The exchange of ideas between makers is held in high regard by Ruthanne Thdball. Leading workshops has, in recent years, taken Tudball across the UK, France, Germany, Denmark and back to her homeland of America, but it is not the travel or the financial gains which are significant. Tudball's particular approach is to encourage an exploration of process by a series of exercises giving the confidence to take risks - qualities that she values most in her own making. The usual pattern of demonstration followed by just one or two days teaching can all too often result in the students trying to please the teacher rather than work within their own capabilities and strengths. Tudball hopes to promote a dialogue that enriches and feeds both the teacher and the taught.In her own work drawing is an important tool, although it was not a skill that came readily. As a student at Goldsmiths' College, London, in the late eighties, she overcame her reluctance to make marks on paper by drawing shadows cast by artefacts in galleries and in museums, rather than the objects themselves. It was Ken Bright, then Head of Department, who encouraged her to draw her own pots to enable her to observe them more closely Through this practice she noticed a gap between one of her teapot spouts and the body and realised the importance of this space - how it made the front of the teapot lighter and took the eye around the top of the handle.
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