This is my 100th Substack. Time has slipped by, but the pace of writing stories has slowed dramatically.
I went into that in my last post. It’s the pottery.
As a writer and a potter, it’s not often that I get to talk to another person choosing to spend their time in a similar way.
I met American potter and author Jack Troy 40 years ago. He came to stay in my pottery just out of Nelson for two weeks and we hosted a workshop with 16 of New Zealand’s top potters, where we spent a week making pots, a week firing various kilns and did a lot of talking.
After reading about the plans for my exhibition (now only two weeks away) and the work required to bring it to fruition, Jack sent me some questions, which I reprint with his permission:
“How do you feel about what you are making now compared to your approach to basically the same process years ago? Does your commitment to potting these days parallel or differ from that of years past? How do your current pieces compare side by side with pots from that previous life?
“I ask because you are the only potter I know who stepped out of a role - a life of making - and later resumed it under different circumstances.
“You are also the only potter I know who gives work away - a thought-provoking circumstance, this free-beaker decision, as if some of the work is, literally “worth less” without being “worthless.”
“It’s refreshing to entertain such observations; thank you for posing them. An insatiably curious potter is entertaining unaccustomed thoughts.”
Four paragraphs of questions.
Paragraph one:
I became a full time potter 48 years ago, moving from Auckland to rural Golden Bay. My goal then was to learn the ropes of being a potter, from building a workshop from the ground up, building kilns, making, glazing, firing and selling pots and all the other tasks involved in being a self-sufficient potter. Secretly inside, I wanted to be a bit creative and arty.
In nearly 20 years of making pots and 30 years of not making pots, I’m resigned to the fact that I’m not very creative. I have a good eye for form and I can do pretty things with glazes. As well, I like the vigour and spontaneity of the potter’s wheel. Nowadays, I’m happy making strong forms on the wheel, with the signs of that process clearly visible and enhanced by glaze. I don’t have to make money to live off pots, so I can do things to please myself, which is very liberating. I think my pots are more liberated too.
Paragraph two:
I stepped out of one process where you work hard to make a body of work, then consign it to the kiln - a kind of suicidal all-or-nothing approach that can as well end in tears as in happiness. I exchanged that for a life of writing and laying out newspaper pages, an activity where you slave away and then consign all your work to the printing press - a process that can also end in happiness or tears, so from a creative viewpoint not too different. Just a faster turnaround of work.
Paragraph three:
Jack is referring to my plan of giving away wine beakers at the opening of my upcoming exhibition. It’s a very privileged position to not have to make money from the sale of pots (although I don’t want to make a loss either). For a start, I’m not investing much money in this exercise, 250gm of clay and a minute of throwing. There’s a cunning business angle here. Firstly, telling the world that this gift is available means I’ll get a whole lot more potential buyers to my exhibition. Secondly, accepting the gift may make them slightly beholden to me - more chance of them becoming future buyers. Thirdly, I love giving people things if I can afford to. While walking the Camino in Spain this year, I met Monte Wood, an American who has written a book entitled Generosity Wins. HIs view was that his success in life stemmed from the kindness and generosity of others and it behoves us all to do the same. There’s a certain karma in it all. I agree.
Paragraph four:
Thanks Jack - you’re a great thinker and having such dialogue is wonderful. I’m looking forward to you visiting NZ again, if such a thing is possible.
If you, dear reader, are in Nelson, the exhibition at the Refinery Gallery in Hardy St opens on Monday December 4. My big occasion will be a floortalk at 5.30pm on Friday December 8. I’ll have a few historical pieces on show, dating back to 1971, as well as quite a large body of new work, all made since the beginning of October. I’ll talk a little, but mostly it’ll be a chance to fondle your own wine beaker, sipping occasionally at its contents (from our friend Sali of Riverby Estate Winery), talk to old and new friends and, if you have time, check out what has been so important that I’ve let weeks go by with hardly any writing.
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