@AasaMariaHedberg From reading your description, it sounds very much like the situation in the US as far as I can tell (I am an outsider to the ceramics community).
While I haven't noticed *overt* stigma around "potter", there seems to be an assumption of it it being a leisure or part-time pursuit, working artists usually don't use "potter" on its own and either use a qualifier like "professional" or an alternate term like "ceramic artist".
@AasaMariaHedberg There are indeed ceramics courses in some places (the US is huge and diverse, so there are courses here and there for almost anything), but craft fields aren't taken seriously by most outsiders, who express surprise (at best) at people whose degree or primary work is in ceramics, quilting, glassblowing, etc.
@eishiya
In Sweden no such courses are available unless your enrolled for a specific art/handicraft route.
@AasaMariaHedberg In the US, in the larger universities at least, academic programs tend to be a bit more freeform, as long as you've taken the prerequisites, you can take almost any course, and undergraduates are expected to try a bunch of different things, e.g. via general education requirements that are very unlikely to be fillable by courses required by any one degree. (At least that was my experience; many years have passed, and every school is different.)
(1/2)
@AasaMariaHedberg A course being available doesn't mean a degree program is available though. Sometimes it's a matter of an instructor being available for a side thing (and willing to fight their department to give them the time and space to do it), so these courses aren't always much more formal than something you might see held at a potter's studio or a community centre.
(2/3 ._.)
@AasaMariaHedberg The same logic operates in grade schools, now that I think of it. I've never heard of a dedicated ceramics class, but some schools have a kiln, which I imagine is usually the work of a very persuasive art teacher. Those schools can have a pottery unit in some of their art classes.
These things aren't usually top-down decisions AFAIK, but craftspeople fighting for opportunities and funds to spread their craft, so it's very uneven. Most places have none of this, at any level.
@eishiya
That is very much the other way around over here. At universities ONLY the ones who give a degree in ceramic art will have kilns and courses. You need years of preknowledge in clay making/fine art to even apply.
Exception can be universities where teachers (art teachers) study, but the courses would very rarely be open to all students. A few summer courses maybe.
@AasaMariaHedberg In my US experience, beginners aren't trusted anywhere near kilns, but the main benefit of taking an introductory ceramics course is that you have an experienced instructor who will take care of the firing for you, so you can *get* that experience with clay, glazing, etc.
Then, if there are further courses available, you might work your way up to using the kiln yourself, at which point you'll have the "years of preknowledge".
Sounds like Sweden lacks the intro courses?
@AasaMariaHedberg (Again though, I want to emphasise that, at least as far as I know, these opportunities are *not common* in the US! And often, the opportunities that do exist *stop* at the intro level, with no official/accredited route to learning more advanced skills. So a town might have a potter who'll teach basic pottery classes for hobbyists and do the firing, but to learn beyond that, you either become BFFs with the one potter, or hit the books and build/buy your own kiln.)
@eishiya
Its done in a very different way here. What you describe is exactly the same in South Africa and the UK.
Here, a basic knowledge on clay and firings are or at least have been required to even apply. So we have something called folkhögskola a school form in between where you can study ceramics (or what not) in a gap year or two. Then application is usually only judged from an aesthetic point of view so sometimes you don't have to send imagery of even a single piece of ceramics. But, >
@eishiya
If accepted, your teachers suppose you know a lot. The university course of a BA in Stockholm is a BA in Fine Art but in and of the material clay. Students wanting to become potters are often not really feeling welcome.
Telling it the rough way, it does vary from the handful of university and it also varies over time. Gothenburg university has a little different way, perhaps more open to learning from scratch at site and if your goal is to 'just' become a production potter.
@AasaMariaHedberg This sounds a lot like US art schools. They do provide introductory courses in various fields, but you have to demonstrate skill just to be accepted to the school, so they serve mainly to make sure everyone in a field has the same groundwork for year 2+, rather than to teach basic skills from scratch. But where the art school is part of a larger university, the intro-level classes are open to people from other parts of the university, who didn't need a portfolio to get in.
@eishiya
Ah!!
@AasaMariaHedberg Didn't have room in that post to mention again that, as far as I know, they rarely offer ceramics as a speciality, or at all.
And where they do offer it, since the degree offered by an art school is a BA or a Master of Fine Arts, it's probably very much a fine arts environment where a production craftsperson will feel out of place.
Someone not aiming to do fine arts would probably do something more akin to an apprenticeship, the "BFFs with the nearest working potter" route.