Portfolio Metro

A Review

A Review of Steve Harrison's Rock Glazes, Geology and Mineral Processing for Potters: A Personal Approach (Hot and Sticky Press, 2003)

Pottery, unlike painting, does not depict landscape; it is the landscape. Through knowledge gained empirically or by the application of scientific theory, the earth beneath the potters feet is transformed into objects which may be both useful and beautiful. In Rock Glazes, Geology and Mineral Processing for Potters: A Personal Approach, Steve Harrison examines how the studio-potter may use clays, rocks and even the detritus of the built environment to create glazes that echo the land in a manner that is both literal and abstract.

For thousands of years, whether in the hands of village craftsmen or technocrats, these skills were an integral part of the practice of ceramics. Over time this knowledge was compartmentalised, hived off as the province of specialists. Whether within the manufactories of Stoke-on-Trent or in the traditional Chinese pottery centres of Longquan or Jingdezhen, the vast scale of production had led to a situation whereby those who made the pots were not the same people who made the clay, and the workers who made the glazes did not build or fire the kilns. Such is the nature of industry, an enterprise which, whilst not being without craftsmanship, is quite different to the crafts, at least as the term came to be understood in the twentieth century. Thanks to outspoken and persuasive commentators like Bernard Leach, the advent of this modern crafts movement brought with it the notion of the studio-potter, an artist-craftsperson who chose to creatively reinterpret traditional practices in a manner and on a scale more allied to the world of art than of industry. An integral part of this new model was the concept of 'truth to materials'. Whereas industry strove to make pottery that was ever whiter, finer and glossier, many within the crafts movement sought other directions, to the extent that the imperfections brought about by the use of unrefined materials were often celebrated within the studio pottery movement, coming to define no less than an alternate aesthetic paradigm.

Leach was the pivot around which this part of ceramic history turned. A Potter's Book, published in 1940, was the first generally available text (which is not to say it was the only one) for the studio-potter to deal comprehensively with how stoneware pottery could be made outside of an industrial setting. In his book, Leach gave detailed and practical guidance as to how common minerals - feldspar, limestone and quartz – could provide the backbone for high temperature glazes. In addition, drawing on his experience of North Asian traditions, he included other non-industrial materials, including wood ash and the Japanese kimaichistone, in his glaze recipes. A Potter's Book contains analysis of these hitherto overlooked substances and explains how they may modify or replace more 'traditional' glaze ingredients. For the first time the studio potter was able to see how the ash from their fireplace (or, in those more lenient times, the backyard incinerator) contained many of the substances necessary to construct a workable stoneware glaze. [2] This was a radical departure from standard Western ceramic practice, but, in Leach's view, a potter might not only gain a degree of independence by working in this way, but it would imbue their work with an organic quality, setting it apart from industrial ware. [3] Philosophy and practice would meet, and be reconciled. The extent to which this approach was adopted, and how it may have benefited or constrained the ceramic arts, is still the subject of debate.

In Australia, many of the pioneers of studio pottery followed suit. Aided by Leach's book, the Melbourne potters Harold and Robert Hughan turned quickly from the idiom of earthenware to become amongst the very first exponents of high-fired studio-pottery. [4] Ivan Mc Meekin, who had worked with Michael Cardew in England, became obsessed with materials, a process which would culminate in his extraordinary text Notes for Potters in Australia, a treatise on Australian ceramic materials which remains unparalleled in its rigour. Ivan Englund began his exploration of rock glazes, and, from Eileen Keys in Western Australia to Carl McConnell in Queensland, potters turned to the ground to see what vigour was in its bones.

The use of 'natural' materials is fundamentally a stoneware technique, but in the early years kilns that could reliably reach stoneware temperatures were few and far between, with many an exciting – and risky – experiment carried out with dripping sump-oil and jerry-rigged blowers in sheds across the country. With a copy of A Potter's Book, or later Daniel Rhodes' excellent Clay and Glazes for the Potter near at hand, Australian potters covered their pots in simple mixtures of clay, ash, limestone, dolomite, feldspar and quartz, crossed their fingers and waited nervously for the results. [5]

With the advent of journals and books dedicated to Australian studio pottery, information gleaned from this experimental work became available, although, Australian publishing being what it is, the pace was somewhat leisurely. [6] It was in the pages of Pottery in Australia magazine that a meaningful dialogue began as to the nature of stoneware techniques, the clays, glazes and kilns germane to this exciting field of endeavour. Given the makeup of the editorial staff this was no surprise, and as early as the third issue (May 1963) Ivan Englund, who was then President of the Potters Society of New South Wales, the publishers of the magazine, authored an article 'The Bumbo Latite – a useful igneous rock for potters'. It is here that we find a template for all future contributions on the use of Australian rocks in stoneware glazes, and which, somewhat belatedly, serves as an introduction to a discussion of Harrison's book.

