PYRE - Ceramic Arts Associaion WA copy1.pdfPYRE JUNE 2013 CERAMIC ... The Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa describes how making is a process of ... His idea of the ‘thinking

Clay Push at Gulgong

2

CAAWA president

Cher Shackleton reviews

recent developments in

the WA world of

ceramics.

PYRE JUNE 2013 CERAMIC ARTS ASSOCIATION OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

1

President’s Report

3

AGM

CAAWA Selective Judges Choice: Njalikwa Chongwe

Earth Sphere 2 www.ceramicartswa.asn.au

Stewart Scambler reviews

the exciting events of this

year’s Clay Push at

Gulgong.

August 1 2013 7:30pm

1 Leake Street,

Peppermint Grove

Guest Speaker

Jánis Nedéla

JUNE 2013

CERAMIC ARTS ASSOCIATION OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

President’s Report

www.shackletongallery.com

Congratulations to the recipients of this year's awards at the recent members selective. The people's choice award proved a popular addition this year with over 230 votes cast and many positive comments. It will continue to be included in future exhibitions. Thank you to Njalikwa for coordinating the exhibition this year. He has a full report of the 2013 selective in this issue. I am delighted to announce the selector for the next exhibition will be Mrs Janet Holmes á Court. Congratulations are also in order to Fleur Schell with the launch of The Clay House. What a wonderful addition to the ceramic scene here in WA. The committee are already considering several artists for the POTober 2014. Suggestions for demonstrators are welcome. Please send them in. The CAAWA website continues to attract many 100's of viewers each month looking at 3-4000 pages. If you haven't updated your images lately please take a moment to email them in. If you are a new member, consider being in the gallery. If you have your studio open please let us know the dates and times so the information can be circulated and included on CAAWA website and Facebook. The AGM is not too far away. Jánis Nedėla is the guest speaker this year. A separate notice will be sent to you prior to the meeting. Nominations forms are in this issue if you would like to join the committee. Jackie masters has designed a new membership brochure that will be launched at the meeting. A discussion to increase membership fees by $10 will be on the agenda and if accepted will be effective as of the 2nd August this year. There has been several requests for hard copies of the PYRE, due to the ever escalating printing costs, the!committee, at the suggestion of some members have made an extra option available. The membership renewal form is also in this issue. Another bumper issue from the Editor's desk, please enjoy.

Cher Shackleton

JUNE 2013


CAAWA SELECTIVE EXHIBITION 2013 The opening of CAAWA’s selective exhibition took place this year on 12 April at Heathcote Gallery. It was well attended by members, families and friends who had come to see a wide range of selected works. CAAWA was pleased to welcome Professor Ted Snell to open the exhibition.

“We meet today on Whadjuk Noongar land and I acknowledge the Wadjuk Noongaras the spiritual and cultural custodians of this land.

Pots change the way we live our lives. I’m sure you all agree with me. One of the key criteria that make us human is our ability to design and fabricate objects that enable us to engage more efficiently, aesthetically and productively with our world and for centuries ceramic objects have improved and enhanced our lives. When I sit down at my computer each morning I am joyously met by a wonderful group of vessels made by Pip Drysdale, I eat my muesli from a Stewart Scambler bowl, I drink my coffee from a French Bistro-ware green and gold cup, and it matters. The joy I get from holding or touching these objects, from using them for the purpose for which they were created, gives each day an added enjoyment and a heightened sense of what it means to be human and to be engaged with my world. As agents of change Potters seek ways to improve, to integrate and to re-imagine the objects and spaces that shape how we live. It is a fundamental and important process that makes our lives better and more fulfilled. It requires a deep knowledge of materials and their properties, but it is essentially an intellectual activity that requires all our faculties as human beings.

