Sunday, October 27, 2002

Ted Randall's Design's Meaning...does it matter? Does it matter if Ted Randall's designs really contain information? If we treat them as if they look like they may, but explore no further, we are still lead to interesting thoughts about information in general decorating a pot.. If we treat them as if they have a meaning yet to be discovered, it adds attributes of the puzzle and the not yet know. It also does not lessen the conversation about information ingeneral. However, without the author's direct or indirect assurance that there is or is not meaning, the conversation can not be fully developed for these particular instances of work. In the November, 1984 issue of Ceramics MonthlyTed Randall wrote an article called Being and Meaning. The main thrust of the article was the intrinsic Being that Pottery has, as opposed to Painting, which carries a greater degree of abstraction. However, on page 30 he says, The possibility of discovering ways or modes of joining Meaning to Being or of building a connection between the the two seems to be worth searching out; most of my recent efforts have been in that direction... The figures that accompany the article do not show pots with the same direct refence to text that I think his later pots do. The ones in the article show more abstract elements decorating the sides of his pots. The absract decoration on those pots counterbalances their Beingness illustrating his points in the article. The difference between that decoration and his later decoration is noteworthy...Perhaps one of the types of meanings Ted Randall was to explore was one of quasi/psuedo textual information. 11:47:14 PM