctuary.http://www.ecsd.net/programs/alternative_education.html#sanctuary With these kids I will take a completely different approach. They have some behavior problems. Life has not been all that kind to them. We will talk about masks. We all wear them, so we will make some, talk about feelings and what feelings look like. It should be a good time for both me and the kids. I am looking forward to it.
Here are a few of the masks and suns I have been working on. They are fun to make and after winter hit last night with freezing temperatures and blowing snow a warm smile is be appreciated.
Until the next time.
Cindy.
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