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Qotw: Would You Ever Completely Retire From Doing Your Art Work?


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Today I have another guest writer in the QOTW-Topic. Tom Roberts aka TJR has the following question for us:

 

 

"I am reading the latest Ceramics Monthly. In there is an article by John Glick. He plans to retire, sell house and pottery and move to California. Also in the same mag, Robert Briscoe,a potter from St. Cloud, Minnesota, is also selling up.

Question; "Would you ever completely retire from doing your art work? No studio, no classes, no hobby making. Just cold turkey, QUIT! Could you do it? Would you do it?

Tom Roberts"

 

 

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I'm going to try to keep going as long as I can but I have already made some plans  in case I am disabled.  I have been growing gourds for a while, I dry them and store them in the basement.  Many gourds are shaped like pots you can paint, carve, and stain them.  I have bought several pieces of gourd art at estate sales one of them had a label from a gallery in NY also had a card in it about the artists a husband and wife team.  If I don't have a artistic outlet I'll turn into a daytime TV vegetable.    Denice

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What John Glick is talking about in CM is quitting entirely to spend time with the grand kids. As everyone knows, he had/has an illustrious career making and selling decorated dinner ware. He talks about completely quitting. No studio, no local art centre to go to once a week. Completely finished and living in the condo.

Could you see yourself doing this after a long career as an artist?

TJR.

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No. I retired from University-level teaching 15 years ago after 25 years,  and I now have worked more in the studio than ever before. I enjoy teaching workshops and doing residencies to have exchanges with others working in clay.

When we relocate the next time, I may be scaling back but I still want to have a studio.

Hopefully, I will be physically and mentally capable. As John says, that would be the only obstacle.

 

Marcia

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I think sometimes about what would happen if I lost my access to clay and though I don't want to think about that, I know I would put that energy in another direction. I spent ten years of my life pushing my creativity aside in favor of more "practical" habits and I don't want to do it any more.

 

William Morris said, "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

 

I think this applies to what we do as well as what we have. Folding laundry, grocery shopping, working for an income, and other daily routines are useful and important, but I need to make some beauty too. That's why my pottery is functional but decorated to the hilt.

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I retire. . . everynight, and find myself doing something "artsy" every day. Most times it is pottery, but I do draw, paint, do home improvement, decorate, and other things that are in the creative realm. I imagine for me it would have to be something really debilitating to keep me from something in the arts.

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I just resumed clay a few years ago after a 40 year hiatus. Becoming semi-retired gave me the freedom and I'm getting deeper in the mud as the years go by. I'm still evolving, progressing and extremely enthusiastic and I see no end in sight in the near future.

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Never again. Life put me on a five year pause from ceramics(this is only an avocation but consumes more of my life than my job). Wife was working on getting bachelors and then masters in nursing and the kid got pregnant at 16. A year ago I said that's it my turn now. Funny thing is I throw better than ever. It's like I got five years better without the work. My wife now parks in the driveway and the two car garage is now all mine. I will never stay away from clay again unless I am unable. Funny thing is I go to church and think about clay; I work in clay and think about God. Just weird.

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In this scenario....have my arms, perhaps, been cut off in a horrific yet vaguely described accident? 'Cause that's about the only way I see me giving it up completely. And, as others have said, there are other "artsy" pursuits I would probably follow....there've been plenty of people who paint with their feet...

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I think the short answer to that is: "I'd rather die."

For me...art is my soul, my reason. One doesn't simply "retire" from drawing breath... it's a part of you until the next world comes a-calling. :3

"Retire from drawing breath." Like it.

TJR.

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