Ron Meyers Lecture

I attended a lecture by Regis Master Ron Meyers tonight at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It was well attended. This is the first of what I hope many lectures and exhibitions I'll attend in the future, and it was a real treat for this to be my first one. I sat right in the middle with Warren MacKenzie and Randy Johnston ahead of me. I really didn't recognize anyone else, although I'm sure there was some other famous potters. I was likely the youngest one there, which made me feel a bit out of place, but felt well-connected to Ron Meyers lecture. I was surprised to hear that he uses red earthenware for his lovely clay creations. He has been recently experimenting with his pots in a wood kiln, and has had some previous success in firing his earthenware creations in a salt kiln at earthenware temperatures, Cone 02-03. Ron provided a thorough retrospective of his life in clay, right from the beginning when he was in high school and then in college at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). How he had been declined to Alfred University, and used his first wheel when he was in Graduate School, which was then only 1 year. Ron commented on how he was a 'C' student and his professor commented that he made 'C' - work relative to those undergrads, graduate students, and even the entire history of ceramics. Everybody laughed. Ron went on and discussed his time with Michael Simon, and how originally it was a very relaxing setting selling pots as they did on the weekends, but over time, it was crazy how they sold all the pots in less than 5 minutes, and people didn't care about the pots, look at them or anything, just bought and ran. This was frustrating for him. Ron said that this was the first time he's been able to tell his whole story about his Ceramics history, and that it was really nice because in workshops conversations are usually abbreviated and only spurred by audience questions. A slide show was presented towards the end, and he discussed how the pieces were made and the progression of 'cute' rabbits to toothy, scary rabbits and other creatures. One of his pots had the whole Family of animals which I really liked plus the Femme Fatales - sexy women, which gave the audience a nice 'hmm-hmm' chuckle. During questions, Warren asked Ron why Ron had sent him a pot with no drawings on it, and Warren commented on how he liked it. Ron said that he makes very few pots with no decorations on it, and usually saves them for his personal collection. Ron would like to make more pots without decoration, as that appeals to him right now.

All-in-all, a good lecture for me to listen to. Not necessarily inspiring, but useful information on another potters journey to success.