Author Archives: Bridget Macklin

I am an artist working in the field of ceramics creating fragile porcelain pieces which are inspired by the environment or by peoples relationships with the environment and with each other and which often incorporate finds to support their narrative.

It Really is All In The Mind!

In a continuation of last week’s post I just wanted to share the following.

I took my change of attitude into college this week and in reply to the tutorial questions about how it is all going gave a very different response.  I reported that all was fine, that I was exploring a number of different, but connected, threads and that I would like to show them how far I had got and where I thought it was going.  The response from college could not have been more different.

They are not finished, they were not finished last week, they won't be finished next week. They are just one experiment of several.
They are not finished, they were not finished last week, they won’t be finished next week. They are just one experiment of several.

Instead of dramatic warnings about time running out and needing to get a grip, the comments were all about what I thought I might call my pieces and how I might present the work!  I DONT KNOW – I haven’t made them yet!  I think this is an extraordinary turn around.  Suddenly they think I know what I am doing just because of the way that I phrased my report on the week.  I really don’t – I am no further on than I was before.  I think I have some great ideas and I want to explore them but nothing about those ideas has changed except the response to my work.  Now as a teacher as well as a learner I find this really fascinating and incredibly important!  Just because a child tells me that they have no idea or they really have not got started yet does not mean that it is true – as a teacher, my job is to look properly and see what they have done.  Then to encourage them on to the next step.  In just one sentence I have the power to inflate their enthusiasm for a subject or a task or to completely puncture it.  If, even as a mature student of many years experience, I can be so fundamentally affected by the remarks given to me by tutors with the very best of intentions, just think what influence a teacher of young minds has!  This week has served as a most helpful reminder to me about the relative values of positive and negative feedback on both sides of the desk.  It has poked me in the ribs once again about why it is so important for teachers to be learners too!  carl-jung[1]

I believe this is part of my reason for wanting to teach those who find learning hazardous.  I get immense satisfaction from that moment when, after believing, for whatever reason or as a some casual negative remark from someone significant – friend, teacher, parent – that a task is too difficult for them to grasp, they suddenly realise that there is a way through to understanding it.  Eureka, their little minds yell – you do get it after all!  It is also part of the reason that I never seem to want to stop learning.  I delight in the discovery of new ideas.  I spent so much of my time at school under the thumb of people who thought that I would never amount to much that now I find an extraordinary amount of joy in the discovery of everything new, even if I don’t quite get there at the same time or in the same way as everyone else.

Its Right In Front of You, Stoopid!

Well, if you talk like that, of course you can’t!

Weeks and weeks of apparent brain ache are about to be over.  I have the distinct feeling that part of my problem since the beginning of this final semester has been my attitude to my tutors.  I had practically made up my mind – and so, I think had they – that the road to the decision on what to make for the final work was likely to be fairly tortuous and so, as is the nature of a self fulfilling prophesy, it has proved to be just that!  All the time, the answer has actually been staring me in the face.  I have been gaily making and making but I have made the fundamental error of telling my tutors that I didn’t know what I was doing.  I really should know better!  I know perfectly well from being on the “other side of the desk”, as a teacher for many years, that if a child says they don’t get it or cant do it, they don’t!  They cant!  And the teacher believes them!  But if you say to a child ‘yes, you can, I know you can’, they find that it is suddenly so much easier than they thought.  Its all about attitude.  Because my tutors have been asking me things such as ‘So are we going to have the same tortuous route as usual?’ that is precisely what I have been presenting them with.  Timely reminder to self – never, ever, for any reason, be negative with a child who is vulnerable – it will end in tears!

So, just in case anyone is the least bit interested in the aching of my potty mind,  I am creating an eclectic range of work for the final show.  It is based loosely on my love of Cornwall and my fascination with relationships within and between objects and people.  I have not decided yet how it will be exhibited, that will depend on how it speaks to me as the body of work develops.  I shall use local materials, mud larking finds and natural glaze materials.  I shall make and then abuse moulds and my work will reflect my thoughts.  The way it develops will depend on how I am feeling and the ideas that strike me and, no, I am not the least bit concerned that nothing is finished yet – the best is clearly yet to come.

The best is yet to come . . .
The best is yet to come . . .