Heart Happy (cathy_edgett) wrote,
Heart Happy
cathy_edgett

form - Marquerite Wildenhain -




I am reading Where Light Takes its Color From the Sea, A California Notebook, by  James D. Houston.  It is a series of essays,  so is perfect reading  for a doctor's waiting room, in which I was today.   If one is going to be in a waiting room, it should be in California, reading about the beauty outdoors. 


One essay, called Clay, is about Pond Farm, near Guerneville, where Marguerite Wildenhain, is a master potter. 

As she spins clay on a wheel, she says, "Imagine that you are breathing into the bottle or pitcher or bowl, and when you can breathe no more air into it, when it is full, then, it is finished."

She begins with her students at the beginning, with a study of and work with simple forms.


"It's a matter of starting at the beginning.  Too many teachers put a student on a wheel and turn him loose, saying, "Express yourself."  Well, self-expression is fine, but first you must master fundamentals.  It is purely a matter of knowing what you are doing. You ask a carpenter what he is making.  He can tell you.  It will be a door or a window or a wall.  You ask some potters what they are making. Today too many say, 'I don't know. We'll see how it turns out.'  I don't believe you can make a good pot that way.  You have to know what you are making."


"Observe how nature solves its many problems and you will learn more about pottery, more about form than I can ever teach you."


She has her pottery students draw outside.

"Look closely at that oak. Every thrust, every line has its reason. Exactly how does it grow out of the earth? Where do the large branches start? How again do the small ones fork, at what angle, and in what proportion? What does the bark look like? And the leaves, how are they arranged? What is the movement of the total tree, definitely upward as in the pine, or drooping as in the willow? If you look closely, you will discover the oak's particular tension. It comes from inside pushing out.  And in a few lines you should be able to capture it."


"It is finally a matter, you see, of working from within, from within the subject and from within yourself. Rodin said it in his Testament.  "All life surges from the center, then grows and blossoms from the inside toward the outside."


In her book, Pottery: Form and Expression, she writes:

"Technique alone, without any moral and ethical point of departure or aim, has brought us to the very edge of a universal catastrophe that we have in no way overcome.   To achieve this necessary future victory over ourselves and the terrifying world that we have created, we will need to find again a synthesis between technical knowledge and spiritual content.  It is not a question of the crafts only, the problem is as wide as the whole of human civilization."



Subscribe

  • Each moment, a new beginning.

    In renewing what I do, I see I haven't been here since 2017 so this is a simple check-in to say I'm here on a beautiful day in May. I post here…

  • Return -

    I haven't been here in awhile and I return today to learn there is a "new post editor". I start to try it and then go back to the old. I am…

  • It's Morning!

    I've been here at Live Journal since October, 2005. I started it to keep in touch with family and friends as I went through cancer treatment.…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
  • 4 comments