Another autistic to celebrate - potter Bill Rolls

I love Pottery Throwdown and am always amazed at the talents people have, maybe it's because I know I couldn't do anything like that myself that I'm in awe of the ease with which others seem to do so. One thing I've noticed is that they can all draw, being someone who can only draw a bath, I think life becomes more limited when you can't.

Sorry no images half way down the page

There is a pic of Bill Rolls - here is a pic and BBC sound clip - and an article in the Hereford Times, showing his amusing biscuit soup set.

TheCatWoman said:

being someone who can only draw a bath

. I'm sure you can do more than that. You have amazing technical cooking ability - every hobby follows more or less the same rules i.e. motor skills and ability to follow instructions are transferable; all you need is confidence and to keep repeating i.e. practice. I enjoyed evening classes in pottery but never got round to trying the wheel. Still miss those wonderful courses.

Nah, I'm terrible at drawing, anything I draw looks like Picasso on acid. I only did pottery at school, but we never had enough time to do it properly and we never had a go on a wheel. I always saw hairdressing as sculpture, the blend of cut and colour giving shape and texture, but I can't do that anymore as my fingers don't work well enough to hold the scissors properly anymore. It would be nice to be able to do something artistic thats longer lasting than a hair do or food which gets eaten.

Nah, I'm terrible at drawing, anything I draw looks like Picasso on acid. I only did pottery at school, but we never had enough time to do it properly and we never had a go on a wheel. I always saw hairdressing as sculpture, the blend of cut and colour giving shape and texture, but I can't do that anymore as my fingers don't work well enough to hold the scissors properly anymore. It would be nice to be able to do something artistic thats longer lasting than a hair do or food which gets eaten.

Ah, ok. So the issues are your hands, space, time and money? Quite a lot of barriers.  Some home projects are still possible.

To bang on about evening classes, they were wonderful as all tools, equipment, space and machinery were provided - you just took home what you made. I emailed the Ministry for Culture - no response but I will post it if one arrives.

TheCatWoman said:

plan of the dimensions of my living room and where things were and what couldn't be moved when we went furniture shopping

I do that too! I keep a project book with dimensions, colour swatches, potential small projects for home and garden. This way, as you say, you have all to hand when you go shopping. I'm surprised more people don't do this. If you see something in a sale there isn't time to home to check. If you like DIY, you might be aware of the following books? 

# For anyone here who loves improving where they live whether owned or rented, I recommend Jocasta Innes,' 'Paint Magic' also the Hamlyn book, 'Home - a Practical Style Guide' . Jocasta guides you through a host of paint effects [walls and furniture - not fine art!]. I've tried gilding, sponging and rag-rolling - not much luck with marbling. The Hamlyn book is how to 'style' a room - for example, Japanese, Scandi, coastal styles. For propagating your own plants [very cheap!] try Carol Klein's, 'Grow Your Own Garden.' For kids (and adult kids), Keith Mossman's, 'The Pip Book,' - plants from fruit and veg pips. Most of these are very cheap second hand on Amazon, World of Books, ABE or E-bay.

I'm not underestinating my talents, I know I'm a very good cook and have an excellent palette, I'm sure there are many people who would admire my hairdressing skills and various other skills I've picked up over the years. But I still can't draw, so many of the things I'd love to do seem to begin with drawing a basic design, if not a more complicated one, the best drawing I did was a plan of the dimensions of my living room and where things were and what couldn't be moved when we went furniture shopping, the bloke in the shop was very impressed, I'd even put in door heights and widths and included the front door and hall.

One thing I've often fancied is weaving wall hangings, but I don't have the space or the time and money.

TheCatWoman said:

Sorry I didn't mean that to come across as rude and abrasive

You don't sound rude or abrasive to me but I think you don't appreciate your skills, knowledge and talents. I think you underestimate your abilities, perhaps not trying new things because you don't want to 'fail' - which is a shame. And I'm sure many on here would love to have your cooking skills and ability to discern ingredients from different food combinations.

Remember, those on TV are some of the best potters in the country, chosen out of thousands of hopefuls. I don't expect all potters are good at drawing - even some painters cannot draw. A lot of learning is simply about repetition, which means a lot of fails in one sense. I get what you say about cooking - prepared in hours then eaten in minutes! This is a good place to expand interests as there are so many people on this site with different interests and ideas. I'm looking for something new as well because I look on bookshelves lately and don't want to read any of the books.

Maybe Picasso on Acid is your style and will actually make you a fortune…. Not all artists are Van Gough or Monet. Some of them are Quentin Blake or Romanho Cid

Sorry I didn't mean that to come across as rude and abrasive, its just if there was a sliding scale of 1-100 with art I'd be about 5.

No Stuart it's not practice and learning the techniques, I've tried it for years, using different styles, and types of materials and it all still looks like Picasso on acid.

Lots of people have told me the same thing over the years and all of them have some sort of talent for drawing, I don't try and go for photorealism, but it just dosen't work. Some of us really do have no drawing ability, just the same as some of us have a tin ear for music and no sense of rhythum, no pallette for flavours and stuff like that.

Art is something that we're told is innate, like music and dancing that we can all do, well some of us really can't and get really fed up with being told we can, if we just practiced enough or learned this or that, why is it so hard to believe that some of us really can't?

It is just practice and learning techniques.

The problem I have is I don't want to try things I am no good at, but that is how you get better. 

If you set the bar low, it could be fun. The temptation with drawing is to do it like a photograph, but that is not the point. Unless you are doing a portrait where it needs to be pretty close.