Mark Shapiro
It kills me to think of the guy gone. Kleckner. His droll voice: nasal and magnetic. His stories, his self-deprecating humor. The world was all a hopeless mess, full of missed opportunities and crappy deals, intentions impure or gone awry: his, ours, everyone’s. Making pottery was the most noble gesture he could come up with. Jeff was way ahead of most people understanding the now commonplace concept of precarity, whether it was the gig economy of adjuncting, the unpredictability of craft-show juries and sales, or the scant remuneration and micro-humiliations of wholesaling to galleries. But he made the indignities funny, too, savoring the ironies and the (perhaps too rare) pleasures of sharing them with colleagues and friends.
One brief story: In the evening after a day at the show, Jeff was telling us with relish about how god-awful a nearby shop was that he regularly sent work to. He practically exploded in mirth explaining that rather than throwing his pots in a box and taking the ten-minute drive to deliver them, he double-boxed and paid good money for UPS to ship them over. It was just too soul-destroying for Jeff to walk back into that shop. He was barely able to continue speaking through this punchline.
This is what was so notable about Jeff: The reason he couldn’t walk into that shop is because it insulted the core of his existence: the clarity and beauty of his pots. The pots deserved something better—and in a just world, perhaps they would have provided a better life. They are perfectly executed, clear and clean, radiant with joyful pattern and exuberant marking, amazingly detailed yet never fussy. Few pots are so exquisitely made, so skillful, and so eloquent. He went deep into his individual expression, offering the world a connection to the generous, hopeful, and creative artist at the heart of this man so beset by worldly struggles.
Mark Shapiro
December 12, 2020
It kills me to think of the guy gone. Kleckner. His droll voice: nasal and magnetic. His stories, his self-deprecating humor. The world was all a hopeless mess, full of missed opportunities and crappy deals, intentions impure or gone awry: his, ours, everyone’s. Making pottery was the most noble gesture he could come up with. Jeff was way ahead of most people understanding the now commonplace concept of precarity, whether it was the gig economy of adjuncting, the unpredictability of craft-show juries and sales, or the scant remuneration and micro-humiliations of wholesaling to galleries. But he made the indignities funny, too, savoring the ironies and the (perhaps too rare) pleasures of sharing them with colleagues and friends.
One brief story: In the evening after a day at the show, Jeff was telling us with relish about how god-awful a nearby shop was that he regularly sent work to. He practically exploded in mirth explaining that rather than throwing his pots in a box and taking the ten-minute drive to deliver them, he double-boxed and paid good money for UPS to ship them over. It was just too soul-destroying for Jeff to walk back into that shop. He was barely able to continue speaking through this punchline.
This is what was so notable about Jeff: The reason he couldn’t walk into that shop is because it insulted the core of his existence: the clarity and beauty of his pots. The pots deserved something better—and in a just world, perhaps they would have provided a better life. They are perfectly executed, clear and clean, radiant with joyful pattern and exuberant marking, amazingly detailed yet never fussy. Few pots are so exquisitely made, so skillful, and so eloquent. He went deep into his individual expression, offering the world a connection to the generous, hopeful, and creative artist at the heart of this man so beset by worldly struggles.
Mark Shapiro
December 12, 2020