1GOLDMARK

JIM MALONE

For Jim the practice of making isstubborn, quiet and timeless. Hecares little for that fleeting worldwhose careless trends seek neitherdepth nor meaning. He carries on inconstancy, expressing what he seesand feels and takes wry glances asa shallow, blinkered world slips pasthim in the fast lane.

Andy Christian

above: Pot number 53

front cover: Pot number 63

back cover: Pot number 7

JIM MALONE

This catalogue is available as a printed hard copy, price £10 + p&p. A free

documentary dvd is alsoincluded.

To view more of Jim Malone’swork and our documentary

on Malone please visitmodernpots.com.

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JIM MALONE

Essay by Andy Christian

GOLDMARK2011

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Introduction

Jim Malone’s studio is on one side of an old farm cottage which is

balanced by a verdant vegetable and flower garden on the other. It

is in no way a monkish place but there, the deliberately slow pace

of things permeates a retreat that he has found is the most fertile

way for his life and work. It is quiet and there are very few passers

by. If you want to visit the studio you have to be prepared to make

a substantial effort to find it. I think that is the way that Jim prefers it

to be.

His weathered face creases questioningly and his eyes constantly

scan for the depth of meaning behind what is being said. He has a

wry sense of humour and a fathomless commitment to his work.

His integrity is deep rooted. For the entire length of his mature life

he has taken the most simple, easily available, traditional materials

and made them his own. He has eschewed all fashion and quietly

but firmly tended the fire which was fuelled by Bernard Leach and

Shoji Hamada and kept it burning brightly. Like the quiet but

technically brilliant and persuasive jazz he favours, Jim has found

his own interpretation of a twentieth century creed and used it to

reflect his belief in its enduring relevance.

Jim Malone

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Fire and Wine

The barn workshop at Lessonhall is divided between the throwing

area (focussed on a towering kick wheel) and the shelved ranks of

pots that await their first firing. On that same level is the store of

completed work awaiting consideration. Below, on the ground floor

stands a large two-chambered kiln which was built by Jim. It is fired

by wood and oil. The kiln takes twenty four hours to get up to

temperature and it needs Jim’s constant attention. He is reverential

about the firing process. Even though his knowledge of firing is

extensive and his understanding of this particular kiln substantive,

he is conscious and respectful of the dominant spirit of fire. Despite

all of his experience he acknowledges that fire is an untamed

element. Jim knows the best places in the kiln for particular forms

and certain glazes but watching several months’ work be put to the

fire demands that he bows to the kiln’s ability to partner the fire and

bless or curse those elusive glazes. There is still a sense of

nervousness, of risk and sometimes, eventually, the relief of a

delightful result. Each firing is preceded by a pagan offering of a

cup of good wine. I do not know if, at the end of a firing, Jim feels

he can drink whatever the kiln has left for him but I think he should

do so; it would be well deserved.

The Place

In his native Yorkshire and in Cumbria where he now lives the skies

seem immense and the wind whips them into heady dances. From

his home in Lessonhall the distant Solway sparks on the horizon

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and the hills roll like a heavy sea. The limestone, the granite and the

red sandstone order the surface of the Earth and the peat-bound

Pennines provide a pasture of scanty, sage-green grass. Between

the haunting cry of curlews and the tremble of celestial blue

harebells there is a sense of an ancient place where the very

ground is dosed with the blood and bone of long forgotten wars

and the sweat of hill farmers and miners. I can understand why Jim

has chosen to be there. It is a place without any kind of pretention

which marries aptly with his plain spiritedness.

Use

In my kitchen at home is a jug of Jim Malone’s which I have owned

since the early nineteen eighties. It recalls its robust and handsome

mediaeval forebears. The wood ash glaze fits the toasted

stoneware body like a favourite old overcoat. Iron spots pepper its

surface tranquillity. It weighs less than you might expect from its

resolute appearance. It is clearly the work of an expert thrower. As I

looked along the shelves of his work some thirty years later I found

my jug’s descendants sitting there with only minor variations. By

nineteen eighty Jim was making beautiful, practical jugs, so why

would he change them? They were comfortable to use and

handsome to look at and they were also unmistakably his work.

