Lee Love on tue 7 feb 06
If the first half of the century was the domain of ceramic artists and
Art Nouveau , the second half was the emergence of the studio potter
making functional work. What is so difficult to understand about that
perspective? Looking at Doat's work, you could hardly think of him as
anything other than an artist, and not necessarily an appealing one.
--
李 Lee Love 大
愛 鱗
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
http://ikiru.blogspot.com/ Zen and Craft
"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is
rounded with a sleep."
--PROSPERO Tempest Shakespeare
Hank Murrow on tue 7 feb 06
On Feb 7, 2006, at 7:01 AM, Lee Love wrote:
> Here is a simple way to decide if something is art or pottery?
>
> Is it dusted or is it washed in the sink?
So that is why pots are stored in boxes? To preserve their pottery
status!
I find that once in awhile, when lifting a dish from the soapy water in
the sink......., I see it all over again, and fall in love.
Cheers, Hank
www.murrow.biz/hank
Steve Slatin on tue 7 feb 06
Lee,
It seems you believe that functional work was developed AFTER
decorative work, and in the first half of the last century we all
squatted around in our caves drinking tea out of coconut shells.
Then, one of us, (probably a guy who made some of that really
ugly art pottery) was looking at a sort of modified shell-shape
he had recently fired, and said "Hey guys! We could make
CUPS out of these and drink tea 'n coffee 'n stuff from our
ARTWORK!" and thus studio pottery was born from art pottery.
Studio pottery in the Americas has roots in indigenous peoples'
pottery, less-than-factory level commercial pottery in the colonial period,
etc. It was repeatedly refreshed with aesthetic and technical inputs
from Europe and Asia.* Sometimes the inputs were models (export
porcelain from China brought back by the clipper trade, Greek examples
placed in museums, etc.) and sometimes the inputs were people
(German, French, Scottish, English, and Italian potters,
among others).
Totally independent studio work doesn't always leave lots of traces
behind (after all, how can you tell how a given cup was made, or
by whom, or where? Much pottery has ever been unsigned), but
affiliated studio work often does -- before the Civil War
the Dummers were manufacturing press-work earthenware and
so on, and in much smaller output thrown-ware that could only be
called studio work.
I don't myself know of the history of the Carolina potters, but what
they were doing clearly goes back over 100 years in continuous
production and that's studio pottery in the first half of the last
century. And there's the example of Black Mountain, which
closed its doors in the earliest years of the second half of the
last century, but not without training potters (including my own
teacher, who first learned her techniques there) that influence
American studio potters to this day.
You seem irritated by references to studio pottery outside of your
timeline. You should know these references don't mean that your
train-of-influence has no meaning (many of us are strongly
influenced by Leach and Hamada), it's just that this evidence shows
that any claim to your timeline being the only source of studio pottery,
at least in the Americas, is incorrect.
Now, you make it clear you dislike Doat's work. Fair enough,
no one says you have to like his work. But what was the purpose to
his book? He was writing to an audience, and given the nature of
his book (lots of basics, some examples, etc.) it's clear he wasn't
writing to on-going large-scale commercial facilities. A large-scale
commercial pottery would have known, for example, that cobalt
yields blue in glazes. But studio potters might not ... and the book
was sold ... so there were interested buyers somewhere ... again,
it's pretty clear that these folks were not all sui generis and it
stands to reason that they did not die without passing on at
least a bit of their knowledge to other studio potters.
-- Steve Slatin
*IIRC, you've made this argument yourself, that American pottery
is 'multi-rooted' as opposed to taprooted.
Lee Love wrote:
If the first half of the century was the domain of ceramic artists and
Art Nouveau , the second half was the emergence of the studio potter
making functional work. What is so difficult to understand about that
perspective? Looking at Doat's work, you could hardly think of him as
anything other than an artist, and not necessarily an appealing one.
Steve Slatin --
In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again
as my life is done in watermelon sugar.
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
Lee Love on wed 8 feb 06
On 2006/02/08 1:48:49, hmurrow@efn.org wrote:
>
> So that is why pots are stored in boxes? To preserve their pottery
> status!
It is handy in an earthquake too and also for storage in small
Japanese houses.
> I find that once in awhile, when lifting a dish from the soapy water in
> the sink......., I see it all over again, and fall in love.
Personally, I feel it is important for me to cook with,
serve on, and wash the pottery in my house. It is one reason we don't
have a dishwasher. Mostly, I use other potter's work because I
would rather have a conversation than just talk to myself. Though,
I will bring a new form in to the house, usually a flawed piece, to test
out its function.
In looking at historic pots, here in Japan but also in
America, handmade tableware is a relatively new idea. Before 1600
and the introduction of the modern climbing kiln from Korea, pottery
was too expensive to use as tableware. In the average home, it was
used most for storage and in the kitchen. In Japan, wooden and
lacquer ware was used at the table. You see some evidence of this in The
Potter's Eye, most of the work being Jugs.
Maybe I mentioned this before, but one time while
showing visitors around, never having spoken to Jean about this before,
but I asked her what kind of pottery back home reminded her of what
Mashiko pottery was like before Hamada arrived. Before Hamada, the
work was storage vessels for grain and water and mixing bowls for the
kitchen, along with the occasional dobin. Jean replied without
hesitation, "Redwing Pottery." That makes a lot of sense, because
they originally made the same things: crocks, butter churns, and mixing
bowls. At the very end, they tried to make a go of it with
dinnerware. Sort of in its death throes...
--
Lee Love
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
http://ikiru.blogspot.com/ Zen and Craft
"The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything.
The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows
it and who don't."
--Burley Coulter (Wendell Berry)
Lee Love on wed 8 feb 06
Here is a simple way to decide if something is art or pottery?
Is it dusted or is it washed in the sink?
--
李 Lee Love 大
愛 鱗
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
http://ikiru.blogspot.com/ Zen and Craft
"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is
rounded with a sleep."
--PROSPERO Tempest Shakespeare
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