AdamMY wrote:chicagopotter wrote:preservation thru destruction.
Haha, That would be more of the potters way of dealing with it. I do not hear about it so much about potters in United states, but I've seen clips where Korean potters smash pieces I would have no problem using ( at least that I could tell from the clip) just because they are not up to their standards.
Adam,
Yup.... potter's solution.
"Smash that sucker!" 
You bring up an important point there. And it does happen in America too.
I drive my wife (and others) crazy sometimes when I am unloading my noborigama. My standards are high. For me there are two basic classes of work; 1st quality that I would not mind ending up in a permenant public collection, and landfill. Others often stand by me when I'm unloading as I quickly whip a piece into the shard pit and react like, "
What are you doing! That was fine!"
"
That was fine" is the issue. It was not great.
Within that 1st grouping of wares, there are the "family inheritance works", the "important exhibition quality works", and the "good exhibition and sale works". Simply "OK" pieces do not exist for me. Seconds
for sure do not exist.
I don't want "just OK" to represent me as a potter out in the world.
Sometimes I have pieces come out of the kiln that are not what I really intended, but that I am "not sure about". Those get set aside for a while so that I can get away from my preconceptions and actually SEE the pieces for what they are. Then they get sorted into the appropriate location; sales storage or the shard pit.
Next to my noborigama is my "official" shard pit. It contains the smashed remnants of 30+ years of wood kiln unloadings. It used to be a deep low spot in the ground that begged for filling in....now it is a clearly raised mound. Eventually, far in the future, some archeologist will discover it and make totally erroneous conclusions about our society based on what he/she finds there
.
Occasionally there are the "in between" pieces that become personal use kitchen or house wares for us or my kids. These usually are first quality pieces that have some technical defect that makes them un-saleable. Like maybe a recent tenmoku and Mashiko Stone kaki glazed plate that came out with a bit of kiln wadding that dropped onto the top surface edge and fused into the glaze. Perfectly useable, but not perfect. It is now my favorite pancake plate.
There is one potter in Japan that says his failure rate per firing is about 80%....and I fully believe it. Only 20 percent of the work (wood fired) meets his standards. Needless to say, his work is not cheap to acquire.
Maintaining very high aesthetic and technical standards in one's artwork is very important for the success of the career.
best,
...........john
You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic. 
