Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 105 i Ceramics: Art and Perception

In 1938 in his book Homo Ludens, Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johann Huizinga investigates the human activity of play through a detailed analysis of core cultural elements in both Eastern and Western civilisations. As the title in Latin indicates, Huizinga viewed play as one of the defining elements of humanity, and as the main force in the creation of culture. About five decades later, in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, a violinist Stephen Nachmanovitch observed that all forms of creative work are various expressions of play. He states that "without play, learning and evolution are impossible"; that to play is to “free ourselves from arbitrary restrictions and expand our field of action". Nachmanovitch further posits that play "enables us to rearrange our capacities and our very identity…

Fujikasa Satoko hand-builds her sculptures and works slowly, so her show at the Joan B. Mirviss gallery in New York consisted of just thirteen works, all of tabletop scale, from 11 to 27 inches tall. Fujikasa, at 35 years old, has already made such a name for herself that this show was sold out before it opened. It’s easy to see why. Fujikasa Satoko has created an immediately recognizable look that nevertheless allows her great scope for expression; the works are vessels—with an inherent inward focus—yet strikingly gestural at the same time. They operate as metaphors for (or embodiments of) all kinds of fluid motions, from the flow of water to fluttering drapery to the unfolding of petals. The only constants are the materials—stoneware with translucent matte glaze giving an…

For the first time in over 50 years, a collection of Wedgwood ceramics formed by the Wedgwood family is on temporary display at Leith Hill Place, a National Trust property near Dorking, Surrey in England, until 29 October 2017. Sir Ralph Wedgwood, great–great–grandson of Josiah Wedgwood I (1730–1795) assembled the internationally important collection, which includes several significant documentary pieces on loan to the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum (both in London), and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Sir Ralph’s grandson, Sir Martin Wedgwood (1933-2010) and his wife, Lady Alexandra Wedgwood, an architectural historian, inherited the collection and broadened its scope in 18th-century material adding 19th- and 20th-century wares. The display contains over 140 pieces from the collection, from tea-sets to vases, beads and even earrings Today, the word ‘Wedgwood’…

What is k?gei? The term k?gei was established toward the end of the Meiji period (1868– 1912) to describe the historically traditional artisan crafts of Japan and became a means of cultural export. In Japanese K?gei |Future Forward, 12 Japanese artists resist this convention by proposing personal, topical and global messages. Each artist in the exhibition shows exquisite craft, innovations in uses of materials, processes and forms, and attention to a range of trends, including animation, manga and ornamentation. Some refer to historic times/personae as a metaphor pointing to current events. Ron Labaco, Marcia Docter Senior Curator at MAD and managing curator of the exhibition stated, “It is important to understand that, although the works may not seem radical at first glance, this exhibition was quite controversial in Japan when…

Maiolica ware is characterized by low fire high iron content red clay. It is formed on the wheel or hand built, to which a white opaque glaze is applied with covering colored over glaze oxide washes. Iron oxide, manganese dioxide, rutile, ceramic stains, and metallic coloring oxides of cobalt, copper, and manganese, are used along with a flux to bring the over glaze wash into a melt on the base white glaze. Unfortunately, Maiolica pottery can reveal white spots in the color field. The white spots in the over glaze wash color field are caused by organic materials such as sulfates, nitrates and other organic volatiles in the clay body that have not been completely removed during either the bisque (or glaze firing cycles). Subsequently, in the glaze firing organic…

Jude Pullen began his fascination with clay when reconditioning his high school’s dilapidated Ceramics Department during his A-Levels. It took days to clean out sumps, sieve discarded tea-bags and pencils out of old clay, dry it, pug it and reconstitute it – alongside fixing the old potter’s wheel. Safe to say, having to start from scratch gave him a genuine appreciation for the material. Mostly self-taught, Jude kept this interest going while studying Chemistry, which in turn gave him a molecular appreciation for how glazes worked. He subsequently trained in Product Design Engineering, a discipline which encouraged the harmony between science and art. He then worked in the concept development teams of Dyson for four years, before moving to London to head-up the R&D Team of Sugru… and so another…