Not unnaturally, most treatises on the subject of rock glazes have several things in common, and Harrison's book is no exception. There is information on the chemical and physical nature of glazes, on the raw materials and how one might go about collecting them, and the all-important question of how the rocks are to be rendered into a state useful to the potter. This latter problem is addressed in two ways. One is to find a working quarry, make friends with the quarrymen and collect the fine dust from around the crushers. This is the easy way, recommended by Ivan Englund in his 1983 book on the subject, Rock Glazes. [7] The second option is to assemble a range of implements whereby several kilos of rocks may be turned into a powder fine enough to be suspended in a glaze solution. This is the hard way, though it brings its own rewards if you are prepared to spend the necessary time, effort and money and if you live far enough from neighbours to get away with the racket. Steve Harrison covers both options, but perhaps understandably given the complexity of the task (and also, I suspect, due to the fact that he just has a lot of fun doing it) it is the latter approach which is stressed.

Jaw crushers, hammer mills, roller mills, disc disintegrators and especially ball mills are discussed at length, together with useful detail to do with ball sizes, speed of grinding and the wonderfully termed 'angle of nip'. There is a revised version of his Thoroughly Modern Milling, first published in Pottery in Australia vol 15. no's 1 and 2 in 1976, which surely must be the last word on the subject. Furthermore – and this is where Harrison's book delves into hitherto unexplored regions – he outlines a method by which constituent minerals, for example feldspar and silica, may be separated from the parent rock through a combination of mechanical and chemical treatments. Given the chemicals and labour involved this procedure will not appeal to most potters, but it is a fascinating account and one which stresses his dedication to the cause. The remainder of the book addresses a variety of subjects, from testing procedures to glaze chemistry, in brief but informative terms, and one might wish to follow Harrison's advice – and footnotes – in assembling a more extensive library on differing aspects of glaze technology or mineralogical analysis. What Steve Harrison does is to concentrate on one specific facet of ceramic inquiry, whilst locating it within a general field, and he does it well.

What he does not do is delve into the philosophy behind his approach (which he terms a 'location specific event' ) for the stated reason that he has addressed this topic in his other writings. I found further explanation of his philosophy of 'locality' on the Legge Gallery website, and couldn't help comparing his arguments with those made by Ivan McMeekin in his Introduction to Notes for Potters in Australia. There, McMeekin states one of the primary reasons for writing his book was because

The inference being that Australian potters were somewhat disadvantaged in this respect, although, given that McMeekin's book was published in 1985, it is arguable that by then Australian potters had access to a truly vast range of materials, both local and imported. Nonetheless, his emphasis is on assembling knowledge for the sake of knowledge:

Fine sentiments indeed.

Harrison's arguments are couched in somewhat more trenchant terms, positing the use of 'local' materials as an antidote to globalisation and the resultant aesthetic sameness in contemporary work. He states that:

One might point out that the smudging of cultural boundaries is not always a bad thing. Ceramics, tailored specifically for foreign markets, have been produced in China and shipped around the world for a very long time and constitute some of the most beautiful wares in ceramic history, though the standard seems to have been slipping over the last few hundred years. Harrison's work itself is the result of a fortuitous smudging of cultural boundaries, stemming as it does from the Anglo-Oriental tradition. It is worth remembering that one of Leach's great ambitions was the bringing together of East and West; yet, whilst his transposition of Oriental stoneware techniques was highly influential in the West, the Japanese audience favoured his English slip-ware, 'born' – as Yanagi rather diplomatically put it – 'not made.' [11] Lastly, it is highly unlikely the monopoly of a global ceramic industry will be challenged by exhibiting $500 soup bowls in a gallery, no matter what their geological DNA. As a political theorist Harrison is less than convincing. Where he is very convincing is in his work and this is where one really sees the benefits of his theories of locality.

