About Jonbesh e Sabz, or Iranian Green Movement in London

(For this post, and on this blog, I’m going to refer to the ‘jonbesh e sabz,’ or ‘green movement’ in London as the just ‘sabz’ to avoid any confusion with ‘The Green Party.’)

The ‘jonbesh e sabz’ is, or was, allied to that constituency that voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi - although I think the green was associated originally with the Mousavi campaign (?) However, it has now broadened considerably. Here in London, it is more of a big green umbrella, appropriately enough for this summer. The Sabz includes people who voted for Mousavi or Karoubi; many of the ‘old left,’ the campaigners from the original, 1979 revolution, before it was Islamised; it includes people who didn’t vote at all and wouldn’t dream of so doing because they don’t believe in or want an Islamic Republic anyway; and various other odds and sods, like me, who join because we believe in solidarity, used to live in Iran and / or because we have much loved friends or relatives in Iran.

So the Sabz in London is diffuse, slightly confused, a bit disorganised, is eager to be inclusive, is working on being bilingual - meetings and social relations are conducted entirely in Farsi, but the facebook site, is a mix of Farsi and English - the news of demos, meetings etc are in English, the discussion groups vary. Sabz is also allied to United 4 Iran, which is international, in intention anyway, and is primarily focused on Human Rights. So some people in the group are more focused on the welfare of their protesting friends and family at home, in Iran, others on campaigning for Human Rights in Iran, others on developing practical campaigns in the UK that can be supportive to the protesters in Iran, such as the Boycott Nokia campaign. These are, we could say, all part of the colouration of the group. They are not differences as such.

We are highly resistant to being rearranged into some kind of organised, command and control, ‘party in exile.’ I think the Sabz are somewhat resistant to the idea of leaders at all, although of course, there are dominant characters. They let me in, so they must be pretty flexible. I think I’m right in saying that they/ we are wholly committed to non-violent means. Any notion of military action is absolutely out of the picture. It is also for this reason that, as it says, somewhere on the facebook site, we are not concerned with ‘regime change.’ The expression is redolent of war, bombs, guns and misery, to say nothing of the absence of democracy.

Most of the people I’ve talked to so far and certainly all of my personal friends would prefer a secular government. However, they are working with what is actually there at the moment, which is an Islamic Republic which, as I said in the previous post, is the source from which Mousavi springs. So, you can say that there is an inherent contradiction at the heart of this – hooray- I like contradictions. I guess I like them because it gives you something to work with. It’s when you try to form something that is perfect from the outset, that you know it’s doomed to failure.

So, if you’re interested, do come along. Have a look at that link again. Scroll down a bit to find the current information on the demonstrations. At the time of writing and for the foreseeable future, we are opposite the Iranian Embassy, Princes Gate, London, (Knightsbridge is the nearest tube), from 6.00-9.00pm Thursdays and from 4.00-7.00pm Sundays. It’s a good idea to wear something green and something black, especially if you’re obviously not Iranian, because then people know that you’re there to be with them. Slogans are in English and Farsi, so don’t worry if you don’t know any Farsi, you’ll get to shout too, and placards, flags etc are provided. Bring an umbrella. Next post, I’ll provide examples of slogans and songs, with some stuff about what it all means. Shall also try to find out more about this Nokia campaign.

Is Mousavi the real deal?

(About the relationship between Mr. Mousavi and Green Movement, and what it all might mean.)
The five images above were taken in Tehran in the first couple of days after the election. The top image is our protest in Hangar Lane, London, outside the offices of Press TV - see the last paragraph of this post for comments on that.

'Is Mousavi the real deal?'

This question, which my niece asked me a couple of days ago, has been bobbing about in the back of my mind for some time now. It is, of all the questions, the one which most often surfaces, not least among Iranians.

The first thing I want to say is that there is no ‘real deal’ for Iran. There is no ‘saviour.’ Iran cannot be 'saved' by one leader or another, either from within the country or from outside. It is in process – a long process, I suspect, and probably a messy one. This work–in–process, I believe, is as much social as it is political: it has as much to do with the way social lives are conducted as it does with the actions of government.

