The past week has been a nice experience getting to know my new friends from Germany. First in Louisville, at a ceramic convention, a bigger city and lifestyle then our more humble home in Athens. The diversity of louisville, with the majority of its population not being students, is very different (as we all know) form here. However, it was nice for them to have the opportunity to experience the city before all the students returned. I think that the quite qualities that the city and studio posses while the majority of the students are gone, are some the most charming elements of Athens. These “quite qualities” are times when the grass becomes greener and the stars shine more vibrantly, studio time has more clarity and days become filled with a new appreciation for a more simple life style, without the hustle and bustle that occurs once classes are session. This boarding on vacancy that occurs is when relationships become more strong, and so Johannes and Yvonne and I have had sometime to discuss some of major differences between out towns.



Geography is one of the first things to be discussed, thought athens is hilly, they are only babies in comparison they say. Walking back and forth from the studio and home is limited to the morning and then returning in the evening, having to pack for the day because the opportunities to sneak home for a few moments become limiting because the hills are more steep and there are further walks. I forget that by Athens standards I live "far" that a ten minute walk at a relatively low incline is really not far or a difficult days journey by any means. However, their excitement to be able to have the opportunity to go home quickly and then to return has its many advantages and disadvantages. I'm sure that only making one trip a day to the studio, without opportunity to readily leave, forces you to stay focused and therefore improves your productivity rate, while here running home for a meal always takes longer than you perceive that it will.
After the polite discussions about geography, a more interesting topic to discuss is studios. You can never really realize the wonderful wonderful opportunities, and skills that are learned by doing all the processes of making yourself. Where Johannes and Yvonne work in Germany they have a technician that makes all the clay for the studio. An advantage to this is it gives them an opportunity to be a maker more easily because they just take what they need. On the contrary thought it leaves you with no options as to the variety of different clay bodies, and ways of tweaking a clay body to fit you needs. It also becomes limiting in firing ranges and glazing options. Some of the nice qualities though is that their program is small with only twenty-two students, all undergraduates, in total they are each given an equal amount of space. The only bit of hierarchy is that those with shows coming up will receive, a bit more space. Because they don't have a foundations program like we do, they are working within their medium within the very first quarter of their education, so they have five years to work and focus on their medium. I think it would be nice to have more than two years dedicated to a medium, its such a short amount of time to become truly efficient within clay. Thought the German facility is smaller in size and in the quantity of kilns that they have to fire, it seems efficient for their student size. They also have the same opportunities for atmosphere at their facility as we do, a coffin wood kiln, a downdraft soda kiln, and even a salt kiln built by Brad while he was there, and of course a few electric and gas indoor kilns. I think that in general, if you have a space to work in, and a way to fire, all the other details will fall into place, and allow us as makers to fulfill our desires in creating art.

My first blog

This is the first blog for Print topics.