Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dem Bones Dem Bones: Where does making begin?

This entry is a recollection of ideas that came from the 1st night of dialogue with Clare and classes on Monday, March 25, 2012.

Does "making" relate to an object or does it extend further back into choice of material?  Ceramic artists have many options for clay bodies.  Options can be straight forward and pragmatic or they can hold great intention and represent philosophies.  In past studios I recall stigma placed against buying boxed clays.  Also some clay artists place a great deal of pride and status on developing their own clay recipes and then mixing them.  Others might take the purity even further to mine their own clay or to move their studio to sit adjacent to a natural source for clay and rocks for glaze.  Potters Ruggles and Rankin, formerly of North Carolina, made incredible pots and lived without electricity other than that produced by a small generator powered by a stream on their property.  (I've seen this and hope my description is accurate.)

So where do we start the making?

Likewise, I sometimes get lost in thinking about the pottery and where its utilitarianism begins or ends.  Determining that place also determines my own parameters as the potter, as the maker.   I'm quite satisfied in my work for the homeowner and cook to do the prepare the meal and to figure out where the cooking begins - from grocery store or garden to plate.  I design the pots to hold some absence so that the cook can complete the work with a nicely served dinner.  In this way, I've chosen that my making must imply opportunities for the cook to "make" as well.  I chose the reserved glaze color  so that the cook can mix and match color and texture with every meal.  In my current work, it's important that my making promotes and highlights the cooking by the homeowner.  I hope the lack of permanent color inspires the cook to fill the plate and thus make it truly functional.  Making encouraging making.

But in other ways, where the making of a utilitarian form begins and ends is confusing.  I sometimes think about it like this.  If my plate sits on a tablecloth or on a place mat, do I need to design the textiles for either of those so that the plate fits in?  If yes, the textiles sit on a table.  Do I then design that table? Which materials and forms would complement that pottery?  The table sits on a floor or a rug, is there opportunity for me to move from the tableware through the table to have some say in floor or rug design?  And that rug and floor.... eventually they will tie into the walls and floorboards................


Dem Bones (song)

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



The toe bone's connected to the foot bone,

The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone,

The ankle bone's connected to the leg bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



The leg bone's connected to the knee bone,

The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



The hip bone's connected to the back bone

The back bone's connected to the neck bone,

The neck bone's connected to the head bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



The finger bone's connected to the hand bone,

The hand bone's connected to the arm bone,

The arm bone's connected to the shoulder bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!



Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around

Now shake dem skeleton bones!


I think you see where this is going.  One object touches another.  If each object has its own specific purpose and if the proximity between them or the partnered functional needs among them lead to the comprehensive experience of a dining room, for instance, where does my making end?  Within the specific object - the tableware?  Or does the tableware open up the possibility to design the entire dining room....and if the dining room is part of the house, do I make the house.  Frank Lloyd Wright, among others, worked this way.

All of this calls up the purpose of boundaries or limitations.  Parameters is likely a better word.  Knowing when the making is framed by a boundary that contains it and keeps it from a natural expansion is often difficult to distinguish between the parameters that help focus and drive the specific objectives of the making.  

Andy Shaw
4.5.12

2 comments:

  1. Andy-

    This reminds me of an idea that you more or less mentioned to me a few semesters ago- using wrecklessness as a tool. It allows you to move beyond your set parameters/natural expansion and then for recoil to identify which parts are worth keeping. I think this a nice way to utilize both boundary and natural tendancies to define specific objectives for making.

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  2. Thanks for reminding me of that Kim. Wrecklessness as a tool for expanding parameters. It's funny too to see when you might adopt that tactic and when not. What I was trying to describe was more or less the border of obsessive disorders with work and what is at play. I was thinking about it actually in a way that is out of control but not in a good way. Perhaps time and some analysis and resolution might lead to some settling down.

    But wrecklessness is helpful if your tendency is to use parameters with restriction. I think creativity works really well with parameters - our minds make links between the few guiding points and then find ways to synthesize ideas as part of the structure. But if boundaries are limitations, restrictions, reasons why not to go forward, the wrecklessness is wonderful. I think it would look something like this.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lNhmlbjXIN4/ThcapaP-ShI/AAAAAAAAArg/Vckl7C5FCFw/s400/Pakhtun%2BBull%2Bin%2Ba%2BChina%2BShop.jpg

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