No I offered it in complete sincerity.
Clearly my personal experiences with teachers has been pretty lousy (although MS. Kim at CR was a rare exception <3) -as I've often described in my posts my usual experience when I asked a question in class was to be ignored or worse yet, quickly understood that I already knew more than the teacher thanks to self-study. My current teacher is now on vacation for two weeks AFTER class has started...rather than fill the page with useless, unwanted observations let's just say the trend continues. When do I get my money's worth? What's the point of asking them anything? Like before I'm working on my own stuff, marking time because I have to take the beginner's class and can't afford the 'real' classes. Also, it's a prerequisite so we don't 'damage' the studio. That said, someone just put the large very much still wet vase I was working on in the kiln and fired it up. They had to dig it out from behind all my other work where I tried to hide it. Is this the level of competency I'm aspiring to? They must know something I don't....also somebody stole the silly little teacup pinchpots we were forced to spend the first class making, just to put the cherry on the cake. Fortunately tea is gross, I'm just wondering what else of my work will go missing or get blown up.
Gabby, I get your implications, you think I'm an upstart who doesn't know any better and is insecure about it, shouting to the empty air and just, well, embarrassing myself. What you define as strident I'd call not being a sheep. I have no interest in being whipped into line to serve the machine. Surrendering creativity, free will, self-fulfillment, If that's what you enjoy dig in, there's plenty to go around if you want to waste a ton of cash and years of your life. Luckily, school is no longer necessary and is getting less so over time. I think this is awesome!
A quote that expresses what I'm trying to say better than I can, from "A Language Older than Words" by Derrick Jensen: Through the process of schooling, each fresh child is attenuated, muted, molded, made- like aluminum -malleable yet durable, and so prepared to compete in society, and ultimately to lead this society where it so obviously is headed. (the entire book is about the collapse of the environment and what we've lost as human beings thanks to societal psychosis) -schooling as it presently exists, like science before it and religion before that is necessary to the continuation of our culture and to the spawning of a new species of human, ever more submissive to authority, every more pliant, prepared, by thirteen years of sitting and receiving, sitting and regurgitating, sitting and waiting for the end, prepared for the rest of their lives to toil, to propagate, to never make waves, and to live each day with never an original thought nor even a shred of hope.