Tuesday, May 29, 2018

The Great Pottery Throwdown Rides Again !

What fun. It's a BBC program from 2015 and 2017, available now in bits and pieces as people put it up in various places on the web. Just Google The Great Pottery Throwdown. I've recently discovered several more episodes listed as series three, which they are not.

It's a competition, exactly on the model of The Great British Baking Show, for making pots. They find competent amateur potters who are also expressive and articulate, fun to follow. They require an astonishing variety of products and techniques, far wider than I've ever considered making (a handbuilt toilet?). The video is well done, so I/you can learn from watching the work. The judges are serious and demanding.

I do object to the constant time limits. Necessary for a TV show, perhaps, and part of making pottery. But almost all the pots would be better with more time for work. There's no attention to production skills (speed for a purpose, efficiency, saving materials), so why the scramble, the panic, the unfinished work? It does make the whole thing seem very artificial.

Also I find I am constantly resisting the whole idea of competition in making what might be art. Each assignment is not only judged for quality, but also rated, so someone wins. And in each episode, one potter is eliminated, as worst in the week's assignments.

But fun. And broadening, and sometimes inspiring. I've loved trying the assignment to make a cylinder and a bowl blindfolded. I find I do work on the wheel largely by feel.

Have a look.

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