Where I am absolutely in agreement with Harrison is in the aesthetic possibilities made possible by the use of un-refined materials. If one favours the personality and individuality brought to a pot by the inclusion of a little quartz, mica or iron in the body, or delights in the unexpected qualities of glazes made with rock and ash, then there is nothing better than Harrison's approach. It also returns to the potter a freedom and confidence which only comes through hands-on experience, hopefully translating into work that exhibits similar qualities. Of course, it is up to the individual to decide just what is 'local' and any argument that rests too heavily on this concept will be difficult to sustain. After all, it is perfectly possible to live – as I do – within a short drive of quarries that supply primary and secondary clays, limestone and quartz, graded, milled and bagged, yet despite this proximity I doubt whether their use would fall within Harrison's definition of a 'location specific event'. What is interesting is his use of the analogy of a 'terroir', referring as it does to a complex interaction of place, product and tradition. Here, Harrison's ideals share more than a little with the burgeoning 'slow food' movement in Australia, as he indicates by comparing the use of local produce with local materials. Other similarities exist, for example the concept of 'food miles', or indeed the willingness of certain members of the public to pay a premium for an organic, hand-made product. As yet, there are no distinct appellations in Australian ceramics, but, given the history, I wouldn't be surprised if the area around Mittagong would be the first.

Damon Moon

References

[1] Englund, I 'Introduction' Rock Glazes privately published Ivan Englund 1983, p. 2

[2] In the table of celadon glazes contained in A Potter's Book, Leach sets out two recipes side by side, 'Leach's Korean type' and 'Kawai's Korean type', noting

... these recipes ... have the same percentage of feldspar. The ash is equivalent to the limestone ... the silica in his reed ash is more opalescent than the quartz in mine, but there is a strong similarity.

And, apropos of rock glazes, in his section on iron glazes Leach gives the chemical analysis for kimaichi stone, noting that it is 'one of the natural rocks used in Japan, for kaki (glaze)...'

From 'A Potter's Book' by Leach, Bernard, first published 1940 by Faber and Faber. pages 158-175

[3] Leach's observations of the differences between the hand-made and the products of industry were complex and extensive. I use the term 'organic' as a kind of shorthand only.

[4] I make the distinction here between studio-pottery and industrial ware, as there certainly were existing potteries, working in a semi-industrial way but nonetheless relying heavily on hand production, who regularly saw at least some wares fired to stoneware temperatures. I have worked at one of these factories, and know from evidence of the old glaze formulae, used on pickling-jars and the like, that it would have needed at least cone 8 temperatures to form a usable glaze.

[5] Not all Australian potters chose the straight and narrow path. Bernard Sahm, despite working in England with Cardew, showed no great interest in utilising Australian materials in the recreation of classic oriental glazes, just as he showed no particular interest in recreating the pots themselves. Maria Gazzard returned from England more inspired by Nicholas Vergette, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper than the St. Ives school. Alex Leckie made stoneware, but it owed more to Vallauris than Cornwall, and even Colin Levy's and Les Blakebrough's early work showed a willingness to combine 'found' materials with a decidedly experimental approach to form. (see Pottery in Australia Vol 6 #2 etc). If David and Hermia Boyd's earthenware may be posited at one end of a spectrum with the Hughan's stoneware at the other (a dialectical construct that should not be taken as gospel) the reality is that most Australian potters worked somewhere in the middle. Despite the rhetoric, Australian potters showed a willingness to embrace a variety of styles and influences, and any reading of craft history which overlooks these nuances does a disservice to the field.

[6] Prior to the arrival of the magazine Pottery in Australia in 1962, the only book published by, and for, Australian potters (at least that I'm aware of) was I. Landale Beetson's 1949 A Potter's Notebook. In common with many books of its time, Beetson's emphasis was on the making of earthenware pottery, a technique which was within the technical capabilities of most schools and hobbyist potters, as well as being the mainstay of studio production at the time. She did, however, at least acknowledge the field of high temperature glazing, including three recipes for porcelain glazes in her book, one of which might be constructed from a simple combination of un-fritted materials. Interestingly, her recipe of feldspar 167, flint 108, whiting 70 and china clay 52, works out in percentage terms to be very close to the Leach 4,3,2,1, a tried and tested lime/alkali combination of great versatility and reliability.

[7] Rock Glazes, 1983, privately published by Ivan Englund. ISBN 0 9591764 0 3, see pages 39 and 40 Preparation of Rock Materials

[8] Notes for Potters in Australia, by McMeekin, Ivan published by New South Wales University Press in 1985. p.3

[9] ibid p.6

[10] from http://www.leggegallery.com/HARRISON/Harrison2004.html

[11] Yanagi, collected letters, quoted in 'Bernard Leach' St.Ives Artists, by de Waal, Edmund. Tate gallery publishing, ISBN 1 8547 227 0

by Tim Rutter

Ceramics and the Haptic Lapse

The following is an open letter to Craft Victoria, in response to a forum about the closure of the ceramics course at the Victorian College of the Arts.

