[Clayart] Studios

[Snail Scott]

> " I think community art centers have a role to play in helping these folks
> make the transition. " - Sumi

>  Jim Brown <jbrown1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...We all, of course, look at the world from
> our own position in it…


I started out making little handbuilt things on my desk in my room, going on what I’d learned in a parks and rec course when I was fourteen, then taking them to a local supplier to be fired. Later, the student building at the university had a community craft center in the basement, with a few wheels and buckets of glaze and firings paid for by the cubic inch, along with a darkroom and other facilities. I do recall an issue with a long-time member who used one of the wheels all day, every day, making production work that filled the shelves and kiln. There was nothing in the rules prohibiting this, but there was a sense that student fees should not be subsidizing one person’s profit-making business. 

When I finally took actual ceramics classes, it was after I had already graduated with a degree in another field, and I took just one or two courses a semester. (College was still fairly affordable back then, even after my scholarship expired.) I took the job as the student tech, and tried to learn everything I could to be self-sufficient in the future. I stayed a few years, then was told to leave. (They were right. It was nice to be around the energy of the shared space, but it was time to move on.) I acquired my first kiln before I left the school ($75 at a storage locker auction, plus parts), and I used it for years. I ran a 220V line from my shared rental house to the shed in back (don’t ask, don’t tell!) to hook it up and get lights. (No windows.)  I acquired bricks and burners and glaze chemicals from estate sales and classified ads and word of mouth. Built tables and dolleys from scrap lumber and surplus-store casters. (I still have them.)  Kept my night-time ‘day job’ for a while, so I could be in the studio during the day. I figured things out, and I made a lot of work. 

I also made a lot of choices that kept me poor. I failed to ask important questions that I didn’t know needed asking, and I used a lot of energy figuring things out for myself, re-inventing the wheel. I was definitely one of those eager newbies who entered every show, desperate to get noticed, underpricing my work but lacking the audacity to ask more. (No advised me otherwise; I really could have used a mentor.)

I am grateful for the decent foundation that those college courses gave me. They were only medium-rigorous, but they laid an solid groundwork that I could build on. However, tuition is vastly more expensive than it used to be, compared with the minimum wage, and I applaud the good sense of students who look elsewhere now for their training. I eventually managed to live on my income as an artist, but I can’t imagine doing that if I had started out already in debt!  

Art centers seem like a worthwhile thing for both hobbyists and future professionals. 'Future professionals’ ought to move on eventually, but if it’s a cushy gig, they may not. The sticking points seem to be when hobbyists subsidize their prices with an outside job, and others use the facility to act as professionals while keeping the low overhead and hired staff of the center as part of their ‘business plan’.  If a center’s policy permits this, then maybe it just needs to be seen as shared premises, like one of those shared business centers where a person rents a desk, the use of the computers, and tech support staff.  If the center is supported by public funds, then maybe they need a new policy or a sliding fee scale. Let’s be sure it’s not just sour grapes, though, because someone else is taking advantage of a loophole, not having 'paid their dues', learning and suffering they way we had to back when dirt was still shiny and we walked to school uphill both ways. 

Complaining about that is like complaining about containerloads of cheap imports. They won’t go away, so make better work that people will pay more to get.  (Now, to figure out how...)

         -Snail