BlissPots on wed 16 jan 02
hi Becky, oh my, your pots are important...but really, that's why they =
call it jury DUTY. one of the things that make this country great is the =
right to tried by a jury of your peers... pity the poor innocent being =
tried by only those persons unable wheedle their way off. What's a few =
days in the grand scheme of things? You can still make pots and for the =
next few days you can make a difference. use this experience to =
influence your work. buck up girl and make lemonade.=20
bliss in Alaska
clennell on sat 29 apr 06
I'm off this morning to jury The Toronto Potters Exhibition along with
potter Harlan House. there should be alot of very good pots. Most will be in
the mid to low fire range and a few that live on the borders like Liz W.
with high fire. There are a few that are always in the show cause they are
consistently good. That 's not the hard part and neither is the really poor
work. I call it the the black, white and grey process. The black knights in
shining armour- easy- they're in, the white virgins that can't quite get on
their horses yet- easy- sorry, not this time keep working and then most of
the time is spent with the grey that make very good work but on this one
occassion ain't got the racers, but deserve to be in show.
Harlan always wears mismatched socks- one yellow, one red or some weird
assortment. David Hendley is now wearing mismatched Crocks. Some kind of
artists statement I think.
I have worn the same type of grey works socks for the past 30 years. That
way I never have mismatched socks. I buy the same make and the same colour.
It'll be interesting to see how this old pair of socks pick the pots. We
might have to arm wrestle for Best in Show.
Off to Toronto. I wish I could stay in my loft tonight.
cheers,
Tony
Tony and Sheila Clennell
Sour Cherry Pottery
4545 King Street
Beamsville, Ontario
CANADA L0R 1B1
http://www.sourcherrypottery.com
Liz Willoughby on sat 29 apr 06
Good luck with the jurying Tony. The Toronto Potters are a very good
bunch of potters, I am sure that there will be some interesting work
chosen, especially since it will be exhibited in the New Gardiner
Museum. I will not have pots there. I bowed out of Toronto Potters
a few years ago, felt it was time to move on.
Just keep your sock on.
Best,
Liz
Tony C. sez,
>I'm off this morning to jury The Toronto Potters Exhibition along with
>potter Harlan House. there should be alot of very good pots. Most will be in
>the mid to low fire range and a few that live on the borders like Liz W.
>with high fire.
> That 's not the hard part and neither is the really poor
>work. I call it the the black, white and grey process. The black knights in
>shining armour- easy- they're in, the white virgins that can't quite get on
>their horses yet- easy- sorry, not this time keep working and then most of
>the time is spent with the grey that make very good work but on this one
>occassion ain't got the racers, but deserve to be in show.
>
>I have worn the same type of grey works socks for the past 30 years. That
>way I never have mismatched socks. I buy the same make and the same colour.
>It'll be interesting to see how this old pair of socks pick the pots.
>
lee love on sat 29 apr 06
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, Tony wrote:
> ain't got the racers, but deserve to be in show.
Tony, let some of the "quiet" pots in too. In Japan they call this
"shibui." Yanagi explains subui as: "...not a beauty displayed
before the viewer by its creator .. a piece thay will lead the viewer
to draw beauty out of it for themselves."
You know, one of the big prizes at the Mashiko International Ceramic
Competition is the Hamada Prize. Pretty big bucks. But you know,
Hamada probably couldn't get in the show, let alone win a prize IMHO,
because refined and very "finished" work is usually chosen first.
Work that has the "feeling" stamped out of it.
Mashiko Tokichi pottery festival is going on. The farmers are
planting rice shoots in the fields. The frogs are singing!
--
Lee In Mashiko, Japan
http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/
"Really there is no East, no West,
Where then is the South and the North?
Illusion makes the world close in,
Enlightenment opens it on every side."
--Inscription inside Japanese Pligrim's Hat
clennell on sun 30 apr 06
> Good luck with the jurying Tony. The Toronto Potters are a very good
> bunch of potters, I am sure that there will be some interesting work
> chosen, especially since it will be exhibited in the New Gardiner
> Museum. I will not have pots there. I bowed out of Toronto Potters
> a few years ago, felt it was time to move on.
> Just keep your sock on.
> Best,
> Liz
Liz and Lee:
Liz: I think it unfortunate that you bowed out. Functional pots were sadly
missing with only 2 teapots, one casserole and a couple of lidded jars.
Sheila and I are very happy to be part of our guild. It is becoming the
leading clay organization in the province partly because there are many
strong clay people that are members and raising the bar each year. The next
biennial will be a drop dead killer of a show, as was this one. Sheila is
the one to topple. The guns are smokin'.
Lee- On quiet pots. Sheila won the Best in Show at HPG. The Hamilton
Spectator ran a full front page review of the show with 3 large colour
photos. Sheilas pot was not featured but described as "pale". the writer
went on to describe how the other work was so colourful, decorative and
interesting. It takes a long time to understand pots. The bright glitzy ones
make better press.
For the record on judgement day, I pick quietly.
Best to you both,
Tony
Tony and Sheila Clennell
Sour Cherry Pottery
4545 King Street
Beamsville, Ontario
CANADA L0R 1B1
http://www.sourcherrypottery.com
Hank Murrow on sun 30 apr 06
On Apr 30, 2006, at 6:32 AM, clennell wrote:
> Lee- On quiet pots. Sheila won the Best in Show at HPG. The Hamilton
> Spectator ran a full front page review of the show with 3 large colour
> photos. Sheilas pot was not featured but described as "pale". the
> writer
> went on to describe how the other work was so colourful, decorative and
> interesting. It takes a long time to understand pots. The bright
> glitzy ones
> make better press.
