We are born. Then we die. Between the gooing and the gloaming, artists are active. I have been involved professionally now for sixty years. What is it like to be here?
Before getting to that, let’s go way back and start at the beginning. My early ambitions were simple enough. There were not many potters around. To become one, you took the route outlined by satirist John Clarke, in his role as Fred Dagg the New Zealand farmer. You bought a chicken shed at the remote end of a lane, and turned it into a workshop. You dug up clay to make pots and glazed them after crushing rocks down fine as flour and fired the pots in a kiln you had built. I had learned and understood the technical processes but managed to avoid the overly romanticised chicken shed, and follow an individual modus operandi.
As a digression – potters have been digging clay for thousands of years but the current Wild Clay movement gives the impression it is a new idea. I suppose if you have been buying clay in plastic bags for years, it is. And if crudity is the aim, Japanese woodfirers were there long ago. It is, though, a positive development, stimulating new uses of materials and personal learning and development. I look forward to the coming of the Wild Glaze movement.
When I was a student there were very few potters, but now they can be found in every second street, retitled as ceramicists. Coronavirus, with lockdowns and the need to fill in time, caused a surge of interest, almost a parallel pandemic of pottery making. Beginners and amateurs are everywhere. Endless questions – “what should I do?” – appear on social media. The answer to many if not most of these questions is try it and see what happens, as professionals do. There is no failure, only learning.
Some beginners sell work that is not very good, not aware that it is not much good, to buyers who equally do not – and probably cannot, discriminate. The good stuff takes time to develop whatever the style. So, what exactly is the good stuff? Aha, I exclaim. To quote Shakespeare: that is the question. My answer? Keep searching. Find the answer for yourself. Hand wringing and brow scratching will not help – answers will come from keeping on working. You will learn to see, and those who can see can discriminate. Seeing is different to looking.
