WHAT'S IN A NAME? Award or a name to describe me, to give meaning to what I doin the world? My word is "potter". The words for the organization | belong to Is “The Potters’ Guild of British Columbia", Old fashioned, out-of-date, of little relevance, perhaps not carrying quite the right cultural weight? Time for a change? Want a new image? Just change the name and the potter's work can be taken seriously? But I believe words are very powerful. They carry with them tremendous social, cultural, political and spiritual meaning. Put another way, the word itself is a container that holds within it shared history and a sense of the world. So before we throw out the word “potter” for a more fashionable term, I would like to examine this con- tainer,. The word pottery, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, means l. a potter's workshop; 2. the potter's art, ceramics; the manufacture of earthenware; 3. the products of the potter's art collectively; pottery ware, earthenware. This definition doesn't appear to me to be exclusive, but rather, large enough to include within ft the large majority of work, -functional or non-functional, pro- duced by potters. So what ts tt about the word “potter” that upsets Mr. Thornsbury? I suspect it is its connection with its very association with use or function, The stuff can be usted, holds something for some purpose, or in some way refers to the idea of use, This connection with use (function) and its reference to craft, and therefore exclusion from the object made for the exclusive reason of “art”, seems to cause some people working with clay a nagging anxiety, combined with consider- able formal squirming and drooling. They go through amazing contortions in arder to distance themselves from the history of pottery. I think that much of the clay work referred to as “vessel-oriented", even though non-functional, is placing itself within the visual language of the functional form. So I have a lot of difficulty understanding how you appropriate and use a language, and yet if fashion or current trends dictate, you delegate that language to the scrap heap as old-fashioned or antiquated. Does the word “pottery” with its fundamental meaning having to do with function, operate to exclude those not making functional pottery? The vessel makers still use the historic meaning of function to offer reinterpretations, so I find no difficulty in using the word “pottery” to describe their work, Any individual feelings of discomfort because thelr work links with functionalism or craft are the result of intimidation by phoney values posing under the guise of art, but having everything to do with fashion. A serious understanding of the pot’s value throughout history would make any serious artist move towards a better understanding of this history rather than denying tt, Paul Valery once wrote: Works of the mind exist only in action. Beyond this action what remains ts only an object that has no particular relation to the mind. Trarts- port the statue you admire among people suffi- ciently different from your own, and it becomes an insignificant stone. The Parthenon is only a So before we uproot our language, we would do well to consider the meaning and wisdom that the word “pottery” carries with it, and what we will gain (other than a concession to fashion) by replacing it. Now the word “guild” is another one of those anti- quated-sounding terms, but before we dismiss it as a quaint, old-fashioned word, with little meaning for us , It's have a look at where it came from. The guilds were formed in the middle ages as groups of artisans that included sculptors, builders, and paint- ers, to preverit exploitation by the wealthy and power- ful classes, for whom they employed their knowledge and skill. Guilds were also formed as a way of imparting the knowledge and skills of experienced members to the novices, But within the guild there was not only the transfer of these physical skills, but also a sharing and protecting of the historical and spiritual nature of their knowledge. This protection and transmission of skill and knowledge was not even peculiar to mediaeval Europe. The guild process exists in most cultures of the world, and is even used in a mutated form in our contemporary corporate culture. Darcy Margesson (Potter) And thank you, we have more response! Dear Editor: Re: the question of name change. For the most part, I agree with James Thornsbury's viewpoint. “B.C.” ts definitely representative. “Guild” could be construed as representative, if you interpret ft as a group with kindred pusuits. It also connotes educational and marketing emphases. In the strictest sense of the word, “pottery” relates to the actual state of the material once it has been changed by the application of heat. But, although pottery is an accurate description of the material, the word “pot” means something very different to most people, Having “pot” in the word pottery” implies to the general public that “potters” produce “pots” of “pottery”. In actual fact, of course, pots can be made of a variety of materials, but they are certainly not pottery when they are made of paper or wood. Maybe if we used the term “clay” instead, though it doesn't represent the finished state accurately in the technical sense, it would allow for a broader interpre- tation of what we do, or at least what we work with, Then we only have to deal with the “art” vs “craft”