Strong work is often described as ‘finished’, ‘cohesive’, ‘inspired’, and having ‘clear voice’. Two words you might not hear as often, but are equally as important, are ‘self-questioning’ and ‘unresolved’. A palpable level of interest from the maker, and not only the audience, is part of what defines good work. Commercial/critical success with certain forms or ideas can, if one is not vigilant, lead the artist to unknowingly make reproductions of their own work. The result is that over time the duende1 quietly slips out the back door of the studio. Recently I viewed new works by Russell Wrankle, studio artist and assistant professor at Southern Utah University. Ample duende is evident within each piece, but viewers are warned, this work is not for the light/feint of heart. Wrankle’s subject…

It was my privilege, in September of 2015, to attend the opening of Shuitu – Clay and Water around the World. The First International Ceramics Art Exhibition, Qingdao. The inauguration of what the organizers hope will become a biennial event, the exhibition drew on the combined experience and expertise of Chinese ceramic artist and independent curator, Wan Liya and the Qingdao Sculpture Gallery’s director, Ye Dongwei. A relatively recent addition to the waterfront, the Qingdao Sculpture Gallery was opened in 2012 with the aim of introducing the public to a wide range of sculptural art practices through exhibitions, lectures and cultural exchanges transcends its notions of materiality. We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. […] We work with the substantial,…

I first met K.K. Broni in 1995 during my freshman orientation at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. I had looked forward to meeting him having heard about him during my Secondary School Ceramics classes and ‘General Knowledge’ art courses. He answered my questions about access to good glazes and his answers were encouraging and clear and were the reason I chose ceramics as a field of study. Broni was my mentor from my second year through to graduation. He saw in me a potential, and supported my development eventually convincing the Vice Chancellor of the University to invite a colleague and myself back for further study to enable us to teach in the department. After five years of working in Accra with the Centre for…

Exploring the Yellow Brick Road It’s the spring of 2017 in Montana, and my studio is filled with collected vintage porcelain, historic brick and clay pipe fragments, partially finished and completed studio work, columns, arches and chandeliers from indoor installations, along with electric kilns, extruders and diamond saws for firing, forming and cutting porcelain, brick or clay pipe. I built and started working in my Granitewood studio in 1992. It’s a 1000+ square foot space with floor to ceiling windows providing passive solar gain, a clerestory and a 20-foot high ceiling. Living in the country a few miles west of Helena, Montana on 20 acres of forested property with granite rock outcroppings has given me the ability to collect and store materials for my art practice. It’s taken years to…

Every craft process has an intrinsic aesthetic; trompe l’oeil aside it spans from those that use the least amount of manipulation, to the highly finessed. In any medium the parameters of refining material influences the visual outcome of an object. Clay, as an amorphous substance, has a wide range of aesthetics that is dictated by many factors that is distinct from other materials. Direct physical processing to manipulate clay’s shape has been compartmentalized into three general categories: handbuilding, throwing, and slip casting. Each of these areas has different processes in producing ceramic objects, however the aesthetics of each is discernible from one another. Recently, compared to the whole history of ceramics, a new category has emerged that is staking its place within the field - digital manufacturing. With industrial practices…

Zhenrutang physically embodies much of how I, as a first time visitor, came to see China as a whole – a mixture of reverence for the historic, and a thirst for the practicality of the new. ‘Artist’ is a tricky word anywhere these days, but in my experience this is particularly true in Jingdezhen, China. While working as an artist-in-residence at Zhenrutang in Jingdezhen, I met some of the most skilled artisans I’ve ever encountered, but not many artists in the sense that the word is bandied about in America. As a Westerner, the mentality of art making in Jingdezhen was as foreign to me as the cuisine, well-known components treated in a different way but then labeled with the same words. I am familiar with many of the components…

