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Artist's Statement
(Fall, 2006)
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I began studying ceramics out of curiosity, especially about the
magic by which a humble lump of clay on a potter’s wheel can be transformed
into an elegant vessel with a few quick gestures. My teachers quickly
informed me, however, that they were art teachers and they don’t
encourage mere curiosity about technique.
So I started trying to come to terms with the artistic aspect of
ceramics by reading Zen and the Art of Pottery [1] by
Kenneth R. Beittel. He included a list of “Great Pots I Have Known,”
and the first one was a paddled Tenmoku vase made by Bernard Leach.
That pot had a laid-down lip and subtle decorations against a mostly black
background. It did not seem that great to me, but I was curious
enough to read Leach’s famous work, A Potters Book [2],
next. In the first chapter, Leach defined what he called the Sung
standard as
“a striving towards
unity, spontaneity and simplicity of form."
Nowadays it is customary to dismiss Leach. I even heard Edmond de
Waal characterize Leach’s idea of the Sung standard as a “miasma.” On the
other hand, Garth Clark admitted it is “still a benchmark” in the second of
his essays on The Future of Functional Pottery in his 2003 book Shards
[3]. I personally can agree that Leach went too far in his later book The
Unknown Craftsman [4], but I think A Potter’s Book
still stands on its own merits.
Next, I read Pottery Form [5] by Daniel Rhodes and
appreciated his sly hints that good form often relates to the human
form. About that time, I was also advised to look at Picasso’s work
in ceramics. I had already noticed a clever piece in one of Susan
Peterson’s The Craft and Art of Clay [6]. I also found
a picture on the studio wall at the college that seemed to illustrate both
Leach’s idea that
"... a pot starts
by being an abstract shape, and consequently any pattern applied to its
surface calls for formal emphasis in order to attain unity with it."
and Rhodes’ suggestion that allusion to the human form works best
for pottery. Many other interesting pieces can be seen in the catalog
of Picasso Painter and Sculptor in Clay [7], which
opened at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1998
and moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1999.
In the fall of 2004, I attended a Symposium at Harvard that included a
demo by Bizen potter Ryuichi Kakurezaki. Jeff Shapiro, who translated
for him, likes to say Kakurezaki enjoys rock-star popularity in
Japan. Although Kakurezaki has a design background, he claims he
doesn’t think about design and has said
“Concept is
100%."
instead. I think this means that his forms are not completely
abstract to begin with, which should improve the odds of finding a unifying
surface treatment.
Harvard held another workshop focused on Bizen pottery in the spring of
2006. This time Kakurezaki’s teacher, Living National Treasure
Jun Isezaki, also participated along with Tim Rowan, who studied under Kakurezaki
, and Jun’s son Koichiro, who studied for 2 years with Shapiro. Shapiro
again served as translator for the demos.
Isezaki seems like a very straightforward person. He was once asked [8] why he makes
certain shapes exactly the same as they were made centuries ago. His
reply was simply
“What works well need
not be changed."
I think that should be the case if the
best forms refer to the human form, which hasn’t changed at all on that
time scale.
References
- Kenneth
R. Beittell, Zen and the Art of Pottery, Weatherhill,
New York (1989).
- Bernard
Leach, A Potter’s Book, Second Edition, Faber and Faber,
London 1945.
- Garth Clark, Shards, Ceramic Arts Foundation (2003).
- Soetsu
Yanaki (Adapted by Bernard Leach), The Unknown Craftsman – A
Japanese Insight into Beauty, Kodansha America, New York
[1972].
- Daniel
Rhodes, Pottery Form, Pitman Publishing, London (1976).
- Susan
Peterson, The Craft and Art of Clay, Third Edition,
Prentice Hall (2000).
- Picasso
Painter and Sculptor in Clay, Marilyn McCully, Ed., Harry N.
Abrahams, New York (1998).
- Robert
Yellin, “TRADITION AND INNOVATION Lightning strikes in Isezaki's
Bizen,” Japan Times, June 13, 2001 (online at http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/isezaki-jun-jt.html ).
(last updated September 10,
2006)
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