Images by Victor France

Njalikwa Chongwe

Janice Heston

JUNE 2013


The Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa describes how making is a process of thinking with the hands that leads to innovation. His idea of the ‘thinking hand’ is one that has resonance for visual artists and particularly for those in the crafts where the belief in process as a dynamic, evolving and responsive activity is well established. Of course the thinking hand must be well-trained. Daniel Levitin has proposed the ten thousand hours rule as the timeframe required for complex skills to become deeply ingrained and hence readily available as tacit knowledge. And all of you here tonight know about the hours of work required to be skilled and attuned to your materials and how these skills are engaged in the processes involved in making pots.

Wonder or surprise at what you have imagined is the next step, what Plato called Poesis, “whatever passes from not being into being”, which is of course the root of what we understand to be originality, the kernel at the core of the creative process. This sense of wonder or expectation drives the maker on to see what can be formed anew, what this alchemical process of combination and amalgamation can achieve.

It is at this point that the entire body is engaged in the creative activity, when the brain and our senses are electrified by the possibility we have revealed through the process of physically engaging with our material environment and manipulating, re-forming and re-shaping it. This is the moment of creative insight and innovation, when the thinking hand changes the world, as we know it, when the entire project of making is grounded in the tacit knowledge that comes from the hands, as a window of the mind and as its guide. This is the moment of creation that we see reflected in the works around us this evening.

Atsuko Sandover

Stewart Scambler

JUNE 2013


It was a real joy to enter the gallery on Monday and to have the opportunity to engage with these objects, and I also got to touch them, hold them, which you’re not able to do sadly. It was, needless to say, a tough job to pick winners but I was able to identify works that met all the qualities Pallasmaa identifies and it’s my great pleasure to announce them this evening.

The winners are:

Highly Commended:

Atsuko Sandover

Jackie Masters

Janis Heston

Judge's Award:

Njalikwa Chongwe 'Earth Sphere 2'

Kusnik Award:

Stewart Scambler 'Spherical Jar 1'

Please join me in congratulating the winners and thanking all the potters with works on show this evening for sharing their the products of their ‘thinking hands’ with a thunderous round of applause.”

Professor Ted Snell AM CitWA

Jackie Masters

Heathcote Gallery

Professor Ted Snell and Cher Shackleton

JUNE 2013


The CAAWA Selective show at Heathcote Gallery in Applecross is over for another year. This year CAAWA was lucky enough to have Professor Ted Snell as guest judge. Professor Snell continues CAAWA’s tradition of inviting guest judges with a high profile in the arts. Professor Snell gave a fantastic speech on opening night which I recommend every CAAWA member read it on the CAAWA website.

• The awards winners were o Kusnik Award Stewart Scambler 'Spherical Jar 1' o Judge's Award Njalikwa Chongwe 'Earth Sphere 2' o Highly Commended o Atsuko Sandover (3 artworks titled 'Rose') o Jackie Masters (3 bowls) o Janis Heston (3 Lidded boxes)

We also had the critical input from the general public through the introduction of the people’s choice award. This proved very popular with the inaugural peoples’ choice award being taken out by Robyn Lees, Tea Tree. Over 1000 people viewed this year’s show. Though overall the show was a success there is definitely room for improvement from a membership participation point of view. The selective show is representative of the state of ceramics in a given year. With the show over it’s a good time to look forward next year’s show and reiterate what the show is all about and its benefits for the association’s membership. As well the benefits point out how the selections are made. Benefits This show is an opportunity to showcase your works to the public and have it judged by a leader in the arts. The awards help lift your profile and aside from the prize money involved all award winners have their works photographed by a professional photographer. This year Victor France, who is highly regarded as one of W.A’s best photographers, took the photos. The exhibition also provides the opportunity to sell your work and promote yourself by distributing your business cards to interested customers. As potters we tend to work in fairly isolated studio environments this exhibition also provides the opportunity for interaction with our peers at the opening night. Judging As the exhibition is a selective show and we have judges with vast experience in the arts pieces selected must match the judge’s standards. Though the members of the CAAWA committee are involved in receiving works for the exhibition we take an arm’s length approach when it comes to what works are selected. How is this done? This year all work was numbered and names removed. Professor Snell with the assistance of the curators at the gallery then made his selections. He gave the details of the award winners to the curators who kept them under wraps until the opening night. I note that over 20 pieces where not selected this year and these works came from a wide range of potters varying levels of experience. We have approximately 12 months until the next selective show so that’s plenty of warning to get some pieces together. I leave with this quote from Professor Snell speech on opening night “As agents of change Potters seek ways to improve, to integrate and to re-imagine the objects and spaces that shape how we live. It is a fundamental and important process that makes our lives better and more fulfilled. It requires a deep knowledge of materials and their properties, but it is essentially an intellectual activity that requires all our faculties as human beings.” !