Akiyama Y? is known for his abstract black sculptures with a distinctive crackled surface. One could say that the majority of the work in his survey exhibition at Musée Tomo – a group of smooth-surfaced vessel works date as far back as 1976, but most works are recent – held to that pattern, but that description would not do the show justice. The modest dimensions and permanent display features of the gallery spaces beautifully accommodated Akiyama’s pieces both large and small, and the lighting design of Akiyama’s work is carbon-impregnated earthenware; his titles may risk sounding like jargon but also imply geology and time. The exhibition was titled “Towards the Sea of Arche,” which, a label explained, means a yearning for the primordial. In an artist’s statement he suggests that…

K?gei, an exhibition label explained, means ‘artisan crafts’ and the word was invented in the late 19th century to meet Western needs for categorisation – the Japanese themselves had gotten along happily for millennia without prying apart art and craft. The artists in this exhibition, curated by Y?ji Akimoto, director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, use materials and methods of traditional crafts, but the imagery is shaped by contemporary culture, including manga, anime and Western art. The exhibition is nearly all ceramics, to the extent that the two lacquer artists and a dollmaker (not discussed here) seem like an afterthought, although their mediums are highly respected in Japan. To start with a bang, consider the porcelain skulls of Katsuyo Aoki (b 1972). While Japan…

On September 2016, the International Academy of Ceramics held its General Assembly and Congress in Barcelona. The focus of the lectures, conferences and visits was Ceramics in Architecture and Public Spaces, a subject that remains quite unstudied mainly because it develops in a gap between artistic and industrial ceramic processes. Ceramics for architecture is often looked down on by studio potters because of its association with mass-production. Architectural projects, traditionally mean small workshops are unable to carry out the work, or wouldn’t be competitive enough in the bid process. Studio potters lack the infrastructure, the space, the workers, or the skills and technical knowledge. But not all ceramics for architecture consist in kilometers of pavement or require huge machinery, and there are projects that need an artist’s approach. In this…

The abstracted, digital form of the clay object understands the ceramic artist through parameterization, becoming not just a form, but also a potential for a multitude of forms, and a multitude of materials. Typical reactions to the use of 3D technologies in the making of ceramic work range from fanatical interest to fear of the unknown. This article will focus on how scanning, printing and modeling technologies can be used to design, model, prototype and even create ceramic objects. Contemporary ceramic artists and designers are using these technologies to create their work. The case will be made that this new and accessible technology is “just another tool in the tool box.” Criticisms of 3D fabrication in craft related discourse largely center on a loss of materiality, how the human touch…

No one can lay down a sumptuous mosaic floor of diamond-shaped porphyry, gilt glass and marble scraps as I imagine pleasant Venetian monks, drinking water-cut wine did over 500 years ago. As I slide sage-green ceramic micro-tiles side by side into a mortar bed to form yet another long necklace-like arc of glistening tiles, I remembered. Over 15 years earlier I had tried. I had given my sister, Joyce, a book, The Decorative Floors of Venice, for Christmas. As daughters of an Air Force officer, we had grown up surrounded not only by a calming and ubiquitous Air Force blue, but by uniformity. Blue military uniforms. Blue military vehicles. Comfortable but identical base housing. In response, we both grew to be attracted by generous palettes and sparkling surfaces. After Christmas,…

The attitudes that ancient peoples held about broken pottery, so different from perspectives in our consumerist age, are important to consider at a time when the effects of excessive energy consumption threaten the future of humanity. Today, the demand for perfection in ceramic products results in the disposal of millions of only slightly damaged wares annually. It is too easy and inexpensive to replace chipped cups or cracked plates with flawless new pieces. Large quantities of wares with minor firing imperfections never reach the market in the first place, but instead are culled at the factory, crushed, and buried in landfills. In contrast, ancient peoples in general not only tolerated irregularities such as firing clouds, warpage, and kiln debris, but they also frequently repaired broken vessels and returned them to…