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Why Decorate Pots?


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Reading some of what Alan Caiger-Smith wrote on decorating pots, too hot to do anything but breath today, and have been thinking of how and why I decorate pots, and does what i do provide what I am seeking.

What do you think on this?

 

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Honestly, I had not heard of Smith before reading your post, so I googled him. I am awed by his work. It is so reflective of beautiful calligraphy, something I love. I will look for more photos of his work.

 

Interestingly, my grandfather and father did some calligraphy. My son was never exposed to this, as my father died at a young age. When my son was in art school he was exposed to lettering and discovered his passion. He is now a professional typographer. I think there is something hard-wired in our brains to love this type of design. It reminds me of Celtic designs, and perhaps that is the visceral connection for us.

 

How to decorate my pots in a way I find fulfilling is something I have been struggling with. Thanks for your post. I am feeling very inspired.

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I decorate all of my work. The trick is to have something worth saying. I was influenced by Michael Cardew. Start with banding. Grab a bamboo brush and some ink ank decorate a newspaper to develope a personal vocabulary of imagery.

See my gallery, which I have yet to update.

TJR.

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Decoration often times is evolutionary, not something that all of a sudden happens. It is like developing your tastes, what worked 5 years ago does not satisfy you today. I used to work with atomizers and stains to use found objects and all sorts of lace etc to decorate my pieces on a Bristol type glaze, finished up with calligraphic lines to complete the imagery. A few years ago I started working with other glaze colors at the HS and added these glazes at home. Moving to a darker clay body moved me to use white slip and notched tools to decorate. Still not happy, I am thinking of returning to the old techniques after working with some spray paint and urethane this summer to decorate a desk and recycle a mail box. If I could get some of these effects on glaze, I would be happy.

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Honestly, I had not heard of Smith before reading your post, so I googled him. I am awed by his work. It is so reflective of beautiful calligraphy, something I love. I will look for more photos of his work.

 

Interestingly, my grandfather and father did some calligraphy. My son was never exposed to this, as my father died at a young age. When my son was in art school he was exposed to lettering and discovered his passion. He is now a professional typographer. I think there is something hard-wired in our brains to love this type of design. It reminds me of Celtic designs, and perhaps that is the visceral connection for us.

 

How to decorate my pots in a way I find fulfilling is something I have been struggling with. Thanks for your post. I am feeling very inspired.

There are a couple of videos on you tube in which Alan C-G demonstrates his brush work. makes it sooooo easy!

Hich 30degC and Over 40 for a week is toooo hot for me.Mixing glazes and hoping the brain is not fried. Pottery shed corrugated iron.Who needs a sauna?

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Honestly, I had not heard of Smith before reading your post, so I googled him. I am awed by his work. It is so reflective of beautiful calligraphy, something I love. I will look for more photos of his work.

Interestingly, my grandfather and father did some calligraphy. My son was never exposed to this, as my father died at a young age. When my son was in art school he was exposed to lettering and discovered his passion. He is now a professional typographer. I think there is something hard-wired in our brains to love this type of design. It reminds me of Celtic designs, and perhaps that is the visceral connection for us.

How to decorate my pots in a way I find fulfilling is something I have been struggling with. Thanks for your post. I am feeling very inspired.

 

There are a couple of videos on you tube in which Alan C-G demonstrates his brush work. makes it sooooo easy!

Hich 30degC and Over 40 for a week is toooo hot for me.Mixing glazes and hoping the brain is not fried. Pottery shed corrugated iron.Who needs a sauna?

Thanks! I will look for the videos.

It is snowing here. I am planning on a cold day in the studio tomorrow, but that beats a warm day in an office.

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Another 40+ day tomorrow!

All the birds are lying around my waterbowls, just exhausted.

Your decorations have strong lines like Michael Cardrew, I looked up some old Craft Horizon mags in which he is featured. Quite a character.

His son, I think, does fine bird decoration, your fish capture the movement as well as the image. Looks simple, don't think it is! You just see teh right lines, right?

Wouldn't mind a shower of rain right now.

Babs

 

It is now raining here. It will all be ice tomorrow morning.I have seen more accidents this year than ever before

TJR.

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Why not?

 

Humans separated themselves from non-humans by making tools and art... decorating their tools, bodies and early utilitarian objects, dwellings, etc., for various sacred/magical/pleasurable reasons.

 

Some pots want/ask for decoration, others don't.

 

Decorating a pot to me is no different that painting a painting or making a sculpture or composing music... 

 

It is a a journey in the moment to be taken and enjoyed.

 

Why make food attractive? We don't have to, but it sure makes eating more enjoyable.

 

Okay, where are my wading boots?

 

We could get into "Why make art at all?" in no time, but that's another subject...or is it??

 

I'm just gald people do make, decorate, enjoy, use, collect, admire... pots.

 

Lena

Lena Arice Lucas - Art

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  • 2 months later...

How about NOT decorating as an aesthetic statement?

I've never been a decorate-y kind of person. My home has nothing on the walls but bookshelves, double-shelved with books. My bedroom has entertaining designs on the walls that I imagine into shapes simply because that's how the sheets of wallpaper decided to peel off.

My pots don't get intentional decoration beyond identifying marks, not because I don't have the skill or confidence to decorate, but because I actually feel like I am marring beauty if I do so. I feel the same about smoothing out throwing marks - it takes that special something away from the interaction of the glaze with the piece . So one person's lack of decoration could very well be another's preferred aesthetic, and conversely one person's preferred decorations could be another person's idea of hideous overkill.