From CAAWA Vice President

Njalikwa Chongwe

JUNE 2013


Clay Push at Gulgong By Stewart Scambler

28 April to 4 May 2013 The Gulgong events started in 1989 and I was there, sharing a two-man tent with Fergus Stewart at Janet Mansfield’s property. That event essentially a woodfire gathering attracted about 140 delegates. Under Janet’s stewardship the event has grown so at this the 9th event there were 450 delegates. Sadly Janet was not there to see it although we could all feel her presence somehow. Sandra Black and I were the only Western Australians to venture to Gulgong this time. What a feast of ceramics for us. Mini exhibitions in shop windows, more formal shows opening every night, talks, forums , demonstrations ,technical stuff , who could forget the socialising and the opening and closing dinners.

It was a struggle to decide who to watch and listen to, would I watch Frank Boyden whose work I had admired or Lee Kang Hyo build huge pots using coils as thick as my arm and a charcoal brazier suspended on a wire. Maybe Jeff Mincham building and throwing Alongside Norma Grinsberg casting and assembling modular forms, but that would mean missing Diana Fayt (USA)and Marianne Hallberg (Sweden).Add into the mix Naidee Changmoh (Thailand) handbuilding huge terracotta figures, Ane_Katrine Bulow(Denmark)painstakingly producing computer fashioned screen prints to apply to her work (I could never work so accurately) , Greg Daly and Kirsten Coelho and no wonder I was exhausted at the end of each day. The energy and commitment of the masters and all the other presenters made for a very high-energy learning and social experience indeed.

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The opening of Janet Mansfield’s exhibition and Owen Rye’s dedication were particularly poignant . The emotion in the room was palpable.It was obvious that there was not a person present that had not had their lives enriched by Janet’s friendship. For me the highlights were Frank Boydens demonstrations and the slip performance by Lee Kang Hyo where accompanied by loud Korean music he danced around his 2meter high pot throwing multicoloured slips and scratching through the surface produced with a large tool—phew! Amazing. All too soon the last day arrived and we only had the clay event and the dinner to go. As usual there was a series of events with state based teams but with only 2 WA delegates we were short of the required minimum numbers. Sandra was not feeling well enough so thankfully the organisers allowed me to recruit a few honorary western Australians—Frank Boyden(our guided missile ) Ashley (for intelligence) Wolf (we needed an bit of animal) and I made up the grumpy old bloke component. Needless to say with such an array of talent we managed to win the events albeit with a copious covering of slip. One of the real outcomes of events like Gulgong is that friendships across Australia can be made or renewed and international ties made. Returning home recharged and ready to explore new ideas and ways of seeing work makes the time spent really worthwhile. There was a collective hope that the event will continue into the future even though Janet is not there to organise the tutors. Events like this that join our community with others around the world are too important to lose.

~ Text and images by Stewart Scambler

Lee Kang Hyo

Naidee Changmoh

JUNE 2013


The Clay House

Introducing The Clay House ... a welcoming environment that stimulates creative expression

through clay.

92 Stirling Hwy North Fremantle Western Australia

The Story so far... The impetus for The Clay House began in 2005 as"SODA studios in North Fremantle through the passionate enthusiasm for clay of ceramic artist Fleur Schell. Following the success and popular demand of SODA studios and the International Ceramic Residency program, Fleur and her husband Richard Hill felt there was enough community interest to expand the studios in 2013 to a specialist clay centre where a number of clay related activities can run. Sadly Perth Galleries, just down the road was closing so Fleur and Rich saw this as an opportunity to expand their facilities and activities so near to the original SODA Studios and their home. "The Clay House is a privately run self- funded facility, able to provide a very broad clay making opportunity that appeals to people of all ages and experience. " Fleur and Richard believe this is a wonderful"way to!nurture grass roots interest in the clay arts in WA.

