digging a deep well

The Ferguson book arrived on my doorstep the other day. It’s a beautiful tribute to a tremendously talented artist/teacher and colorful, complex human being. It’s called Talking With the Wheel, published by Silver Gate, Inc. If you are relatively new to my blog and would like to read the previous posts about my experience photographing Ken for the book, please go to the archive on the right and click on his name.

This passage, written by Ken, has left a deep impression me:

“My students have often heard me say, ‘You have to dig a deep well.’

The problem people have understanding the phrase ‘digging a deep well’ is that people don’t realize that it doesn’t have to be within the world of ceramics, and it doesn’t have to be about ‘art.’ ‘Digging a deep well is an experience, a challenge, something you’ve done or that you’ve faced which forced you to make a decision. You had to decide where to focus. Are you going to get the best of it, or is it going to get the best of you? These things make you a stronger, more sensitive, more passionate person; a person willing to be tolerant and understanding, able to focus on work and less critical of other’s work.

It has to do with intellectual curiosity. An afternoon spent observing the phenomena of nature and then drawing it, studying it, examining it, trying to figure out how it happens, why it happens and the answers to all of those questions. You go outside of yourself. You have a new experience, and you try to understand it.

Why is it important to dig that well deep? Long term, the reason is that you may run out of ideas. It’s very easy to do. There will be a demand on you for new ideas. It’s one of the most hateful, terrible things about the art world – artists are always asked, ‘Any new things?’

You want new ideas to come out, and you hope they do. I remember talking to Akio Takamori, and he said, ‘I don’t have any ideas. I’m out. I ran out. I just reached a point where I don’t have any new ideas. What do I do?’ I told him to go back and revisit his old ideas. Look at them and think, ‘Did I really take this as far as I could? Is there more to it?’ You want to have these ideas – they keep you going.”

Ferguson’s well was indeed a deep one. As I am in the process of digging my own, I will reflect back on his thoughts, his work, his accomplishments, his humor and his ballsy, blustery way of being often. He was never my teacher, but in the brief period I spent with him working on photos for this book, I think I learned more than I would have cared to admit to him at the time.