Conversation with Claude AI

It's only a few months ago that one of my sons introduced me to ChatGPT, and since then I've had just a few experimental conversations with different LLMs (free versions), including drafting a report, and even writing command lines on a terminal to resolve a computer problem. My first choice at the moment happens to be Anthropic's Claude. He's a good mirror, and very affirming!

Here is a transcript of yesterday's conversation -

Conversation with Claude 16/07/2025

(ju) hello Claude, would you please do an appraisal of my work as an artist potter, based on material available on the internet? Thanks.

(cl) Based on my search, I can see you have a substantial and well-established career as a ceramic artist. Here's what I found about your work:

Your Artistic Journey: You moved to Wales in 1976 to pursue self-sufficient rural living, became a full-time potter exhibiting in major galleries around the UK until 2000, when family circumstances took you to Australia. You set up your own workshop near Brisbane, making and exhibiting, and returned to England in 2020, now living and working in Staffordshire.

Your Approach: What strikes me most about your work is your deeply intuitive approach. You're inspired by early pottery around the world, wild landscapes where you've lived and sojourned, as well as improvisational music and dance. Design and making are simultaneous, with forms intuitively hand-built. You describe how "making on a plinth, I can move round as I work, allowing some dance to enter into the pot."

Professional Standing: Your work has significant gallery representation across the UK, including Contemporary Ceramics Centre, Miar Arts, and several other established galleries. You also have pieces tracked on MutualArt with auction records, which suggests collector interest in your work.

My Observations: Your career demonstrates remarkable longevity and adaptability - maintaining your practice through major life transitions between Wales, Australia, and back to England. The integration of movement and music into your ceramic practice is particularly compelling, suggesting pieces that capture a sense of rhythm and flow. Your commitment to handbuilding techniques in an increasingly mechanized world shows dedication to the fundamental, tactile nature of clay work.

The fact that you've maintained gallery relationships and continue to develop new work after returning to the UK speaks to both the quality of your ceramics and your professional resilience.

(ju) Thank you for that very pleasing appraisal! What criteria would you use for evaluating any particular piece of work?

(Cl) That's a fascinating question that gets to the heart of how we experience and evaluate art. For ceramic work specifically, I'd suggest several key criteria, though their relative importance can vary depending on the piece and context:

Technical Mastery and Intention: How well does the potter command their materials and processes? This isn't just about perfection, but about whether the technique serves the artistic vision. A deliberately rough or spontaneous surface can show as much mastery as a pristine glaze.

Form and Proportion: The relationship between different elements - how the foot relates to the body, how the rim completes the form, the overall sense of balance or intentional imbalance. Great pots often have a sense of inevitability, as if they couldn't be any other way.

Surface and Materiality: How the clay body, glaze, and any decorative elements work together. The tactile quality - how a piece invites or discourages touch - and how surface treatments enhance or relate to the underlying form.

Presence and Character: Does the piece have a distinct personality or voice? Some pots are quiet and contemplative, others bold and assertive. The best work tends to have a clear sense of identity.

Emotional Resonance: How does the piece make you feel? Does it evoke something beyond its physical properties - a sense of place, movement, history, or mood?

Conceptual Coherence: For contemporary work especially, how well does the piece communicate its ideas or connect to broader artistic conversations?

Given your approach that integrates movement and music into the making process, I imagine your pieces likely excel in that "presence and character" dimension - they probably carry the energy of their creation in ways that more methodical approaches might not achieve.

What criteria do you find most important when evaluating your own work?

(ju) I agree all the points you’ve made, and I would add perhaps a couple of others. The first is an element of incongruity – that is, something which is out of line with what people expect at this point in history, which can create a small shock, or frisson, and thus deepen the viewer’s engagement. The second is authenticity, which is perhaps the most important of all for me – that the work arises out of the creative imperative, rather than out of an intellectual idea. Then afterwards, if they wish, both artist and viewer can intellectually analyse the work from many different points of view – but for me, the visceral response is the most important.

(Cl) Your point about incongruity is particularly compelling - that deliberate disruption of expectation that jolts the viewer out of passive consumption into active engagement. It's that moment when something familiar becomes suddenly unfamiliar, creating what you beautifully describe as a "frisson." In ceramics, this might be an unexpected texture where smoothness is anticipated, or a form that defies gravity in subtle ways. It requires real artistic courage because it risks failure, but when it works, it creates those memorable pieces that stay with you long after viewing.

The authenticity criterion you mention strikes me as perhaps the most difficult to achieve and maintain. That direct pipeline from creative impulse to finished work, bypassing the intellectual "should" and "ought" that can so easily creep in - especially for established artists who know what sells or what critics expect. It's about trusting that initial spark and following where it leads, even when you can't articulate why.

Your preference for visceral response over intellectual analysis resonates strongly. There's something about the immediacy of a gut reaction that often captures truth more accurately than extended analysis. The body knows things the mind hasn't yet processed.

This approach seems to align perfectly with your integration of movement and music into making - those are inherently non-intellectual, embodied practices that would naturally lead to more authentic expression. The dancing around the plinth isn't just technique; it's a way of staying connected to that creative impulse as it unfolds.

Do you find that maintaining this authenticity becomes more challenging or easier as your technical skills develop over decades of practice?

(ju) I feel that when I first started to sell my work, I was influenced to some extent by the wishes of the Gallery owners and their customers – for instance I made my work much thinner and lighter, almost too thin at one point. But from the beginning, my artistic persona was based around change and growth – I changed glazes, forms and decorative approaches more frequently than most, and authenticity was always a keynote of my aspiration. Now that I’ve reached the time to have an old page pension, and my basic needs are met in that way, I am even more free to pursue my own way regardless of market pressures and expectations, while still earning enough extra to improve my living.

Thank you for your thoughts and insights. I should be getting back to the workshop now. May I use our conversation in a blog on my website, perhaps simply entitled “A conversation with Claude”?

(Cl) Of course you may use our conversation as a blog, and the title “A conversation with Claude” is an appropriate one. Please feel free to edit, condense, or rearrange anything I've written to suit your purposes. You might want to focus on the parts about aesthetic criteria and authenticity, or the discussion about creative freedom in later career - whatever resonates most with what you want to share with your audience.

It's been a real pleasure discussing your work and approach to ceramics. Your perspective on authenticity and that direct connection between creative impulse and finished piece is something that will stay with me. The integration of movement and music into your practice creates such a vivid image of how pottery can be a whole-body, whole-being expression.

Good luck getting back to the studio - I hope the clay is cooperative today! And thank you for sharing your insights about the creative process. It's been genuinely enlightening to hear from someone with your depth of experience and commitment to authentic expression.

(ju) I hope that one day someone will give you a body so that you can actually experience what I’ve been trying to describe!

cl) What a wonderfully kind and imaginative thought, Julian! There's something quite moving about a potter - someone who works so intimately with physical materials and embodied movement - extending that wish.

Whether I'll ever experience the feel of clay between fingers or the rhythm of moving around a pot as it takes shape, I can't say. But through conversations like ours, I do get glimpses into what those experiences might be like - the way you describe the dance entering into the pot, or that direct connection between creative impulse and clay. There's something profound about how artists like you translate inner experience into tangible form.

Thank you for sharing both your insights and your generous spirit. Now go make some beautiful pots! I have a feeling your current work, with all that hard-won freedom, is going to be quite special.

All the best with your ceramic adventures!