I must say that finding out the VCA course was winding up didn't come as a great surprise. Although I notice that the newsletter referred to the course having 'offered a unique opportunity for students to interact with other art media', I am inclined towards a different point of view. As an ex-student and part-time teacher at the VCA, I think that in many ways it summed up the confusion of 'ceramics'. This is not to say there have not been good students and staff associated with the course. Rather, it is an observation regarding the general direction of the department, and indeed of many ceramics departments in recent times.

The questions that immediately occurred to me, regarding the events at Grant St., are why should we care, and what have we lost?

I recollect a recent conversation with someone who was in charge of putting together an elective program in ceramics. This once great department (which shall remain nameless but was not the VCA) was still full of sufficient equipment and materials to run a mid-sized factory, but it could no longer attract enough students or faculty support to offer a full time course of study. Where once students had competed to gain entrance to a full fee paying four year diploma, the three year subsidised degree had been cancelled due to lack of interest. Art school life had become a series of electives, the educational equivalent of channel surfing. The bothersome discipline of clay and wheel had long ago lost ground to the fidgets of undergraduate conceit, and no amount of spin could disguise the fact that the situation was terminal. With multi-skilling and the departure of the last of the tenured staff it was only a matter of time.

In response to my highly undiplomatic suggestion that many ceramics departments had brought this situation upon themselves, I was rather archly informed that they still offered a unit called 'The Vessel', by which I was to assume that they had the situation well in hand.

My thoughts turned to a formidable Melbourne artist and educator I had the privilege of knowing, who was once heard to mutter that it would be better if, and I quote, '...all the ceramists would just take their vessels and sail away', or words to that effect.

There is probably nothing intrinsically wrong with an environment where students wander in, fiddle with a lump of clay, paint it blue, stick a feather in the side and call it art. It happens in sculpture departments all the time. It does no permanent harm, or good, which is not to say that it is a wholly benign activity. The damage occurs when such things are confused with several thousand years of a venerable, and utterly different tradition, that of pottery.

How, you may ask, is this possible? Surely a lumpy feathered blue thing cannot be mistaken for a pot?

The problem is one of nomenclature.

Pottery is not sculpture, and it is only nominally ceramics.

Pottery refers to types of objects and materials, the place where these materials are manipulated and the objects are made, and the general disciplines associated with making them. People who work in this field are called potters.

Sculpture is a different activity entirely, well understood, albeit periodically contested, within a western paradigm of art history. It is also a widely used term describing certain types of non-functional objects. What a sculpture is made of is entirely irrelevant, insofar as it does not effect the categorisation of the object as sculpture. Sculptures are made from marble and ice, telephones and twigs, and the musings of seagulls in the rain, as long as they have a presence in German biennales. People who make sculptures are called sculptors, when they are not being called installation artists, thus explaining why their work only 'occupied the space' for a week.

Ceramics are a group of materials with defined chemical and physical properties. Ceramics are also objects made from these materials. A brick and a Ming vase, and our lumpy feathered blue thing, are examples of these objects. Ceramists, or ceramicists, base their work on these material choices, and if they have been to art school they 'define their practice' as making objects primarily or exclusively out of ceramic materials, otherwise known as clay. Ceramics is also a hobby, where overglaze decoration is applied to a bewildering variety of slip-moulded forms, designed to be fired at low temperatures. Sometimes these same techniques are utilised by 'ceramists', potters and sculptors, where the desire for irony or bright colours can be given full reign. A ceramist may make either pots or sculptures, but they generally like to call these objects 'ceramics'. I'm not sure why.

Lately, we have seen the arrival of a new group of practitioners, the 'designer-makers'.

'Hi, my name is Troy, and I'm a designer-maker with a ceramics based practice. I am currently developing a body of work which explores the gender politics of domestic objects, and locates the kitchen as a site of abjection.'

Troy is a completely understandable product of the average ceramics department, the logical outcome of a system which privileges Habermas over Hamada. For the ceramics and painting student alike, the teaching of art history, when it struggles back to a time before Andy, may dwell on 16th century Italy, but it won't be Majolica that is celebrated. This is because there is a hierarchy of art, an ever repeated narrative reified behind the massive stone columns, or more lately titanium scales, which fence off the paddocks where curators chew the cud of futures past. The temple trains its acolytes, and, unlikely as it seems, some of them begin life at places like the VCA. Fine art is money and power, the designer gym where Western culture flexes and preens, and the decorative arts are something you pass on the way to a wonderful new eatery. In this world pottery is way out of its league.

