Studio Notes
tools have been gathered from the accumulated knowledge of working artists, educators, and advisors across disciplines — people who spent careers figuring out what actually helps. They are offered in the hope that some of them help you find your voice, build your practice, and keep making work over the long run. The philosophical spine of Studio Notes is Stoic praxis — the daily practice of closing the gap between what you understand and what you actually do. Marcus Aurelius described the person with a serious practice as a headland: the waves beat against it continuously, but it stands fast and around it the boiling water dies down. He was not talking about avoiding difficulty. He was talking about what you do with it.
Soliloquy, a conversation with an echo
The transcript of a conversation between Andrew Cornell Robinson and ChatGPT on 12th October 2024. Andrew Cornell Robinson: good morning ChatGPT: Good morning, Andrew! How’s everything going? ACR: good. how about you? ChatGPT: I’m doing well, thanks! Glad to hear your day’s going well too. Anything exciting on your agenda …
Western Style Raku Fire
Andrew Cornell Robinson has been working with Raku fired ceramic since he first apprenticed to a potter in the last 1970s and early 1980s. His first mentor, Grace Bailey and his teacher Dave Cohen both studied under American ceramist Paul Soldner, who adopted and adapted Raku firing methods and popularized them in the United States in the 1960s. Andrew continues this tradition today in his studio and shares this knowledge with his friends and students.
Visualizing Ideas and Opportunities through Mood Boards
Moving beyond words and experiencing the world through our sensations can spark insights that we may act upon through the design and making of a thing. The ephemeral nature of a doodle, a sketch, a collage of images, a collection of artifacts, cumulatively can reveal a trust about the agency of things…
Aesthetic Polytheism
I think my best work is often confounding to myself, and to others; meaning slips through fingers.