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Marco Minetti | Episode 551

Marco Minetti is an apprentice potter to Kwak Kyungtae in Icheon, Korea, founder of Ceramic Masterclass intensive workshops.

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What is the master class?

It is called Ceramic Master Class. Basically having been an apprentice here for more than three years there are certain things that I wish I had available as an opportunity, when I first came here I just couldn’t find. There are not many people who are willing to dedicate three years of their life to leaning a craft, but many people are still interested and they would be happy to dedicate a week or a couple of weeks. So the idea kind of started that way. How much education can we fit into a week, in terms of wheel throwing and also ongi, which are two things that Kwak Kyung Tae,  my master has under his belt that he can offer. So essentially, what is the Master Class, it is one or two weeks, people come from all over the world, a very small group, three or four people and we provide accommodation and three meals a day and intensive training. We have breakfast together and we start training away. We have lunch together in the afternoon and dinner together, drinks and so on. And we just do that for seven days straight or fourteen days straight, depending. It is intense, you come here working full time basically, but there is a lot of practice time. We are teaching basically traditional Korean wheel throwing. So throwing off the hump, repetition throwing. Any person, people’s levels can be all different.

Why did you start this? This is kind of a little bit of your brain child right?

Yes, as my three years were coming to a close I was thinking how to leave, it is not so easy to leave a place that you have called home for a number of years so I was thinking maybe I could leave some kind of legacy here because my teacher doesn’t speak English. But a lot of foreign people who come here they all love his work and I felt it kind of like a shame that his work wasn’t out there as much and I thought of maybe leaving this program as a way of thinking him and thinking the Korean people for the hospitality and everything I have experienced here. I kind of wanted to create some kind of bridge to bring other people here and show them the beauty of this culture, the landscape , the art, the mindset. I think it is a way for people to come here and not only learn ceramics but learn a way of life, how people work, how people think.

How long has it been going so far?

So we started last year in September, so it is almost a year now.

What experience level do you accept people, what level do they have to be?

So we accept all levels of experience. If you have never touched clay before, you are welcome. If you have been a professional potter for twenty years you are also welcome. I am sure each person will get as much as they can out of it. It all depends on what level you are at. We tend to match people’s levels in the sense that we kind of have a base curriculum that no one has every experienced probably, unless they have learned in Korea. In the traditional way that you would learn to throw different forms and the different things you would be instructed to do as an apprentice in this country historically, we have condensed basically into a curriculum of a week, if you can believe that. It is only focused on techniques, we don’t do much firing. At the end we may select a few pieces to fire but it’s not focused on glaze or firing or anything like that. It is purely making on the wheel and also ongi which is unique in itself. There are not many places to learn that. So I would say, whatever level you are at, you are welcome. It does help if you know how to center a little bit of clay on the wheel. Then we can quickly catch any mistakes and sort of put people on the right track in that sense. There are a lot of bad habits people have in terms of technique. Myself included when I first came here. One of the things that the master is really good at is catching basically what unnecessary motions that there are in somebody’s practice and being able to point those out. Think of it as a tune up if you are a professional. It is a real huge tune up in that sense, technique wise. But also it can be a great base starting point for somebody who has never really had that experience.

What can someone expect to get out of the program when they are done? Can they walk away knowing how to make an ongi pot?

So there’s two course that we do. One is throwing that can be one week or two weeks and there is ongi which is currently only for a week, but we are thinking of maybe extending it maybe to ten days. It depends on what you sign up for. There is also a combination class, one week each. Expectation will be different for whatever you sign up for but in terms of the throwing class you can expect to have a lot of experience at the wheel because you have probably never sat down for nine hours a day throwing. Just the confidence of the material, I would say, on a technique perspective, but then we offer so much more than that in that you get to experience a wonderful array of food that we have catered. We have discovered restaurants and we also make food in the studio. You get to experience the culture and the language and you also get to see a working professional potter in Korea and the on-goings of the studio. But in terms of ongi you can definitely expect to be able to make one when you go back home. You also get a set of tools.

What is the future of Ceramic Master Class? Because you are not going to be there forever. So what is going to happen to it?

Good question. We are looking for essentially someone to keep it going. I set up everything basically so it can keep on going. The master knows everything by now because we have had so many times to practice everything. In terms of language, he is studying English at the moment and he is getting better and better, little by little. So I think he is going to keep going with it. We would also like to perhaps duplicate it in other countries and basically take the same curriculum, minus the food and culture, and transplant it in a studio that is willing to host us. So that is definitely a possibility. Probably for the next few years he’ll keep doing it here in the studio. It’s not going to last forever in this opportunity so I would recommend if you are at all thinking about it I would take the leap sooner rather than later.

Book

The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi

Contact

.ceramicmasterclass.com

Instagram: @minettidesign