FORM & FUNCTION (Cont'd)

Middle East. Was it hard to switch from one to the
other halfway through the workshop? At first, yes.
But this disparity of approach was, in the end, ex-
tremely valuable. It reminded me that there is no one
correct way to be a potter and that each of us makes
our work to please ourselves first, and the rest of the
world second.

Although Penny and Walter may not share the same
aesthetic, they certainly seemed to possess equal
amounts of energy, enthusiasm and commitment.
They each gave several informative and thought-
provoking lectures on a variety of topics, from an
overview of the development of earthenware in Eu-
rope, to a discussion of the significance of industrial
design for the studio artist. When they weren't
lecturing or demonstrating, they were holed up in a
small, hot office with a slide projector and a screen
looking at somebody's work. The issues they raised
both individually in these critiques and in group
sessions were the starting-point for many of the
discussions that took place during those two wecks,

But only the starting point. The conversations that
began in the studio and the lecture-theatre carried on
in the bar, the whirlpool, the cafeteria, and the sauna.
After six years of working on my own, I had forgotten
there was so much to say about being an artist. We
talked about the nuts and bolts of pottery - glazes and
kilns and clay bodies, troubles with galleries and store
owners, remedies for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and
tendonitis. We talked about the market-place and
how it affects our work. Do we make our pots cheap
so that more people will be able to own them, or
expensive s0 we Can earn a reasonable living? Isa high
Price ticket the only way to show an uninformed
public that we value our work? We talked about the
Place of ceramists in the art world and the place of
functional potters in the ceramics world. How can we
fict more respect fram the arbiters of taste and more
money from Canada Council? Do so many people
start by making pots and end up making sculpture
because sculpture has more to say, or because it has
more status?

And, as so may of us were women, we talked about the
way We, a8 Women, are treated In society, and how It
affects our work, Do our families support us in our
work or dothey expect us to do most of the housework,
cooking, and child-care? How are we affected by the
lack of role models both as successful working artists
and at the faculty level in art schools and universities?
Is there such a thing as a female aesthetic and if so,
how ts it viewed by the predominantly male art estab-
lishment? As in any exchange of ideas, | learned as
much about what I thought as I did about the views of
others.

Back in Vancouver, I've just received @ questionnaire
from Banff about the Form and Function course.
Question 5 reads, “What were you hoping to achieve
from this workshop, and did you achieve those goals?”
I knew | wanted to have my ideas about ceramics
shaken up, tofind out how people who didn’t know me
would react to my work, to think about where I wanted
to be, and how to get there from here. I didn't realize
until 1 got home what I wanted most of all was to be
with people who thought spending their lives making
pots was an OK thing to do.

Jane Williams

Jane Wiliams ts a Vancouver potter. She gractuated
Jrom the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in [982,
and makes slip decorated functional pottery from a
local earthenware clay which she digs and processes
herself. She also teaches pottery at the Burnaby Arts
Centre. In her spare time she works as a broadcaster
with Co-op Radio in Vancouver,