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#232 Part 1: Shaping Pottery and People Through Teaching w/ Tim See
43 Plays2 years ago
Part 1: In this podcast episode, former speed skater turned successful potter, Tim See, shares his unique journey from sports to pottery. After a career-ending injury, Tim used the setback as an opportunity for creative expression. He discusses how he used teaching to enhance his own pottery skills and navigate the challenging craft market. Tim shares insights on the use of technology in traditional crafts, like using live streaming apps for real-time feedback. The conversation delves into the art of pottery, the process of creating unique pieces, and the importance of introducing new elements. You can learn more about Tim by checking out his Instagram @timseeclay
Top 3 Value Bombs:
1. Transforming Obstacles into Opportunities: One of the most inspirational aspects of Tim C's journey is his ability to turn a career-ending injury into a new opportunity. He didn't let a setback stop him from finding success in a completely different field, instead, he channeled his energy into pottery, demonstrating the power of resilience and adaptability.
2. Learning Through Teaching: Tim C's experiences teaching at Clayscapes were invaluable in honing his pottery skills. It pushed him to constantly test and improve his skills, thereby enriching his own artistic journey. His approach underscores the idea that teaching can be an effective way to deepen one's understanding of a craft.
3. The Power of Innovation: Tim C's innovative use of technology in traditional crafts, particularly his use of live streaming apps for real-time feedback, shows how technology can be integrated into traditional art forms to enhance creativity and learning. His method provides a modern take on traditional crafts, demonstrating how artists can adapt and thrive in the digital age.
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Transcript
The Balance of Creative Freedom and Inquiry
00:00:00
Speaker
I could sit in the studio and just make whatever, but as soon as people start asking questions, then you're having to think about them more. Hey, real quick before we get started, if you would like to find your own theme for your pottery so your voice really stands out and you're not getting bored with making the same thing over and over again,
00:00:18
Speaker
I put together 53 themes for you guys and it's completely free. All you have to do to get it is just go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. That's shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started.
Introduction to a Series on Pottery with Tim C.
00:00:48
Speaker
What is up, shaping nation? This is Nick Torres here. And these next three episodes are going to be part of a three part series that I did with an interview with Tim C. The reason why I'm doing it as a three part series is because Tim provided so much value in this episode that I just couldn't leave anything out.
00:01:09
Speaker
So with that in mind, part one of this three part series is all about how Tim used teaching to help him grow his own pottery and to help other potters as well. I hope you guys enjoy this part and I'll see you guys in it.
The Role of Fun in Pottery Commitment
00:01:28
Speaker
Tim, welcome to Shaping Your Pottery and share with me what is something potters should be doing to have success in pottery.
00:01:35
Speaker
I think the, the most important thing when I see career potters and, you know, people coming up and what I look for myself is that I'm having fun. I'm not enjoying it that I'm not going to spend time in the studio. And if you're not enjoying the time in the studio, then you're trying to get out of it as much as you can. And I think success in any career is about wanting to be doing the thing that you're doing so that you do it well and you do it as much as you can. Cause without doing that, then you're behind. You're always like, well, I gotta do this or, and.
00:02:05
Speaker
You know, like when I was making work that wasn't, wasn't as exciting to make, it was a slog to be in the studio. Like, oh, now I got to go to the studio and I got to do this. And then after these other things to the pots that I don't care about, or I don't want to do. And the work suffered and the excitement suffers. And then you try to sell something that you're not excited about. And then that suffers and then just cascades down to doing crappy work over and over and over. And the way you didn't want to do it, not having fun. It's definitely, definitely agree a hundred percent.
00:02:32
Speaker
Shaping Nation, the most important thing, just have fun. Make what you want
Tim's Journey from Speed Skating to Pottery
00:02:36
Speaker
to make. I love that. So tell me the story how you got started in ceramics.
00:02:42
Speaker
the short long version because there's lots of different versions of this depending on the timeframe that we have. I was a speed skater. I was internationally competitive. I was good and I hurt my knees. And after I hurt one of my knees, I took some, you know, some not time off, but I less stressful stuff and I ended up going to college. And then I hurt my other knee. I was able to put all my time into college.
