Judges Comments

If only!! Unfortunately that is not the real world. I just received entry forms for the Norsewear Art awards (well known in NZ) each entry must be accompanied by an artists profile and artists statement describing the concept of each piece of work entered. There a two categories Fine Arts (painting) Applied Arts (ceramics, glass, textile) I hate it that painting is thought so much superior (just an aside :o) If the work was going to be judged on the work alone you would assume that was all that was necessary, the piece of art. All sorts of things can happen, I remember a friend telling me that she submitted work to an exhibition one time. It was rejected and she was a little dissapointed because she thought that she had done well, but philosophical assuming that the judge just didn't like her work. The next time there was an exhibition though the judge had copied her idea! Stories abound. If only the work was judged on its merits alone.

Thank you Ann.

I guess of necessity judges are obliged to "thin" the applications pile so they come up with gate-keeper criteria (certainly they should not be culling applicant's work for ideas to steal). It is sad though for surely there are many many really nice pots out there made by "unqualified" hands which could find warm and welcoming homes were they just allowed to.

Best of regards, m

Yes of course judges do have to thin it down. For instance in the Norsewear awards there are a huge number of entries. People do also get accepted without having an art degree the rumour is though that they do not get accepted until they have submitted three years running though. I think this is probably a myth. It costs $50 per entry though.

i think the exact opposite. i think that work is completely tied to the creator of the piece, and that the merit of the work rests in the hands of its maker. if a pot had a life of its own, as you say, and should stand on its own merit, then any old manufactured piece would do. when i make a piece, i converse with it. sometimes i find myself planning one kind of glaze for it, and it will "ask" for something completely different. my ability to shape the pot, then listen to what it says as a piece of artwork is all based in the artist's skill.

i love knowing what is behind a piece of work, whether it is a painting, a novel, a sculpture. sometimes knowing the artist's story makes the difference in whether or not i like it. the same thing could be true of judges and shows.

I think perhaps you missunderstood me to a degree. I agree that work is tied to the creator of the piece. That is essential for it to be good, to feel the hand of the potter/sculptor, to maybe understand where they were coming from, for it to evoke a response, of awe, of wonder, of pleasure or even sometimes pain or disgust. That is what art is IMO it needs to evoke a response. However that should show in the piece, not in the paper accompanying it. If the person has a degree, or not, whether they are already established artistis or not, should not be the what is taken into account when judging a piece. It is whether the piece itself conveys the artist. Understanding the artist can sometimes be of help especially if the piece is depicting pain, or just the life of the creator. Umm such a big and complicated topic. There is also always going to personal choice and what appeals to one judge is not going to appeal to another, that is life and we all have to live with it.

"TwoKats" wrote in news:_Czrb.2748$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:

You've been working by yourself for far too long.

Cheers

JW

"annemarie" wrote in news:YwArb.5959$ snipped-for-privacy@news02.tsnz.net:

Hello discussionists

The long and the short of this discussion is that you don't have to exhibit or show if you don't want to.

Maybe the best critics of your work are the ones who put their hand in their pocket and pay for it, be it a mug or an art piece. If you can't get your work into the hands of the public you might as well become a recluse and live in a cave surrounded by what ever you've made and hold long conversations with them. I really can't figure out where this semi religious and reverent atmosphere has come from

We have a situation here now that one yearly exhibition that has always been a competition is now making a fundamental change. The organisers have taken the prize money away to take away the competative component and hope to draw on a wider range of entrants who refuse to exhibit.

I would say that the majority of potters do not exhibit from one year to the next. This includes established and named potters

However if you do exhibit you need know and to play by the rules, that is if you want to make some sort of impression or to get anywhere.

Imbuing a piece of fired clay with some sort of personality or life force and possibly giving it a name is a croc, and is not going to do it.

All for now.

New subject coming up

John W

Well if you want to be a potter/artist you do, can't make it unless you sell it. Well most of us couldn't afford to do that.

The public parting with their money is the absolute best compliment you can get. Where did this semi religious and reverent thing come in? Or are you refering to TwoKats comments about talking to his/her work. I have to admit that I don't do that unless it is to curse it when it goes wrong. However I do have strong feelings sometimes for the work, you have to like what you make. Or are you talking about how I said being moved by the work, whether it is just awe, admiration, or whatever. If we did not do that to the public our work would never ever sell. It has to do something more that what can be obtained from the Warehouse. If not we might as well all give up. Very few of us are ever going to get rich working with clay that is for sure, but we must feel something for it or it is a waste of time.

Which exhibition are you talking about?? Did I miss something in this discussion? In NZ there are lots of different exhibitions, Portage, Molly Morpeth, Norsewear, not to mention more local ones. What are you talking about in particular.

Huh? what ones are those, or do you just mean people that sell in stalls at craft markets and the like. That is one option I guess, but a pretty hard one to take. You must make in bulk, cannot sell for much more than mass produced stuff and so work your guts out for not much return. There are others like Royce McGlashen who mass produces, has the clay company as well as making his own "art" pieces. Possibly one of the most financially successful potters around NZ I suspect and still able to make his own work.

Well yes, sort of, though the rules are different all the time and every judge has his/her own set of criteria.

Well I agree the life force thing is croc. But personality? Wrong word. It is the difference between art and just mass production I guess. If you have no love for pottery, no feelings of wonder or joy or anything from either your work or others why do you do it? Surely it is much too difficult a road and not profitable enough to be doing just to make an income? The feelings when you open a kiln and things have worked the way you wanted, or are even better. So cool. Looking forward to a new topic though :o) I think it is interesting having discussions about more than just a few technical things. Oh went and had a look at a small John Parker exhibition in Avid in Wellington last week. Took some friends who were actually interested in buying some of his work but it was sold out! Now wouldn't that be nice. :o) A

This is all sooo curious to me! The analagy of sitting in a cave and making stuff is just that, sitting in a closet and talking to one's self. That is to say, if one's work does not talk to an audience, it does just that, it speaks to no one and wont ever pass for art, by definition.

