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Humor: The Best Way To Learn!


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Oh my gosh, Amy, tears are rolling down my cheeks. :lol:  This is so hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I'm pretty sure you guys gave me defective clay...............

 

Thank you for the laugher of the day! I just needed that.

 

Evelyne

 

 

Pres: The video is only a joke, to make a day a bit more funny.....

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I guess I look at it as sad, all of those expectations dashed on the alter of the wheel. So many times I would have adults or HS students in those situations, so frustrated, so expectant of being able to make great pots. All so often I saw the light of excitement leave their eyes when they realized that they really had to work to get something out of it. Many left by the wayside, but a few fought through their expectations to a new reality and determination to really master the wheel. It happens to all of us, some will never "get it" others will get high on it.

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Good, bad, or indifferent, videos are my friend! Being somewhat isolated (location, inclination, everyone else at work etc.) the funny ones warm my spirit and instructional provide such easy access--being a visual learner, it helps even to see the dumb-ass mistakes in the one posted here...the inwardly-scalloped rim---I just trashed one last week, even though it "looked" OK, even pretty, I knew how it got that way! Gratefully I am one to chase the high rather than to get my embers put out. 

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I am sure every single person who teaches clay has had the first time student show up in September determined to give everyone they know big bowls for Christmas. This is the side effect of the throwing process looking so easy when someone else does it ... As do most things that take skill and time.

The only thing I've seen that looks really, really difficult no matter how easy they make it seem are the Circe du Soleil acrobats ... that just looks painful no matter what.

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I was lucky the only throwing class I taught I was a filling in for a teacher that had injured her hands and none of the students were beginners.  I do remember my first throwing class my instructor Rick St. John announced to the class if anyone thought they would have a set of dishes by the end of the semester leave now.  Two women got up and left.     Denice

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I'll never forget the lady who showed up to the first beginners class with a lidded ceramic rice cooker in hand and announced "I want to make this."  We all cracked up when she lifted the lid and there was rice in the pot.

She stuck with the classes and became a pretty good potter within a couple of years, but I don't think she ever made the rice cooker.

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I liked Jane's expression I enjoyed teaching throwing and maybe went too far with helping the beginners recenter their blob. One thing I would have told that student is to slow down the wheel, use less water, both hands opposite each other on one side of the pot. I am sure this student had a demo.

Funny how things stay the same.

 

Marcia

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I'm with you Pres. I didn't find that funny, not even a smirk.

I watched about 30 seconds and couldn't face any more.  

Not funny to someone who took a long time to centre.  

Not funny to someone who has taught others to centre.  

Teaching was easier than doing!

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You know, I find it a pity, and sad, if we can't laugh about ourselves anymore. We all started to throw at one time and had the same problems as shown in the video. I found (and still find) it hilarious to see how I myself maybe looked or talked when I started to throw. I think it essential in life to be able to laugh/smile at faults we made in the past and how we were able to surmount them. Like every student will after a time of practise! I really hope that students who see this video are laughing too, pointing, saying: "that is soooo me"...

 

I just found this: "To laugh at one-self means to take one-self seriously while simultaneously being able to open up your mind"

 

Evelyne

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I can laugh at myself, and the mistakes I used to/ still do make.

 

I just didn't find the video amusing, because of how they presented the material.

 

Now the platter throwing video someone posted, a couple weeks ago, that was funny. It was a satire of sorts, but presented in a way that worked.

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I found the platter vid funny also. However, I have seen someone throw platters, and grab one side by the rim, pick it up, put it on ware board and throw another. Finished work looked very pro, but had a looseness to it from the handling.

 

I do have a sense of humor, but find that some things either rub me  wrong, or just don't hit my funny bone at the right angle. You know how much pain that can casue! :lol:

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I found the platter vid funny also. However, I have seen someone throw platters, and grab one side by the rim, pick it up, put it on ware board and throw another. Finished work looked very pro, but had a looseness to it from the handling.

 

I do have a sense of humor, but find that some things either rub me  wrong, or just don't hit my funny bone at the right angle. You know how much pain that can casue! :lol:

John Leach picks up his plates and puts them on a ware board. It is one of Simon Leach's vids where he visits his brother at Mulcheny pottery in England. Gotta say that I didn't find that video funny either. But I don't have much of a sense of humour. [humor for you Yanks].

Tom.

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I wonder if it's not the throwing, but the response of the instructor that rubs people the wrong way?

 

As a beginner, those days at the wheel are quite familiar to me, and I had to relearn the lessons all over again when I switched to a not very forgiving porcelain. I'm sure when I'm finally able to get my studio finished and dig out my wheel again, I'll be back in the same boat. I've taken two beginning classes at a local studio and spent a ton of time laughing at myself and with other students about our efforts--and the video didn't even show a hunk of clay going flying off the wheel! :) So while the beginner efforts brought a smile to my face as I remembered those days, the instructor response just made me cringe. Thankful I had an instructor who seemed to enjoy our mistakes as much as our successes!

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I thought about this quite a bit while holding 83 mugs in the air while glazing.Not all at the same time. I congratulate Pres for standing up to say that this video was not funny. I asked myself why it wasn't funny to me and why the platter video was funny as Benzine said.

In the platter video, we are in on the joke. He looks at the viewer and we know that it is meant as a spoof. He does not put anyone down although he alludes to buying lots of tools, and"use the green rib,it is best"

The other video on pottery lessons is a put down of the learner. We have all had students who want to make a teapot in the first class. We don't laugh at them behind them or in front of them. We do not mock people who aspire to a dream.

I taught adult pottery for 8 years. Wouldn't go back. I really cleaned up when the movie "Ghost" came out with Patrick Swayzey. [sp?].

When trying to be funny, there is a thin line between fun and cruelty.I choose fun although I have overstepped sometimes and had to apologize. I commend people for trying to use humour. Just be kind, and wear your shoes.

Tom Roberts

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Guest JBaymore

Why is picking up plates from the wheel somehow "funny"? 

 

I've been picking up plates right from the wheelhead for probably 35 years.  It works just fine..... once you figure out the parameters...well aligned clay particles (mistakenly called "compressed'),  peel up and got to vertical fast, put it back down the opposite of the pick up action, wait to fix the fingermarks when it is more leatherhard).  When I do that in demos everyone is always shocked. 

 

best,

 

................john

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