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Dan Tomcik | Episode 574
Daniel Tomcik is a wood fire potter and pizza maker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dan received his BFA from California University of Pennsylvania. He worked as an apprentice at the Baltimore Clayworks Noborigama, and as summer staff at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. Daniel is currently the Studio and Grounds Manager at Touchstone Center for Crafts, where he is working to cultivate a community of wood-firing enthusiasts.
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How does competition have a role in the artistic world?
Oh wow. It might be a tough question for me to answer, but I think that in the beginning, at least for me, looking at ceramics as craft I was really intrigued by the idea of a new process oriented thing. I started this whole endeavor really as a pizza maker and you know, you take the dough out and stretch it out, it is either a good or bad one, depending on how centered it is, if you will. And you spread the sauce and your homie right next to you might have already made two pizzas, and for me as soon as I noticed that is what happens in the ceramic studio I was like, All right, I totally understand how this works. I am going to have the most mugs today. But that isn’t how this works. It is more like I want to have the best mugs in this functional pottery class. Not best as in most likes on Instagram, like most people in this class will pick this mug up and use it whether they know it is mine or not. That kind of best. So I think there are few ways to go about the competition thing, or a few ways to think about it. If it is applied as bettering your own work in not hurting others, I think that is the best way to go about it. And I can’t say that has always been my approach. I was a vicious early ceramic student. I don’t even know how to explain it. I am going to get the most pots in this kiln. I was just a turd. It ended up after taking advanced class and seeing the young kids compete with each other and I felt older because I was one year above that I thought, Look at these guys, they should just focus on their own work. That is like the old man in me saying, Take a seat, quit being such a tough guy, and just learn how to make pots. It ends up being a competition with yourself.
In terms of looking for your place, it is it important to simply ask if you can be that person? In other words, you did that with your job.Do you think it could be as simple as that for some other people?
I guess that is partially a deep question. I think that first step is asking yourself if you can essentially step up and be the next best earthenware potter or the studio manager at Touchstone or a professor at a college level. I think at first it takes getting out and seeing what the world of ceramics is and has to offer and how it operates. Maybe going through a couple of times at NCECA or something like that. Not just meeting other potters but meeting the kiln companies and asking how many jobs are in their manufacturing warehouse or whatever. Or ask the colleges how many ceramic jobs are there available at your school.I think there are a lot more opportunities out there than people are able to find, is a fair way to put it.
What role does time play in finding your place?
For me I thought that it was really important to figure it out right now. I think time is something none of us obviously should take for granted, but it almost doesn’t matter, it is more about the work that you are going to put in. If it takes more time to put in better work, whether it is your own pots or your drive, whatever work is, I think whatever time span it takes to produce the best work is the answer. I am terrible at being on time, but when I show up I am going to work. What I am working on right now is being more on time. I think it really just depends.
Austin Kleon said, You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes. How does that play out in the way that you find your voice as an artist?
You know, the way I interpret that is I can say Linda Christianson’s name a thousand times and not wear it out because I love her attitude, her work. I have only met her once and she was like, too nice to me. Her pots, I buy them every time I have the opportunity but I wouldn’t want my pots to look like her pots but I am inspired to be everything that she is as a human. Just caring and considerate and just open. I could give you adjectives for days, she’s incredible. Linda’s pots are perfectly quiet and it takes me a minute to even look at the quiet pots that I get of my own. I don’t know why, but that is what I am trying to figure out right now. I drink from her pots every day, out of my three hundred pots in my cabinet. She is definitely a hero. But boy, yeah, I don’t want my pots to look like hers.
How important is it to have a lot of intake and examining and holding and touching to find your voice?
For me in my own work, I think it is very important. Pots are expensive but if you go to NCECA you can feel a thousand mugs, once you leave that, your like, These 19 handles are the 19 handles I want to try and play with in my work. Yeah, I think being able to handle ceramics is one of the most powerful learning tools for ceramics in general.
How important is output, just to be making work?
I kind of go in streaks but when I talk about this I relate back to college. I dedicated my entire life, other than the 30 hours that I worked on the weekends in the pizza shop, to the studio. I would sleep in the garage in the clay mixing room, which I am sure was not allowed, but I lived in there. We would make 50 mugs in one night and they sucked but 10 of them were better than the other 40 and you don’t find that out until you make 40 bad out of 50. Then your next batch of 50 you better have 15 good ones. So I think output is huge. Something like ceramics is so forgiving in that the 40 bad mugs that I had I would take them out and mix them in again. It was not like we were wasting material, it’s all reused unless you fire the bad pots.
This question is a little tongue -in-cheek but I am going to ask it anyway. Why is wood fire pottery the best kind of pottery?
Wow. So we will start by saying that it has the most love put into it. No, I am just kidding. But that might actually be the case. When you think about the labor of love that goes into wood-firing as a whole, there is so much loss. Not necessarily in my own work, we are finally starting to fire the kiln and have this loss rate that I don’t want to think about but you now, the quiet pots are not craggily. Long story short, I am feeling all right with where our firings are but wood-firing as a whole is such a labor of love. You are splitting wood, driving wood, ruining the axles on your truck or the trunk of your Subaru, digging up clay. People aren’t doing that for electric kilns. They put the love in , in the work itself. But outside the work, beyond all the time you put in making the pots, there is all this extra stuff you have to do and sometimes it is just as expensive as electric or more. It’s the best. It is so rewarding. Pottery aside wood-firing is one of the most incredible activities that I have ever experienced. I am going to quote Linda Christianson, she did a long talk about being a member of a tribe. I think that there is this disconnect now, in material and firing. Firing a wood-fire kiln feels tribal, like a team, an unspoken language.
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