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Today I'd like to talk about making tight or loose pots.
And every potter has to ask that question or deal with that at some point. And tight pots I would
Think are the pots that are very well defined. Very consciously
made and articulated. Loose tend to be much more letting the clay do its own thing and sort of celebrating the
plasticity of clay or the properties of clay. You find this in other materials, even..
or mediums. Certainly in dance with classical ballet
or sort of the counterpoint being sort of improvisational
modern dance. And certainly in painting
where you have abstract painting and then you'll have someone doing sort of almost photo-representational paintings in
some way. So I've always asked myself the question about tight pots or loose pots
And find myself gravitating between one or the other or
sometimes a combination of both. So I'm in this case making a bowl
then at some point deciding
I wanted to make this bowl out of center and make it asymmetrical.
And in doing so I just took this edge and dropped it down..
crimped the bottom. So
when this pot's done I actually
make a sort of a plumb-bob
shape here and it acts as a counterweight to push
this over. And then when I glaze the pot sometimes I do some sort of graphics on the inside that sort of in some way
repeats the form itself. So there is this space of
sort of being in
control and out of control and certainly a
lot of potters make pots with gesture. Which is
sort of very intentional but its still sort of celebrating the plasticity of clay.
And I've always liked that
scenario or analogy of thinking of dinner time
like maybe at Thanksgiving where everything is so nicely set up
in the beginning of the meal and there's this real sense of presentation.
But then two hours later when the grave boat's
been spilled and the wine's been spilled and there's food all over everywhere
There's a sense of representation. So that idea of presentation
and representation is something that's
explored in art and certainly in pots and that pot
certainly has a sense of gesture because of the way the rib is used.
Now this idea
of being sort of out of control or something
really loose. This is really wet,
very wet clay and you normally don't ever put
a ball of clay on the wheel or center it like this but there's really, in the end,
no rules. So I'm throwing with super wet clay here.
And I think it would be a real experience to drink out of a cup like this.
And maybe
add a little detritus as a handle.
You'll
probably remember drinking out of a cup like this where
most cups might not be so memorable.
So thank you for your time.
And move this up the side of the pot... WOAH!
Very quickly.. and.. that certainly has some gesture to it.
They normally don't pop off that way!
We might use that. (Laughing)
Okay.