JUNE 2013


So why a Centre for Clay? Saint!Thomas"Aquinas!(c. 1225 – 1274) defined ‘human’ as “a being with brains and hands. As such our greatest joy comes when we can employ both simultaneously in ways which are creative, useful, and productive.”

What is so unique about The Clay House? The Clay House is a hub for several integrated clay related activities:

The Clay House learning centre The Centre has a dedicated facility able to accommodate participants of all ages who are seeking to learn about clay from instructors who have been invited from other parts of the world, and who are experts in their own ceramic genre. " SODA International Ceramic Residency Program The Clay House is also providing space and accommodation for clay artists from all around the world to come to Perth to share their skills, ideas and passion for clay, and to experiment, research and make their own work at The Clay House. " The Clay House Centre for Designing and Making The largest proportion of the centre is a hive of activity as it is the home of professional studio artists Fleur Schell, Cj Jilek and Anthony Wise. Having practising artist on campus provides authenticity to the craft of clay. It also provides a bench mark and inspiration to those starting their journey with clay who either visit The Clay House or who are enrolled in the learning centre. "

Mothers Day at the Clay House

Katrina Chaytor Resident Artist Canada

Fleur Schell

JUNE 2013


Discover Clay •Develop ideas through clay • Become part of a local clay community • Be inspired by professional clay designer/makers

from all around the world • Experiment and be creative with clay

What are the benefits of being part of The Clay House community?!

In this ever more technologically focused world, places to engage in making using our hands and hearts simultaneously are less accessible and prevalent. Instead younger generations gravitate towards a virtual reality for creative expression. At The Clay House both children and adults are given the opportunity to think through their hands. It is a messy, muddy alternative for participants to express themselves. Open ended and exploratory in nature, the centre provides a place for all to come and have fun making things with clay without expectation or pressure. Teachers and Professional Makers can enrol in Professional Development courses to extend their knowledge of clay. "There are courses tailored for the general public on weekends and during week days. These courses involve step by step projects encouraging participants to make things they have always wanted specifically in clay. It is a venue where the public can book a Birthday party for a few hours to make a cup, or book a special event for the office, or a team building theme based workshops, e.g. My Mum and Me Mothers Day. The focus is on allowing people to discover, experiment and play with a plastic, responsive material that can be manipulated in many varying, exciting and often quite personal ways.

“We$hope$The$Clay$House$will$provide$authenticity$and$an$environment$of$cultural$enrichment$that$the$local$community$can$embrace.”$$Fleur&Schell!!!

It is our aim for The Clay House in all its incarnations will provide an accessible hub for like minded children and adults "to come together to enjoy making, sharing ideas and inspiring each other though the objects they make out of clay. "We also hope there will be rich cultural exchange through the International Visiting Artist program - that The Clay House becomes a vehicle for dialogue through clay, between visitors to our shores and

JUNE 2013


The Last Sane Man

Michael Cardew

Modern Pots, Colonialism and the Counterculture

Tanya Harrod

Yale University Press

Reviewed for PYRE by Janet Kovesi-Watt

It is now thirty years since Michael Cardew died, on February 11, 1983, and a whole generation of young potters have grown up scarcely having heard of him, though the name of Leach is still well known. He wrote an introduction to Leach's A Potter's Book, and his pots are illustrated in it, opposite pages 36 and 42, described by Leach as “The most vigorous expression of the English countryside.”

