The sales pitch for a work of pottery occasionally includes the assurance that the work is “a rare piece.” “This work is rare,” goes the spiel, “because it incorporates an advanced technique or an in-kiln serendipity that is difficult if not impossible to replicate.” If the “rare piece” also happens to incorporate conspicuous flaws, not to worry. The gallery will encourage the customer to overlook or even welcome them as veritable marks of character.
Informed pottery aficionados will recoil at the foregoing sort of chicanery. Professionals, by definition, are responsible for reproducing satisfactory results on a continuing basis. An opera singer or a baseball player who cannot approximate today what he or she did yesterday will soon be out of a job. And we rightly expect the same of potters.
