Bob Kavanagh on fri 8 nov 96
Good morning (my time)
Permit to quote from a brief article by Peter Lang in Ceramic Review
(September October 1996, number 161 - the Craft Potters Association) in
order to place a more concrete context for the roving question about when,
whether, and if, form is enough. Take a look at this issue, if you can
find a copy. His work is wonderfully exciting and enriching. Sorry for
the length, but it highlights several of the issues which lie behind this
question of form.
"Although I am a vessel maker, I have long been concerned exclusively with
form and surface. Function in the usual sense is, therefore, peripheral.
Most of the vessels I have made, however, perform well enough as containers
but that is not intended to be their primary purpose. They are, above all,
objects created in a malleable material through which...I can express my
response to the tactile sensations of throwing and turning. They exist as
visible statements of feeling, both physical and emotional. The fact that
these objects can be categorized as 'vessels', following from many
centuries of similar domestic and ritualistic forms, is secondary to me".
Now clearly he wants "form" to play a variety of roles in the presentation
of his work and the work somehow this relates to "surface", "expression"
and "visible statements". He had a show at gallery in London, so we might
guess that has geared a certain potential market of viewers to his
particular expression.
In his article, he goes on to talk about certain representational
characteristics of his work (how they relate to English countryside),
variously entitled "Mountain Skies", "Winter Sky", etc. For me, this
raises a whole bunch of questions about the role of "representation" in his
work, and how this relates to "form" and "expression" and several other
marketing, aesthetic and communications .
These questions do not arise when I actually see his work. They arise only
when I read his account of what he says he's doing.
All of this is to say that even when ones tries to be clear, as he did in
his initial statement, it doesn't take very much looking around before one
issue - form - becomes quickly interwoven with many others.
This simple truism is just as real for someone like me as it is for him,
and it reminds me to proceed slowly when I want clarity.
When I try to talk about my pots I might be dealing with: form, finish,
function, tradition, innovation, tradition, fun, pleasure in making, the
social role of my work, is function unitary, is function an aesthetic
dimension, industrial society, how my pots relate to food, to money, to
contemporary society, etc. These issues do not usually arise when I am
actually making pots, but rather when I start thinking about the overall
enterprise.
I often wonder about where and when I might sell my stuff, but that type of
question is of a different order than the others.
Have nice day.
bob kavanagh (60 km west of montreal)
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