Friday, November 15, 2013

Spacial Relationships


Space: The Final Frontier.....

or

Why Some Folks Is Potters And Some Folks Ain't

The ability to grasp spacial relationships (as opposed to special relationships) is an interesting phenomenon. I once had a person in my shop who was going to help me drill the holes in the bottom of my colanders. I have a template that lays out the holes, so where the holes needed to be drilled wasn't a problem.

So I set this person to work drilling and walked across the room.

When I came back to their side, I saw that they had drilled all the holes in a manner that was keeping the drill bit perpendicular to the table top....and they were asking me how they were supposed to drill the holes marked further down the curve of the bowl.

I was stunned for a moment that they didn't simply intuit how they would be holding the drill bit (relative to the curve of the bowl, not the table it sat upon). I tried to explain to them to simply follow the curve of the bowl downward, always keeping the drill perpendicular to the arc of the bowl. No amount of wording or re-wording could get this person to understand the spacial relationship I was talking about.

I told this to my friend, Luke. Luke has cut my hair for nearly forty years. Luke said, "Oh, I've had exactly the same thing happen in my shop". Seems Luke was training a new hair stylist and was trying to explain to this young person that if hair was pulled out straight from the head and then cut off at the same length, the result would be perfectly feathered ends when the hair was dropped back in place. The apprentice couldn't understand this.

It's a brain thing.  There are some things we potters seem to simply be born to grasp.

9 comments:

  1. I daresay a lot of the problem is that we are not teaching any skills wherein kids might learn these basic ideas early on. A SHAME we eliminated shop and home ec from the curriculum. And we wonder why the test scores reflect that they have trouble with math skills such as measurement.

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    1. I'm still a bit convicted that I've never figured out how to take on students or apprentices.

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  2. I had a spatial relationship with my Mother.

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  3. How many people cannot grasp the fact also, that it is the inside hand which is important as we make a space defined by a vessel?

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    1. Good point. We can get a bit stuck on the visual of the outside and not realize how much control we have in what we don't see.

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  4. good analogy between the hair and the colander

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  5. Hi John,
    Once again you've touched on one of my peeves. It appears a simple litmus test is just to watch someone cross the road. I've seen people wait for a vehicle that is 500+yards off. My favorite story happened when I used to work in the "web biz" (don't ask) and the admin assistant (read secretary) asked me for help hanging a picture in the foyer of the office. I asked where the picture was to be hung... "I don't know". I said well how about halfway between the edge of the doorway and the corner of the room. "good idea" was the reply. I got a tape measure and figured I had better take the "live" end (the one that would yield the distance to be halved) and gave the end that starts with one inch to the admin asst. As I pulled the live end toward the edge of the doorway I realized that the admin asst. was not holding the other end against the wall. I said, OK, ready... hold your end against the wall. She quickly agreed and, without looking, just put that end against the wall. Not in the corner, just against the wall a couple feet from the corner... just where she was standing.

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  6. Yes your are wright and thanks for post a good topic . your post is

    top most in related post of Spacial Relationships .

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