Perfection.
A group of us were asked once what the definition of perfection was. The asker was a designer, and we were a group of MFA candidates in an applied craft and design program. I answered quickly and without hesitation. "Perfection is the awareness of a materials limitations."
Meaning then, that perfection is not an ideal, more so an acknowledged relationship between person and material. In a way perfection is perfectly flawed and suited best so.
The question of perfection came up today in the context of ceramics, in technique and skill. reasoning I have never understood as ceramics very history proves that there is no such ideal. If there was, humans should have figured it out by now. Our continued pursuits of this stuff only proves our ignorance. Clay, as a formless and squishy material, I think matches ignorance quite well. It is at once only itself, temporary, and ever stupefying in imagination and intention.
Perfection is subjective, it is merely a human notion. Therefor fraught with expectation and let down.
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