Sunday 4 July 2010

Everyone's a winner baby !


‘Every one’s a winner baby that’s the truth’
-Hot Chocolate

When Jan Twyerould approached me to judge the South Australian Ceramics Award I was reluctant for a number of reasons: Firstly it would make me ineligible to enter the award, let alone win it. I have been an entrant in the award for many years and never won, so there go my chances. Secondly I know and resect many of the entrants which make things tricky, but most importantly I have had to pass some kind of judgement on an image of a work selected by the artist that will somehow represent them and their practice.

After having tried to work out some kind of objective strategy for choosing works I threw it all out and ran with an initial gut-response, which was tricky also. There was an interesting cross-section of work submitted from hand-built objects to functional thrown tableware. It is surprising to note that a number of significant ‘clay practitioners’ chose to not enter the award. This is a pity as it is one of the few opportunities to showcase the outstanding depth of ceramics practice in South Australia.

The interesting part for me was to be able to see works in the round and handle them. As to the question of a ‘winner’, I threw caution to the wind and relied on some kind of instinct to decide which work collected the prize.

Here's the winner, Helen Fuller's piece.I stole the image from here
Thanks Erin.

2 comments:

Erin Harrald said...

You're welcome Gerry!

Shannon Garson said...

It seems you've ascended to the giddy heights of judgedom skipping the financially gratifying step of becoming a winner! Bummer.. but I like your approach to the task!