Wes Rolley on mon 17 may 04
At 02:32 AM 5/17/04 -0400, you wrote:
>A friend's project was rejected from this year's SIGGRAPH,
>International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive
>Techniques. In the letter they wrote, it said the project submitted was
>too similar to his prior one accepted at the last conference (not
>really so) and also that the photos lacked appropriate detail (definite
>fault).
>
>How interesting it would be if similar responses could be sent out from
>art and pottery juries!
It would be appalling.
So many people have, through the years, attacked art critic Clement=20
Greenberg for many things, but generally not for the fact that he viewed=20
the art as a history of forever pushing on to new things. He had so much=20
influence in the mid-20th century that the creation of art became a=20
continuous game of "pushing the envelope" and only the new got recognized.
Pottery, on the other hand, can never escape its traditions. There is=20
always the fact that most pottery making has been the production of vessels=
=20
(generally round) intended for use and that such production is most=20
productive when using a wheel of some kind. There is even a tradition of=
=20
sculptural pottery going back to the Chinese use of pottery to imitate=20
bronze ware, or to build an army to protect the dead. The best of potters=
=20
find ways to make something true to their own personality, their own=20
aesthetic sense, their current interest. The Japanese potter, Rosanjin,=20
was famed for his ability to recreate pottery forms of the past. Yet even=
=20
Rosanjin felt that it was impossible to make what had been made before=20
because we are different people living in different times.
When a potter tries to continually make something new, maybe to get into a=
=20
bigger show or better gallery, the result is too often "silly pots" that=20
would have a future archaeologist wondering about the decline of art in our=
=20
age. Every really good "new" thing that I have made came about because I=20
was improving my skills in one area or another. Maybe that is why I have=20
consciously limited my choice of clay body, glaze components, etc. until I=
=20
feel that I have truly exhausted all of the potential in them.
"I find I have a great lot to learn =96 or unlearn. I seem to know far too=
=20
much and this knowledge obscures the really significant facts, but I am=20
getting on." -- Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Wesley C. Rolley
17211 Quail Court
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
(408)778-3024
Kathy Forer on mon 17 may 04
On May 17, 2004, at 10:25 AM, Wes Rolley wrote:
> When a potter tries to continually make something new, maybe to get
> into a bigger show or better gallery, the result is too often "silly
> pots" that would have a future archaeologist wondering about the
> decline of art in our age.
Oh dear, I didn't even consider the point that critically detailed
responses to rejected slides might actually influence the work itself.
Naive, I suppose. Feedback of some kind would be nice, though. Well,
maybe that's my thing only. Perhaps it would all boil down to "we have
sixteen yellow pots with square handles and can't take yours" and then
you'd go and make an orange one the next year. But I don't think we're
organized that way. Maybe simple slide feedback would be more useful,
less judgmental.
Kathy Forer
www.kforer.com
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