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Pete Pinnell Thoughts on Cups

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Conversation on cups.

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I think before we can really talk about cup specifically I think it's important to think about Pottery in a more Global sense and its broader sense as a art of the Fine Arts world  and forgot to make sense I think first we need to look at where Fine Arts is today and how it got here I think about art in the 20th century take the post-world War II. When we called now call the modernist period in Ark the Hallmark of that was what we called Art For Art's Sake other words it wasn't art art wasn't there to talk about life our life's issues aren't was there to talk about part it was overwhelmingly abstract and it dealt with the things that made our unique which formal characteristics line texture Mass form shape and they said two things like that time then in the 60s there was a realization that a lot of people wanted art to talk about more than and so what happens then is this really the beginnings of the postmodern art movement which is really more pluralist combination of a lot of movement spot one of the main things that happened is art begin to talk about life so it in its Beginnings artist talk about the Vietnam War are they wanted to talk about feminism they want to talk about race relations about the World by big issues in the world in general text Brian to talk about turn really acknowledged in life acknowledges an actively talks about life but there is one great taboo that still exists which is Art should not take part in and that's what the Fine Art world has not done yet is it hasn't found a way that are can be an active participant so are thinks about life so from the role of the critic from The Observer from The Outsider I like to joke that are twill will peak in our windows and rummage our closets but it won't sit down at the dinner table with us and that's where we come in which unique about pottery and end of no other Arts is it they are active participants in life they can do all the things that modernism do we deal with the formal aspects of it in people who work in clay deal purely with the formal aspects of their art others use it as a way to communicate big issues and talk what are the same things that other post-modern artists in sculpture or painting would do but for many of us what we're doing is dealing with those dealing with the experiential aspects of pot what does it mean when a work of art becomes an active participant in the event the life in the the the day-to-day living of life and how does that change the way that the viewer to use after interacts with the artwork  and to me what the Fine Arts world seems to look at that is it that's merely an impediment creativity  that when you have to deal with function even if we might choose to deal with function pointer as they would say having to deal with function means will have all of these restrictions on what you can do and where you can say and how you can go about saying it  tomato they got that backwards and in that if we back off for a second what is art art is a means of communication and when we more effectively were communicating on some level to other human beings or to ourselves so it's rude artist communication so when we communicate there's all different ways to do it assuming we can talk to each other we can pantomime to each other we can touch each other there's all different ways to communicate from one human being to another the Fine Arts world has chosen to forgo touch but it's a very powerful means human expression of human communication the kind of put it backwards to think of it in its negative sense will look things that we wouldn't match with our foot will nudge things that are foot that we wouldn't pick up in her hand will pick things up in our hands that we wouldn't put to our mouth  we'll put things to our mouths that we wouldn't put in our mouths so we have this intimacy hierarchy of which the visual is what's the lowest level it's the most distant it's the one that's easiest to intellectualize is is the most non rational it's the most intimate especially intimate touch involving things like your lips and your face as they say there are very few things that we allow up here very people saw the great Powers I think the simple is that it immediately enters the viewers most intimate Zone the cop right away begin to develop the level of intimacy that normally we would reserve for a lover not for a general stranger to me it's a great power not a weakness and so the things that we can communicate and how we can communicate Can-can go with these National subconscious or unconscious aspects of human communication so start of We Begin and in general Global tense relationship between the viewer in the object  beyond that which wonderful about the cop for the drinking vessel is that it's a reflection of a lot of different  ways to think about function about you we know that if you go to buy wine glasses you're going to be met with this array of different shapes and sizes and forms types of glass and colors of glass part of that is purely visual we like the way all these different things love but also part of that is that people who serious about line know that when you drink out of a different shape of glass or out of a different kind of rim or hold it in a different way it affects the way the wine Christ's so there is both of functional aspect to those wine glasses the same is true when we're talking about a cop or a mug or a Tumblr or whatever kind of clay object able to someone in my drink out of the shape of it the texture of it the color of it the type of rim and has the type of handle it has all affect the way that we perceive this liquid that we're drinking I probably if I had some really really expensive coffee that I was going to serve you I'm not going to serve it to you in a great big