A Challenge

My cousin N. H. an accomplished, professional printmaker with an international reputation, a woman who has devoted her life to art, as an artist and as a teacher of art, challenged me in a phone call, in response to the blog entry about the Jerusalem Craft Fair. What exactly did I mean when I put down the man who was trying to make a living as a potter? (I didn't mean to put him down. I have a lot of respect for his skill. I know how hard it is to do the kind of work that he does. It's just that if I did have his high level of skill, I don't think I would use it to make 100 mugs all the same, etc.).

I respect N.'s responses enormously, because she's thought about these things, taught about them, and also lived them. She's a fine artist, not a craftswoman. But printmaking has a lot of craft to it, a lot of technique, a lot of process. As she pointed out to me in the phone call, my profession - I am a translator - is also a kind of craft, and I have spent years and years trying to get better at it - even when the task at hand is a routine, even boring, I try to do the best job I can, to use all my skills. So how is that different from the potter who applies all his skill and experience to producing a series of mugs, jugs, bowls, and so on?

I guess it has to do with the level of creativity involved in the task. If I'm translating a carefully written work of literature, a work that embodies creativity, then I need creativity, too. The same goes for making pots.

There were 3 other ceramicists showing their wares at the fair, whose work I respected more than that of the man I mentioned. All three were prolific - they had a lot of ware for sale - but they were also more creative, more experimental, and they made fewer examples of each type of their work. It's very challenging not only to start off every day, making things, but also to make new things and new types of things every day, to master new processes. I'm still at the beginning stage in pottery, where the basic techniques are challenging: centering a pot, building it up, getting it thin and light, controlling the shape. But I can already see that meeting the early challenges only brings you face to face with new ones.