Mir Hossein Mousavi is wholly of the Islamic republic. He conforms to the model of the ‘mainstream, traditional, small-c-conservative, Muslim,’ as does Karoubi and, for that matter, Khaatemi. He, and others like him, are a necessary part of the equation which needs to be worked out. This process can’t happen without Mousavi and his ilk being involved, of that I am certain. I just can’t imagine what they can do with the unholy Trinity of the Basij, the Revolutionary guard and the Supreme Leader – I have a feeling Ahmedinejaad is almost irrelevant in this set up – he could be exchanged for anyone.

‘Mousavi has killed a lot of people,’ says one of my Iranian friends, herself a refugee. She is referring to the 1980s, when Mousavi was Prime Minister and many people were indeed executed and killed in prison. ‘Has he really changed?’she asks. This question is repeated by many.

I have no idea. I do know that people sometimes change their strategies though, particularly when the context changes. And the Iranian context has, unquestionably, changed: its social context has changed beyond recognition from the time when M. was prime minister, as has the economy, as has have the surrounding international relations, and on top of all of that, mass communications have extended the reach of all of those changes.

I hope that Mousavi does not attempt to be too much of a ‘real deal,’ – the martyr / hero talk worries me, but martyr / hero talk always does. If he ever does become President, then I hope he rolls up his sleeves and is a bit boring and serviceable. Iran doesn’t need any more drama queens and the most inspiring sort of leader would be someone who wasn’t too inspiring, just very practical and good at building things - socially and poltically, I mean, they've got more than enough fancy mosques and noxious government buildings.

It’s just come to my notice that His Royal Loathsomeness, George The Glistening Turd of Galloway, has a programme on PressTV, (shame on you), called ‘The Real Deal,’ in which, presumably, he broadcasts his ignorance to the Nation with his customary, matchless pomposity. If this is the real deal then I sincerely hope Mr. Mousavi isn’t.

Payande Iran! (Viva / Long Live Iran): Iranian Protests in London in support of the protestors in Iran.

(An account of a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy In London, August 6th, 2009 in very heavy rain, with comments on the Iranian Election of 2009 and introducing the green movement / Sabz here in London.)

I remembered, last night, why it was that God created the Victoria Line. It is there not to punish commuters on exceptionally hot days, of which, let’s face it, there are relatively few in London, rather it is there to dry out soaking wet demonstrators. We could consider it London Transport’s contribution to participatory democracy. Or we could just consider it a giant mobile drying machine – one which was particularly welcome at 9.30 pm on Thursday August 6th, the first day of the second phase of demonstrations, actions and, which is most important, movement-building for ‘jonbesh e sabz e Landan’ or London’s Green Movement supporting the protestors in Iran.

We arrived outside the Iranian Embassy, Princes Gate, London, at 6.00pm. A hot airless day produced a sudden stream of cool air and small spitting raindrops. By 6.20 it gushed and verily it continued to gush, torrentially and relentlessly, yeay unto the very last minute of our demonstrating and lo the mighty torrent rushing in the road did swell and roar and threaten to carry off our flags and banners – to say nothing of the long-suffering police sent to keep an eye on us. It takes a good deal more than that, however, to silence the voices of distraught and angry Iranians. Undaunted by somewhat inhospitable English weather, they gathered, as they have done, day in, day out, since June 13th, the day after the fraudulent elections, and howled their disapproval and fury at the Embassy.

I have not witnessed all of them, although I well remember the arrival of all the images of Neda Agha Soltani at the demo on Sunday the 21st of June, the day after she had been shot dead by the Basiji in Tehran. The daily gatherings of thousands of Iranians outside the Embassy continued until, at the request of the police, it was reduced to twice weekly, Thursdays and Sundays. We added different venues on different days. We went and hurled invective at Press TV, one of George Galloway’s little hang outs, on Mondays, and we’re still trying to get at the Russian Embassy, only they’re probably all too busy having punch-ups with grizzly bears to notice us. This week we gathered Monday and Wednesday to protest the inauguration and reinstating of Ahmedinejad as president. This evening, Friday, they will gather outside the Islamic Centre in Kilburn to mourn the murdered and to demand the justice for the detained and disappeared. We shall be doing the same on Sunday and Thursdays and Sundays hereafter outside the Embassy, until the police ask us to move on or until the cracks in the regime finally split.

