I've also been sitting back on this one and watching where it's going. I did peek and the bowl in question had had no offers or bids on it when I looked, I doubt it's changed since then.
I would not offer a critique on an item unasked, and I also do not get terribly upset at the work standard of some items being offered for sale at times. This subject has been covered many time in this and I am quite sure many other forums.
Yes I can understand that some people would not sell anything they did not consider 100% the best they could make, while others, especially those early in their turning development need an outlet for their produce, if only to fund their further development by allowing them to purchase more timber, tools or even a major piece of machinery (for many years I did not own a bandsaw, using a bowsaw to produce my blanks).
But I would say in defence of any beginner their 100% is not the same of ours, as my 100% is not to the same standard as some other contributors to this forum.
So I'll ask at what point do we stand and look at an item and decide it worthy of a critique?
I’ve stood in many shops and looked at wooden bowls, hewn from a log by hand adze and you can see the marks still, is it wrong?, it's a method used still today in some parts of the worlds and aesthetically pleasing to some people. Eric’s ‘Craters’ shows carving marks on it, nothing wrong with that for any of us.
When do we look at the mass produced £12.99 rubberwood (other timbers available) salad bowls on the shelf in Tesco’s and other supermarkets and think ‘I could not buy the blank for that.’ Would we even consider critiquing one, even to ourselves.
Les posted some pictures recently of things he’d seen that gave him inspiration, others of us have done similar. I’m sure in a similar vein we look at flower vases, pottery, glass etc., but do we always see the form? The elegance or otherwise that has been designed into it by the artist (for one off’s) or the mould for mass produced items. Do we look to see if it has pleasing proportions (rule of thirds), if there are any badly placed changes in angular or curvature direction, all the things we talk about here. I have a small but growing collection of glass and pottery which has ‘something’ about it. Not always possible to reproduce in wood but which can act as a source of further inspiration.
I’ve sometimes said about a piece put up for critique that it has a discountenance, that there is something that pull’s against the eye, sometimes it’s wrong and uncomfortable to the (my) eye, other times it’s that part that makes the whole thing work for me.
What is pleasing to one persons eye may not be to another’s (as painting have previously been mentioned I’ll add that I hate ‘the Scream’, and consider most painting as nothing more than ‘Splodge on Canvas’).
Can you sell a crack?, Pete seems to do so very well looking at some of his galleried work, yes it has the form working for it which a beginner may not have, but would a beginner have the courage to try turn let alone sell such a piece of timber.
To someone the bowl that started this thread will be ‘just what they are looking for’, it will suit their need or décor and they will be pleased to purchase it…,
… however, if it had a name on it like Tracy Emin (who probably can’t turn that well) there would be people queuing up around the block to buy it at an awful lot more money!