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| Ceramics, Art & Perception |
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| by Kevin Murray
- Adapted by María Cecilia Sanz |
The castaway phone is one more contribution to the growing
mountain of landfill, along with disposable
cameras, clothes, cutlery and cups. While
such items offer convenience, the concern is that they encourage
an irresponsible attitude to the rest of the world. If disposable
products, why not throwaway friendships or a disposable
environment?
Ceramics seems the antithesis of this reckless mentality.
While more food outlets are replacing metal and clay with
plastic implements, potters maintain a
craft culture of environmental responsibility, longevity,
perseverance and the slow accretion of
mastery. In an age of instant gratification, their commitment
seems heroic. Yet without some means of exchange with the
world of crass consumerism, ceramics is
in danger of becoming isolated and self-regarding.
There are signs that clay is losing its appeal for a younger
generation. Ceramics departments are closing in teaching
institutions throughout the country. The common understanding
is that younger students are reluctant
to commit themselves to the intensive study required to
master ceramics. Why spend three years to learn just one
art form when you can pick up PhotoShop in less than a week?
The pottery wheels lie idle as students
flock to the computer labs. Yet far from signifying the
death of ceramics, this exodus might create the conditions
for its re-birth.
Art is a cunning beast. No sooner is an
art movement deemed passé than the new avant-garde
picks it up. This kind of cultural recycling ensures that
arts are re-born on a generational timetable. Ceramics is
dead. Long live ceramics. In Australia, a new generation
of artists has emerged with the drive to translate its venerable
traditions into a contemporary language. Some of them did
not begin as ceramists, but have moved sideways out of a
desire to be different. As the ceramics departments are
emptying out, wheels are being taken over by restless painting
and sculpture students. These young ceramists embrace disposable
culture with attitude, casting it in ceramic form.
For some craft purists, this new generation of edgy ceramists
might seem like the barbarians at the walls. There is something
in this generational shift that returns us to the original
spirit of ceramics. The challenge faced by the new generation
of ceramists is not to remain pure and aloof
from popular culture but to sublimate our disposable world
in a triumphant act of creative alchemy.They embrace art
with passion. It is the attitude that counts.
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| Glossary |
landfill:
deshechos
cutlery: cuchillería
potters: alfareros
accretion: crecimiento
crass: gran
reluctant: renuente
idle: sin actividad
cunning: astuto
aloof: aislado
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