Craft has value because it exists in context. Art is valued because it can claim it doesn't need context. Art can define itself with the arrogance of individual genius. Craft is historically chained to some folk and region. Even when an individual signature is affixed to the object the artifact is still the representation of geography and custom.

Sanctuary

The observable integrity of the individual pot is a representation of the integrity of the person who created it. Ironically, this stumbling struggle to attain mastery only becomes convincing when it also demonstrates the fallibility of your human status. You are embedded and enshrined in the artifact - including the unconscious orientation of your time and place, the world view grafted on you at birth, the parochial elements of the neighborhood of your youth.

Pottery Gallery

The achievement of perfection will not arrive when you successfully eradicate the last evidence of your own ‘inadequate’ identity in the pot - the achievement of mastery will emerge when your humanity permeates every aspect of that pot. The flaws of your fallibility could be the necessary scar tissue that forms the source of true wisdom. These flaws, visible in the pot, could be more distinctive and truer than the attempts to provide a seamless surface free from imperfections.