Good Piece Bad Piece
by Tom Richards on 12/01/10
Good Piece Bad Piece
I have trouble recognizing if one of my pots is successful.
This first happened a few years ago, early on in my clay career. I had been
able to make recognizable and functional things for a while. And in the class I
was taking I had made a small pitcher with a brushed slip design on it. When
the pitcher came out of the glaze kiln, I saw that the funky abstract brushed slip
design turned into an abstract awful blob.
During the class show and tell, the teacher asked what I thought about the pitcher and I told him that it was one of the worst things that I had done. I think I surprised him and the class with my comment. They told me how nice the piece, I thought that I had the form down but ruined the whole thing with the slip work. They thought that it all worked and the piece looked great. I really did not know what to say, for me the piece was a failure.
I have a hard time with this. When a piece does not turn out
the way I intended it is a failure. Someone else looking at the piece thinks
that it looks great and wants to purchase it. A former teacher of mine and a
very good potter once told me that the more successful the potter the larger
their shard pile is.
When I take a piece out of the kiln and the glaze sagged in an unexpected way here or the glaze was half reduced and half not, I look at it and think that this is a piece of crap - my wife looks at it and says that it is a nice pot and don't think about putting it in the sculpture garden.
The pot is unique, special more than one of a kind, that fusion of serendipity and work. How do I recognize and balance the bad pot from a good pot from an unexpected pot? Just because I don't like it does that make it a bad pot? It is not what I wanted it's bad - it is not what I wanted but it is a very interesting pot. Is it the money that drives this? I don't know, maybe but at some point this won't enter into the decision as much as it might now, making the pot stand on its own.
What makes a pot successful in my eyes and what makes it successful in yours? I have a set of expectations that are needed to be met. Your expectations are going to be different. You are going to view the piece as it is not what was supposed to be. I probably should recognize and understand that.