These jugs, the bottle forms, the slab sided vases, the tea bowls,

the small bowls, serving dishes and all of his vessels demand to be

used. Jim is a good cook and he appreciates how appetising,

hearty fare look handsome in his pots rather than on the bleak,

ubiquitous white plates used by unimaginative restaurant and

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television chefs. The jugs and vases also call for flowers and

grasses and their decorations often hint at these uses.

Drama and Restraint

Many Welsh and Northern painters have purposefully restricted their

palettes; Jim Malone has shown a similar restraint. He makes good

use of local ochre, of granite dust and the ash from his fire. Added

to these are classic tan to black tenmoku glazes and white slip. He

swirls a hakeme brush across his pots and incises and stamps the

clay surfaces. He lets his brushes fly to make a spray of flowers

leap over the underlying glaze or takes a slower stance to raise a

bamboo stalk. There is colour but like those hues in the Cumbrian

landscape, its range is transient. Out of these quiet tones, bright

notes are sometimes allowed to sing; they are all the more

luminous for that. The vigour of his brushwork finds its movements

amplified on the quiet stage of his solid forms. These are the

fundamental dramas for which Jim is the conductor and author but

the metaphors they call upon are as old as human history. It is in

the act of throwing that his signature is asserted. A piece of his

work already bears his hand writing in its naked state. Such

authority with clay is shared with that other contemporary proponent

of thrown stoneware, Richard Batterham. Few others have

established such clear provenance without our needing to read

their seals or signatures.

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The Clay Witness

Jim Malone’s pots hold ancient metaphors. The ‘green’ clay, freshly

dug from the earth is kneaded like bread dough and then divided

and thrown or slabbed. This process of making things out of clay

and firing it is probably some twenty five thousand years old. The

making of vessels has followed this practice for at least ten

thousand of those years. Humans needed containers and we still

need them today. Into them went our food, our most sacred and

precious objects and even our ashes. They were, and still can be,

our life companions. They witness our births, our loves and our

deaths. The fire vitrifies the pots making them hard wearing and

water tight. They surround us all of our lives and they can assume

the beauty of function and also feed our eyes.

Granite, that apparently most obdurate of stones, is powdered by

frost action and becomes a willing glaze. The ash from ancient

trees, burnt to warm our dwellings, can be mixed to a paste, sieved

and poured on clay to make myriad, mellow greens. Old nails, wire

and the occasional rusted remains of ancient arrow heads, lace the

ash with orange iron particles. These clay vessels hold and mirror

our histories. We have taken them for granted and we have

thoughtlessly accepted their ugly industrial substitutes. At times,

throughout history, various cultures have honoured clay’s

mysterious alchemy as they combined it with the magic of fire. For

Jim, the practice of making is stubborn, quiet and timeless. He

cares little for that fleeting world whose careless trends seek neither

depth nor meaning. He carries on in constancy, expressing what he

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sees and feels and takes wry glances as a shallow, blinkered world

slips past him in the fast lane.

North

Jim Malone’s work is born out of the Northern landscape. He is part

of a tradition that celebrates the unsung places of Cumbria. It was

near here that the painter Sheila Fell mused on the dark power of

the ‘mountains’ close to the bleak winter streets of Aspatria, using

the dark drama of her sombre tones. Her fellow Cumbrian, the poet

Norman Nicholson, describes a landscape;

‘. . . where a lather rinse of cloud pours down . . .’

In turn his contemporary, the poet and Blake scholar Kathleen

Raine, wrote;

‘All turn to fossil

Turn to stone

The delicate shell

And the mighty bone.’

Kathleen Raine’s great friend, the painter Winifred Nicholson, lived

at ‘Bankshead’ on the Roman Wall which overlooks Cold Fell,

marking the northernmost limit of the Pennines. There she painted

wild flowers spilling out against the vast skies; her celebration of

Heaven on Earth.

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Together with Jim Malone, these artists do not constitute a

movement but they share expressions of those humble places to

the North and to the West of the much more celebrated and

romanticised Lake District. Each of them has found their language

in visions of the ‘ordinary’ and in the overlooked. However tenuous

Jim’s links to these others might seem to be, he shares with them a

curious, primal compulsion which firmly binds him to these same

environs. That magnetism and his marked integrity have left him

with no other choices. He has dug his work out of this ground.

