Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 106 i Ceramics: Art and Perception

My wife and I had gone to Korea for ceramic research. While there, we met with a ceramics professor acquaintance at a university on the west coast of Korea. As we were about to leave we asked the professor where we could catch the bus to Gyeongju. By chance, Park Jong Il, then a young assistant professor at a college in or near Daegu, was also visiting his former professor. Instead of directing us to the bus stop, the professor asked/told Park Jong Il to drive us to Gyeongju. We were stunned. After some moments of refusal, followed by insistence and finally acceptance, we were on our way with Park Jong Il to Gyeongju. At the time, Park Jong Il was clean-shaven with a regular haircut and wore a suit…

In 2008 I came up with the concept for the Young Masters Art Prize. Having felt for a long time that there was a strong need for the art historical canon to be reflected in the voice of contemporary art and artists, it was this that inspired me to launch the first edition of the Young Masters Art Prize a year later, in 2009. I felt that an art prize was the best way to introduce this concept as it would bring together artists working across different genres who were united through the same theme. It’s a celebration of all aspects of art history through the eyes of international contemporary artists. Ceramics is one of the oldest art forms. There is a long history of ceramic art in almost all…

We all dream sometimes about doing a totally outrageous thing, something that would take us beyond what we know, out of our comfort zone. In my case it was the dream of seeing what would happen if I massively blew up my way of working in the studio, if I worked with an immense block of clay that would demand inventiveness in terms of tools and would also turn my whole body into a tool. I wanted to know what a big mass of clay feels like, what it allows me to do, and where the limits would be. Often you need the right occasion to trigger putting a dream into action; for me this came with the call for work for the 8th Israel Ceramics Biennale. I submitted a…

Hand rolled coils are the preference of Cambridge potter Stephen Murfitt who makes ceramic vessels that contain and reveal space through an infinite range of forms. The slow and contemplative process of coiling allows for intuitive developments to be made as the vessel grows. “More time is spent on the refining of these forms through continuous scraping, sometimes carving, and finally some light burnishing to seal the surface prior to glazing,” explains Stephen, who employs a variety of making methods to facilitate the production of particular forms. Folds, seams, edges and textures are all elements informed and inspired by the natural and built environments. “The forms are developed by combining a variety of hand building methods, including throwing, coiling, modelling, carving and occasionally press-moulding,” he says. “After bisque firing and…

My solo installation was on view into November, 2017, in the John Dominis and Patches Damon Holt Gallery at the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawai’i. I’ve been making art for many, many years, along with teaching art for 42 years at Hartwick College, located in the foothills of the Catskills in upstate New York. There could not be a more beautiful place in the fall of the year when the trees are turning breathtaking colors of reds and yellows before the onset of winter. After retiring from teaching, I moved to Kaua’I Hawai’i in 2006, which is also an inspiring place in which I now am able to create art full-time. Hawai’i has embraced me as an artist. I have found acceptance for my ceramic installations and other…

The two big shows for established makers in the UK are COLLECT, run by the Crafts Council at the Sattchi Gallery, and Ceramic Art London (CAL) run by the Craft Potters Association, which also runs a second show titled Ceramic Art York. All three shows are international, but how do they compare with other international events, and does it always pay to be part of the international circuit? Tanya Gomez has been an independent maker for 12 years in the UK. She showed at COLLECT in 2017 as an individual maker in the ‘collect open’ section. Previously (in 2011,2012 and 2013) Gomez had been represented by a gallery, so this was a different experience for her. Early in 2016, Gomez had work shown at the international ceramics festival Clay Gulgong,…

Sitting on my desk are two ceramic pieces that I’ve been looking at off and on for several months. Prior to sitting on the desk the same two pots sat for many earlier months on the mantle in my office, and as I worked I’d regularly stop and look at them. One, made by Richard Hensley, is a rather pointed symmetrical oval form twenty inches long by twelve inches wide at the midpoint by an inch and three-quarters deep. It could be used as a serving dish or as a stunningly elegant swimming pool designed for a miniature world. The piece is glazed in a range of beige tones going from matte mustard yellow through a very delicate almost rose color. Two plants with grayish white leaves and seedpods heading…

In order to realize my art form I have come to terms with hybrid or cross disciplinary practices using quasi industrial processes. 2 5 April 2017 will be exactly 2 years since my companion, my mentor, my muse as well as my husband of 47 years, Ted DeMaine, passed away. For a long time I floundered as Ted was my greatest supporter, my rock. I am confident now that I am back into my creative zone. However, this time instead of the “Sailing the Sublime”, I am “Sailing the Unknown”. This, combined with my forthcoming association with Kouraku Kiln, Arita and my creative partnership with Master Potter, Tatsuya Tsutsui, from Arita, sees me in a totally different world. I am now doing this without my soul mate and I am…

Rumination #1 (or) wood firing = wood fire conference It’s a lot like organising an anagama firing. You need plenty of work, you get set to load plenty of ware, you need plenty of wood, and you get set to do plenty of splitting. It can do your head in. No doubt it would without Lloyd. You need allies like Lloyd. And Stephen. Stephen the man, Lloyd the hydraulic block splitter, cobbled together from a combine harvester, a gearbox of something from the mines (dubious provenance), a Chinese motor, and two Kelly axe heads welded together. Lloyd looks like something out of Mad Max 2, possibly as dangerous too. He’s big-machinery-yellow and he has saved immeasurable wear and tear. My right arm, and left, both wrists, elbows, shoulders, and whatever…

