Julia Galloway Workshop

My birthday was on Sunday, and, as a present to myself, I got my shift covered at work so that I was able to assist and attend a workshop with Julia Galloway at The Clay Studio last weekend.

Although the title of the workshop was "Porcelain Surfaces", to me, it seemed more a presentation of ways to reconceptualize pots. Through hands-on exercises, slides, and discussion she offered a variety of entry points with which to think and re-think pots.

For example, early on, she had everyone take a lump of clay and form it into a pear. Then the pears were literally deconstructed when she said to take a wire and make one cut into the pear, then rearrange the pieces. From this single action, she had us see the creation of a line and a plane, and start to gather information from these. She also looked at the rearrangements and read narratives from them, which in turn suggested the functionality of the piece (like maybe you could say two parts are cradling each other, and could lead to a cup and saucer set).

She often uses metaphor to talk about form and functional. She looks at a sugarbowl as something to "hold sweetness" and perhaps this is why she created some sugar/creamer sets that look like little beds. The sugar is stored underneath the pillow and it is nice to think of the sweetness being held by your pillow, and evokes the phrase "sweet dreams".

We looked at slides of historical pots and she pointed out how culture and values of a region can be expressed thoroughly through a pot. Different cultures even seem to have specific vectors in their pots. European pots seem to be headed Up and Islamic pots seem to be headed Out, while Chinese pots are "inhaling, and settling".

Later in the day she addressed surface decoration more directly, in a rather declarative moment that had us all scrambling for our notebooks for the truthbomb she was about to drop: all surface decoration resolves to just 4 things: dots. lines. flora. representation. We did a hands-on exercise playing with these four simple modes on porcelain tiles.

She said that you could see the form of a pot as its emotional content, while its surface provides its intellect. That made sense to me. But I wonder what it means that I find surface decoration so challenging. Usually my attempts at it seem so cheesy, or cutesy, or overly earnest. Can the same be said of my intellectual expression?

We heard a story about how she got clues on how to glaze by taking notes on the daily outfits of one of her better-dressed professors. As she says it on her website, "We put all kinds of colors and textures together when we get dressed every morning, and when it comes to glazing, I think this is a good place to start."

Even her midday lecture was not only a description of her work, but again, an offering of entry points into how she sees ceramics, art, artists. I think she might say an artist's work is ultimately a way to explore and celebrate her world. In Julia's case, she explores and celebrates beauty she sees, passion and obsessiveness, sense of place.

The show that she had spent the week installing in The Clay Studio's gallery, Quiescent, is a kind of homage to John James Audubon and his watercolor paintings of “The Birds of North America”, and is a reflection of these three things. She celebrates the beauty of his paintings, but she also really relates to his passion for his work. She pointed out that later in his life, when he realized he would not live long enough to document every bird, he started working with BOTH hands, and that level of obsession resonated with her. The installation itself suggests an enclosed garden, a quiet space. The walls are covered with bird cups, one for every bird that Audubon identified and painted. Some sit on shelves that emit birdsongs when you walk by. I think she's trying to recreate those moments outdoors where you feel totally present in the powerful stillness in between the birds calling.

She also showed other students' work in her lecture. She obviously loves seeing how these developing artists are also exploring and celebrating their worlds.

In her lecture she mentioned that she began teaching workshops in art centers in a conscious effort to offer something to community artists- the "weekend warriors"- recognizing that when your time in the studio is limited, you tend to focus on technique. Workshops are a way to bring the conceptualizing, the metaphor, the theorizing, to the work.

I realized when she said this that I had taken it for granted that this kind of knowledge would always be accessible. But in fact, I rely on artists like her being generous and enthusiastic enough to share, and I thank her for spending the day with us, lending her experience and insight.

Mission Statement Impossible

We bought our first house and have been having new floors installed.

That sentence doesn't even begin to explain what a time-consuming process each of these things has been. Not to mention the World Series and Election Day; so while I had good intentions of more blog posts this fall, it just didn't happen.

I did, however, start taking a course through an organization called the Women's Business Development Center. It's called JumpStart, a series of classes that goes over stuff you'd want to know to start your own business. I do sell my pottery casually through word of mouth, and at the two craft fairs earlier this year, but I would like to have more focus as I go about it, I'd like to get myself together to create a store on etsy.com, get my work into some more galleries and shops (p.s. I do have ware at VIX Emporium now), and eventually turn this into a livelihood and leave my part time job. I thought taking this class would help me devise my exit plan by helping me clarify my thoughts about what I am doing, and give me more confidence as well.

One of the most applicable things I've gotten from this class has been to write a mission statement. Probably for the last year I have been trying to understand what my work is about, and have attempted to write a satisfying artist's statement. I think going over the mission statement in class helped me understand what the point of an artist's statement is (or could be): as a way to articulate your values while describing what you do. I think in the case of art, you tend to figure it out in conjunction with the making of the work. But that in turn means sometimes you need to stop making, and pause to reflect upon what you have made. I need to reflect more.

In class we did an exercise where we broke into groups and wrote a sample mission statement. Our group just made up a business (a holistic spa) and wrote the mission statement on that. It was helpful to do, and it came together rather easily. One thing we noticed was that once we had written the statement, the made-up name for the spa didn't really fit anymore, an example of how the mission statement ends up guiding the business.

