Lee Love on tue 31 jan 06
On 2006/01/31 15:52:03, kef@kforer.com wrote:
> It's folly to compare Bauhaus to an outhouse
This is folly to make people say things just to make a phony argument
Or, if you really didn't understand: It really is incredible that people
don't know how to read.
I asked Lili if it was "Bauhaus or the outhouse" for her. Meaning: are
creative expressions outside of her particular focus of no validity to
her? That is not comparing the two, but contrasting them. DOH!
Is American heritage ONLY European? Does American ceramic history exist
before 1900? Before 1700? Are non-European inspirations valid for
Americans? I think so. Our ability to draw on all cultures is one of our
greatest strengths. Leach didn't understand this.
Also, Lili is the one that put her argument in an America vs. Japan
perspective, because as I have said previously, Japanese craftsmen seem
to hold more secrets than American ceramic artists do. Hamada's
perspective on sharing knowledge was new in Japan especially.
Here is some stuff I'd be happy to talk about if you really want to have
a discussion and not just stitch together straw men:
The Smithsonian collection of papers by artists is pretty amazing.
Check out their digital collection here:
http://archivesofamericanart.si.edu/collections/digitalcollections/
Best luck is to search for ceramicists, but you can search by specific
names too. I had good luck searching for Leach. That brought up both the
letters donated by MacKenzie and Wildenhain letters.
Janet Leach has an essay about her trip back to America in '61, in a
letter to MacKenzie. It is interesting. Here is a short quote:
"With the exception of a few major pioneering centers, such as Alfred
and Ohio State, pottery is actually a post war child..." and later:
"We were told there are over 300 universities and colleges with Ceramic
Departments, and over 30 with graduate course. This means that most
aspiring potters are acquiring certificates to be teachers. In this,
American and England are on a parallel. We have not or heard of very few
who thought of , or aspired to run their own pottery as a profession."
As I said before, in the story I told about Hamada, the term studio
potter was probably focused on potters making functional work alone in a
studio.
Also, there is an open letter from Marguerite Wildenhain to Leach,
disagreeing with his thought that America has no tap root. I think she
is correct and Leach was wrong on this point. America has many "tap
root-lets" that come from around the world and they are not restricted
to European influences.
The letters at the Smithsonian collection feel like pieces of history,
because they are either written in longhand or on a typewriter, with
erasures, crossing outs and writing ins. Seems best to save the graphic
and then enlarge to make them more readable.
--
李 Lee Love 大
愛 鱗
"With Humans it's what's here (he points to his heart) that makes the
difference. If you don't have it in the heart, nothing you make will
make a difference."
~~Bernard Leach~~ (As told to Dean Schwarz)
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