Ahmedinajad is not the elected the president of Iran. The election was a grotesque travesty of democratic process, an obscene charade, as are the carnival of show trials now in process. It can rain all it likes. The Victoria Line will still be there to dry us out and we shall continue to get soaked.

Ceramics Degree Show, Camberwell College of Arts and New Desingers, 2009

If you want to get completely lost in a Degree Show, this is the place to do it. Camberwell always was a warren and it hasn’t changed. Once you’re in, it’s near impossible to find any way out.

But here I am and none the worse for it. Camberwell ceramics degree show was an optimistic affair. The only dedicated ceramics undergraduate course left in London, it marches on regardless. This was the final year for that spirited group known as Buff, (see labels on the right for commentary of the Buff Extravaganza Spring 2008). Their degree show, though individual now rather than a group endeavour as before, very much fulfilled the promise suggested by Buff.

Mud Larks, Party Frocks and Headless Chickens and Well'ard Angles.
Julia Kubik had become a mud lark and collected Thames detritus in the form of clay-pipe stems, washed up on the pebbly shores of the mighty London river. (Btw, these are tabacco pipe-stems for that archaic act of smoking.) These she had threaded singly so they all hung from the ceiling in a carefully graded, bristling mass, from charcoal grey to almost white, like a cloud, recalling the smoke from the pipes and the mist over the Thames. Philip Li had moved on from curling eyelashes and white cups with water-melon pink liquid to well-‘ard, block rocking, angular lumps of fired clay arranged on steel shelving in a cavernous recess all set about with dials and instruments of industrial might. A photograph called Statue shows him on a plinth with fired clay shoulder addition, surrounded by lights. This looked like the lab or den in which he, the statue, was constructed, slightly frankensteinish and fiendish.

Rebecca Fairman’s journey through the less charming side of family life continued and developed. The bed appeared again, but is context made it appear completely different, more benign, more innocent perhaps. At the end of the bed hung a slinky gown constructed of hundreds of tiny ceramic pieces – the top made of mottled glazed ceramic orange peelings, shrivelling at the edges, and the skirt of very smoothly glazed, blistering red peppers. The acidic, bitter, burning apparel in orange and red suggested a glamorous but distant, maybe slightly vicious character, less innocent-looking than the bed anyway.

Some inverted chickens with gold legs and their heads in layers of foam / fibreglass or similar, sprinkled beneath with blue dropping was both funny and slightly horrifying. And there was much much more. Degree shows are a moment of concentrated anarchy and a moment when the students get a chance to show their work as they want it seen, before the curators and institutions get hold of them and start of mould them in a career-shaped candidate.

Which leads me neatly on to New Designers.

The first impression of New Designers is one of an overdose of very nice clean stuff. I looked only at the ceramics and that was nice and clean too. This, I think, is my highly inexpert, defining word for Design – with a capital D - Clean, and Tidy. The exhibition spaces are, as someone put it, ‘like little shop fronts.’ It suits some stuff, but really doesn’t suit the stuff which isn’t design – or that’s manky or just needs a dirty space. Fairman’s bed is a perfect example of this, incidentally. I’ve seen it in three contexts now and it definitely isn’t a product – it’s a story, or rather it’s many stories, and quite literary ones at that. It thrives in an entirely different context. ND is for products. Nothing else really works. The Westminster and Camberwell shows did not, this year, specialise in products and, in most cases, the work suffered in this somewhat stifling environment. Much of it could hold its own, but I’d seen it look so much better elsewhere. See labels in right hand column, ‘Rebecca Fairman’ and ‘Buff’ and you’ll see what I mean. Perhaps it’s time for the New Designers stranglehold on craft disciplines to be broken.