I went home and tried to write one for myself. I wanted to convey that I make ceramics for casual use in people's homes, not precious or fragile, and that there is something uncommon about it, a little odd, or off, and perhaps humorous, but still well-made. I also like to think that many of my pieces have specific identities and I know sometimes I feel like I have a relationship with my mugs and bowls. People always have a favorite mug.

So far I've got: "Carol Han Ceramics produces handmade ceramic items that are made with care and attention to craft, but also live comfortably with you in your home, bringing an upbeat and offbeat attitude to your life."

I sort of want to call the business something other than Carol Han Ceramics, which sounds a little formal and doesn't really say anything about the work other than someone named Carol Han probably made it. I've already spent plenty of time working on it, but although I have some ideas, don't think I've nailed it just yet.

Ayumi Horie Workshop Weekend

I went to Peters Valley Craft Center for a 2-day workshop with Ayumi Horie, who is a ceramic artist whose work I like very much. She makes functional stuff, cups, bowls, plates, out of red clay that she covers in white slip (sometimes other colors too) and scratches through to make drawings of animals. The bunnies, monkeys, whales, and birds are charming. Often small spots of bright colored glaze are added.

I've always been drawn to how loose, soft, and unworried her work is, there's sort of a bold imperfection to it. Her pot construction looks a little sloppy, like for example she doesn't erase burrs and crumbs from the surface of the clay, but maybe just pushes them down a little so they won't be sharp, or like how the place where the handle meets a cup has a seam, not trying too hard to smooth it to perfection. When she dips her pots in slip you can tell she didn't fuss with tongs, there are finger marks that show she just held it with her own hand and dunked.

At the same time, I once helped unpack a shipment of her work at The Clay Studio, and it was PERFECTLY well packed, the boxes were filled really nice and tight, careful attention to teapot spouts and handles, and this was the first time I witnessed the brilliant use of narrow film wrap to secure the bubble wrap.

So I really wanted to meet this artist who seems to run a very professional studio and effective website (where she sells most of her work- and it sells out, people), but at the same time, makes work that is playful, loose, and fun. It seems like a great combination to have.

Because clay is fun, and while I know there is a part of me that is very serious, and perfectionist, and gets stressed out, I seem to remember that there was a time when I was a more whimsical and joyful person, and I think part of what I am trying to do with clay is reconnect to that old part of me, before she got beaten down by school, and office jobs, and loss of love, and credit card debt, and lack of health insurance. The good news is these things are no longer active parts of my life right now, but the bad news is I got kind of dried out in the meantime.

Clay is moist. There was a studio tech at Peters Valley, who, every time he opened a new bag of clay for us would breathe it in deeply and say, "Aahhh". The smell is like being on a dewy mountain at dawn.

Ayumi demoed her "dry throwing" technique, where in fact the clay is moist, fresh, and soft, but the idea is to make pots on a wheel without adding water. It's like trimming away and scooping out everything that is not part of the pot, and also some stretching and pushing it out with ribs. She said she originally started doing it in order to deal with tendonitis in her wrists, but also likes it because there are marks you can make this way that you'd be unlikely to achieve through wet throwing. For example, she'll use the edge of a credit card to press a line into the outside of the her clay cylinder; then later when pushing the wall out, that hard line will soften, warp, and open up.


I played around with this technique the first night, it sort of lends itself to making chunky pots, which is fun. (chunky is fun!) But it's a little distressing to have so much "wasted" clay. In her studio Ayumi has an assistant who immediately takes her trims and scoops and wedges it up to use again.

The other parts of the workshop included some exercises and slide/video/lecture. Maybe I would have liked a little more time for exercises. There were these slab tiles that were AROUND the studio all weekend, being moved from shelf to table to shelf again, and dipped in slip, and the techs were HANDLING them and preparing them ALL weekend, and I kept anticipating this exercise we were going to do with all these tiles, and we didn't get to it till the very end of the 2nd day (it was a mark-making exercise). I could have used one less slide show in order to have more hands-on time. I did skip the Peters Valley slide show the first night in order to spend a few hours in the studio to play around and try stuff out. That was good. I don't usually let myself play. Playing around is something I ought to do more if I want to loosen up, soften up, and if am concerned about seeking my own style, or distinct vocabulary, for my work.

The slide lectures were a good way to see a lot of pots made by lots of different potters. It made me consider many adjectives and words I would or wouldn't want people to associate with my work. Or me, for that matter. That's something about making stuff that falls under the category of "art", it ends up being an extension of you, or at least an expression of you. I hear potters say to make "honest pots", I guess because it's going to be the most convincing way.

She also showed us a fascinating movie, Isaac Button, Country Potter, a B&W silent film document of the last potter at one of the last England countryside potteries. He did everything from digging the clay out of the ground, to throwing and glazing all the pots, to shoveling coal (coal!?) into the kiln. I found an excerpt from it on You Tube.



His pot-making responded to the needs of a different lifestyle; the pottery had been there for centuries making ware for the villagers' every day use. It forces you to think about your own work in this context. No one who buys a mug from me "needs" it in the sense that he'd be out of luck for drinking, otherwise. So why do I make, and what other needs shall I fulfill? The industrial design student in me hopes my pots would provide interesting solutions. Must think about this more. More later.