Popfarious redefining the blog - it's just like a taco

White Duck Taco Shop - River Arts District Asheville US
As Popfarious as you can get - V McGarvey cc 

In May I explained why I had called this blog Popfarious, in my post Why Popfarious .Then my intentions were to make the focus of the blog industrial heritage, and this will definitely be an important aspect. However, after a recent visit to America to see my sister, which will feature in the following posts I now realise that this blog description is a little restrictive. I have just started as a part-time postgraduate research student at Staffordshire University, in the School of Creative Arts and Engineering. Initially, my main aim was to undertake an MPhil, there is however an option to undertake a PhD, and there are ambitions to have a creative output, whatever that will be, as I am not a practitioner, so a bit of a crazy journey. My research working title is

Bound by Clay: The influence of intangible cultural heritage on ceramics education and its impact on urban regeneration: a comparative study of two cities Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire and Asheville North Carolina   

I particularly wanted to focus on the influence of place on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, in particular, ceramic skills, in an industrial working-class context. The Black Mountain College was founded in Asheville, and I wrongly assumed that ceramicists were attracted to the area because of this history, which is wrong, the BMC is better known internationally than locally. Potters have set and stayed in Asheville because it is a nice place, which is the same reason why the BMC was set-up there. Asheville, as a place, has some industrial past but it is the environment that is the attraction, initially the presence of clay, in the mountains, used in Appalachian pottery, and for later potters moved to the area because of the beauty of the landscape, tourism and the availability of workspace. People tend to come to the history of Asheville afterward.

My husband would say I am not an orderly person at home, but cognitively I like to be orderly, as evidenced in my wanting to define this blog early on for myself and the viewer. I have now come to realise that a creative research journey is not orderly, and the broader the definition the better as it will enable me to explore the new avenues I encounter along the way. I want this blog to drive and influence my research, a digital version of an artist's analogue notebook. I need to think more broadly about the influence of place not only on ceramics but on craft and culture in general, dropping my suppositions and being prepared for the unexpected. So I think the title of my blog Popfarious, was spot on, the description may periodically change like my research but that's all ok - it's bit like the  changing Taco menu at the great White Duck Taco Shop in the River Arts District in Asheville 

White Duck Taco Menu - Asheville - NC - US
V McGarvey cc