Socially very fully engaged practice.
I’m not overly interested product design, not even product design that’s been reinvented as art, Lamp-Kebab notwithstanding, so I’ll select the one work that really grabbed me. Step forward Laura Masson, www.lmceramics.co.uk . Laura works directly in consultation with children in the development of her work. Her entire degree, show included, was a collaborative project with various children’s groups and organisations. The results and the thinking that is part of it are stunning. Firstly, not only are children allowed to play with porcelain, PORCELAIN, - don’t you just love it? – they’re actively encouraged to take part in the design and development of these things. Then they play with them to their hearts’ content, while contributing to further design developments. Risk is encouraged, breakage not a cause for anxiety, and their own care and manual dexterity is developed along the way. Having spent much of an afternoon involving myself with the social aspects of craft at the Jerwood do, here was an object lesson in how to do just that, as well being the only example I’ve ever seen of porcelain as a voice for one of the world’s most marginalised social groups– now how subversive is that?!

Jerwood Contemporary Makers, 2009

JCM, version 2.0

Enter: Lamp Kebab, Phat Knitting, Furry Flock Floor tiles, climbing up the wall like a strange virus culminating a in a pattern vaguely resembling a map of the London Underground, a spikey light hanging from the ceiling, a sort of woven maze, and some bits and pieces dredged up from the bottom of the sea with carefully made ceramic bits added.

This year’s Jerwood show was satisfyingly different from last year’s. Next year will be the last in the run of this version of the Jerwood prize for the applied arts and, by then, an overview of sorts will have been achieved. Last year the theme of ‘touch’ was explored by the selected makers, which was a ghastly idea but produced some tremendous work (and some not) and, arguably, deployed one of craft’s more potentially problematic fixations, namely that of the skilfully hand-made. This year it’s gone social, plural, industrial-in-conversation-with-studio, collaborative – possibly. and altogether less fetishistically hand-made. It is certainly more socio-politcally positioned / aware / questioning, in terms of the actual approach to making and for that reason alone, makes for a healthy addition, building on last year’s selection.

I recall last year that I announced, rashly, that I’d lost interest in textiles, or something similar. I certainly recall that I found last year’s textile work a crashing bore. This year’s fared much better, perhaps being more responsive to the pluralistic, social approach. The giant woven textile maze – which wasn’t a maze, that ‘s just how I experienced it – was impressive, if inexplicably so. I didn’t like the feeling of being trapped, suffocated in this giant, very tightly woven wall with things scrawled on it, so I got out and didn’t go back. Linda Florence’s flock tiles were appealing initially as her work always is, (click on Linda Florence label in right hand column for a review of her work at the V&A), and the idea was beautiful but somehow didn’t quite work in that annoying way that beautiful complex ideas often don’t. Her written statement works better. That’s just the way these things go sometimes. The social knitting was, I thought, and absolute triumph and prompted me to remember that I have a particular love for knitting – fond memories of a crafts council show in the 80s about the knitting of Gansey jumpers – a sort of social history of fishing in wool. Anyway, this kitting escapade was by Rachel Matthews and involved people sending her bits of unfinished kitting which she rescued and remade or completed, or rearranged. Each had its own story. There was some heroic look-what-I-can-do-with-wool type knitting which was excessively fanciful in a WI, village flower show sort of way, which I enjoyed very much and cheered the Jerwood Space up no end – eg floral knitted spectacles frame, and an exemplary jumper that was like a woolly wall with roses growing up it.

And there was the Lamp Kebab: a pink lampshade supported by various household objects, including a pink boxing glove that might have been an oven glove, threaded up the pole like a kebab. Then all the other rejected objects were arranged on a table next to it. This was by ‘Committee.’ I wont say their names, because anonymity in an industrial mass-production sense is presumably part of the point. Here, is a selection of four of the works. One of the dominant impressions of this year’s show was of things that were appealing, public spirited and good natured. The spikey lamp especially so, all very very environmentally well thought out. It wasn’t the kind of art that moves you especially, (although there were some very sweet and moving moments in the knitting stories and in Florence’s written commentary), nor was it the kind of Craft that makes you gasp at its virtuosity, but it did make me laugh – even when it didn’t quite work. Full marks for that. A girl needs a laugh in these days of voluminous atrocity. Will someone make me a Lamp Kebab please?

