here's how it came out...

All words and no clay make Jack a glib Troy.

Let me see if I got this straight…

…because Jack's friend failed to see the intrinsic value implied by the relationship of the articles in his "still life", Jack had to educate not just his yogurt-eating, flower-loving friend, but the whole Ceramics Monthly-reading world.

I remember, as a young twenty-something potter, being impressed by something that Tim Mather said. I'll paraphrase... "I'd like to think that my work speaks for itself".

Now Jack Troy is telling me that the art in clay is not how it speaks for itself. Instead, clay art is what he says it is.

So we have come to this. Clay is about words. A piece of clay art is the sum total of (presumably) clay, water, fire, and words.

I did a panel discussion at Goshen College several years ago. At that time I remember Marvin Bartel saying that he deemed it his job to give his students a vocabulary in clay. Now, it would seem that it is the professor's job to give the student a vocabulary about clay.

By this new standard, this new academia, a budding clay artist need not avail himself of the ability to express himself in clay if he can but learn the proper technique for adequately describing his/her attempts (however lame) at clay expression.

Armed with the proper set of words, one no longer needs to face the reality that an attempt at art has failed (as Troy's "still life") when it fails to communicate on its own. Instead, we just need to tweak the description a bit. Thus, failed art can forever be the fault of the undereducated viewer, not the inept attempt at art.

If that's art, label me a proud craftsman.

But let me see if I can help you out, Jack…

If the "value" of the still life is in the relationship of the articles to one another (and provided the slim chance that you were able to restore the still life back to its original glory) maybe you ought to consider the possibility of gluing down the articles in the still life and making that relationship permanent. That way maybe other unwashed rubes won't misunderstand and abuse the art. Tell you what….you send me the address to your studio and I'll be glad to put a tube of epoxy in the mail to you. What's that? …oh yeah, you're an academic, not a working potter. Okay then, I'll send the epoxy to your school.