00:03:10
Speaker
And instead of spending like 60 hours on skates or a bike, I had that time to put into something. I was in a ceramic sculpture class at a community college. And I sat at an eight foot table, you know, normal plywood table, about eight feet away from a pottery wheel. And man, it looked fun. Like there are people throwing pots on the wheel. I was like, when do we get to do that?
Educational Challenges in Pottery
00:03:33
Speaker
And the professor said, you don't, we're in a sculpture class.
00:03:37
Speaker
And at the time I was also sitting next to, who is now my wife, wasn't planned at the time, but at that moment I sat next to my future career and my wife all in that one little moment at a 19 year old pottery class. And the wheel, weren't allowed to use it as soon as he left the room. He was gone for the day, end of the class. I got on the wheel and people around were like, hey,
00:04:02
Speaker
You know, you're totally doing that wrong. I don't care. That was it. That was it. I was hooked and I spent four years there until, you know, it's a two year school. It's a community college. They're like, you gotta go someplace else. And I applied to all sorts of schools and didn't get into any. And as you said, they'd take my money at Syracuse university. And so I went to Syracuse university, got my bachelor's and then applied everywhere for my graduate work. And again, didn't get into anywhere. And.
00:04:32
Speaker
At the time I was teaching at a place called Clayscapes, the YMCA and Clayscapes Pottery, and I was doing shows. Like I had my first summer out of school, I had 19 shows lined up. So I was doing it as a career as soon as I got out of college and the graduate school stuff just didn't seem to fit anymore.
00:04:51
Speaker
And that's, that's kind of what it's been since I taught for 15 years at Clayscapes.
Insights Gained from Teaching Pottery
00:04:56
Speaker
I say I retired a couple of years ago so that I could spend more time doing workshops, which is where I think most of my educational stuff ends up going is towards workshops and the online stuff that I do. And then the other half is making pots and selling pots. So that's where it started. And that's kind of where it is now.
00:05:16
Speaker
So how did teaching impact your career as a potter? So it gave me a base of income to start. So, you know, early 2000s, the craft market wasn't super great, but it just kind of come off the nineties, which I guess was awesome. And all the old potter people were like, Oh man, the nineties were great until everything, every time I went into work. And then the 2000s like, Oh, this sucks. And it's like, that's what my content is. And it's like, well, so it was a lot of.
00:05:44
Speaker
a lot of going to shows, you know, making enough to like get the home, get home and buy more clay, but it wasn't like I was making a living. Teaching at Clayscapes and the other places were weekly income. And that's kind of how it started was, you know, it's a safe, reliable source of income, but it also trained me a lot on
00:06:07
Speaker
what I knew or how I knew it, because I had to explain to these people that are now taking a class and paying for it why their pieces were blowing up or why they were cracking. And at Clay Schemes, we had 120 students a week through the studio. They weren't all mine, but I saw a lot of them.
00:06:23
Speaker
So anytime there was an issue, it was a really big pool to learn stuff. You know, if we wanted to deal with an issue of cracking or something, I could go through and be like, okay, well, what did these people do that didn't cause a crack or what did these people do that did cause a crack?
00:06:38
Speaker
And I had to unlearn a lot of the stuff that I learned in college because, you know, it's what the professor says is right rather than let's test it. So teaching gave me the perspective of test everything. Let's not just go with what I learned. Let's go with what we can prove or what we can see or what, you know, actually happens in the studio.
00:06:57
Speaker
And I don't think I would have gotten to that point without having to explain and teach it to people that had no idea what was going on. So besides just having an income, it was also a great way for me to learn one about just the technical stuff of what's happening with the clay. But also, you know, when you're in a studio with a lot of people, you have to justify everything that you're doing because you're going to get asked. So if I'm sitting in the studio and I'm making a thing, which is what happened with the whole robot stuff that I do.
00:07:25
Speaker
I was just painting typewriter parts and somebody goes, why are you painting typewriter parts? And I'm like, why are you in the studio? This is my room. And eventually, you know, they come in again. I'm like, well, why are you painting a robot? And it gets to the point where you're having to make these, you know, on the fly justifications for the things that you're doing and make it enough, make it make enough sense that they will leave you alone for the next 15 minutes rather than just keep asking questions. And it was those kinds of interactions that.