Horses Make A Degree Show Look More Beautiful: Harrow Ceramics Degree Show 2009

Plagued, first by fire, then by threats of closure and, finally, by tube strikes, Harrow Ceramics marches on undaunted. This was certainly one of the most varied of their degree shows that I’ve seen and easily the most colourful. They’re normally pale shades of grey, all very finely tuned and produced, but ‘clay colours’ nonetheless. Not so this one. Now then, a monumental hats off to Chris Sutherland for a rare example of astounding virtuosity that also managed to be interesting – I know, you wouldn’t think it possible, but it is. As per the previous post, I am normally bored to death by virtuoso displays, but this was actually enticing. Weird great big dead baby birds, the size of three year old children, (and that’s the point), were draped over plinths and slumped in corners. I didn’t exactly feel for them, partly because I was distracted by the glazes, but most people, presumably, wouldn’t be. They’re funny looking cartoon characters, exactly the sort of thing you’d expect find in computer game graphics, or vinyl LP-cover artwork, only these were 3-d and ceramic. Weird, as I said.

There were two or three installationy-type displays, some more interactive than others and an assortment of standard ceramics degree show fare- but all of it several notches above the ‘standard,’ I’d say. Geraldine Williams produced wonderful ‘whore’s handbag,’ Victorian-looking peep show comprising a big, red, fake-crushed-velvet-covered box with peep hole and when you were sitting peeping through said hole, the whiff of the velvet was almost nauseating. I’ve never been in such a booth, but I have to say, I’ve got a good idea of just how grotesque it might be now. It also did very very weird things to my sense of gender-assignment – which is a fancy way of saying I felt like a bloke. I’d just been reading an account, in ‘Whores and Other Feminists,’ by a woman who was a peep-show performer. The book is a bizarrely and ferociously American, obsessive wail about Feminism and the sex industry, but fascinating even so. Anyway, Geraldine’s work tuned right in and for a moment, I was the teenage boy jerking off over something that looked like a twirling Christmas decoration / pretty ceramic figurine in magic box. Brilliantly fetishistic and provocative but in a not too serious way – which was a relief and which makes it a big improvement on the book. There were some laughs in the red box– as there were in the rest of her work.

And from whores to horses, Hiromi Nakajima’s smoke fired animals also belong to a standard category in degree show production, but these were anything but standard. ‘Working with animals makes me happy,’ she says in what must be one of the most straight forward artists statements I’ve ever read. Her glorious beasts writhed and giggled and stretched and snuffled and the smiling horses – oh the smiling horses – sniffing clover – she’d made them a paddock with real grass and clover and they screwed up their eyes and, somehow you just know, that when the lights are out, they start galloping about.

There’s lots more and it’s all good, and excellent pictures can be seen here.

Francis Kyle Gallery: Psiché Hughes Ceramics

Had these works been made with any greater hand-work skill, craftsmanship, or ceramic technical knowledge, they would simply have been unspeakable. They would have resembled the worst kind of meretricious ceramic ‘kitsch’ associated with the craft shoppe, and from which the oh so tasteful craft connoisseur recoils, nay cringes, with embarrassment, appalled at the unholy image of craft that mocks him from the mirror frame. Psiché Hughes’ work confronts us – (the ceramics audience at any rate), with questions concerning the social construction of taste accompanied by a question of what constitutes skill – dare I say it – a question of epistemology. What counts as skill in ceramics is far from a given, although you could certainly be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the extent to which the word is used wholly uncritically and without interrogation in most of the writing, talking and teaching related to Ceramics.

