Juror's Statements from the Strictly Functional Pottery National
Susan Peterson's Statement - 12th Annual SFPN (2004)


      If you read my article in Ceramic Monthly magazine last year, you know I said I would not jury another show by slides, and here I am doing it again. In this "Strictly Functional" show there are many things to consider.  The obvious--will a pitcher pour and not drip?  Can a teapot be filled to the brim and will it pour well?  Does the pot sit squarely enough?  Is the glaze appropriate for the function? -- and so on-- but do you know how hard it is to see those things in a two-dimensional slide if the photographer has not considered the angle to be portrayed?  The profile of a pitcher or teapot often does not, cannot, show the shape of the lip or the necessary sharpness thereof. Furthermore I could not see the inside flange of any teapot lid to know if the length of that flange was sufficient to hold the lid on the pot while pouring tea. 

     It is almost impossible to choose only 100 or so slides from 1468 slides of basically good work. Then there is the question of whether purely decorative is also a reasonable function?  I chose to deny this and mostly eliminated purely sculptural or  nonfunctional.  The mystique and seductiveness of wood fire, salt and soda fire, are hard to ignore, but we must consider -- when speaking of function - the surface of a pitcher, cup, casserole, even a teapot, and the quality of easy-to-clean as well as whether or not the interior unifies the whole piece.

    Given the above list of difficulties, then what could I judge upon?  First, out of these hundreds of slides one hopes to find a few that sing lustily, that cannot go unnoticed, that really say "wow," for whatever reasons, mostly subliminal.  Then I looked for really functional pieces that could be called beautiful, or whimsical, or had the elusive attribute we call "presence."  Going over each slide countless times with the projector and screen, as well as by hand, comparing back and forth, was a monumental task.  I do not ask forgiveness, it's my fault for accepting this jury duty!

   Then there is the question of scale.  Does a 3 inch by 3 inch by 3 inch cup pack as big a wallop as a 12 inch tall bottle or a 15 inch platter?  In a slide it's hard to tell what the scale is without looking at the written dimensions of a piece, so I have to say I looked at the size of every piece on slide, but not all slides had dimensions, which deterred me. It really means that the smaller works must be outrageous to hold their own among larger objects. Obviously the exhibition is popular and I hope that end satisfies the means.

       Those I chose are the ones I thought best satisfied our expectations, but I know I may be surprised when I see them in real life. Actually I had a good time reviewing a lot of wonderful work. I tried to choose only one piece from each artist to vary the show and give more chances. I tried to choose the works that seemed to answer "strictly functional" as much as I could tell from the slides. I gave an inch several times for humor or inventiveness or when I couldn't really see the inside or the outside of a work, I had to hope for the best.

       Meanwhile, let me thank you all for coming and I sincerely hope our efforts are not entirely in vain and that the outcome will be a really good show.

Susan Peterson.       February 29, 2004

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