Lessons about AI from Pottery

You may not know this about me, but I am a potter. I make functional ware, which means I make things that are meant to be used: cups, bowls, planters, the things of everyday life. My preferred methodology is throwing on the wheel, and wood-firing the pottery. You may be wondering what all this has to do with AI, and I'll get there, but first you need to understand some things about this medium and method.

Starting to learn to throw on the wheel is not just about learning where to place your body and hold your muscles, but how to center your being. The first step in throwing is to center the clay on the wheel. After many many many hours and weeks and months and years of practice, centering becomes second nature. You sit at the wheel and your body and mind know what to do. But even after years, sometimes your mind takes you to places that mess up your work. It is a constant practice of mindfulness about the quality of your attentiveness in creation.I am taking a similar approach to AI. If I am going to throw something in this new medium, I want it to be a thing that comes from that centered place.

One of the other things we learn when we begin to work with clay are all the tools available to us. There are literally thousands, and we can make our own tools as well. When we sit down to the wheel we want to have all the tools we need around us, so that when we get to work, we can just make. My preferred tools are a large bowl with warm water, a sponge, a metal rib, sheepskin and home-made stamps. The warm water feels nice on my hands when I wet them to work the clay which responds better to wetness than dryness. The sponge helps soak up excess water and can make unexpected and wonderful imprints on the clay. The rib makes a certain shape or finish to the cup, and sheepskin smooths out the lip of the cup so it feels nice agains human lips. The stamps are ways to decorate the clay that I have made out of the experiences of my life. The waffle iron at the Penny Ice Creamery, the rough bark at my family's cabin, the place where two stones joined in my backyard. I think about this too when work in AI, what are the tools that will make my work the best that it can be. What are the tools that I can create that will help my work in the medium be more my own? My own tone of voice, my own reasoning, my own experience, my own way of moving in the world.

One of my first assignments was to make a cup for my beloved. To make something my beloved would love to hold, would take comfort in, would feel nice to hold and not hurt the wrist or thumb, would love to feel against his lips. There is a sensual element to the creation of these things that are meant to be held with our hands, caressed by our hands, seen daily by our eyes, touched by our lips. They form of the cup or bowl or plate is determined by the end result that you want to achieve with the form. Is it meant to be delicate, translucent, showing differences in thickness of clay like a porcelain lantern so that light can filter through the clay, and be a thing meant to look at and not to touch or is it meant to be a cup for a child - thick and small so that they can drop it and not have it break. Small with gently curved in lips so they can learn to carry the water in it. All these things are choices we can make, decisions about what we finally create. I take this process in my work with AI as well, to think about the end product that I am trying to create, who it is for, how they will experience it, and learn as I go by experimenting with different shapes and tweaks and adjustments to the creation so that over time and long years of practice I might make something that is a wonderful creation.

One of the things that an artist or creator of any kind is confronted with at some point is the value of their work. A mass produced mug at a big box store may cost $20. At the dollar store, you can get simple white mugs for $1 - $1.50. Friends of mine who make a living as potters sell their mugs for $50 - $65. When there are things that are cheaper and easier to make, one might ask why a person would even bother with making something themselves. There are perfectly find mugs out there that accomplish the purpose of holding hot liquid and delivering it into your body.

In the conversation about AI right now, there is this question of, if we can have a machine do it, why would we continue to have a human do it? This question is one that potters is ever-present for a potter, and most potters cannot/do not fully extract themselves from all the ways that machines are part of the process. Machines mine the clay and materials that become glazes. Machines pack clay in bags to be delivered by truck to studios and shops. The wheel itself is a machine. Once a potter has a form that they like, they can always turn that into a mold. Then the work of the potter is just to fill the mold, and voilà, there is the bowl, just a little clean up needed.

So why do we continue to create when we can mechanize? And, why does an accomplished potter command the price that they do?

We continue to create, because we want to be engaged with the creation of our art. We want to feel the clay move in our hands. We want to experiment with new forms. We know that the vessel that we create is of the moment. It is a picture in time of our craft. It is imbued with the magic of that moment. It is valuable because of it's uniqueness, it's hand-craftedness.

I want to share more about this uniqueness, because the form of firing that I prefer is one that especially brings this out. Most ceramics are fired in wood or gas kilns, but there is another form of firing that is called wood-firing. In a wood fired kiln, a group of people gets together to build a very hot fire in the kiln and keep it going for days. We work in shifts, 24 hours a day to bring the kiln up to a certain temperature and then cool it down. It takes physical strength because you're constantly chopping and throwing wood on the fire. It take coordination among a group of people, and the result is uncertain. You never know exactly what you are going to get from a wood fired kiln. The patterns on the clay come from the differences of heat in the kiln, and from the wood ash as it makes it's way through. You have absolutely no control over what happens, and in the end the things that are the most beautiful are the most unexpected.

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