Ceramic Artist Jason Hess

For those of you who don't know, Jason Hess is a ceramics professor here at NAU, specializing in wood fire; he's been apparently been doing it for some 20 years. Besides being a pretty cool guy, he's the guy responsible for a great deal of the work that's gone into getting this conference together and running smoothly. Lately he's been making these non-functional, tall, corked bottles, several feet high, which he wood fires (as I recall they're tumble stacked) with a bunch of ash to get a very crusty, textured finish. Jason's prefers making pieces that are functional or nearly so to purely sculptural forms. I think they're awfully cool.

From one of his shows:

A desire to have objects that fulfill specific purposes inspires me to make functional pots. The infinite and elusive variety of texture and color attainable through the various making and firing processes that I use has generated an interest in the notion of presentation. I enjoy presenting my work so that a viewer might notice and appreciate subtle diversities in for and surface. By grouping similar forms of differing size and color I hope to compose a visually dynamic display, which invites the viewer to enjoy the tactile nature of each individual piece and how they relate to one another.

Question: what if I wanted to teach about artwork like his? How would I introduce it; under what banner of meaning? Since the interaction of texture, form, and function isn't really enough, if I understand the concept of the Enduring Idea correctly. Would it be "all of us produce and consume?" I'm haveing the same difficulty with many ceramic artists who are more focused on technique than message. How do we teach them?