To achieve this degree and control of melt depended on a sophisticated understanding and control of fire. As a potter, I find myself conscious of legacy: having an understanding of what has gone before us is not only fascinating but can inform our own practice. In my early potting days I developed a particular fondness for the type of glaze known as Celadon, and was fortunate enough to be able to examine and handle many old Chinese pieces, and use more modern examples. It was the particular qualities of those old glazes that captured me…the soft, luminous sheen, a semi opaque depth created by a myriad of tiny bubbles, the cool hues of blues and greens, and above all, a quietness… The most plausible view concerning the origins of our…

One of the most important rehabilitation centres in Turkey, the Bodrum Health Foundation, preferences ceramics in its curriculum. The workshop was established with the sponsorship of Erkan Dülgerolu (1945 – 2014) who is the owner of Ferer Foreign Co. under the directorship of the artist, Tarik Kartal, in 2008. The mission of the ceramics workshop is to encourage students with disability to develop an identity, experience a sense of achievement, and be able to develop creativity and a sense of aesthetic pleasure and discernment. Through activities specially designed in the workshop, the aim and intentions were to integrate students with disability in broader society, and to understand (and be involved in) production and designer identity. There are two main types of production process the students can take an active part…

In his latest exhibition Martin Smith further investigates the formal language of the vessel and the way that it can both contain a space and define a place. He analyses the poetic qualities of mathematics and geometry and develops new approaches to surface illusion. Using his previous show with Marsden Woo Gallery (Red and Black with Blue and Yellow, 2015) and its exploration of the archetype of the vase as a jumping-off point, Smith drops the scale of this new body of work to that of the cup, mug or beaker for an exploration of the geometric intersection of cylinders and cubes. Picking up on concerns that go back to the mid- '80s in which he explored different planes within the cylinder, and making direct reference to his 1990 series…

Standing in the Cube Gallery, in the centre of the Leach Pottery, is a very rare mid - 1920s earthenware sculpture of a horse and rider by Bernard Leach. This sculpture had been roughly cemented onto a generic earthenware ridge tile (FIG 1), and at some point during the last ninety years, it had been mounted onto a rooftop near St. Ives in Cornwall. This Horse and Rider was the focus of my residency in the spring of 2014 – Julia Twomlow, Director of the Leach Pottery (March 2008 – October 2015) had requested that I respond to and research this little understood sculpture. On arrival at the Leach Pottery it seemed important to discover onto which roof the sculpture had been attached. The roof, many suggested, was that of…

The first was a five-day workshop I led at Marian Williams’ studio in Murwillumbah on the far north coast of NSW. The second was firing the ‘Racer’, the anagama kiln at the Mansfield property Morning View at Gulgong. Preparing for the workshop led me to contemplate the major influence and continuing inspiration of three potters in my life: Makoto Yabe, Toshiko Takaezu, and Peter Rushforth. Makoto re-taught me how to work with clay after I had first learned ‘western’ techniques. Almost all my methods come from Makoto and are derived from hundreds of years of Japanese tradition. Even now, 40 years after my first meeting with Makoto, I have so many questions I would like to ask him and thoughts I would like to discuss. My real learning began later…

The fire billowing smoke Fires ten celadon zwine cups There is one cup above others A glow in jade green Tempered through many a searing flame Unblemished as crystal Enduring as rock I see now the crafter’s skill Is touched with the heavenly gift. Yi Gyu-Bo So said Yi Gyu-bo (1168 – 1241), a renowned literary servant and scholar from the Goryeo Dynasty, when he praised the beauty of Goryeo celadon in one of his writings. Goryeo celadon seems to hold a mysterious beauty thanks to its iconic jade green color and its perfectly balanced shape. “Goryeo celadon” is a unique type of ceramic that was produced for the first time in the period known as the Goryeo Dynasty (918 – 1932) in Korean history. The word cheongja that was…

I The caves at Lascaux or Chauvet. The stencils of horses, mammoths, lions, bears, bison, aurochs. The sensitivity of perception they reveal. What if, rather than being painted on the surface, these apparitions came through the rock to be seen? The rock opened for them? “When such apparitions came to the first artists,” John Berger writes, “they came almost invisibly and he felt them and traced where they nudged the surface on which they would now stay visible even after they had withdrawn back into the rock.” Rock appears lifeless, but these first artists knew that it is not. Imagine the caves at Lascaux and Chauvet themselves transformed, turned inside out, so that all that dark drama is now visible on their skin, and that skin were clay. Imagine that…

This tomb was discovered in 1973 in the former German Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany) at a prehistoric archaeological site outside the town of Zwenkau near Leipzig. Since its discovery, the crypt has remained a trove of paradox and controversy. Carbon testing has dated the pottery found to at least 5000-4500 BC and perhaps older. This would place the work in the period known as the Linier Pottery Culture. While the simple utilitarian forms of Linier Pottery represent such a significant technical leap forward that they define an epoch, “the linier pottery culture” they remain rather unremarkable for either their form or decoration. The notable exception being the vessels found in Hakob’s tomb. Indeed, Hakob defined this difference of attitude, “Most potters make pots to hold something, I strive…

In the aftermath of the First World War pessimism hung over Meissen with almost palpable heaviness. Yet in the pockets of the city’s inhabitants, clinking as they walked the depressed streets, unusual evidence of Germany’s persistent spirit of innovation hinted that its industry would prove resilient, despite the economic catastrophe gripping the nation. From 1921 to 1922, the famed Meissen Porcelain Manufactory produced some of history’s most distinctive and attractive coinage from the stoneware and porcelain clay bodies on which the factory had founded its reputation more than two hundred years earlier. In 1919, fearing the economic consequences of reparation imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, citizens of Germany began hoarding every gold and silver coin they could acquire. Since nearly all coins of copper and nickel had been melted…