Breaking the Mould, Part Two...

I have already looked at some of the artists work featured in this book on this journal, however there is also a collection of essays from which I have selected some quotes and key points relevant to my work that may be useful for me to expand upon later.

In the foreword Cigalle Hanaor writes positively that the possibilities for makers of ceramics are becoming more wide, explaining that

“The ceramicists featured in Breaking the Mould are at the forefront of their field, defining and re-defining the cultural positioning of ceramics, looking back at its past, and forward to the unending possibilities of its future. Looking at them as a group, we can see the themes and motivations that dominate their work, the ways in which the technical and conceptual territory of ceramics is changing, and how this medium holds as much significance today as it has throughout the centuries.”

Hanaor also touches on the interesting subject of how contemporary ceramicists relate to the history of ceramics,

“the love-hate relationship of ceramicists with the incredibly rich history of pottery, makes for fascinating conversations between the various makers and within the individual pieces of ceramic art”

Even in this short amount of writing I have begun to question the labels being used be Hanaor and myself; ceramicist and potter, artist and maker. ‘Pottery’ seems to be mainly used in a historical context, as in the quote above. (Hanaor 2007:Foreword).

In her essay ‘The Essential Vessel’ Natasha Daintry begins by asking why should the vessel be considered, analysed and written about when so much other work is being made in ceramics? She argues this is valuable because “the vessel acts as a sort of pulse-taking: where are we, what do we value, what are we thinking?” (Daintry 2007:6) Daintry’s reference to ‘value’ is relevant to what I have been looking at, I need to explore how a vessel can show what people at that time value. Daintry also writes that the “vessel is persistent”, I can understand what she means by this, it is a form that has been made for thousands of years (as I have seen in Functional Ceramics).

However, despite this as Daintry writes, we do not value vessels like we do contemporary art, she questions whether this is because people believe they do not have anything to say,

“Our culture places talking and thinking above all things, in fact equating thinking with being. But what if you don’t buy the idea that thinking is everything? That there might be something in other states like sensing, doing and being?” (Daintry 2007:6)

She argues that these ideas are not as easy to put in a box, they are “more existential states which shift and move as you inhabit them - more amorphous, like clay” (Daintry 2007:6). I like the way she has used the material, clay, to describe the ideas.

Daintry goes on to discuss people’s assumptions of ceramics.

“There’s an assumption that a piece of china is a calm and quiet object, ordinary, inert and fixed…the well behaved cup or saucer is now suitably compliant and ordered to carry out it’s duties” (Daintry 2007:7)

The next quote is quite long, and I probably would not include it all in an essay, but I think it is really interesting and accurate description of the contrast between the depth of the ceramic language that can be applied to an everyday object and the users perception. She writes

“ a vessel is as much defined by the negative space in and around it, as the skin of the ceramic itself. This skin is a sort of negotiation between the inside and the outside…an effortless three-dimensional manifestation of forma and formlessness. We take it so much for granted that we no longer see it in that way, we only see the material bit that holds our coffee. But really it is a benign existential riddle sitting on our breakfast table.” (Daintry 2007:8)

Daintry goes on to discuss the anthropomorphic qualities that vessels are often assigned, feet, belly, shoulders, lips. She writes that it is an idea not often thought about as it is not conceptual (relating back to her point about the value of thinking being placed above being and doing), it is about the body.

“tools became increasingly detached from the body over time. So we can see how cupped hands which began scooping up water went on to develop pinch pots and then technically brilliant wheel-thrown Sung vases” (Daintry 2007:12)

The last quote I choose from Daintry also concerns tools and how objects relate to the body,

“We used to make objects as a way of feeling our way into the world, but now it could be objects which lead us back to ourselves” (Daintry 2007:13)

In his chapter ‘The Pursuit of Technique’ Rob Banard writes that “Ceramic art, of course is defined by it’s material and that material has a certain nature and rules that dictates its use” (Banard 2007:23) I think the same could probably be said of many disciplines, including glass or metal. I do agree that the processes one needs to follow to achieve a piece of ceramic, for example firing, does influence the work.

Banard argues that for the last forty years ceramicists have “sought to entertain each other and the public with how they can make clay look like anything” and that this over reliance on technique produced ceramics that appeared “self conscious”. I found it hard to understand his point in this paragraph, maybe I do not know enough about the ceramics of the last forty years. From reading Function in Ceramics I learnt that since ceramics were first created thousands of years ago they were often made to look like another material such as bone or metal (Hopper 2000:37-45). Banard concludes this paragraph with

“Risk and emotion were all but eliminated from the equation because they threatened the final outcome with a sense of uncertainty and vulnerability.” (Banard 2007:23)

It is not clear whether he includes contemporary ceramicists in this statement. (I think that by its nature ceramics has enough risk contained within its lengthy processes!)

Lastly Banard questions how modern ceramics can create work that relates to modern life. He writes that Phillip Rawson’s view that ceramics should be seen as a visual language is the strongest argument, as opposed to art for arts sake or function for functions sake which Banard argues are out dated views. He writes that Rawson’s idea of a visual language “does not pit the past against the future, the useful against the purely artistic and puts the technical aspects of ceramics into their proper perspective” (Banard 2007:25) I am not sure what the ‘proper perspective’ of technical aspects is, as they have always been important to my work at least. I will explore Rawson’s writings for a clearer understanding of this.