raw rxn to garth clark

the lecture itself, here in pdx, was full to capacity, i couldn't get in. but the podcast is available, as is the q&a. ....
... and so, in true journal style, I am responding sans structured thought. for one thing, it seems he's right on. damnit. because, selfishly, it relegates my m.o. to "lush" if I am to continue on in the delusion that this is somehow even vaguely financially viable: I cannot pare down enough to make it work. I cannot live much smaller witout moving back to the sticks (shudder). I invested thousands in this wonderful kiln that runs on free fuel but even that will last only until the green revolution picks up speed. I am in a state of financial lush: determined to do what I want to do, blind to its economic absurdity. But there I go dragging my lead foot of money guilt, and I have known this for years. between garth and the economy such as it is, the last nail is in the coffin, to continue his analogy.
so step back. do I have art envy? sure! who doesn't want to be a rock star? (I partied with rock stars the other night, and they make less money than me! but look how they are dealing with it!) wait, do I have art envy? art is more about ideas. craft is, by clark's definition, materials-intensive. for me, than means, I fucking live to TOUCH clay. I want to interact with this medium. not as in, I have this great micheal jackson and bubbles idea that is most appropriately expressed in the medium of porcelain. that is art's purvey. excellent. I can have great ideas too, and execute the ones that are best expressed in clay, but I am selfish. I want to bathe in the stuff for the rest of my loving life. whatever art I may happen to make will come out of my gut touching the material. ok, so if I am an Artist, and separated from my medium, I would no longer have art envy, I would suddenly have craft envy. but i follow his autopsy, and i'll have to take his word for it, because I wasn't there in NY when they had their bickering. I appreciate him laying it all out on the table for someone like me- I knew I was in a losing battle, but I didn't really realize that neither was there contnuity from "the establishment"- I thought craft was, albeit the ugly stepchild, at least given high-end support from museums and organizations like the ACC. ok, thanks garth!, now I know who not to assume has their act together. his answer to the etsy question was brilliant.
SO! now what?

.......long pause.........


and as I have never tried to hide, I am not a unicorn. my parents support me. before I quit my job at mt hood college (due to delicious redhead), I earned about half my life/studio expense without health insurance. maybe, maybe, if I'd kept that job, and worked as I do, and growing gallery sales, I could see supporting my lifestyle, even in this market. I've been smart. but I can't be smart enough now. Clark is talking about free design, in NL! design in general, divested of the baggage of sentimentality and academia (I'm not sure I follow or agree with that part, but..) ... the sentimentality, for sure. I think there's a lot of romanticizing the potter's way. a lot of misconception of what our lives are really like (one of my dearest friends still thinks I get to sit down and just make pots whenever I want to). But I wonder if more of what he's referring to is that loopy doodad way of making pots, like trills on mingei, as if it needed enriching.

... I got on a thought tangent about the hyper-ethics of "digging-your-own", like Josh Copus, Micheal and Naomi. This spring, at Penland, I had a complicated reaction to the class upstairs. It was all about working with locally-dug materials (and wood-fire, of course)... that in order to have the most intimate connection with the work, one needs to look to the materials that compose the clay. dig it up, yourself. do the chemistry, love the labor. zen-style, in a lot of ways- this is the history to the pots that you make. this is the history to the love that you give... it was moving, it was of a particular time and place, audience, and level of physical health. I remember meeting Ruggles and Rankin and learning that they had eventually switched to electric wheels for certain tasks. because after a while, the body just couldn't take it anymore.... but I get ahead of myself. my point is that the love is glorious, the amount of energy devoted to this sweet little mug that I use so often is breathtaking to behold. But Clark's point, I surmise, is that their example is perhaps the most anachronistic of all. as in "how stupid could you get??" the market is so small. the craft market is small, and then the market that is able, willing, and interested in reading that level of intimacy with the material is even smaller. the math does not work. according to clark. but micheal and naomi are, I think, unicorns, situated in a part of the country with a strong support of the crafts. as are, incidentally, Kent and Suze. but they are a bit older, had established a clientelle, their share of the pie. this is a real pie, and we are not lutherans saving one quarter of the last bite for the next person.


so return. what next? clark says go design. ok, i have design ideas. I love Eva Ziesel. but I want to interact with CLAY, not paper and plaster. well, I love making books, but that's another story. is this one of those junction points where I have to buck up and say ok, for two days out of the week, i will make moulds and create designs, then another day to market them. in exchange for the rest of my lush week fucking around with porcelain? well, I exchanged two days of mixing glazes and cleaning buckets at mt hood for 11 an hour...


I don't know. I could wait for the devil at the crossroads. I got skills.
or I could train to be a geisha, amerika-style. as in, I'm hot. you want a piece of me? lick my plates.


I think I'll do that. sounds like an equally misplacedly-romanticized career as mine.