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Rambles: As for the topic of sharing
technique:
No date but it must have been early, like 2000.
I'll stand on record that
any technique that I discuss here on this list is free for all y'all
to try to noodle out on your own.
The trick with techniques is that everyone's "Leigh" Rose will look different, depending on choice of color of clay, amount of petals, the sizes and arrangements of petals, using skinner blends or bullseyes, adding leaves, the back ground design, not to mention whether this Leigh Rose will be turned into a mini tea set or as a covered egg...all these will make each person's efforts with the same technique come out differently. Our stamp of originality, what we end up doing with the design, will distinguish our work from others. People all have different tastes and one person's rose would speak to some folks and not to others.
Also...don't I want
claymates who can run neck and neck with me, pell mell down the clay
run way? Don't I want claymates who can skip ahead and do some fancy
swan dive off of a technique, some nifty move that I
didn't think of it, so they can show me and I can say "Oh
Hey!" and like it? Like the filigree eggs...still can't get the
nerve to do that technique...I got THE FEAR. But I got
claymates here who will hold my hand so that's ok. That's why
I got so excited when Susan just recently fell in love with chop and toss in the
middle of last month. I could have wept. I felt...oooh a claymate
that wants to noodle along with me on this most beloved of technique
trails. I didn't realize how important it was for me to feel like I
was not the only one in the world who found these mirror image
designs were just too fascinating. I am still excited about it and
await with bated breath to see her artwork efforts. I know my mirror
images and Susan's are going to be different and I'm ready to be
amazed.
I don't feel so much of a
teacher but as an observer and journalist, in the sense of a daily
journal of a travel, down the clay road. Most times I don't set out
and plan to show a particular technique or other here. I am sitting
in this train facing the caboose. I don't know where this is going
so all I can report is where I've been, what happened in the process
of mucking about in my own little claypen here.
If in the process of this
experimental journey we, and I do use the plural...WE, stumble upon
new techniques and we share it with each other and the outside
world, then that's the intent and purpose of this list.
It's all good, ya see? There are no secrets in the world that can't
be figured out with reverse engineering anyway. Ideas and
inspiration are like manna from heaven, they rain down on a number
of heads and it's like the parable about sowing seeds...some fall on
rock and don't flower, some fall on fertile earth and they bloom.
Ideas are like that. A hundred people can get the same idea at the
same time because all the pieces of the puzzle are there and they
all make the connection at the same time. It's those who take that
idea and run like a wild horse and put it into production and get
their work out there who will prosper on a material level from that
idea. Some folks would just be entertained by the idea and not move
on it.
Unfortunately there are
those who don't move on an idea and years later say, "I thought
of that...hey." and feel bad for other's taking the idea to
some financial gain. It reminds me of the joke about how many guitar
players does it take to screw in a light bulb....301...one to screw
in the light bulb and 300 to say "I could do that."
Well, just go do it then.
Ain't no such thing as luck, there is only preparation...our
mastering what techniques we can, there is practice...and that's
what the swaps do, force us into production modes to make us
find the fastest and easiest ways to get the best results, and there
is keeping one's eyes peeled for the opportunity to exploit what we
know. That's the equation for luck for me, preparation and
opportunity, taken and stirred.
What's the point of this
ramble? Mainly to reinforce the concept that any idea I share with
all y'all are gifts, freely given, with love and trust that you will
take any technique and run like the wild horses that you can be when
fired up with an idea. If the only thing I end up doing here
with my time on the list is to encourage all y'all to just DO IT,
like a Nike commercial, to get over THE FEAR, like I did with making
molds, to get a grip on your clay and be fearless like Paul Muadib,
then I've done my job here and I am satisfied.
xoxo Nora-Jean |
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