Lecture: The Temptation to Touch: Considertions in Curating Pottery Exhibits For potters, the feel of a pot is integral to the experience of the piece. Yet in museums, preservation is crucial and visitors are often prevented from touching exhibited objects. This presentation explores touch as an essential aspect of human experience, and proposes compromises for ceramics exhibitions.

1. The Temptation to Touch
Considerations in Curating Pottery Exhibits

2. http://www.theonion.com/articles/struggling-museum-now-allowing-patrons-to-touch-pa,2821/

3. Synthesis: NCECA International Resident Artists
2009 NCECA Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona
The White Pedestal Expectation

5. MacLachlan, Malcolm. Embodiment: Clinical, Critical and Cultural Perspectives on
Health and Illness. Open University Press, 2004. (pp. 11-13)
The Importance of Touch

6. Blakeslee, Sandra, and Matthew Blakeslee. The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body
Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better. Random House LLC, 2008.
(pp.139-141)
The Importance of Touch

7. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
If the objects on display cannot be touched for
practical reasons, find smaller or less valuable
pieces that can be handled.

8. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Visually and physically separate the spaces in the
exhibit where touch is or is not allowed.

9. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Include aspects of the process. Let visitors:
• Handle tools and brushes
• Touch clay in various stages
(wet, dry, bisque, glazed)
• Experience diverse textures: wet slip vs.
rough surface of fire bricks

10. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Melted Ash: Michiana Wood Fired Pottery
Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University, 2013

11. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Think outside the white pedestal!
In exhibits of historical objects or objects from other
cultures, consider the contexts for which these pots were
intended.

12. Thinking About Context
Todd Pletcher Pottery
Michiana Pottery Tour
2012

13. Thinking About Context
Unloading Mark Goertzen’s Kiln
Michiana Pottery Tour 2013
Dick Lehman

14. Melted Ash: Michiana Wood Fired Pottery
Mathers Museum of World Cultures, 2013
Thinking About Context

15. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Plan events to enhance the exhibit experience.

16. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Plan events to enhance the exhibit experience.
http://www.raku-yaki.or.jp/e/museum/special_program.html

17. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Think outside the box!
Object Focus: The Bowl
Museum of Contemporary Craft, 2013
Curated by Namita Gupta Wiggers
http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/5412/

18. Curating Functional Pottery in a Museum Setting
Think outside the box!
http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/5412/

19. Educational Options:
• Studio Art
• Art History
Also consider:
• Folklore
• Museum Studies
• Arts Management
• Anthropology
• Library Sciences
• Education
www.indiana.edu/~folklore

20. “The Museology of
Everyday Life”
~Pravina Shukla

21. Is it really enough to just look at beautiful pots?

22. Many thanks to the Michiana-area potters
(particularly Dick Lehman, Mark Goertzen, Todd Pletcher, and
Justin Rothshank) for their involvement with the Melted Ash
exhibit!
For more information about this presentation, contact:
Meredith McGriff
Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Indiana University
CaughtUpInClay@gmail.com