Andy Christian, Summer 2011

NotesI have quoted from ‘Scafell Pike’ by Norman Nicholson and from ‘Still Life’ byKathleen Raine. The best source for the work and life story of Sheila Fell is CateHaste’s recent book; ‘Sheila Fell, a Passion for Paint’. ‘Unknown Colour; Paintings,Letters and Writings by Winifred Nicholson’ remains an unparalleled feast of her workthough it is now a scarce book. A.C.

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52,22

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26

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31, 114

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30

30

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31

34

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144

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70

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28

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123, 100

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67

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62

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61 58

76 77

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78 49

112 86

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74

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41

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75

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117, 115

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110

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40

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92

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155, 167, 158

175, 149, 161

173, 154, 159

151, 170, 172

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194, 179, 182

2, 176, 198

178, 185, 195

193, 184, 177

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Biographical Notes

1946 Born Sheffield, England

Education1972-6 Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, London

1975 Studied at Winchcombe Pottery, Gloucestershire

1976 B.A. Hons. Ceramics, First Class Honours

Grants1976 Crafts Council, New Craftsman Grant

1993 Northern Arts Bursary

Workshops1976-1982 Horseshoe Pass, North Wales

1984-2001 Ainstable, Cumbria

2001-2003 Burnby, York

2003 Lessonhall, Cumbria

TeachingOver thirty years, Malone has given many lectures and

demonstrations to colleges and ceramic societies around

the country.

1980 Artist in Residence, Cardiff College of Art

1980 Visiting Lecturer, Camberwell School of Art

1981-2 Visiting Lecturer, Wrexham School of Art

1982-90 Cumbria College of Art, Carlisle

Publications1980 Tradition and the Individual Talent Christopher Reid, Crafts

Magazine No.45

1983 A Point of View Jim Malone, Pottery Quarterly No.14/56

1989 British Studio Ceramics in the Twentieth Century Paul Rice

and Christopher Gowing.

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1990 British Studio Pottery in the V&A Collection Oliver Watson

1992 Video – Jim Malone - Artist Potter made by Alex McErlain

1993 Jim Malone in Conversation Ceramic Review, March issue

2002 The Art of Throwing Alex McErlain

2003 Ash Glazes, 2nd Edition Phil Rogers

2008 A Guide to Collecting Studio Pottery Alistair Hawtin

2009 Modern British Potters and their Studios David Whiting

2010 The Man and the Pot Ceramic Review Issue 243

ExhibitionsOver the past thirty years Malone has exhibited widely in this

country and around the world.

His most recent shows include:

2002 Bettles Gallery, Ringwood, Hants – Solo show

2002 Totally Teabowls, Oakwood Gallery, Edwinstowe, Notts.

2003 Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge – Solo show

2003 Harlequin Gallery, London – Solo show

2003 Maltby Contemporary Art, Winchester – Solo show

2003 My Top Twenty, Alpha House Gallery, Sherbourne

2004 Contemporary Ceramics, London – Solo show

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2005 Alpha House Gallery, Sherbourne – Solo show

2006 Oakwood Gallery, Thoresby Gallery, Newark – Solo show

2007 The Jug Show, Galerie Besson, London

2007 The Gallery at Shepherd Market, London – Solo show

2007 Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth – Solo show

2007 Bettles Gallery, Ringwood, Hants – Solo show

2007 Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge – Solo show

2008 Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham – Solo show

2008 Alpha House Gallery, Sherborne, Dorset – Solo show

2009 The Stour Gallery, Shipston-on-Stour, Warks – Solo show

2009 Red Barn Gallery, Melkinthorpe, Cumbria – Solo show

2009 Duncan Campbell Fine Art, London – Solo show

2010 Imagine Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk – Solo show

2010 Great British Potters, Earthmarque – online

2011 Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham - Solo show

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Private CollectionsMalone’s work is represented in many private and public

collections including:

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Paisley Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow

Ulster Museum, Ireland

York Art Gallery

Bolton Museum and Art Gallery

Southampton Museum and Art Gallery

Cleveland Craft Centre, Middlesborough

Manchester Metropolitan University

Liverpool Museum and Art Gallery

Crafts Council Permanent Collection, London

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

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Illustrated Pots

2. Yunomi. Brushed slip, iron painting & copper splashes 9.5 x 9.0

3. Tall Bottle. Fluted. Coastal clay glaze with Nuka 49.0 x 20.0

4. Globular Jar. Hakeme with leaping fish design 45.0 x 30.0

5. Jug. Cut sided. Nuka 35.0 x 17.0

6. Small Teapot with Thrown Handle. Iron & cobalt painting 12.5 x 18.5

7. Very Big Bottle. Fluted. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka 64.5 x 28.5

8. Tall Bottle. Tenmoku with copper glaze pours 61.0 x 27.0

11. Tall Bottle. Fluted. Tenmoku & ash glazes 50.0 x 23.0

13. Globular Bottle. Pellets. Nuka glaze 49.0 x 29.0

15. Globular Bottle. Stamped repeats Tenmoku with copper pours 46.0 x 30.5

17. Globular Jar. Ash & granite glaze with Nuka. Engraved willow pattern 47.0 x 33.5

18. Globular Jar. Pellets. Olive Nuka 42.0 x 32.0

20. Globular Jar. Tenmoku & ash glazes. Engraved grasses design 41.5 x 33.0

22. Slender Bottle. Hakeme, iron painting & copper splashes 42.0 x 19.0

28. Slender Bottle. Tenmoku 34.5 x 17.5

29. Squared Bottle. Brushed slip with leaping fish design 41.5 x 17.5

30. Big Footed Bottle. Fluted. Olive Nuka 44.5 x 27.0

31. Big Footed Bottle. Cut sided. Olive Nuka 43.5 x 22.0

34. Footed Bottle. Tenmoku & Nuka. Engraved willow design 37.0 x 20.5

40. Footed Jar. Tenmoku with ash glaze & finger wipes 33.0 x 19.0

41. Footed Bottle. White slip, copper splashes & engraved rushes 34.0 x 19.0

47. Footed Bottle. Cut sided. Tenmoku & ash glazes 29.5 x 17.0

49. Footed Bottle. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka. Engraved grasses design 29.5 x 18.0

50. Footed Bottle. Brushed slip, copper splashes & iron rushes design 28.5 x 16.0

51. Footed Bottle. White slip, iron & cobalt rushes 27.5 x 16.5

52. Footed Bottle. Hakeme with iron painting & copper splashes 28.5 x 15.0

53. Footed Bottle. Fluted. Olive Nuka 26.5 X 15.0

55. Footed Bottle. White slip, engraved & painted rushes, copper splashes 24.0 x 15.0

56. Slab Bottle. Kaki glaze with wax pattern rushes 34.5 x 19.0

57. Slab Bottle. Hedgerow ash glaze with engraved willow design 34.5 x 19.0

58. Slab Bottle. Tenmoku with finger wipes 33.0 x 19.0

61. Slab Bottle. White slip with leaping fish design 33.5 x 19.0

62. Footed Slab Bottle. Tenmoku with finger wipes 41.5 x 25.0

63. Footed Slab Bottle. Brushed slip with iron willow design & copper 41.0 x 25.0

67. Footed Slab Bottle. Hawthorn ash glaze with engraved rushes 33.0 x 19.5

70. Big Dish. Brushed slip, iron willow by tarn design 15.5 x 43.0

74. Big Dish. Brushed slip, cobalt rushes by tarn design 15.5 x 42.5

75. Big Dish. White slip with copper splashes & engraved willow design 14.0 x 42.0

76. Pilgrim Bottle. Tenmoku with fingerwipes 42.5 x 28.0

77. Pilgrim Bottle. Olive Nuka with Tenmoku pours 37.5 x 26.0

78. Pilgrim Bottle. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka. Engraved rushes design 33.5 x 25.0

All sizes in cm

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83. Footed Korean Type Bottle. Stamp pattern. Hakeme 42.0 x 23.5