This was really all one knew about him when he came to Australia in 1968. He had been invited to set up a pottery for aboriginal people in a settlement near Darwin, and before leaving for the north he gave a demonstration workshop at the brand-new Hayman Hall at WAIT (now Curtin University) to a privileged group of local potters. We were overwhelmed by the ebullience of his personality and the breadth of his whole approach to pottery. He worked at a reassuringly leisurely pace (“I am the world's worst thrower; the only person worse than me is Mr Bernard Leach”) to the accompaniment of thought-provoking comments: “throwing is dangerous; you have to take risks; that's what makes it alive.” We had never seen handles pulled from the pot, and characteristically he attached them without first letting them stiffen: “I like to take as many risks as possible.” We also had a sneak preview of the material in his book “Pioneer Pottery”, due

The Last Sane Man: Michael Cardew

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to be published the following year.

He had first encountered pottery in North Devon, where the family holiday house was filled with the work of one of the last great English folk potters, Edwin Beer Fishley, and subsequently took lessons from Fishley's grandson. This was his background when in 1923 he bicycled down to the Leach pottery, and encountered the very different Japanese pottery tradition which had been absorbed by Leach. From the cross-fertilisation of the two traditions a studio pottery vernacular was born, exemplified notably in the work of Richard Batterham, which draws on both traditions, for instance the use of stoneware with oriental ash glazes, to make jugs inspired by the pottery of the English middle ages.

In 1926 Cardew left the Leach pottery and struck out on his own, reviving a traditional pottery just outside Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, north of Cheltenham. There he made wood-fired earthenware, decorated with slip. He worked there through the 1920s and 30s, often struggling with kiln and clay problems, but making ever grander pots, with lead glazes glowing from the wood firing. (The pots illustrated by Leach were from this period.)

In mid-1939 Michael bought the abandoned Wenford Bridge Inn on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, but this was a bad time for someone with little money, and a wife and three small sons, to be trying to convert a set of semi-derelict buildings into a pottery. They badly needed to earn some money, as pottery was hardly going to produce an income in wartime. Mariel found a job teaching art at a school in Buckinghamshire, and Michael spent an unsatisfactory period trying to get the pottery going, in between temporary jobs.

Then in 1941 his life was unexpectedly transformed by a letter from the Colonial office, asking him to recommend a ceramist to take over from Harry Davis the running of the pottery at Achimota College in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He replied that he “did not know of any potter capable of taking Mr Davis's place (my words more true than I knew) but that I myself was willing to come instead.” In July 1942 he set sail for West Africa, a new life - and a regular salary.

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rated with slip. He worked there through the 1920s and 30s, often struggling with kiln and clay problems, but making ever grander pots, with lead glazes glowing from the wood firing. (The pots illustrated by Leach were from this period.)

In mid-1939 Michael bought the abandoned Wenford Bridge Inn on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, but this was a bad time for someone with little money, and a wife and three small sons, to be trying to convert a set of semi-derelict buildings into a pottery. They badly needed to earn some money, as pottery was hardly going to produce an income in wartime. Mariel found a job teaching art at a school in Buckinghamshire, and Michael spent an unsatisfactory period trying to get the pottery going, in between temporary jobs.

Then in 1941 his life was unexpectedly transformed by a letter from the Colonial office, asking him to recommend a ceramist to take over from Harry Davis the running of the pottery at Achimota College in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He replied that he “did not know of any potter capable of taking Mr Davis's place (my words more true than I knew) but that I myself was willing to come instead.” In July 1942 he set sail for West Africa, a new life - and a regular salary.

He was exhilarated by what he found, but increasingly daunted and ultimately defeated by the attempt to fulfil the over-ambitious plans that were imposed on him, to greatly expand the activities of the pottery and build a whole new industry under pioneer conditions in wartime. He was frustrated by difficulties with clay, the workforce, his own temperament and catastrophic losses in firing, and in 1945 after many struggles and considerable financial losses the pottery and tileworks were closed down. Michael suffered agonies of disappointment. He was resolved, however, to find some way of staying in Africa, and was able to set up a pottery at Vumë, on the river Volta, a beautiful place with a fine local pottery tradition of its own. He was determined to prove that a stoneware pottery could be successfully set up in Africa, if it was on a smaller scale. As before, however, he struggled with inadequate clays and the usual disastrous firings. Nevertheless some fine pots did survive, and were exhibited in a British Council exhibition in Accra, in December 1947, while others were later shown in London to a distinguished audience.

