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I’ll just tell you one story from the
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very early years when I was training
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with Michael called you I was in my I
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was 20 or 21 and him and I trained with
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Michael card.you he was eight years old
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when I went to live and work with him
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and I spent the last two years of his
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life with him and he was then he was
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like an old Zen master he wasn’t old Zen
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master but without the label he was
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fierce and tender and cantankerous and
00:51
irascible and unpredictable and whatever
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you could say about him you could say
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the opposite with equal conviction so it
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was a little bit like like kind of
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living with a big old wild cat you just
01:14
had no idea what to expect and I was a
01:20
painfully shy 20 year old and he was a
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man at the end of his life who had
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completely mastered his totally mastered
01:32
his art and so I was some you know this
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isn’t in Komal in a remote part of
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England in this on the edge of this more
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so it’s a very kind of remote to
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situation and so I had been making bowls
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one day and the way the way that the
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apprenticeship worked was like a
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traditional kind of apprenticeship where
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you just copied what your master did he
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never said anything to you he never
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demonstrated to you he never said
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anything he just you just had to you had
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to find your way
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but occasionally these comments or these
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situations with words would be provoked
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that would somehow are in orientate you
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in the right way and this morning was
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one such morning I had been making bowls
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and I’d been there for about six months
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I’d filled up all the shelves with bowls
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I thought I was really beginning to get
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somewhere and it was the pottery was in
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an old skittle alley so it’s a very long
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narrow room and it had a door in both
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ends and I was at one end and halfway
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through the morning the door opened at
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the other end and Michael came in and I
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remember feeling this little this
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consultative swelling of pride I thought
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now Michaels gonna see what I’m what
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I’ve been doing these last six months
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how well I’m getting on so I’m not sure
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if he did it on purpose he felt I’m
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quite sure he didn’t do it on pass but
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he came very slowly up to where I was
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working to allow the feeling of pride to
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really it’s a grow and the expectation
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and then and then he came and he sat in
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front is stood in front of the shelves
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which were in front of my wheel was here
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in the shelves was here and so he sat in
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front of me here and he was just he just
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in this very kind of lazy way just look
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back and forth like they say along the
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bowls is completely expressionless and
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it went on forever it seemed to and then
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when he finished he turned to me and he
03:56
said Rupert you haven’t begun to take
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this shape into yourself and then he
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left
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so that was the training that was how it
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worked it was a kind of Zen training
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without the label and of course I was I
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was just totally just completely
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demolished by this comment there was no
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X there’s no follow-up he just walked
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out and I was just left what the hell do
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I do now
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where do I go where do I go I thought I
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was doing so while I thought I was doing
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everything I should be doing and
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everything that I thought was all the
04:50
progress I thought I was making was is
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just totally empty so this kind of it I
04:59
was just left with this question hanging
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and somehow this it didn’t initiate the
05:09
process because the process was always
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already happening but it deepened this
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process in me of what what I was doing
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what I was making how I was making it
05:21
what is the meaning of what I’m doing
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what is its purpose how to make
05:25
something that could that could
05:36
how to make an object that could be
05:38
really beautiful what is required so all
05:44
these answers were all these questions
05:46
were precipitated in me of course there
05:51
were no answers but I just carried on
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and it was a process as Michael said of
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taking this shape deeply into yourself
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not just this the shape at the whole
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process which means getting to know your
06:16
your materials yourself your form
06:20
whatever your form is words music
06:23
sculpture three-dimensional form color
06:26
whatever it is getting to know your form
06:29
like you get to know the alphabet so
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that it’s just it’s like an extension of
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your body just use your arms your hands
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and and then the clay it’s just it’s
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just it becomes your body and you have
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this total intimacy and fluidity and
06:45
ease and there’s an absolutely no
06:49
personal agenda that comes in the way
06:52
you’re not trying to express anything
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personal alone and I remember it was it
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was years later after I had left Michael
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he died I would start my flat my first
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studio and my second studio in
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instructure and it was when I was well
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into my into my forties 20 years or so
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later I remember a feeling I had one day
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and I was making a making a large bowl
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so this was over 20 years late after
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this event I remember making this large
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bowl and I had this feeling during it
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that I can’t really describe it it was
07:45
totally effortless I it was like it
07:50
sounds it sounds so trite to say it but
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it was like it was just like this this
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kind of love poem that was going on this
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this this back and forth between between
08:03
myself and and and the clay I felt the
08:05
total ease that I could speak to it it
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would speak to me with dialogue with I
08:12
thought this tote
08:14
fluidity and the end of it it just it
08:18
formulated itself that very simply in my
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mind I just had the thought I can do
08:23
whatever I want now what I meant by that
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was I have total totally at ease with
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this medium not total control over it
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but just total ease it can just it can
08:40
just make itself through me the object
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can just it’s just like it makes it so I
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I just don’t do anything this is like
08:47
this is like a just gentle walk in there
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in the party was so effortless and
08:54
intimate and natural and and I
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remembered then Michaels comment twenty
09:01
three or four years earlier and and I
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remember thinking then I wish Michael
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could be here now that wasn’t said with
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any pride then there was no pride in it
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I would like Michael to have walked into
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the studio then and have walked up to it
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but not because I was expecting a great
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accolade from him not because I was
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feeling proud about what I was doing but
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because I I knew that he would see that
09:28
I had taken that shape into myself
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thank you
The Role of the Artist
Why Make Art?