Innehållsförteckning för No. 109 från Ceramics: Art and Perception

Ji-Sook Lee, a Korean ceramist, newly appropriates an old Chaekkado (Scholar’s accoutrements)1 by using acrylic paint on terracotta. A pile of sorted books and Obangsaek2, using the traditional five colors in Korea, draw our attention to stuff easily found around us, rather than the old item. Chaekkado is the landscape of the male study room. Scholars of the Joseon dynasty boasted books and precious items collected for their richness and the perspective gained from them. In addition, they eased the desire for reading by lightening the mood in literary circles, a pastime considered as highly as studying. The study is full of male desire and taste, as well creating an illusion, based on the period’s original thinking that society needed men at that time. Ji-Sook Lee’s Chaekkado does not have…

It sounds almost intolerably corny, and indeed I cringe even as my fingers press the keys, but Clay Gulgong 2016 was, truly, a week that changed my life. Recently escaped from the hustle of a City lifestyle and its multitudinous soul-depleting-wallet-draining strings, I had no idea what to expect or indeed what Gulgong even was (other than a very small town with a pub on every delightful corner). So new to the world of ceramics as to be almost wide-eyed, I found it a formative period of thought expansion and trajectory solidification; this was my plot I thought, these (mad, wild) people and this (amazing, challenging) material. In 2018, Gulgong’s twisting main street with its high sandstone curb stones buttressing elegant awnings over colourfully painted - if slightly faded –…

When I was the one writing the editorial for this journal, several years ago I wrote about the worldwide biennials that were labeled as international. In most cases, the majority of the panel of jurors were from the country or region of the venue for the juried exhibition, with the minority of the panel being from other regions of the globe. In the case of Faenza, this was definitely the modus operendi in the past. There would be five jurors with four of them being from Faenza and Rome, or other parts of Italy and the fifth was usually from Europe. Without claiming that my voice had an effect on the changes, Taiwan took steps to change the nature of their selection of work. Now, for alternating biennials, Taiwan implements…

“What if Arneson were brown like me?” On the tenth of June in 2017 I took the train from Oakland to Sacramento, a longtime favorite route for me. Rain was falling, an unusual event lately, as we wound through the marshlands and behind the sugar cane factory. The cars were full, and people were talkative, laughing and joking with strangers. I recognized five spoken languages, received a gift of tacos and some cookies, and had ample time to think about the way common struggle in California has shaped our recent history. It is important, essential, that we stand together. For this to have lasting results, we first need to understand our history, and the work of artist Ray Gonzales is a torch held high for that understanding. Ray Gonzales’ solo…

The concept of beauty derives from the way man has been interpreting the world as it existed since the dawn of human society. In the Western world view, artwork’s beauty depends on the use of elements and principles of design. But, for Africans, the beauty of an artwork is not considered by the form, but the purpose the artwork is made to serve. For this, African artworks were considered by early Western scholars as timid and fetish. This study looks at the perception of beauty that is hidden in the manipulation of the traditional pots produced by Urhobo potters of Delta State in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. The methods applied for the study was by survey and the description of the concept of beauty as it relates to Urhobo…

I just started working with the clay, and then I saw it was becoming a protective angel,” says John, a Vietnam War veteran who struggles long after war’s end to come to terms with his battlefield experiences. John is one of many troubled people—ex-military, Middle East refugees, sexual abuse victims, and more—who have benefited from clay workshops created and led by Corinne D. Peterson, a Chicago ceramic artist. Peterson, who was a practicing psychotherapist for many years, began to work with clay in 1986 as she underwent Jungian psychoanalysis that focuses on the subconscious. As she tells it, she discovered clay as a way to visualize her inner experiences. She says “I was amazed by how clay helped me recognize, understand, and begin to heal” from childhood traumas. Peterson eventually…

Why is my fired glaze peeling off the pot? When a glaze shivers it is under extreme compression as it cools, peeling off the underlying clay body. This defect is most prevalent on pottery lips and handles, which are the areas of highest surface tension as the glaze hardens upon cooling. Shivering glaze chips can range from 1/16” to 2” (.15 cm to 5 cm)in size often looking like a paint chip coming off the fired clay body. Importantly, if an individual glaze has shivered, the entire kiln load of the same clay body and glaze can be in question even though there are no apparent indications of defect in the other pots that might fail in the future. Many times hitting the edges of the pot with a metal…

All images courtesy of the author. Letter to God: Tip Toland I was revisiting my adolescence and this piece was one of three which came from that investigation. I thought if I was an adolescent today, this would be me. I would have come from the same set of protestant, conservative parents which would have prevented me from getting a tattoo. Yet, though I longed for a tattoo I would have gone ahead with creating my own with ball point pen on my leg. I doodled all the time as an adolescent anyway on all my books, so my ‘Letter’ would have been full of drawings and cartoons, yet completely earnest in the questions I had for God. I remember feeling so lost then, wondering if there was any greater…

Art returns things it gets from life, back to life inherently. It gives life to the lives of others through various reckoning1. In one respect, art indicates a thing that we have but failed to realize among the endless details of life. It is like being stopped and overhearing, and then being turned around to look at the vision created by someone who is following their own traces. We can see that the melodies, colors, links, searches and challenges in our life are also parts of the life of another person, or other life parts that we do not recognize until they hit our wall and we share them. In the same way we can approach the exhibition of this artist as her bringing her works together and releasing her…