Family Tree
We acquire skill with which to manipulate clay, this slippery, muddy stuff, at once pliable and compliant in some ways but, as Grayson Perry once observed, remarkably intolerant of amateurs. So the work gets shiny and accomplished, a little too accomplished perhaps, its absurdity becoming just too evident, embarrassing, so we rush to theorise and call on irony, for how else can we escape the worst excesses of our own bourgeois associations? It’s a bit like having embarrassing relatives – we think our own practices to be sound and appropriately knowing/ tasteful (or ironic – delete as applicable), / (in)authentic/ (post) modern – you can take your pick, but what about those others? Those others that aren’t us? Those makers of wobbly brown pots, or wobbly white pots or makers of uber-designed not/pots or makers of (my own particular pet hate and designated ‘other,’) the makers of ‘the female form’ - bleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!

East End Boys and West End Girls
Then, every so often, along comes an artist like Psiché Hughes and blows the whole ghastly edifice apart – almost certainly without meaning to which is, of course, the only way it can be done IF – and this is important - you’re going to do this way, that is without irony. And it gets worse. She’s done it in public in, wait for it, a Cork street gallery - actually it’s not, it’s Maddox St, but same difference – and since this bit is all about context, let’s take a couple of lines to examine that. Now I didn’t know these places still existed. I sort of did, but I freely admit I took absolutely no notice of them. I have no idea if anyone else does, but I was under the impression that the East End ruled, that the whole Cork St. thing had been blown clean out of the water 15 years ago by the Three Graces and that the West End was finished. I thought that Cork St was old money, Fine Art of the fiiiiinest variety and, bluntly, redundant. Old. And for all I know that may be right. Waddingtons is still there though. And it’s all looking pretty much the same as it did 25 years ago. What I don’t know is whether that is its strength or its weakness. Now that the East End is unquestionably the Establishment – (see Saatchi Gallery – gone West End) – will we turn round and regard the West End with some lingering respect? I honestly don’t know.


New Becomes Old Becomes New
I do know it will have to reinvent or at least refresh itself – it needs to be demonstrably alive but the interesting thing, potentially, is that these were the dealers of ‘fine art’, in other words craft, as in Camberwell School of Art and Craft. They were the dealers of paining, printmaking and drawing on paper. Old fashioned crafts by anyone’s estimation. So will they invigorate themselves by dealing in art that contains contemporary craft practices? Countless thousands of artist paint, draw, reproduce things on paper, and in clay and use lens-based media to make highly crafted films and photographs. So, let us hope that these dealers engage themselves with these practices. If they do, then we are in for an exciting time –but they should be warned that this space is not just vacant – Jay Jopling’s White Cube is doing exactly that and has been doing for some months now.

Study Collection
So let’s get back to the artist and translator who generated all this: Psiché Hughes. A small collection of her work, distributed among the pigeon holes of a white display case resembles the results of the curious empirical enquiry of a botanist or natural historian of another age materialised in clay. It even more closely resembles a study of ceramic types, like a series of approximations which seek to imitate or even ‘perform’ ceramics – like someone who attempts to perform gender, doesn’t do it very well so tries it in numerous different ways until finally ‘coming out’ as transgendered – and proud.

Performing Ceramics
At first glance, the collection of objects presented in their white pigeon holes, look like someone’s collection of pottery but instead of buying the original object, they decided to make copies. Thus we have: the Lucie Rie, the Gabby Koch, the imitation souvenir from Morocco, the shell and the faux fruit and veg – the sort you get from a semi-posh kitchen ware shop to put in the fruit bowl in the absence of real fruit. The ‘Moroccan Souvenir’ should be symmetrical with flat lid, but it’s wonky, it flops a bit to one side. It would be cleanly, faultlessly re/produced by a Properly Trained Designer, but it would also be ‘knowing’ and ‘ironic’ in some way, a ‘comment’ on the souvenir industry. Hughes, however, does not concern herself with such predictable nonsense. Why should she? As a translator of Spanish American literature she has more understanding of satire in her little finger than the average clunky designer can amass in a lifetime of attempted ironic comment - comment which is rarely, if ever, backed up with any understanding at all of what satire actually is, what it’s for, or how it works. No, this is a carefully but imprecisely made study. It’s not a ‘quotation,’ it is a performance. The wonky lines on the Rie pot and its all-round wonkyiness, the pretend ‘designer’ fruit all deliver the same message. They’re a careful, loving study, tender and wholly unselfconscious.

