The Emperor Has No Clothes
I just finished a week long course at Haliburton School of the Arts. I spent a good amount of time dispelling the rules the students had been taught by the emperors. Emperors are teachers that
aren't ready to be teachers. Teaching is the most important job in the world. I take it very seriously and am appalled that people decide to call themselves potters, have Etsy accounts, and teach classes after a few courses at the Guild.
My class at Haliburton were gleeful at how much they learned from me in such a short time. What's the surprise???? I have been in the clay pits for over 60 years and I have made every mistake and broken every rule imaginable in clay.
I actually applaud the Emperor. I think it's about having self confidence. Self confidence is a great quality. I think I'm pretty self confident. Would you want me do your heart surgery? I'm pretty confident I could do it if I watched a couple of good U-tube videos.
When my kids were in school I always told them pick the teacher not the class. A good teacher will make all the difference in the world.
On short notice one of my favourite potters in the world Bruce Dehnert asked me to teach a class at his new mud pit Sugar Maples Art School in the Catskills, NY. This will be an intensive week culminating in a salt firing.
After all these years in the clay pits this course excites me and it will excite you too!
I'll keep my clothes on. Don't want to horrify y'all. 
Comments
Luckily the ceramics world has you.
Nicole
Have you had a "magic teacher"? What did they unlock that was already within you?
Julia Cameron - The Artist's Way
https://www.amazon.ca/Good-Ceramics-Teacher-Hard-Find/dp/B08CMB7Z9J
This story from the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.