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By the time Michael came to write his astonishingly candid autobiography, he was able to admit that the Vumë pottery had been a failure, but he also concluded that the years he worked there were a necessary apprenticeship for his future success in Africa, and part of what he called his “destiny”.

The autobiography, “A Pioneer Potter”, edited by his son Seth and published in 1988, finishes there, but the story does not, and we now have the magnificent biography by Tanya Harrod, written after 11 years of exhaustive research, to tell us more.

Back at Wenford, in 1949 Michael was unexpectedly joined by the Australian Ivan McMeekin, who turned up on his bicycle, very much as Michael himself had arrived at the Leach Pottery in 1923. Ivan had encountered Chinese pottery while serving in the merchant navy on the Chinese coast, and longed to find out how to make it. The day after he arrived he got straight to work helping to fire the kiln, and stayed on, giving invaluable help, being particularly interested in the technical and scientific side of pottery.

(Later on after his return to Australia, determined to make firing more efficient, he realised that Michael's kilns had lacked an opening for secondary air, and a damper, which would account for the long and difficult stoneware firings.)

In 1950 Michael was given his longed-for chance to return to Africa. He successfully applied for the job of “Pottery officer” in Nigeria, to “train African labour in making methods and supervise the erection and operation of simple kilns”. Ivan, who had now been taken into partnership, was left in charge at Wenford.

Michael first travelled extensively round the Nigerian countryside, intoxicated by the nobility of the local pots – hand-built and fired in simple bonfire kilns – before finally deciding to establish his training centre at Abuja, the present day capital of Nigeria. Here he was able to introduce African potters to the wheel, glaze and stoneware firing. Some of his pupils, notably a beautiful, gifted woman named Ladi Kwali, made superb pots in their own traditions, and relished the enlargement of their skills, while he himself was free to develop his own work, inspired by African shapes and patterns.

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There followed many years of personal fulfilment and splendid pots, before he retired in 1965, and began yet another life, as what Tanya Harrod calls a “Magus”. She describes a whole series of visits round the world, giving lectures and demonstrations, sometimes accompanied by Ladi Kwali and his beloved assistant Kofi, and inspiring young potters by his forthright pronouncements and magnetic personality.

The attempt in 1968 to set up a pottery at the Bagot settlement near Darwin was not altogether a success – the settlement itself was a dispiriting environment, and Michael disliked the clay body that Ivan McMeekin had made up, and the small square kiln he had built. Two of his students, however, later moved to Bathurst Island, where the pottery still flourishes alongside the other Tiwi craft workshops, so there is an enduring Cardew legacy in the Northern Territory.

Michael visited Australia again in 1981, as keynote speaker on “The Resourceful Potter” for the second National Ceramics Conference in Sydney. Tanya Harrod reports that he found the conference rather dull, though he certainly gave no sign of this, and made the conference a memorable one for everyone else.

Back in England, 1981 was a year of contrasts: he celebrated his 80th birthday in May, and visited Buckingham Palace to receive the CBE in July, but in December was given the shocking news that his second son Cornelius had been killed in a brutal hit and run accident.

His own death, movingly described by Tanya Harrod, followed just over a year later.

Her splendid biography is a fitting tribute to the many facets of the life and personality of a truly great, though flawed man, and to the strength and resilience of his wife Mariel during their unconventional but enduring marriage. It is not easy to be a great man, and not easy to be a member of his family or to work with him; nevertheless surely all his students would agree with Svend Bayer, who described him simply as “the best potter in the world”.