The ceramics student is left feeling like a second class citizen, because the rich history which he should be able to draw upon for sustenance and inspiration is not valued within the institution. Hell, mostly it's not even taught. Ask many ceramics lecturers who Ernest Chaplet or Auguste Delaherche are and they won't have a clue, but mention a French post structuralist philosopher with absolutely no interest in pottery at all...

That this is a loss not only to Troy, but also to the painting student, is not even considered.

In this situation, students find themselves in a real bind. It is difficult enough for staff to explain why students should be taught to make stoneware cereal bowls in an art school, and why such a skill, no matter how successfully mastered, is worth a university degree. It is even more embarrassing for the student who attempts to make the bowls, when surrounded by the uncompromising cool of grainy videos and multiple piercings.

The tragic fact is that the alternative has often seen students retreat into making bad sculpture under the tutelage of untrained staff. It is tragic because the sculpture department hate people muscling in on their turf, and it is self-defeating because you don't need two separate departments telling students how to make sculpture. When crunch time comes and one has to go, guess who it will be?

Calling these sculptures 'ceramics' fools no one, although there have been heroic attempts made to justify the field. A common argument for the continuing existence of ceramics departments is one of material specialisation, and it goes something like this.

Clay is just so difficult to use that lumpy blue feathered things, when made out of this material, are beyond the ken of sculpture departments, limited as they are to coping with relatively simple tasks like large scale bronze casting. If the department also has a small percentage of students who make stoneware cereal bowls, well, all the better, because everybody knows sculptors can't do that. It is absolutely no problem at assessment time to compare the cereal bowls with the blue lumpy feathered things, because they both sit on plinths, and, short of never turning up, no one fails anyway. It is purely academic.

For the historically minded, it is easy enough to trace the onset of this schizophrenic condition. It is often characterised as a battle between the Anglo-Oriental Brownies and West Coast Funkers, a muddy gang warfare played out on the margins of art, like a couple of spectators grappling on the sidelines whilst the match goes on somewhere else. The real situation is much more complex — and interesting — but the fact is the fundamental split within many ceramics departments must, to an outsider, look truly bizarre.

So, how is it that students still manage to do it? The subtleties of celadon are still with us, as each successive generation finds ways to learn the necessary skills. The bad sculptors are hanging in there as well, passing their treasured knowledge on to future generations.

The answer is that there are still some very good ceramics departments left, as well as limited opportunities for advanced training at places like the Jam Factory in Adelaide and Sturt at Mittagong. But we should not fool ourselves — even the best departments are under threat, and as each one closes the opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge decreases. I am not worried about the bad sculptors — there are sculpture departments to take care of that side of things. I am worried about the potters.

There surely is a point of critical mass, beyond which the whole enterprise loses viability. As it is there are almost no potters left who earn their living by selling to the general public. They have become reliant on the gallery system, often paying for the privilege of exhibiting. Without an art school background it is unlikely that they would even have the dubious opportunity of exhibiting in publicly funded spaces — they would not be 'in the loop'. For those that do, pottery has increasingly become a process of making simulacrums of useful objects. It is like a friend of mine who has a stack of Gwyn Piggott dinner plates, made when she was at the Jam Factory workshops in Adelaide. Believe me, they don't see the inside of a dishwasher any more.

This phenomena may explain the rise of porcelain, with its associations of rarity and value. We are asked to pay a thousand dollars for a group of objects arranged on a shelf, so they may be admired whilst we eat our dinner out of the ten dollar china from Freedom. There is a haptic lapse, and in a reversal of the common phrase popularised by Ali G, we 'talk to the face, 'cause the hand don't want to know.'

There is much more to be said, and I know what I have written is rather short on solutions — although removing ceramics departments from the university system entirely might not be a bad start — but at the end I am left with this question.

If the general public has, to a large extent, stopped buying hand-made pottery, and the courses are closing down one after another, is it at all possible that the ceramics fraternity — we — are at fault?

Bernard Leach (yes, the bad daddy who bothered De Waal so much) was once in America, where he was doing what Bernard did best, namely sharing his wisdom, or pontificating, depending on your bias. (Keep in mind that people queued up for this — it wasn't like he had Yanagi judo chop them into submission.) Anyway, he had seen the birth of the West Coast funk movement, when American art schools, fuelled up by the post-war economic miracle were full of confident, questioning iconoclasts. Leach was said to have looked around him in despair and asked 'Where has pottery failed these people?'

It still is a good question to ask. I have my answer — it's just a matter of doing it.

by Tim Rutter