cheap we don't want to serve it in something that talks about the fact that this is really expensive in your only going to get a little bit and you should really Savor this is this isn't your run-of-the-mill grocery store coffee about our perceptions of what we drink from it when we bye bye function to treat it as if it were one thing I you got call as the blue jeans principal we go for comfort is this comfortable in my hand is this car all against my lip does it keep the beverage warm can I put it in the dishwasher we will get these things as if merely dealt with these most surface kind of issues function so we wear different clothes to go to the studio on a normal weekday in the summer when nobody's around and I'm just going to get dirty then if I were teaching a class even on coming to the same place suddenly my role as a little bit different this social interaction is a little bit different and I have to present my a little differently neither of those outfits are going to be the same one that I would wear to the swimming pool  Tech N9ne going to be the outfit that I would do a funeral outfit might be wearing it in a different from the outfit I might wear to church for a wedding okay so we can see that they're in a hot day versus the cold day  and again all of the different some human intimacy come into this the social aspects of a function when were certain people we can dress certain ways when y the lover you might dress one way that you would never dress with anyone else so so all of this comes into play function is not one thing I think sometimes is Potter's we do ourselves a grave in the service to think of function as a pair of blue jeans reality is sometimes the most functional piece of clothing for an event might not be very comfortable at all and yet it feels appropriate they all asked a woman on her wedding day how comfortable her wedding dresses and my guess is she'd say not very comfortable but another way it feels great it feels right she knows she looks fabulous she knows it represents the house special this day that we hope it'll never happen again that this is her day and she's the queen of the world on this day okay medicated in what she wears and how she wears it  so comfort and function suddenly don't play a very important role in that  and so when we think about a cup I think and the act of drinking in the act of presentation and really take the status of Avianca  just the taktell to the experiential specs of the pot then we really get it the root of that part of the Aesthetics that's unique to Tufts that you need to pause not ignoring the fact that we're still deal with all of the the visual aspects has any artist would and we might also be dealing with other content issues as well but this is the part of it that makes us unique  now cops should talk about cup specifically does a cup how do I decide what's a good cup and what's not a good cup especially if I'm having to deal with images well suddenly I can't I can't deal with the experiential aspects I can't deal with the tactile aspect so as a drawer I have to try to look at the work and imagine that based on previous experience  chances are I can do that to some extent I'm sure I'm missing out on things that I might notice that I would notice if I had the object right in front of me and I could hold it and I can drink from it Play If I could do that for a period of time sometimes our initial impression of an object isn't the same when were using it as it might be after a period of time so there's those things that I'm imagining so big part of what I'm doing whether I hope to or not is looking at its visual formal compositional aspects how is this person working with Forum how is this person working with holler with texture with messing with balance ways to look at an object and say oh that's really interesting or no that's kind of boring  or you know everything in this composition works please accept this one thing that really is Joy or that's really jarring but it's journey in a good way find something that's completely resolved is it as interesting to ice isn't as intriguing we don't want to interact with it over a long period of time is something how do I transcom position isn't completely resolved in the musical world we've talked about that is dissonance and a little bit of dissonance at least a little bit is is really required to have an interesting composition that will hold our interest over a long period of time and it's approach of the dissonance in the dissonance itself in the resolution of the dissonance that we all put together music to think of his Beauty GNR that sometime  the composition that's completely resolved isn't as interesting as the one that grabs is some other way locate the compositional aspects of it I'm also looking at the kind of statements making content unconscious either over or unconscious content there  often times and art especially ceramic object will deal with history or culture and make references along that line and I could look at it and say how well does it do that what's often times the artist gives us close I'm making X this kind of object well by placing it within that context then we can judge it with it text and so I will try to look for those contextual things Who's the artist gives me when I'm looking at the peace and it's Al this is telling me that it's a certain kind of how does it do as that thing in a way that leases a little Mare venturing a larger show I am comparing apples and oranges and bananas and so I'm having to say that this man is better than that orange but not as good as that Apple sew in which case how do I decide that and I've realized long ago only way that I could do it was to compare bananas to bananas and oranges to oranges and apples to apples and then pick the best from each of those to try to put an exhibition at least in a way we got an arrow worm  yeah task when we're talking about just cops one kind of object that think about all the different