![]() ![]() Here is an illustrative statement from Ayumi Horie’s emblematic web page, “Pots in Action,” that is representative of what I like to call the Neo-Functional Movement, I know I am not the only contemporary functional potter who has experienced this. It is a direct and simple reward to know my aesthetic has touched her life. A woman I know was sitting behind me at my daughter’s homecoming basketball game the other day she tapped me on the shoulder and said she was still enjoying using the mug I picked out for her ten years ago. She is sick and takes pills daily to keep her alive, and she sips water from my mug to swallow down her medicine. My mugs are valuable beyond their monetary worth, because people tell me so - one customer even said that one of my mugs saved her life. ![]() Until it sells, however, I’ll use it every day. My mug is worth every penny of the asking price, though I would be quite willing to give half of the money to whomever sells it. I have a favorite mug I use every day that I value at $6 million, $300,000 more than the highest price ever paid for a piece of contemporary ceramics. My soul is at stake each time I squeeze eloquence out of dirt. My reasons for making pots are complicated and keep changing, but make them I do, and make them I will. ![]() My pots are expressions of my individuality they illuminate the world they rage against it they fascinate me with their myriad details. I am neither a ceramic artist nor a sculptor: I am a potter and I am proud. I do not want to make non-functional pots I tried it once and I did not like it, neither the process nor the outcome. I am a maker of mugs, pitchers and plates, among other things. Putting the Fun Back into Functional Pottery In this essay he attempts to reclaim functional pottery from the critics who have dismissed it. I am a relative newcomer to Garth's writing, but Hewitt has been an avid reader of ceramics periodicals and journals for many years and has been an admirer of Garth's writing even when at odds with some of its content. This essay was first published in Ceramics Monthly (June 2007) and I think it fits well in this blog because Mark Hewitt has been "Wrestling with Garth" for many years. ![]()
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