Translation
I wonder, for a while, if this is a ‘knowing’ execution, even though there is clearly no attempt at irony. Then I see the oranges in the fruit bowl and the penny drops. They are not oranges in fruit bowl exactly, they are a ceramic rendering of a painting of oranges in a fruit bowl. They are arranged to the point of seeming to be almost flat. They are certainly not trompe l’oeil but they are oddly convincing because they can be comfortably believed as a version of a painting of an arranged still-life which itself signifies an ordered version of real-life. The orange and lemon skins are not rendered in glaze – why bother - all that kerfuffle and for what - just to prove that the maker can make orange peel glaze? Not only is the image clearly articulated by acrylic paint, it also clarifies the intention. These are not meant to be ‘proper’ ceramics. She is – well – translating – as she has always done.

Painting
Hughes makes clay objects with the eye of a painter. What painters constitute as important, valuable, and as skill is categorically different from the way potters assess these things. Painters see, collect and show and make ceramics completely differently from potters and, in the UK at least, the differences between these ways of seeing and comprehending is enhanced by the difference in the original training. The vast majority of artists working in clay in the UK have trained as potters and what they constitute as skill, as proper making, is largely concerned with material finesse. The joins must join, the glaze mustn’t have bubbles – you can’t concern yourself with how the bubbles look, if they look right – it’s just not – well – pottery – by definition they DON’T look right. You can’t let things break and then glue them back together again, unless its done in a proper way – raku or something. That’s permitted breakage. Potters have rules of engagement – a sort of haram and halal approach to things. And painters do too, and this is what potters don’t get. Take colour, for example. Tone, saturation, local colour, distribution of weight, the visual equivalent of sentence stress – it all matters, but not to potters who tend to just jumble it all up in a firework display of dreadful virtuous glaze technique. Oooooooooooh – look how clever she is! Look at those crystals! Will you just LOOK at those finely controlled drips! That RED! And so on.
Painter: ooooooOOooo. That’s intesting, Fine tonal variation, there, sort of cloudy looking.
Potter: It’s CRAWLED. Snort. That’s against the rules. We don’t concern ourselves with the way things LOOK. Only if they’re properly done or not.
But then again you see, that’s not quite true either. The problem is that the seeing of the potter, the potter’s gaze if you like, is so obsessively trained that all they see IS the crawl, not the colour variation.

Avoiding Conclusion
So, who’s right? Darned if I know. I’ve become too much of a hybrid myself over the years. Well not quite, not yet. I’ll always despise virtuosity even if I can be persuaded it’s there for a reason. I do know that I greatly enjoyed Hughes adventure through planet ceramics and her lovingly made ceramic fruit and veg and, perhaps most of all, I loved the imitation paintings, with very lovingly ‘painted’ banana skins and fennelly looking fennel. It’s not just the passion and love and tenderness and curiosity, all of which can be admired, it is that she is developing her own material visual vocabulary which works. It resembles the rendering of a language that you know but the speaker is laying the emphases – the sentence stresses - in unfamiliar places. For this reason, you find it difficult to understand. Slowly you realise you do know all these words and that the construction of them is also correct, but you just didn’t recognise it as first because of the unfamiliar rhythm.

A Note On Think Tank
I’ll just add here that Think Tank has produced a collection of papers on the subject of Skill. It’s not bad at all, in fact it’s a good start, but it is only a start. It comes across as a collection writing from people – albeit intelligent, thinking people, who have only just woken up to the fact that skill isn’t either uncontested or uncontestable. This may be because the only maker among them is unfortunately absent from this collection of papers, or it maybe they really haven’t been thinking about it for long. I’ve read almost all of it, and when I’ve finished, I might attempt to review it…