86. Footed Korean Type Bottle. Olive Nuka with copper pours 40.0 x 22.0

87. Footed Korean Type Bottle. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka. 39.0 x 20.5

92. Footed Korean Type Bottle. Tenmoku with fingerwipes 34.0 x 18.0

93. Footed Korean Type Bottle. Tenmoku with iron rushes design 35.0 x 19.0

100. Tall Jug. Tenmoku with copper pours 34.5 x 19.5

106. Baluster Jug. Bands & pellets. Tenmoku & ash glazes 33.5 x 21.5

110. Baluster Jug. Bands & pellets. Granite & ash glaze 29.5 x 18.5

112. Lidded Pot. Ridge & stamp patterns. Olive Nuka with copper pours 26.0 x 22.5

114. Footed Pot with Lid. Cut sided. Olive Nuka 19.0 x 17.5

115. Footed Pot with Lid. Cut sided. Granite glaze 20.0 x 17.0

117. Footed Pot with Lid. Cut sided. Tenmoku 14.0 x 12.0

120. Tea Set. Kaki glaze with wax pattern 22.5 x 20.0

121. Tea Set. White slip with iron pattern 22.5 x 19.5

123. Teapot. Tenmoku with copper pours 23.0 x 19.0

125. Coffee Set. Tenmoku 23.5 x 18.0

133. Bowl. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 10.0 x 18.0

144. Teabowl. Iron & cobalt fish decoration 8.5 x 15.0

149. Teabowl. Stamped. Tenmoku 9.5 x 14.0

151. Teabowl. Ridged & stamped. Tenmoku & Nuka 8.5 x 14.5

154. Teabowl. Tenmoku & ash. Fingerwipes 9.5 x 13.5

155. Teabowl. Rope pattern. Tenmoku & ash 9.0 x 13.0

158. Teabowl. Stamped. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka pours 10.5 x 12.0

159. Teabowl. Iron & cobalt decoration 9.5 x 12.0

161. Teabowl. Stamps. Ash & granite glaze with Nuka pours 9.0 x 13.5

167. Teabowl. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 9.5 x 14.0

170. Teabowl. Brushed slip, stamped pattern & copper splashes 9.0 x 14.5

172. Teabowl. Brushed slip, stamped pattern & coppers splashes 8.5 x 13.0

173. Teabowl. Brushed slip with iron decoration 9.5 x 13.5

175. Teabowl. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 8.5 x 13.5

176. Yunomi. Nuka with Tenmoku pours 10.0 x 9.5

177. Yunomi. Stamps. Granite & ash glaze with Nuka pours 10.0 x 9.5

178. Yunomi. Rope pattern. Granite glaze with Nuka pours 9.5 x 9.5

179. Yunomi. Rope pattern. Granite glaze with Nuka pours 9.5 x 9.5

182. Yunomi. White slip, stamps & copper pours 9.5 x 9.5

184. Yunomi. Tenmoku with fingerwipes 8.5 x 9.5

185. Yunomi. Tenmoku with fingerwipes 9.0 x 9.0

193. Yunomi. White slip, stamps & coppers splashes 9.5 x 10.0

194. Yunomi. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 9.5 x 9.0

195. Yunomi. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 9.0 x 7.5

198. Yunomi. Brushed slip, iron decoration & copper splashes 8.5 x 9.0

All sizes in cm

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www.modernpots.com

Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ01572 821424

Text: © Andy Christian 2011Photographs: © Jay Goldmark

Design: Porter / Goldmark

ISBN 978-1-870507-87-52011

1 Phil RogersNew Pots 2005

2 Clive BowenNew Pots 2006

3 Lisa HammondNew Pots 2006

4 Mike DoddRecent Pots 2007

5 Ken Matsuzaki (2007)Thirty Years of a Living Tradition

6 Svend Bayer (2007)New Pots

7 Jim Malone (2008)The Pursuit of Beauty

8 Phil Rogers (2008)A Potter of our Time

9 Lisa Hammond (2009)Unconscious Revelation

10 Ken MatsuzakiNew Pots 2009

11 Mike DoddNew Pots 2009

12 Clive BowenNew Pots 2009

13 Svend BayerNew Pots 2010

14 Nic CollinsNew Pots 2011

15 Ken MatsuzakiNew Pots 2011

16 Jim MaloneNew Pots 2011

1 Phil Rogers - A Passion For Pots2 Ken Matsuzaki - Elemental3 Svend Bayer4 Nic Collins5 Jim Malone

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Goldmark Uppingham Rutland LE15 9SQ England www.modernpots.com