Community Building Through Live Streaming
00:07:51
Speaker
grew things that I don't think ever would have happened without that studio interaction with people and people together conversing and asking questions. I don't know, do you know Periscope? Does that ring a bell? No.
00:08:09
Speaker
So like Periscope was a live streaming app that was a spinoff of Twitter. And prior to that, there was like a, not who was before Ring, they were like security cams, right? That you could put up and you could subscribe to, or you could like subscribe to them and you could always watch your door.
00:08:27
Speaker
I bought one and I said, hey, for people that were, I was unloading a wood kiln. I said, if you want to watch the wood kiln unloading or whatever, you can subscribe to this. I'll give you the, or you don't have to subscribe. I'll give you the number. You can log in and watch in real time an unloading. And because I could see what was happening, cause I could watch it too. I could hear what they were asking and stuff cause you could talk through it. So it was like a pre periscope.
00:08:52
Speaker
And that, okay, so why is that important? Because when Periscope happened, it streamlined it all, it made it really easy and allowed people to come into my studio that weren't there. Does that make sense? Like the modern version of YouTube before it was out.
00:09:07
Speaker
No, it was after YouTube because it was live. So like I'm working, I'm painting a robot and people are watching me paint the robot and then asking questions in real time. You don't hear it, can you hear it? No, you can just keep talking. It really doesn't matter. So people were watching in real time as I'm painting a robot and asking questions, I could right then go like, well, why does he have a hat on his head? And it's like, oh well. And then I'd paint why he had a hat on his head. And it would just kind of continue like that. So when I, you know,
00:09:37
Speaker
was missing studio collaboration with other people, I could go online and post everything. And Periscope ended up creating its own little community of potters that would, you know, be live streaming and having other potters right there with them, even though we're, you know, I've made a lot of friends just around the country and around the world because we were all in each other's studio together, just really far apart.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, so that reiterated reiterated it nailed down how important that kind of stuff happens and now you know with Facebook you can do Facebook lives and Instagram you can do Instagram lives and it's the same kind of thing that I still find important, you know, I don't do it as much during this part of the time of the year, but in the winter I do a lot more of it because I'm lonely it's cold and sad in New York and
00:10:28
Speaker
I love that. Shaping Nation, if you can get around other potters, then you're gonna be able to take your pottery a lot further. I love that. And if you can explain it, then you go even further as well. I love that so much. Just doing it, you don't have any, there's no accountability. I can sit in the studio and just make whatever. But as soon as people start asking questions, then you're having to think about them more. Not that you can't do it yourself, but I know for myself and I've seen it in other people that if you don't have that
00:10:57
Speaker
I don't know if accountability is the right word, but let's just say accountability, that you sometimes get away with stuff or you let stuff slide that you might not if you're having to make those justifications to somebody else. I think, you know, like when I mentor people, it's, you know, I'm asking those questions that I know I would want asked of me in the studio because those points of thinking help push things past what,
00:11:25
Speaker
Are it easy or simple? I think a lot of times our default is to like, okay, let's just make this simpler, not harder. And typically if I'm being really critical of my work, I'm always making something harder. But, you know, critical Tim isn't always in the studio. A lot of times I want to make stuff Tim and he's just doing whatever the hell he wants. But when there's somebody else, you don't get the choice. They're always good. They always have the option or possibility of being critical, which isn't a bad thing. It's always fine to be good.
00:11:56
Speaker
So you mentioned you would ask them, the people that you're mentoring some like questions. What are some of the questions you would ask them? Oh, there's, it depends on how far the relationship is. Like a new, a new mentor, mentee relationship. It usually starts with naming the parts of a piece because if you can't name it, then you can't make a decision on it. And you know, I do these, I've done these exercises a lot now with a lot of different people. And I'd say the beginning.
