Life After Grad School
I’ve just been quoted a price to wire my electric kiln, $3500. This will eat a serious chunk out of my savings. The electrician spent an hour examining the studio, getting distracted by the translucent porcelain lanterns hanging from the ceiling and the various pots stuffed into the corner. “I’m a potter, I just did all this for the health insurance,” I tell him, shrinking into my chronically apologetic reflexes.
I’m not sure who I am supposed to be. My graduate program did not hide its contempt for functional ceramics. “This looks like a potter trying to make art. We all had that clay phase. You should change mediums,” said the most blunt and painful visiting critic in our seminar. I’m not convinced I want to be part of the art world. My clay community is warm and welcoming compared to the snubbing, closed attitude I’ve run into multiple times in the arts. So what am I to make of the lessons and growth of the past three years? How do I make a living doing what I love? Is it feasible to make relationships with Craft and Art galleries or is this more like a monogamous partnership, where the smell of the other on my CV will provoke a negative response?
I have six months worth of savings and a year’s supply of materials. I am tasked with making use of these resources in the wisest way possible while dodging the pain and panic of rejections and avoiding any health problems. Will I be able to settle into a sustainable routine or will this chapter involve a regression back to part-time studio work? The ever elusive variable needed to balance the equation is a stable audience.
I type this mostly for myself. Maybe someone finds it, also looking for answers on building an art practice. Just keep moving forward.
A gallery shot from my thesis show: To Be Certain of the Dawn. Twelve lantern made of translucent porcelain, a hagiography of twelve luminary figures who contributed to moments of consciousness raising or held on to hope during dark times in human history.
A vase that falls under the category: Craft, glazed in an inlay technique. The pattern comes from Maurice Pillard Verneuil, a designer in early 1900’s France whose work and life has become obscure but, in my opinion, deserves a lot more recognition.