The Form of Tradition: Part 3

March 11th, 2010 at 05:09pm Doug Navarra

The Open Studio at MAD is a workspace on the 6^th floor of the museum devoted to artists carrying-on with their work, interfacing with the public. So it was inevitable one fine day when I was wedging clay that a woman walked in with her young daughter who blurted out “Mommy! Look at that man,… he’s kneading bread!”

I smiled to myself. It’s true; the process of wedging clay resembles the kneading of bread dough. But this act that begins the potter’s process, which the little girl was sooo excited about, gave me such pause to consider what is really going on?

Manipulating a lump of clay into this “kneading” motion with the wrists of one’s hands and the bearing of the body, typically forms the controlled mass of clay that rolls onto itself in a spiraling pattern. It is meant to release trapped air bubbles, allows us to inspect our clay for lumps and impurities, further makes the clay more homogeneous by flexing the molecules which lends a renewed sense of elasticity, and lets us feel the hardness/softness and moisture content of our natural material.

For beginners and those more advanced, one must be concerned with the physical act, but it also initiates a whole process, to which many of us subscribe, but with an unconscious falling.

Normally, people don’t think about the person who came before them to the wedging table that day, the previous day, the last week or month before. Indeed, wedging may only be a momentary process, but the process has existed since the earliest of times.

One could argue that the wedging table is both temporal and also has eternal aspects to it, having been borne for the initiation of a process that has lasted throughout the course of time.

With the many wedging tables that there are in this world, little do we think about the process as part of a universal vocabulary, but it is something that has shaped our pottery traditions in time immemorial. When the act of creating becomes a special language to us personally, is when we observe the outline of its grammar and prosody through which we filter our experience in the ceramics we make.

Wedging has seen historic stylistic differences between East and West, but today those differences are no longer absolute. However it is still a process where consciousness can be lent towards a quickened pace, should one decide to pursue the rewards of clay.

Wedging may be cited as a rite of passage, but the field is not meant for everyone who tries their hand at it. For those who choose to make a commitment to its art and design, and have a desire to learn the ways, the experience can lead to an individual voice, where wisdom can be obtained.

As potters, as artists who choose to work with clay, we stand with the accretion of our forebears’ hard-gained knowledge, passed down from one generation to the next, and yet, we are forged today in the firings of our own doings.

This I believe is the Form of Tradition.

 

Photo credits to: Linda Christianson and http://www.schallergallery.com/    

Bruce and Vicki Waasdorp at: http://antiques-stoneware.com/index.html

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