Total Game
One of the teachers in my life that was very influential was Mr. Gaines. He was my ceramics teacher and was a Master Craftsman who took me as his apprentice and taught me the ways of clay. He was an accomplished artist and also taught drawing and painting as well as ceramics, in which he held an MFA.
One day we were talking about all the different skills that go into making a ceramics piece. You have to know which type of clay will be best for what you want to do. You have to make the piece. You have to decorate the piece. You have to glaze the piece. You have to fire the piece. Each of those parts of the process require their own set of skills and not all potters are equally good at all of them. Some potters are excellent at throwing, but their decorating sucks. Some are excellent glaze formulators but their throwing is weak. And so it goes.
He likened it to being a professional tennis player as tennis was his favorite hobby outside of ceramics. “To be a great tennis player, you have to have a total game. You can’t just have a great serve or a great forehand and be weak at the rest of the game. You have to be great at all of it and ceramics is the same way. If you want to be a great potter, you need to be great at every aspect of the process and if you’re weak in any area, that is the area to work hardest at until you bring it up to the same level of achievement as the areas in which you are strongest. No one is automatically good at all of it, but what separates the greats from the also-rans is that the greats recognize this and don’t bullshit themselves that it doesn’t matter if they are a little weak in one area.”
You were right, Mr. Gains. To be great, you need to have a total game and the difference between the greats and the also-rans is the amount of bullshit we feed ourselves.