traditions English tea cup or you have a Japanese people or Chinese people choose different from the Japanese people or all of its modern I tend to call drinking will bowls rather than tables cuz people drink all kinds of things out of them besides tea not to mention how is a cup different from a mug and when is the saucer more visually interesting and appropriate than not to have and what kind of sauce is this the kind of cop I'm drinking a little water out of a beautiful. is this the kind of cop rightly belongs in my hand the time or is it one that really should sit on the table should I only pick up  can put down and leave there those are going to make different kinds of Demands  and and allow me if something is only going to be picked up and drunk out of and put it on the handle doesn't have the same isn't the same level of comfort then if I am going to walk around say the studio f****** in my students holding something for an hour during a class I want to really well Hannah I'm going to do that maybe not one that's just one finger the one that's two fingers so my hand isn't getting tired  trophy looking at different different kinds of cops for different situations even within the same day  I have a big Linda Christensen that I bought 1518 years ago it's a lot like this but larger and I just thought it was really beautiful and did I just think her cops are gorgeous and I the Casual way that she works with the clay I love the way that this information on the surface talks how about the softness of the clay the rotation of the wheel the movement of her hands pulling up the clay this joint where the handle that is attached again talks about process I mean I can picture her making this handle attaching his handle and car of this talks about the firing me and you really don't has wide marks and an area where the fumes in the Kiln didn't reach the clay and and so I know this was fire it would just heated in electric illness was fired it talks about fire and I like all of those things I bought this big cup of Linda's and took it home and she doesn't least at that point and so the first thing I noticed when I went to drink whatever's this room was rough kind of sandpaper and I wasn't sure about that that's a very pleasurable and handle had done weather cop had a much more pronounced Ridge than this one so when I picked it up with one finger kind of dug into my middle finger there and it wasn't very portable heater  and I didn't drink out of it for a little while but I would always see it there and I thought it was really beautiful drink out of it anyway  Lynette campers right amount of the best teachers I've ever had because several things happened one is I found that the handle wasn't all that important it was comfortable enough and I tend to use it when I was reading and I kept it on the table next to me and when I went to can you take a drink of my teeth I'd pick it up and I take a drink and put it on  but there was enough feeling in the handle that I noticed the handle I knew it was there do the couples in my hand from the book or whatever was I was reading interesting to me about that sure on the lip when I would drink from it it would be like it reminded me I had lips it would say okay here comes the tea you better taste this what I found was really comfortable cups was I would be reading and drinking my tea and I would suddenly realize that I had this empty cup and I hadn't a any of it  when I drink out of that cup of Linda's I tasted it I was aware of the cup in my hand I was aware of the tea in the cup and I was aware of the flavor while I was drinking it pulled me away from that world of the book and into this world just for the moment so that I could interact with that now that was a great lesson for me because before that time like a lot of Potter's I had thought of the pot as they think are my grandmother who was born in the 19th century she was a girl kids were meant to be seen and not heard and I think in many ways they have that same attitude about pots they should be seen but not heard and Woodlands come taught me is that Potts can have a voice and it can be Steve Weiss and that dialogue can make daily life more interesting  and I was at it really opened up a lot of Worlds to me and turn off of how I thought about my own work and then also how I perceive other people's work that somehow this idea Comfort wasn't the ultimate in terms of two getting what was a good type of function or a for a less successful type of function I have all of these and more and when I teach a beginning Ceramics class one of the things I'll do is bring a rolling cart up here and load all at Phila rolling cart cops and I roll it down to the studio and we cover a big table with it and then I have everyone just investigate and they pick them up the ones that I find most visually intriguing have grapes or beautiful places or whatever and they are also supposed to pick ones that they they want everyone handsome around and holds them and I tell them as part of this I want them to pantomime drinking so that they can know that would feel like well that's also so I can watch them because why interesting things I've noticed through the years is not everyone holds it in the same way add there are several things that affect that and so when we pick up a cup and drink out of it I drink out of it in a certain way because I'm a certain gender I'm a certain age and at certain kinds of experiences and how other people drinking out of that same cup my hold it in a different way  so when I'm designing a cop for I don't know who's going to use it  how am I going to design that handle what kind of making sense of who's going to do it  I'll give you a an example of a cup that could be held in a number different way this is a couple made by Linda Arbuckle very beautiful couple lot of people like it  thought I would send a hold it like this so it's in line with my forearm and I'll hold it with two fingers generally and my forearm