By Clare Danby
Being a ceramicist who often works at home, alone, can be isolating. It’s a very different experience to being in a supportive group on a ceramics course. It is difficult to find the right time to gain open and honest feedback and input from peers. I find that we meet each other at exhibitions and exclaim over each others work without there being time or the opportunity to drill down to the detail. Recognising this, a small group of 5 decided to trial an approach using the Art Quest Artist Peer Support Group guide as a starting point.
The group met twice, once in May and once in November, at the homes of group members. The members were Cath Fogarty, Susan Romyn, Rachael Naylor, Jeannie Holker and Clare Danby. Each group member brought two or three pieces of ceramics to the meetings. We followed the methodology on page 14 of the guide. In turn, each member puts their work onto the table without saying anything about them. The others state what they see and discuss their interpretations for about 10 minutes. Then the artist asks questions about the interpretations of the others and the group then responds to these questions. Each artist has an allocation of about 20 minutes. We had drinks and food to support the process and it didn’t strictly adhere to every step.
At the end of two sessions, the group agreed that it was an interesting experience, both for artistic progression and for social aspects. In the first meeting, I showed some work that is more compositional than my normal thrown work. Starting out on this new trajectory, I piled on too much and the group helped me to hone down and identify the techniques and approaches to pursue. Between the two meetings, I tried these and was able to gain further feedback on the more recent iteration. Another member found that it was a good debriefing space for unpacking artistic experiences, and others that it was a motivating process for generating work but that trying the group’s feedback didn’t always result in positive directions, and that this is useful in itself.It was also very interesting for group members who are teachers to see different learning styles in action.
We intend to continue meeting a few times a year and encourage others that are interested in a similar group to contact us for more details.
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