Francoise Melville on fri 19 apr 96
Carl wrote: ......What's not great is when the serious artist (or
even the casual artist) gets slighted by by-the-book production-run cast
ware ceramics, either in word or in the market place.....
So true. Two years ago I had a lot of my pots - mostly functional
plus several decorated plates which though functional, were designed to be
hung on the wall - for sale in a gallery-like establishment which purported
to stock nothing but local art and crafts. However, over the months things
gradually changed until one day I saw that my pots were sharing their
shelves with haphazardly placed pale pink and baby blue glazed slip-cast
soup tureens and chamber pots, and terra cotta flower pots which had been
painted with a textured acrylic product. The plates on the wall were often
neighbours to slip-cast and acrylic painted mariners' heads. The whole
lot was labeled 'pottery made by local artists'. In fact the stuff on the
shelves was labeled 'pottery by F. Melville'. Well, I don't sell my work
there any more, probably to my own financial loss.
By all means let the hobby-ceramists enjoy doing their thing and
give or sell the results to whomever might want it, but please, don't try
and pass it off for something which it is definitely not.
Francoise
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