I enjoy the balance between intentional decoration and serendipitous beauty :)

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From the beginning to the end, we decorate the clay. We form/shape/mold it into a form, we leave marks from fingers and tools intentionally or accidentally. We dry and fire the clay, we apply a glaze to seal the clay, and even the clearest of glazes changes the surface. Some potters spend a lifetime trying to replicate that look of the leather hard chocolate brown unfired beauty in a fired permanent piece. Others choose to use the surface as canvas for their own interpretation of beauty. Still others looking for the natural in precious and semi precious gems fire in strange manners using fuming and other processes to decorate their work leaving much of the decoration to chance. All of us strive for an interpretation of some unexplainable vision of beauty that only making and decorating the object can explain that vision.

 

Does this mean that all of us can really understand that vision? I really don't understand John when he says some teabowls are $40-50 and others $400, I can appreciate each, but don't know enough to really understand. Much of decoration is the same and isn't it great that there are so many different visions of what is . . . .

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 it's a personal journey. The minute we try to make an outside statement with our work, rather than an inward expression, it loses authenticity.  The artist decides what piece receives the decoration not because of what outsiders perceive, but because of how satisfied we are with that pice.  When I was a freshmen in high school my art teacher had a saying "there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."  It's a personal thing between the artist and his work.  

We don't need to get it if it's not our work. But it's always nice when someone DOES! ;) 

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"there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."

 

Well, I totally disagree with this statement Blondie! ( I found out at NCECA that Rebekah is blonde right now. :P  :D )

There are train loads of bad art and lots of homes are decorated around the Art inside ... so it does indeed match the sofa.

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"there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."

 

Well, I totally disagree with this statement Blondie! ( I found out at NCECA that Rebekah is blonde right now. :P  :D )

There are train loads of bad art and lots of homes are decorated around the Art inside ... so it does indeed match the sofa.

shhhh!!! Once they find out I am both blonde AND polish nobody will take me seriously anymore!!! ;)

 

 

Oh, and good art doesn't match the sofa…. the sofa has to match the good art. :P

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I am actually in a group of artists called the GAWMYS. Good art won't match your sofa. We have a group show coming up in 2015. All of us are art teachers or retired art teachers. None of us make work to match furniture.

Tom

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"there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."

 

Well, I totally disagree with this statement Blondie! ( I found out at NCECA that Rebekah is blonde right now. :P  :D )

There are train loads of bad art and lots of homes are decorated around the Art inside ... so it does indeed match the sofa.

 

 

Hmmm, I just thought the light hair color was from the filter used on the profile photo.

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"there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."

 

Had my exhibition recently, pieces were sculptural in a subdued colour palette influenced by Japanese sand gardens, the mindful practice of Ikebana, the philosophy of wabi-sabi......etc

 

One lady walked about for 40 mins then bought my most expensive piece...... 'Yes!!'...sound of my artist's euphoria!!

 

Rang her 2 days later as courtesy follow up.....'Oh yes' she says 'the upside down mushroom ones?  (????!) They look nice on the brown sideboard I bought them for'........... 'CRASH!!'....sound of my artist's ego hitting the floor!!

 

Decorate/not decorate, colours, shapes, styles, approaches, philosophies, functional, decorative.... etc, etc.....in the end only those on the receiving end really know why they want it.....

 

...so I just make 'it' anyway I like because I like it and it expresses my philosophies....makes me happy

 

p.s. very little decoration on sculptural pieces, more decoration on practical domestic ones

 

 

Irene

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"there is no bad art, and good art doesn't match your couch."

 

Well, I totally disagree with this statement Blondie! ( I found out at NCECA that Rebekah is blonde right now. :P  :D )

There are train loads of bad art and lots of homes are decorated around the Art inside ... so it does indeed match the sofa.

 

 

Hmmm, I just thought the light hair color was from the filter used on the profile photo.

 

 I live in "hi key"

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Before I started decorating all of my work, I used to use a lot of oriental Temmokus and Celadons. Since I was the studio tech for ceramics, I used to dump all of the left over stoneware glazes together and try to come up with a beautiful slop glaze.

I did such a thing with a glaze called Shambinski Jawalski special.Named after my prof., Robert Archambeau.

This glaze was golden, breaking red and blue, from rutile, I assume.

It was BEAUTIFUL!

I made a large bowl and glazed it with this glaze, even though I was running out of it. The bowl was beautiful. My friend bought it at our annual student sale.She admired it and took it home.

Later, I was at her house, and asked if I could see her bowl. She proudly displayed the bowl, full of dirt, with a plant growing in it.[she put dirt in my beautiful bowl!]

Of course, I sold it. She bought it. She can do with it what ever she wants. And she was happy.

End of story.

TJR.

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The largest bowl I ever threw on the wheel was 36" in diameter glaze fired. I had done a series of calligraphic brush strokes over a nice oatmeal colored glaze. It is a very fine piece. We gave it to my wife's sister. It sits in the den full of magazines!

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The largest bowl I ever threw on the wheel was 36" in diameter glaze fired. I had done a series of calligraphic brush strokes over a nice oatmeal colored glaze. It is a very fine piece. We gave it to my wife's sister. It sits in the den full of magazines!

Keeps us humble. :lol:

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