Some artefacts are like old friends. Even after long absence one takes up where one has left off and departs feeling refreshed and enriched. I am unable to enter the Ashmolean museum in Oxford without revisiting a pre-dynastic Egyptian hippopotamus I first met over 50 years ago. Its wrinkled head is raised in confrontation, its gaping jaw functions as a spout full of animal aggression. The round, swelling body taut with energy, full of power. It is made with coarse tan clay containing vegetable matter that has burnt away, leaving patches of carbon grey pitting the surface, reinforcing its visceral appeal.
This week I went to the opening of a retrospective of Lucie Rie (Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery) at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge University. The exhibition contained a number of ‘old friends’, pots I had seen – sometimes handled – in Lucie’s home. Pots rich with associations, like the Jasper ware prototypes she made for Wedgewood that I only knew of from photographs. Made for use, these pots now lie under glass, transparent sarcophagi containing beautiful corpses. The crush of people attending was overwhelming, the glitterati of the English craft world. I reflected how different this sea of networking was to the tranquillity of Lucie’s central London studio.
