KERAMIC STUDIO 
63 
TEA SET, MARSH MARIGOLD MOTIF— HENRIETTA BARCLAY PAIST (Treatment page 64) 
MRS. HENRIETTA BARCLAY PAIST - Page Editor 
2298 Commonwealth Ave., St. Paul, Minn. 
OUR "PREPAREDNESS" 
THIS is the season for study and recuperation for those who 
are tied to the busy routine of the studio during the nine 
winter months. Also for the student who has been busy learn- 
ing the technique, the actual work of producing the finished 
product. 
The Exhibitions are over, and our thoughts are turned 
forward toward those of next fall and winter and our desire 
to show something different and worth while will lead us in 
many directions for inspiration. 
As to objects for decoration we have already been forced 
to turn to the products of the potteries and glass factories. 
There is an abundance of this former which furnishes practical 
material for experiment. Glass furnishes possibilities in etch- 
ing — gold and enamels — but in this field it is to be hoped that 
the decorators will exercise great restraint. Here even more 
than on china simplicity is desirable. While this is the season 
for study in the fundamentals of design, for gathering materi- 
als for design, for the study of the principles of design, in 
fact it is the season of preparedness. 
We can visit the Museums, the Art Galleries and Art 
Libraries, the woods and the gardens, make drawings of 
plant forms — fill portfolios with these and memoranda of color 
schemes found in nature. 
In years gone by we have hied us to the large studios and 
have copied under supervision the work of the successful 
teachers and in the fall have returned home with our spoils 
and exhibited them to admiring followers. We have depended 
too much on this sort of inspiration to attract pupils to our 
studios in town. We have grown in spite of these methods 
rather than because of them. We have come to see that origi- 
nality, individuality, counts. We need more leaders. We 
need more to recognize our own possibilities. We live under 
a Democracy and are units in a grand scheme. Each has his 
possibilities and each his opportunity to make himself heard. 
There is more good talent latent or unrecognized than there is 
in the limelight. Do not ignore what the leaders are doing 
but search for the sources of their inspiration and develop your 
own latent powers. Education means to draw out from 
within, not to cover with a veneer or even to inoculate. The 
unusual stress of circumstances calls for unusual exertion on 
our part. The demand for the new, the unique, calls for 
original production. This is the season to study fundamentals, 
collect our material, experiment and develop something 
which shall be all our own. If necessity is the mother of in- 
vention, the next few years should develop a host of inventors 
and inventions along new lines. 