00:12:22
Speaker
the beginning of the conversation is typically five, 10 pieces at most. They get to 10 pieces and they go, that's all the parts that there are of a mug or whatever. And then later on, it should be like maybe 10, 20. And somebody that's done a lot of it and practiced this and really thought about their pots a lot might be able to get to 30, 40 parts of a pot. And like parts are kind of hard to explain, but
00:12:46
Speaker
Like, yeah, we gotta run out of odds. You know, if I said, and then you start thinking maybe more, maybe there's like the inner part of the lip or the outer part, or if there's a segmentation, you know, like all those things can be parts. And then once you can name a part, you can.
00:13:00
Speaker
change that part. So if, if I'm looking at the upper part of a foot, which is something I hadn't thought of until a couple of weeks ago. So the upper part of a foot, you know, you can go through all the principles and elements of art, which if you can't name it, then you don't get a chance to do that. So the more parts you name, the more decisions you get to make, the more decisions you get to make, the further you go away from the simple solutions, which is where, you know, the next part of the mentor, mentee conversation is, you know, what
00:13:28
Speaker
What makes something yours? And if we stick with the things that are simple, it becomes more reproducible
The Art of Customizing Pottery
00:13:37
Speaker
on accident. So if I gave somebody a chunk of clay and said, you know, make a mug, you know, we, you can picture, I can picture, you know, what somebody's going to do. It's going to be a cylinder goal kind of thing. It might be a list might be a little that it's going to have a handle. But how do, how do you make that more yours is getting further and further away from
00:13:57
Speaker
what most people would end up doing. And it's kind of starts with the naming the pieces and they're making decisions, conscious decisions about those parts. And if, you know, as an exercise, you know, you usually say draw a mug, you know, just a straight side mug. And then, you know, draw 10 handles and then take one of those handles that you thought was different, you know, different than the rest of the handles and draw 10 versions of that handle. And then pick one of those and draw 10 versions of that handle and get as far as you can where you can't make any more versions of that handle.
00:14:25
Speaker
at the current technological part of your brains, you know, like you'll go back to that. You can might go back and be able to draw 10 different ones in a month or a year later, but at the time you've stretched the capacity of what you can think of at the time. And then you make one or two of them. And cause making is going to establish other, you know, trains of thought until you, you know, now you're getting, you know, maybe 10, 15 steps away from that simple solution. And that's where things start to become more.
00:14:52
Speaker
recognizable as somebody's, you know, body of work. I don't, the original or whatever, you know, I'd like to say original, but you know, we're working typically from a bank of things that we've collected in our brains. And it's a matter of putting them together differently to make something else come out. It's, there aren't many options or opportunities to come up with something that, you know, it's completely new, but I don't say it's impossible because then what the hell are we doing?
00:15:21
Speaker
If everything's been done under the sun, I should just be pushing buttons somewhere and be making more money or, you know, getting to do tiny boat stuff more often. But instead, you know, we're trying to do things, at least I am, or I'm teaching the people that I'm participating with, that there are things that are still not done. And the only way we're going to find them is by doing things that aren't done. If we keep doing the same things, we're never going to make anything different.
00:15:47
Speaker
I love that. I love that so much. Shaping Nation, start out with something very, very simple. But then once you have that simple thing mastered, start making some little tiny adjustments until you have found something that is truly yours. I like that a lot. And there's even that one process. Like so we talked about, you know, naming the parts and doing little changes. There's the drawing process of it. You know, you can do the simple drawings, but also you can make parts. So like I able to I've done oil cans for
00:16:16
Speaker
probably 15 years now. And each time I do them, I try to come up with other ways of producing different oil cans. And I think my most effective way is to sit and not think about the finished oil can at all. There are times where I will draw exactly what I want to build and other times where I'll just make parts. I'll sit at the wheel and I'll make one part. And I'll say, you know, like I've got, we got some in process.
00:16:40
Speaker
Like I'll make, I'll make a bunch of these parts and each one I do, I'll make a different part and not because of what's drawn, you know, a drawing or anything, but it's because of what's happening at the wheel or the tools that I have in front of me, you know, I might introduce a lot of tools. I have them all laid out or I'll have one tool so that I'm limited or I guess unlimited.
00:17:02
Speaker
And I think those variations in that allow different thought process to happen. So in something like this, I've got maybe two tools on the table. That's like, what can I do with those two tools? And I start with one thing.
