Tom Coleman                                    

               
It's really an honor for me to be respected enough that I was asked to jury the "14th Annual Strictly Functional Pottery National." I've always believed function to be the backbone of clay and I hope that instructors never lose sight of this.  Pete Voulkos once told me that "The hardest thing to make is something that works".

It's funny, I was actually excited to sit in a small dark room and look at 13 carousels of work from clay artist all over the country.  The title "Strictly Functional" kept haunting me from the first slide to the last.  What does "Strictly Functional" mean to different individuals?  As a young potter in training I was taught that if a teapot didn't pour just right, a pitcher dripped or the glaze had crazing, it just wasn't acceptable.  In fact, at art fairs that I participated in around the early 70's, some buyers would actually bring water with them to test pots that were meant to pour.

Keeping all this in mind I started viewing the slides at first very quickly, remembering the ones that jumped out at me.  Then I went through them again taking a slower look and studying the subtleties of the more simple, quite pieces.  What a wonderful thing to see people put their own personal touch on something that used to be overly rigid, almost mathematical.  I was surprised at the amount of woodfire, soda and salt pieces submitted.  Most of these were vases, whiskey flasks, bottles and teabowls.  With these forms I didn't have to worry much if there was a little chunk of charcoal or clam shell stuck on the side except for the teabowls.  I consider these pieces a little more on the visual, functional side.  There were also quite a few low fired to mid range oxidation fired pieces with some very interesting glazes.  My only concern with some would be the toughness of the glaze surface when used over and over.

Viewing slides alone without being able to hold or see inside certain pots is always difficult.  Is the other side of the piece ugly, is the glaze inside the jar or casserole crazed, is there a big crack in the bottom? As usual some of the photographs were poor and made the work hard to view.  Some of the pieces went beyond function and some lacked good craftsmanship but all in all the majority of the work submitted was really quite good.

Entering shows juried by ones peers should be an encouraging experience, not a discouraging one.  If you were not accepted this year don't take it personally. It doesn't mean your work was bad; I could only pick around one hundred pieces.  Use any criticism as a positive to move forward. There is always another show.  I've been a studio potter for forty years and I still get turned down once in a while. Being humbled now and then helps to keep your focus.

Thank all of you for entering, without you this show would never have become what it is today.  Keep on making pots!

Tom Coleman, February, 2006