How much theory do I need to know????

=)

What makes it a craft is what you learn from other's experience. What makes
it an art is what you bring into it from yourself. There is a point in
everyone's learning cycle where you don't know enough to know what you don't
know. That is the hard part to get past. After that if you keep an open
mind and a child like wonder, you can always learn something.

Just a bit of ruminating...


"sarah" wrote in message
om...
Need some advice....

I'm relatively new to pottery (and LOVE it!!). My experience to date
has been from very substandard adult education classes, 3 hours a day,
twice a week for 2 years - not much teaching goes on as the classes
are very large and there is a huge mix of abilities. I have also done
some wonderful residential courses with 'real' potters and have
learned loads from them. My dilemma is that this year I started a
'certificated' ceramics course... and I hate it. In the past 10 weeks
of attending for one full day a week, all I have made is a very
unsatisfying slab construction - most of the time is taken up with 2D
work, exploring shapes, marks, colours, etc, etc. I understand that
this is valuable, but just how much theory do I need to make good
pots??

I would really like to hear from people who are working in ceramics -
how much studying did you do and what form did it take? What I would
really love is an old-fashioned apprenticeship with a potter whose
work I like - don't think this exists anymore.