Let's consider the Spring Break as a half way point in your object educations. Thus far, we have approached a heightened awareness of objects by making them by hand with clay and following the ceramic process. Through hands-on making, we paid attention to how clay objects felt in our hands, how the lip of the cup interacted with our own lip, how heavy the clay object was, how thick the walls were, smoothed out rough spots and cracks for more comfortable tactile interactions. We were learning about craftsmanship and design through the act of making, with our hands, and through touch. We were learning to see with our hands and appreciate quality in design through feel. We may have begun to appreciate the commercial products we have at home with a little more consideration for their ergonomic forms, how they fit in our hands, or how they balanced well on a table. We were learning all this with physical material, with clay in our hands.
But then everything changed....
We no longer have clay to use, nor do we have access to glaze or kilns for firing. We no longer have the format of the ceramics process to learn object appreciation, but we do have stuff and life must go on! If it takes a making act, like making something with our hands, performing acts of wedging, coiling, and slab building to make a clay vessel, then there are reciprocal acts when we use that finished object in our everyday lives. Your finished ceramic cups don't just sit there in the cupboard do they? No. They are props for your everyday lives and needs. We give them meaning through their function. Maybe we give them sympathy, if they were handmade by someone special to us and given as a gift. We perform daily life with our possessions. Yes, we own them, they serve us, but we rely on them for sustenance, storage, protection, comfort, and nostalgia. The objects we own have meaning and play very important roles in our lives. We can no longer make these things, but we can still continue to learn these lessons in our online class. These values are what makers consider during the act of making. This is Craft Thinking.
When is a cup not a cup? I guess when we turn it upside down or lay it on its side. Maybe when it's not holding a beverage? I mean, when it's empty, is it really doing anything? Kind of a strange thing to think about, but believe me, there's been a lot written about these ideas from philosophers, such as Martin Heidegger, Vilém Flusser, as well as found in the texts of the Tao Te Ching. So, do we define a cup by how it's made, what it looks like, or by how it's used? If we use the cup inappropriately, meaning, we use the cup as an object for reasons beyond its originally designed function, holding a beverage, can we still talk about that object as a cup? If not, just what the heck is it now?
What does it become? Do we ascribe it a new meaning? How does this new thing change our lives?
If we use a cup in a context other than holding a beverage, we change its act. By doing something else with it, we begin to use and see it differently. Oh, this thing that was once called a cup, now seen as just a cylinder with the top missing, gains new potentials for use, I see! Function Vs. Use. That is what I'm getting at. And what a better way to be aware of something than when we misuse it. A design object has a set intention, it has a function, but we can use it in other ways, In ways the designer did not intent. A brick is supposed to help make a wall of a building, but it also makes a great paper weight! A pillow as a doorstop? A blanket as a fort? Sure. If we take these ideas to extremes we have something very different. We may have the beginnings of Art.
We can't make objects with clay materials any more but we can still learn to appreciate objects by changing how we use them. We can take the things we already own in our homes and change their meanings. We can create new roles for them to play. How will we, as actors, adapt to the new circumstances we will be asking our possessions to perform in? We can't make, but we can disassociate, re-contextualize, mis-use, stack, pile, and re-categorize how we perceive the objects in our everyday lives.
When we are learning to make something with our hands, we are learning to appreciate what we are trying to make. But we have to put it to the test. When what we have made is finished, we must use it to find out if our hands made it well enough. The thing we made goes through a physical evaluation with our hands and bodies. When we are making, we strive to pass this simple test. Does it function? Does it hold water, will it hold weight if sat on, is it comfortable?
Our lives are being tested now. We are encumbered. My life does not function like it did just a week ago. There are places I can't go, things I can't touch. Hesitation is now a persistent consideration. My life has become hindered. The pandemic has re-contextualized everything I do and changed how I think and approach everything.
Moving forward we will accept this! There are things that still need doing! We have to make food and eat, rest and sleep, read and watch tv, and keep in contact with friends and loved ones. We are grateful that we can still do these things. I am grateful that I can still teach this class!
As a group of varied individuals such as you are, with multiple majors and lives, I cannot assume any of you have art materials at your disposal in your homes. Nor would it be fair to ask you to buy any. Nor will I be asking you to make pottery out of cardboard, that would be an asinine request and furthermore, disrespectful to the medium of ceramics! If you have art and craft materials at your disposal and would like to use them in your projects moving forward, please, by all means, do.
I must acknowledge some consistency within the group. From what you have told me, you all have the same thing in your homes, a space that is yours to work in, now called your studio. And I can rightly assume you have stuff. We all have stuff. Possessions like books, furniture, clothing, dishes, toys, shoes, silverware, junk, art, decorations and sentimental items. All stuff! Those objects will now be your new materials to work and think with. Space, stuff, cell phone, internet and this blog, that's all you will need for the second half of Intro to Ceramics. Now online.
Thank you.
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