HGTV Last night *LINK*
Mark Kauder, Phenix City, AL
>Last night, late, I was channel surfing while sanding a bowl, and ran across a program on HGTV called "The Good Life". The basis of the show, it folks that dropped out of the mainstream to follow their passion. Last night was a guy named Dick Lumaghi, who while a college professor was doing pottery - crafts shows, etc, and decided to do it full time and has become a success at it.
I found the show interesting on several levels. First - It was fun of watching him doing some of his work. His style of work is one where he "Roughs out" a form in clay on the potters wheel, and then lets it set up a little, and then comes back some time later, remounts the clay, and then shaves off the clay to reveal the shape he wants - not unlike woodturning.
Sencond - he does production work. He works for weeks or even months to make enough green ware to fill his kiln - which was the size of a small room. It then takes many days to come up to temp, and then days again to cool down to where the kiln can be opened. As much as 10% of his work will break in the kiln. During this segment he said something interesting - he said the the firing process was tedious for him, and that he believed that there were really two kinds of people in ceramics/pottery - the mud and water people, and the Glaze and Kiln people. He said that he was a mud and water person, his fun was at the wheel.
Third - He talked about the fact that some ceramics were done to set on the shelf - to look nice. Others were done to be functional - he does functional pottery, plates, cups, pots, etc. He said that he felt like he only did the first part of the total creation, and that the owner personalized the piece once they owned it. Handling the piece, staining it with the oils of their hands and the food, changed the glaze over time, and made the piece personal.
I just thought it was an interesting parallel to woodturning.
Mark
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_tgl/episode/0,1806,HGTV_3892_30969,00.html