Dear Tony;
The Ultimate on gallery/store shelves, as well as in shows, is the vase
with iris/gladiolas/roses.etc. painted on it...........they walk or run
off the shelves. Then the too-quickly-deciding customer gets it home
and puts some beautiful flowers in it and finds the decoration suddenly
sadly lacking any life.
Meanwhile the richly textured shino or woodfired vase, unadorned, sits
quietly waiting for someone to recognize that all it needs is some
flowers to complete itself. As you already know, when picking vases,
think of where those flowers grow........ next to or out of rocks.
Cheers, Hank
www.murrow.biz/hank
clennell on sun 30 apr 06
>
> Meanwhile the richly textured shino or woodfired vase, unadorned, sits
> quietly waiting for someone to recognize that all it needs is some
> flowers to complete itself. As you already know, when picking vases,
> think of where those flowers grow........ next to or out of rocks.
>
>
> Cheers, Hank
> www.murrow.biz/hank
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
Hank: Indeed you're right! The flowers complete the vase.
About 8 years ago when I moved here I won a award at our guild and in my
acceptance speech I sounded off on aesthetics. Poor timing and regrets in
retrospect. The just of it was that we must move above standards of crazing
and scratchy bottoms and develop a persosnal esthetic so that our craft
would receive the attention Cdn women singers are acheiving. the general
membership wanted to hang me and I was the most hated man in the guild.
Sheila was popping Advil and I slept poorly.
In a craft auction a guild member Brian McCann started the bidding on a jug
of mine listed at $250 with a bid $1.50. It was a good humoured "take that
you big mouth". He was a Phd in Geography and had put down smarter Alex's
than me before. I looked at him , laughed and called him a bastard. All was
forgotten, we had purged ourselves and moved on as friends. he was one that
had wanted to kill me.
In the latest HPG Juried Show his wife Louise won "best Functional" and
shared the podium with Sheila and Darlene. Louise's gorgeous vase had a
piece of a cone stuck to it. Louise lost Brian to cancer a few years ago and
her sister just recently. I had helped Darlene and Louise build and fire the
train that delivered the award for Louise. I had this strange presence of
Brian when I loaded our woodkiln today. he would certainly have upped his
bid to over $2.00. I wonder if I did change the asethetic of our guild on
that day ?
It has changed and it is getting very strong. Quiet and strong prevails with
the urging of a big mouth.
Cheers,
Tony Big Mouth Clennell
Kim Overall on mon 1 may 06
Not necessarily so Tony C. Maybe in some instances we can learn by
observation. But to get the point across,or understood, it helps to
listen or read. Pretty boring without communication.
Kim in Houston
Liz Willoughby on mon 1 may 06
Dear Tony and Claybuds,
Something that might warrant discussion on this list is the value of
functional work when it is entered into a juried show. I wish that
Canada or Ontario had a show like the Functional Show in the States.
Somehow, I think that functional work is left out up here, as far as
being as appreciated in the Galleries or at shows. One place that
comes to mind that refutes that statement however is Jonathons in
London, Ontario. His gallery is full of Canadian pottery, all kinds,
and seems to focus on function. He deserves a lot of credit for what
he is doing for ceramics in Canada. His enthusiasm is contagious.
Maybe I have lived out of Toronto too long, and am out of touch.
However, I do know about Toronto Potters as I had been a member for
many years, before I decided to bow out. Most of the work submitted
is sculptural, and most of the members do sculptural work. However,
quite a few do do functional work. Sometimes what happens is that
they feel that because if it has a "use", it will not be accepted, so
they try for sculpture. There are a few though that do exceptional
functional work, submit it and I hope that a couple of them did get
an award.
I think that belonging to a guild is very good. Especially if it has
high standards, and the Hamilton Potters Guild and Toronto Potters
are very good examples of this.(To explain, they are guilds that do
not have a shared studio, but individual potters who belong, have
meetings, and guest speakers, etc...)
To tell you the truth Tony, I left T.P. because I felt that I wasn't
pulling my weight contributing to the guild, even though in the past
for many years I had been on many committees and been on the
executive. And also, this is not blowing my horn, but I felt that it
was someone else's turn to start winning some of those awards for
function.
There are some very good functional potters at T.P. and I am happy
with the one's that are walking away with the awards. But of course,
as you know as a juror, and as a potter who submits work to shows, it
quite often is subjective or a compromise when handing out the awards.
It is unfortunate that we don't have better coverage in the press on
what we do. It is too obvious sometimes that the people who write
reviews just don't "get it".
Meticky Liz from Grafton, Ontario, Canada
where the sun is shining, the birds are feeding, the bulbs are
blooming, and the grass has been cut.
>
>Liz: I think it unfortunate that you bowed out. Functional pots were sadly
>missing with only 2 teapots, one casserole and a couple of lidded jars.
>Sheila and I are very happy to be part of our guild. It is becoming the
>leading clay organization in the province partly because there are many
>strong clay people that are members and raising the bar each year. The next
>biennial will be a drop dead killer of a show, as was this one. Sheila is
>the one to topple. The guns are smokin'.
>Lee- On quiet pots. Sheila won the Best in Show at HPG. The Hamilton
>Spectator ran a full front page review of the show with 3 large colour
>photos. Sheilas pot was not featured but described as "pale". the writer
>went on to describe how the other work was so colourful, decorative and
>interesting. It takes a long time to understand pots. The bright glitzy ones
>make better press.
>For the record on judgement day, I pick quietly.
>Tony
>
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