I received some interesting responses to my last post. Excerpts of which will be published in Ceramic Review. My second letter to be published which is reassuring, this must mean that I do have something worthwhile to say! I am beginning to wonder if I should give up ceramics and start writing as my scribblings seem to get to more places than my pots at the moment. Obviously something I need to focus on there.
Another incredibly well articulated and knowledgable response came from Tony Thompson via the Southern Ceramics Group and I guess this post is mainly for you Tony!
I would like to state that I am not a Bernard Leach hater. I recognise that Leach laid the foundations for Contemporary studio Ceramics, he wrote prolifically authoritatively and convincingly about ceramics. This coupled with his much documented magnetic personality and his connection with Shoji Hamada and the mystical east has made him the stuff of legend. With out him Ceramics would not be what it is today, I don't think anyone could argue with that.
HOWEVER...when I first read the A Potter's Book I felt like I was being told off. It was way back in 2002 and I was just beginning my formal training in Ceramics at St Martins and this guy's name kept coming up. So I bought the book, and in it Leach details in a very specific way what constitutes a good pot, which foot rings are acceptable, which lip is the best and which curves are graceful or down right ugly. I found it a hard pill to swallow. At the time I didn't say a word because I didn't want to get in trouble with people who where far more knowledgable that me in the field of ceramics which I love. Ten years later I feel like I can speak out and say what I really think. I like making pots that don't follow this set of rules and I think my work is still valid. If only because it makes me happy to do it.
I then read the Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi, another friend of Leach's (Grayson Perry's current exhibition is an obvious reference to this book). Again there was this strict set of rules about what constitutes beauty. How a pot should never be marked with a name because the identity of the maker is not important and the anonymity of the craftsman is humble, how it should be about the act of repetition and making (I find it interesting that leach marked his pots, and there is now a kind of brand Leach, but thats another debate for another time). I respect all of this in its own context and time. But if you apply the same set of rules to a young female ceramic artist/maker/craftsperson/designer (not really sure what I am) in contemporary democratic consumer lead materialistic western society It doesn't quite hang right. I guess what I was having and still am having is a kind of identity crisis. Leach was born in Japan and lived between England and Japan absorbing both influences during the aftermath of the industrial revolution. His work made sense then to him. I cannot relate what I do to this ideology on any meaningful level.
I feel that many people have lived under this long shadow afraid to say anything because Leach's booming voice resonates through his text, I felt it; it took me 10 years to speak up. I am not a maker who works with new technologies over much (sometimes I might use the odd decal). I coil which has to be one of the most ancient ways of making. No machines, just me, the clay and a few tools. Pretty basic. It is not the idea of the studio potter, the maker that bothers me. I believe making is innate in some people, my brother is a carpenter, my dad a mechanic, and my Grandad also a carpenter, I believe it is on my blood. What I have issue with is the rules Leach lays out of what is GOOD ceramics and what is BAD. Surely this is entirely subjective, and linked to the time in which the work is made?
With regards to Ceramic Review it seems to be as though it is being torn in two. It seems patently obvious to me which camp each article is intended for. On one side the working face potter, the made to function articles, the technical information in the back. And on the other side arty types with conceptual ceramics, not always focussing so heavily on the science and skills of ceramics, but using clay as a medium to explore concepts and ideas. My work does not fit comfortably in either of these camps. But I would give time of day to both of them purely because there are people out there who are doing it. If there are out there doing it then there is space for it as far as I am concerned. I do think that we need to re-contextualise ourselves as potters/ceramicists/ceramists what ever the word of the moment is. People should write more, say what they think and feel. I think Ceramic artists are solitary creatures and the link that jevpots made in his email to Chris Coxs call to arms is very true. We need to raise the profile of ceramics in the UK and have our very own ceramics week in May. They have a week for everything else, so we deserve one too.
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