00:17:15
Speaker
And if I was to take a picture of all the little parts that I made, you could actually see, like, oh, here's outside threads, or here's threads at the bottom, and then I was like, why don't I have threads at the top? And I said, well, why don't I have threads on the inside? And all those variations happen because I'm physically doing those things and having them in front of me and seeing them. And then when I get to the done, you know, maybe 10 or 15 of those,
00:17:36
Speaker
where I started and where I edit, two totally different things I wouldn't have done. And then you multiply that by every single part on a piece. And now you've got a huge variety of things that I may not have come up with if I was doing drawings or just thinking about it, but the physicality of having them in front of me, you know, builds on. And then, you know, when you're doing something complex, now you've got where you're putting them and just like where it sits on the piece, where the other parts attach, all those things start to add up to where
Pushing Boundaries with Opposite Ideas in Pottery
00:18:06
Speaker
If you're critical and you're looking at how you're doing those kinds of things, or if I use it on the other side, just letting it happen and then thinking about it later, you get to come up with all sorts of different processes. And I guess, I hate those words that are like relationships and they're having a conversation. It's just right up my spine, but it's kind of what's happening, that there's like a relationship between the parts. And you only really get to have that when they're three dimension and you're spinning around and you're looking at how things are lining up.
00:18:35
Speaker
So that's, that's that way. There's one more thing. And then there's doing like all the stuff that you're not supposed to do. So like the opposite. I don't know if you've watched Seinfeld, but you know, there's like the, the George does everything the opposite and everything works out. Or was it Jerry? I don't know. Somebody does. And so like, if I know I want a grungy looking teapot kind of thing, that if I do everything the opposite of grungy kind of teapot stuff,
00:19:01
Speaker
I'm pushing my, my thought process and my pots in a way that is opposite that to gain perspective. So if I can get that perspective of having the opposite of what I had done, it informs what it is. So like if I want, if somebody came, Tim, I want to make really complex pots. First thing it would have to do is make a complex pot, you know, go, go through all that stuff and then make the simplest pot they can. Like.
00:19:29
Speaker
What is the simplest pot that you can make? You know, like that is a great exercise. It's like the complex, but making something as simple as possible becomes a real stretch because we're so used to like overindulging and putting as much stuff on it as we can. But when you think about like making something as simple as possible,
00:19:48
Speaker
Then it becomes like this whole other part of our brain has to go through these exercises that it's not used to, but it influences the more complex stuff in different ways that I find brain wise, very entertaining. Like those kinds of processes when I go into the studio and I'm trying to do opposites of things.
00:20:05
Speaker
usually are more exciting than the things I was trying to make. If I wanted a really grungy pot and I make a really not-grungy pot, those are always so much more exciting to me because there's stuff that I'm not. It's almost like watching a TV show that you know the ending of. I know where I'm going with the grungy stuff.
00:20:24
Speaker
the non-grungy thing are like a new TV show. I've never seen it before. It's not like the seventh time I've seen this Seinfeld episode. It's like The Walking Dead. It's all new. Like, I don't know what's going to happen to Rick Grimes. Like, oh, there's something really horrible good, but I don't know. So it's exciting to be a part of. And I think that's, I think that's about, that's the less major way that I, I don't forgot what we're talking about. That's the less major way that I go through like kind of coming up with newer ideas or different ideas.
00:20:54
Speaker
I love that idea of doing the opposite to spark new ideas. That gains you so much more perspective. That is such great advice right there. It's not a normal process, right? How often are you like, oh, you know, I want to make a, you know, whatever. And then somebody says to do the opposite. It's not a normal line of reasoning, but it's super. It works really well for me. Tell me if it works. Why not if it works well for you?
00:21:22
Speaker
I agree 100% with that, doing opposite. When I was creating my characters that I'm making, I didn't know if I wanted swords or knives for them. And I would just play around with different things. And I eventually found one that I did, but that didn't happen by simply doing the same thing over and over again. It happened by doing the opposite things. I love that. Did you give them spoons? In what? Did you give them spoons? That would have been a cool idea. I do have an idea too. I do have to make a character where it's holding a wooden spoon. And a pillow.
00:21:54
Speaker
That would be a good idea. Maybe sometime in the future I could try that. I love that.