when I drink from it I have to raise my elbow I can't do otherwise would be going that wouldn't work so in line here I'm talking about a certain way of drinking what is most of the men in my classes will hold a cup like this well most of the women in my classes and others who I watch drink more less than 90 degree angle like this that's one difference is well man will hold a cup with two fingers even if you can fit three or four in there then with two fingers young man who are very strong had big hands with one finger in the handle is or how big the compass virtually always hold it in line with their forearm so when I see women young or older pick up a cup I handle and hold it a 90 degree angle and what that does is it changes the album go to says there are several things that affect them people who hold it like this car will do this your hands through the handle and hold it or like this really hot so they're all different ways to hold us  the three things think it's three that seem to mostly affect how people things are are the gender Society with certain expectations of how people are going to sit to are polite and how they're going to hold things and how they're going to write interact with the space about them and since I said women will tend to hold it like this and men more like that over about the age of 50 that seems to change and what I notice is as men get older belt and what time to hold it more like this and to use more fingers and it's reflected in their whole body English in that you know man of 5 is going to sit with their legs crossed close together and be more compact intend to drink a cup of something more like this where is he young guy just going to tend to be more like this y'all cross their leg their angle at the knee and they taking up more space and they're holding it and drinking like that so age is one Criterion as I said women in our society of mostly been raised the tell them no no no don't sit like their nose open position you know I don't drink like this or talk to you know there are ways to do these things and so there's also societal expectations come into play and all of that is well I think straight has something to do with it too in that people with stronger hands and stronger shoulders tendon develop more space as they're holding things and drinking from it can people who are less strong than to have a take up less space and drink things hold things in a more compact space so if I have a cylindrical body for a cop and I'm going to put a handle on it one of the things I can think that is how is a person get a hold this  I can start by thinking about the color and texture and form like this Wonder cup of queries that candle could have been this high or it could have been smaller or could have been up high or down low it could have been lighter in which case thinking of another  this is a wonderful cup part of a cup and saucer set by Matt Kelleher Madison man and he's made this to me very comfortable cop and it's tea stain because they drink on it this but this cop is only comfortable when it's held in line with my forearm you can't put two fingers in and you stand it's not Super Bowl to hold this way the desk operates this way this is a cop for someone with a strong Finger probably a man black it's too big around really to hold that way so it does what it does and it doesn't wonder if we but it's not generic up that anyone would want to hold and my guess would be that if I presented this to lots of different people inside what do you think of this what's really comfortable I like that other people think I'm comfortable  so depends on how you hold it since I guess one of Linda's is a great cup to pass around from person to person in the class one after another has without telling them anything they hold it for 10 like you're drinking pass it on to the next person because it can be held with one finger or two or three or four or like this it can be does you get to are Universal handle in a way oh and then there's tables drinking bowls how far how texture how the lip affect our perception of the liquid inside 2 years ago remind something I got to spend some time out at the Archie Bray foundation and I was thinking at a Potter's House they're in **** on who at a lot of pot what is covered in a great big people that I enjoy drinking out of a get up early in the morning it was cool and his kitchen I'd make myself a big T booty setting for the newspaper  and the reason I chose that table to drink out of his because it would fig and I love the shape of it I love the color of it I thought it was really beautiful and it was a nice shape on a cool morning to hold in my hand yeah the way I could cut it with my hands with warm and round and soft and very intimate feeling but it was too big to hold one hand sewing and pick this thing up and drink from it try to pick it up with one hand I got my face in it so compared to a normal little teacup  I'm really getting the fragrance and the warps in that the steam off of this tea thing that happened was very differently I'm looking at this tea against them white background really brought out the color and the hours are nice Arc so the color is ready to fused on the inside platini the warmth of it  there is I thought this is a step now if you would just handed me that table and said would this be portable thing to drink out of said I know it's way too big  and it's holds too much while what happened is play fill it half way and I would have argued you know when you put all the beverage in he gets cool end up drinking some of it cold SCI stock in the microwave and I warmed it up again and I drink some more those things I would have put forward real problem I want to be problems at all my only knew that from using it sorry was another one of those little teaching moments for me when I read is that this interaction with the object was much more complex that I'd given it credit for

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