Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Artist’s Statement


“"We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” --W.B. Yeats

I came to pottery from my studies in Zen and a life long interest in ecology. I make functional pottery in an effort to preserve local culture in our modern hyper-active, information intense society. If we take a stand where we live, and attempt to understand that place, we can create something that preserves and maintains the nature of that place. My main goal is to inspire other people to make their own creative work.
Human beings have always worked with their hands. We are creators. We cannot survive by consuming only. We need both creativity and Nature to be healthy and whole human beings. Making and using handmade pottery is one way to bring Nature and culture together in our lives.
I intend my work to affect people who use it the way the green countryside affects someone who normally lives in the city: The fresh air & the green of the trees and grasses restores the soul & refreshes the spirit. If my work can do this, in a small way, it is successful.
I came to my personal understanding of Mingei and The Arts and Crafts Movement from working with my late teacher Tatsuzo Shimaoka and from observing the family farmers who were my neighbors in Mashiko, who lived according to the natural seasonal cycles. Distilled, it comes down to four basic principles:
1.Humans are naturally creative. We are informed by Nature about creativity and beauty.
2.Objects should be judged by how they fulfill the human need for creativity. Our tools are enablers.
3.We best function when we know the people whose products we depend upon and the people who likewise depend upon us.
4.When human creative needs are met, it is also beneficial to the ecology of the environment.                  
Kiln Prayer: Clay, Water, Fire
As we become a post-industrial society, people who work with their hands are finding themselves being displaced by automation. In all advanced civilizations, artists and artisans and their work has been supported by society. If our culture chooses to do so, displaced farmers, autoworkers, and other factory workers can become artisans and artists. This was a realization of William Morris and Soetsu Yanagi and influenced their humanistic approach to making things. Philosophers Hannah Arendt and Max Scheler called man Homo Faber, “Man the Maker.” It is all about switching our mindset from one of being “consumers” to one of being Makers. We are all makers at heart.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Mike Norman Work


The vase was a swap at St. Kate's
Jean found the piggy bank at a neighborhood garage sale
A tech at the UofMn had it.

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Friday, June 11, 2010

Taking away the flag of ego.


"'We can say that Buddhist practice has two aspects: to constantly seek Truth and to go into the human world.

'If you want to be a pianist, devote yourself to studying and practicing the piano. This is the mind that seeks Truth. But though you may eventually reach a lofty stage as a musician, it is not good enough. You have to descend into the human world as well. Your life, your presence, your personality must touch people's hearts directly. This means you have to go beyond being a pianist.

'It is relatively easy to teach people to be musicians, but it is not so easy to teach them how to go beyond being a musician. If you would teach this to others, your mind must be based on compassion. When you teach, you have to pierce the human heart and take away the flag of ego. So your compassion must extend beyond the words you use. Then your penetrating words will teach, and not injure.'"

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Paul Woodruff - Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue

This is a book I just picked up at my library. Barry Lopez recommended it when he was on Bill Moyer's last show of his Journal.

Durning my apprenticeship, though the old craftsmen that taught me were not reverential in their lives as a whole, they always treated their craft, their tools and the craft process with reverence. Some examples:

When my first pair of work gloves wore out, I put them in a trash can. The 75 year old Shokunin/master craftsman, Fukuyan, who started with Shoji Hamada when he was 14, told me to get the gloves out of the trash can. Save them and put them in the fire the next time we make one. We offered up the gloves to fire, out of reverence for their service and work life.

Another time, I left my Korean Kick wheel spinning, to go do something else. Fukuyan, walking by, stopped the wheel. I didn't think much about it, until it happened again and Fukuyan said it wasn't good to leave the wheel spinning by itself. I didn't have the language to ask why, but I assumed it was out of respect for an important tool.


See Paul Woodruff - Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wjA5RH0jK8wC&lpg=PP1&dq=reverence%20Paul%20Woodruff&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false