As for a piece having a life of it's own, well, that is to me what makes it art. 100, 200, 500 years from now someone will still want to stop and look, touch, hold. If that attraction does not survive that long it was not art and the maker was not an artist. A blurt the piece is maybe, with some perhaps momentary resonance like a, ehm, a political poster perhaps. An illustration, maybe fantastically well done, but not art.

As for the Artist's "Papers", what, for example, do most of us now know about Caravaggio? Yet his works still "draw" people to them to the point that the paintings are priceless. Any one painting stands alone. And strong. All these years on. Altogether apart from the artist. To me that is how you know it

*is* art and it *was* made by an Artist. 'cause *it is still here* and still speaks to an audience all on it's own.

If a piece has a surviving resonance, years and years on, then it's fair to call it art, and in turn, it's maker, long forgotten, an artist.

How does that come about? By *not* being an Artist I think. By not claiming responsibility. Rather, by giving away the responsibility. I did not *make* this pot. It happened on it's own, I was just lucky enough to be here to help 'a bit.

Unfortunately I've not been 'round to help many Happen ;-)

annemarie wrote:

Well, I don't know that I can completely agree with that. It's something that I've been giving a lot of recent thought to, as it happens. I was a poet for a long time and came to the realization that, for me, the perfect poem was spoken once and once only into exactly the right ear and never repeated. The very ephemeral nature of it was part of the art, part of the longing to reach out and touch that drive all communications. IMHO.

Now I'm embarking on a different kind of art. There's something that Peter Voulkos said one time that stuck in my brain like a lance. He made reference to his later works being increasingly gestural. That notion of a pot being a gesture frozen in time has become a very powerful image for me. As I'm learning what interaction with clay is most satisfying, I'm realizing the very simple and obvious truth that graceful gestures create graceful pots. Duh! That realization shouldn't have taken more than about a nanosecond's thought, but it came as kind of an embarrassing shock to realize it.

The moving from an evanescent art form to a tangible art form is an interesting transition. Or maybe it's not. It is, at least, to me.

And one of the notions that I find most interesting is the notion of how people's pedigrees are important to their work. Frankly, it seems like utter bullshit to me. A graceful gesture, a vivacious pot is what it is regardless of whether is a complete dumb accident or the result of being institutionalized in a land-grant university or life in a garret around the corner from the Sorbonne. Why should that matter? Beauty is. It shouldn't need to know it's name. It's existence, it seems to me, is enough.

Whether something is regarded by the ages as sacred or profane is quite possibly as much a function of fashion and trend as it is anything else.

I think somewhere there is a saying that, to paraphrase, art is grace fulfilled. And frankly, in that respect, it wouldn't matter if anyone ever saw it, it'd just BE. So I agree with you there.

But I kind'a want to tack onto that that art is about communication. And onto that, to be more picky, it is sub-verbal communication. If it transcends, in the dark or no, then it is art, for it has survived trend and culture and language and time, to be exactly what it is, wonder-full.

Spunky the Tuna wrote:

Such interesting conversation. :o) You have both said so much of what I feel. This conversation was begun by comments by John Parker, potter/artist/judge (great artist/potter too) see

talked about an artist needing to do a body of work, and the artist beingjudged on that body of art, and a one off could just be a fluke.That of course is a very brief summary of what he said and does not includeall of what he said.I agreed that a potter/artist often make a body of work and growingdeveloping vision but felt that it should not necessarily be required.I liked how Morgan Larch and Spunky the Tuna :o) talked about pottery. Youare so right you can look at an ancient piece of pottery, see its grace, itsskill, its wonder, feel the hand of the potter. You do not need to know whothe potter was (though that may be interesting). Today you should not needto know the potter either (though it might be interesting.Thanks for the interesting posts.Annemarie

i agree annemarie. 14 years ago i made a particular vase "in my early days" which some judges aparently would consider "blah" because i had no resume to provide with the piece or a wordy story behind it.

one day i was trying to copy the vase in my workshop - and broke it. to this day i have not achieved another piece with the feel, color, shape, lightness, sound as that one piece i made as a beginer.

steve

steve graber

i don't exhibit in shows because i don't like the requirement where the artist "pays" a certain amount of money just to see if someone will pick the pice to put the exhibit. if you present several pieces this gets pricey. several shows even pricier. i believe somewhere in the background someone is getting A LOT of money from exhibiters that are quickly turned down only to present work from maybe 15 artists. if they attrack 500 pieces of work at even $30 per offering that's $15,000! certainly more then the jurour gets at his college to teach for a month. sounds more like a fund raiser hidden as an "art show".

i don't know why work can't be dropped off and the juror can see the original piece instead of slides. and why only ORIGINAL slides? copies ARE fine!

and i'm only talking about local shows - not ones across country where shipping & packing are problems.

steve

steve graber

i think the "artist" is the one who breaks new ground in methods and techniques. the craftsman exploits these new found techniques in his work.

a PIECE of art is something that records or conveys several senses - touch, sight, sound, experiences, invokes an old or new thought, etc. and they can be accidents by a beginer...

suits me just fine to be a craftsman with random accidents!

steve

steve graber

What a shame, and what if it was a fluke, if thats how some people seem to see it. The piece itself IMO should always stand on its own. Like ancient pottery, we don't worry who made it do we, we appreciate it for itself.