The war has used up words; they have weakened, they have deteriorated.1 The melting, breakdown and collapse shed a critical and poignant light on our ability as a society to contain unbearable amounts of horrific images … What are raw materials? This question is particularly important–even if unconsciously–for artists working in the material arena. This arena is nurtured by raw materials such as minerals, organic and inorganic materials, as points of departure or dialogue partners in the creative process. Ernst H. Gombrich asks how the world is represented by art. The question of representing reality passes like a scarlet thread through the history of art and seeks to depend on a historical, cultural, technological and political context.2 This text sees to view material or materiality in their broad context as…

“We are forced to that fundamental question of history: whether … similar images arise far apart in space and time according to common types of human needs, reverence, and desire, or whether there was some vast stone age diffusion long ago”Vincent Scully1 “That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art”Walter Benjamin.2 Of all the revolutionary transformations in human development perhaps the greatest is the least known: the global transition from the hunter, gatherer and fisher — dependent on the chance provisioning of nature to the reproduction of nature — through the husbandry of animals and birds and the cultivation of plants. But wherever, whenever, and whatever the pace of this transition, pottery is already present, flourishing as the invention and achievement…

What! Did the Hand Then of the Potter shake?Omar Khayyam1 When coming to any form of creative expression, two questions arise for me in context of the function: Who is it for? What is it for? So, who is this article for? Is it the community of ceramicists gathered together from around the world at Clay Gulgong 2018? Maybe it has relevance to the wider world of those initiates who frequent the mysterious world only potters know? But maybe that’s all. Furthermore, what is this article for? What point does the writing of this article serve? What insights of value can my reflections offer, as someone who shares the inner-life of a ceramicist but does not consider themselves anything like an authority in the field of ceramics? This is despite…

I am a ceramic artist with a passion for ballpoint pen drawing. In the past, I used my drawing as a design tool to create modelled, press-moulded and fired figurative ceramic sculptures. The renderings were executed on acid free paper in bound books as ballpoint drawings fade with time when exposed to direct light. With the advances in ceramic and digital technology, I am now able to capitalise on my ballpoint drawing skills by creating digitally printed ceramic transfers which can be fired onto a range of ready mades as well as expressive ceramic statements. This was a real breakthrough for me. When the first batch of digitally printed ceramic transfers was test-fired onto commercially produced ceramic plates, my impermanent ballpoint drawings were instantly immortalised. The intricate crosshatching detail was…

This summer there have been two unusual events in London. The first being extremely hot weather and the second, that a ceramic maker (the enigmatic Grayson Perry) coordinated the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy (RA). This year, the Royal Academy celebrates its 250th Summer Exhibition, and is firmly established as part of the national tradition of the UK. It is the world’s largest open submission contemporary show by exhibiting a range of art being made in this moment, in tune with the theme of ‘Art Made Now’. For the first time, the Summer Exhibition spreads across the new RA and spills out onto the streets of London’s West End. Grayson Perry RA, in his role of coordinator, encouraged artists to enter work by issuing this statement: Fellow artists! 2018…

This retrospective exhibition was, in an unexpected way, a glimpse of another time and a different mindset. Marie Woo (b. 1928), active in ceramics since the 1950s and a noted teacher and curator in addition to being an active creative artist, is not the career-oriented, technically masterful potter of today. In this show, the 52 works were untitled and, more shocking, undated – other than a few labeled with a decade. Woo didn’t keep records but just enjoyed the engagement with the material and experimentation with form. And she still does. New works in the show were unfired because her kiln isn’t working; she treated that not as a limitation but as an opportunity to be playful. Small nodules of bright blue clay were adhered to wires hanging from a…

The launch of the National K-12 Student Ceramics Competition at Clay Gulgong 2018 is a timely initiative that acknowledges and celebrates student work across Australia. In this age of shiny digital technologies and the imperative of STEM, the ancient medium and processes of ceramics are often regarded in schools as a remnant from another time. Almost in spite of this unwarranted reputation, recent years have seen a renaissance of this medium in schools. The launch of the National K-12 Student Ceramics Competition at Clay Gulgong 2018 is a timely initiative that acknowledges and celebrates student work across Australia. Based on the highly successful National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) US competition, the inaugural competition invited teachers and students to submit ceramic works from Kindergarten to Year 12.…

The piece reads a bit like a life line; a time line with highs and lows, beauty and parts torn asunder. Those who know Toni Ross as an artist are aware of her attention to detail. Through this article I intend to provide a close-up view of Toni Ross’s ceramic work referred to as Strata, and provide an opportunity for us to see the work and artist in a new perspective. Strata are made of joined pieces of cut ceramic slabs which began as cast-offs from other projects. I tend to think of this technique as Ross’s way of channeling her early experience as a pastry chef. There is a frugality in her studio where nothing goes to waste. Ceramic slab remnants are reincorporated into new work the way excess…

Since publishing an article titled An Alternative to Wood-firing Using Gas at Cone 6 in Ceramic Technical issue 37, I have been researching and experimenting with soda ash in electric kilns. I am intrigued by the soda effect on pots in reduction firing. The studio where I work has many electric kilns and I wondered what the effects of the soda ash mixture I use in the reduction kiln would be like in oxidation. I researched some techniques and performed my own experiments and was quite pleased with the outcome. This article explains my process and the effects on the pots as well as addressing some concerns with using an oxidation kiln with these chemicals. The studio I mainly work in is at the University of Delaware. Here, they mainly…