Hand Made Pottery: Find The Flaws & Embrace Them

When I talk about finding the flaws and embracing them I can't express deeply enough how passionate I am about creating dimensional art and how important it is to recognize minor imperfections as the "trademark of the artist".

There are plenty of beautiful vases, bowls, and other pottery readily available at most department stores and you know what? They all look exactly the same!

But with home studio pieces, each is one in and of itself. Sure, a good potter will be able to do small scale production work, but even so...you will always find subtle differences in each piece.

For me...Plunging fist first into a pile of mud, letting it ooze through your fingers, feeling it, shaping it, and creating something (hopefully) beautiful from it is the most soothing, hypnotic, almost sensual type of stress therapy in the world...

And I hope I never create a flawless work of art.

I've been working on a series of art plates and bowls inspired by body ink. It's always interesting to see the look on peoples faces when I walk up and ask if I can take a photograph of their tattoos.

Some people think I'm creepy but more often than not, folks are flattered...some have even gone so far as to say, "would you like to see my other tattoos?"

And then they proceed to drop their pants or lift their bras and show off ink in places I really don't want to see. Such was the case with the plate below...



Although the above design has been altered by incorporating tribal barbs, the skull in the center was from a fellas tattoo that was just above his um...uh...well let's just say, if this guy didn't "manscape", his skull tattoo would have a brown curly beard!

Recently one of my customers wrote to "gently complain" that the hand crafted piece of pottery I had made and sold them had what she described as "A preserved thumb print" on the surface of the pot. She felt this was a flaw that should have been described and therefore was unhappy with her purchase.

My friends thought I had gone completely bonkers when my reply was as follows"

"Congratulations! I think it's simply wonderful when someone discovers an original work of art with not one, but two artist "signatures". Something like that is extremely rare with my work and If I had noticed the thumb imprint myself, I would have surely offered it at a much higher price. Isn't life grand when one can stumble upon art that is truly one of a kind and unique?

But of course, this obviously is not the case with you and I want you to be completely satisfied so please carefully pack and return the pot to me within the next seven days and I'll gladly refund your money plus all associated shipping charges...regards, blah blah blah"

Well within the hour the customer wrote back to say she really hadn't thought of it as something unique and decided she was actually quite happy with her dual signature piece of art.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because each piece of art created by an artist and/or craftsman is something unique. No two will ever be exactly the same. So seek out the "flaws" and embrace them because they are the true mark of the artisans hand; whether it be a thumb print in the clay, a smudge on the canvas or a missed stitch on a hand made quilt...these are all evidence of passion. A passion that drives, consumes and must be explored and expressed. Flaws represent that passion between the artist and his work that can't be found in factory production art.

Here are some of my favorite plates from my 'black and white' religious series.

I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed making them.







When *painting* this kind of detail on clay I use an underglaze. Now the thing about underglaze is that in order to get good solid color and coverage...it requires 3-4 coats; meaning, I have to essentially paint the picture at least three times before I can kiln fire and seal it with a clear glaze...arrgh!

So here's the thing, I'm not getting old but my eyes are and when painting fine detail, then painting over it again and again, it's pretty much a given thing that I'll go "outside the lines" and if you look closely, you'll find my cherished "flaws"

When I was in high school I had a wicked art teacher. Students in class sat four to a table and I had the unfortunate luck to be sitting next to a savant of sorts. This girl could glance at anything and reproduce it flawlessly.

Our homework assignment for the week was to do a pencil drawing of a still life. I worked laboriously for nearly a week on a bowl of fruit...and truth be told, it wasn't great but I did put forth great effort.

My teacher wasn't impressed. The girl next to me drew a super realistic portrait of John Wayne. It looked like a photograph. She put my sickly bowl of fruit next to "The Duke" and said, "Your work is blah!"

Our next homework assignment involved working with clay.

I was excited.

Of course that excitement was short-lived. Previously mentioned savant classmate sculpted a beautiful life-like little pig. I on the other hand used my quarter pound of clay to create (what I considered) an exquisite abstract work of art.

Wicked teacher once again compared my work to my classmates and exclaimed, "Your work once again is blah. In fact, it's your blah two!" and she gave me an F

I was crushed, I put my heart and soul into my abstract and I felt it was grossly unfair to grade me not on the effort I put into the project but to instead grade me by comparing it to another students work.

Time went on and as the school semester was coming to a close, each student was required to enter one project in the school districts annual art show. I chose my F graded abstract sculpture and titled it "Blah Two".

My teacher was mad at me for choosing to enter what she said was an embarrassment. I stood my ground and the following weekend, my "Blah Two" won BEST OF SHOW!!!

Wicked teacher was no longer mad...she was furious.

Life was sweet...not only did I win my first award, I felt validation...but best of all, for the rest of the school year, wicked teacher never uttered the phrase "Blah" again.

Being the creative kind of guy that I am, I naturally want all my clay work to be visually pleasing and decorative...but I also want it all to be functional art as well.

I came up with an idea to make wall clocks...well, wall clocks aren't exactly *my* idea and neither is the use of clay for them...but I wanted to do something fun, whimsical and different so...

I rolled out "freeform" slabs of clay, fired them and then found these cool cat pictures. I used a transfer medium that sort of separates the image from the paper (creating a kind of decal) and adhered the image to the clay...and the results are below...









These photos don't show the 'flaws' but they are there. The rolled out slabs weren't smoothed down to a fine finish, there's little lumps and bumps and the edges were left in the intended free form curvey waves...but these are flaws to embrace and love because they are part of the artisans work.