Janet Kovesi-Watt

JUNE 2013


Finally, The Bowl Gets It’s Due

“Untitled Yellow Crackle Bowl” by Glen Lukens (c. 1939)

By JULIE LASKY

The New York Times

Published: March 27, 2013

Last week, a media frenzy erupted when a small white ceramic bowl carved with a pattern of lotus blossoms sold for more than $2.2 million at auction in New York. That price, which included the buyer’s premium, was 10 times what the auction house, Sotheby’s, expected the bowl to fetch, and more than 700,000 times what the sellers had paid for it. The consignors, whom Sotheby’s identified only as a family from New York State, had bought the bowl for a few dollars at a yard sale in 2007. It was displayed in their living room until they consulted Asian art experts and discovered that it was a thousand-year-old artifact from the Northern Song dynasty in China, an exquisite specimen of pale, thin-walled Ding pottery. If it’s curious that this Chinese bowl escaped notice for so long, it’s an equal wonder that it finally came to light. For all of

the object’s obvious beauty, nothing signaled its age or rarity to the untutored eye.

Bowls haven’t changed in any important way since the Song dynasty. In fact, they haven’t changed much since the Neolithic era, between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago, when people first began making receptacles by hollowing out wood and stone or molding and baking clay.

Before the bowl, cupped hands and folded leaves brought water to the lips. The new containers offered a place to hold the materials of community and ritual: food for sharing, incense for burning, water for irrigation, wine for sacrament, alms for the poor.

And yet, “we don’t talk about the bowl because it’s completely this everyday thing,” said Namita Gupta Wiggers, director and chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Ore. “We take it for granted. We know it too well.”

That so vital an article is routinely overlooked led Ms. Wiggers to organize an exhibition devoted to it. “Object Focus: The Bowl” opened earlier this month, displaying nearly 200 bowls, from a Tibetan singing bowl to a chrome ice bucket. The show, which is subtitled “Reflect + Respond,” will run through Aug. 3. A second part, “Engage + Use,” which involves artists’ performances, a bowl-lending library, a symposium and a collaboration with chefs, cookbook authors and bakers in Portland, will be

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held from May 16 through September 21.

Speaking by phone from Portland, Ms. Wiggers said she was moved to think differently about the bowl after reading “The Language of Things,” a book by Deyan Sudjic, who directs the Design Museum in London. Mr. Sudjic wrote about the ways designers have transformed ordinary household objects into coded luxuries meant to raise the owner’s status and self-esteem. Such objects, as Ms. Wiggers interpreted it, include the table, lamp and chair. Consumers, she said, covet not just tables, but Noguchi tables; not just chairs, but Eames chairs; not just lamps, but Ingo Maurer lamps.

The bowl does not perform the same star turn in the object world, Ms. Wiggers believes, and she attributes its background role to its close connection with craft. Many magnificent bowls have been made by ceramic and glass artists working outside of mass-market commerce, detached from the publicity machinery that promotes recognition and value. She would like us to seek not just bowls, but Marguerite Wildenhain bowls and Lucie Rie bowls, to name just two esteemed artisans. At the same time, she would like us to respect the anonymous vernacular bowl that descends from generations of well-wrought tradition.

Another reason the bowl has been overlooked, Ms. Wiggers posits, is because it’s an accessory. Which is to say, it’s a supporting player in the narrative of other objects and their users. What else is to be expected from something defined largely by the void at its center and its ability to contain a near-infinite variety of things?

“When I talk to people about the bowl, it is always about something else,” Ms. Wiggers said. “It’s a metaphorical conversation about ritual, like in the tea ceremony, or

about the fabrication process. It’s very hard to just talk about the bowl itself. We talk around the bowl.”

Paradoxically, it’s the bowl’s lack of presence that makes it such an excellent metaphor and accounts for the many memorable references to it in literature. Sifting through the Western canon alone, one quickly arrives at Mr. Micawber and his punch bowl; Mrs. Dalloway’s outré friend Sally Seton floating the heads of dahlias and hollyhocks in bowls of water; stately, plump Buck Mulligan performing a parody of the Roman Catholic mass with a shaving bowl; and, of course, “The Golden Bowl” of Henry James.

Tables, chairs and lamps can’t begin to compete.

Ms. Wiggers has capitalized on the narrative richness of bowls by inviting scholars, writers and artisans to select an example from the show and write a brief essay about it. Some of the essays are philosophical, like the meditation by Mara Holt Skov, a curator in San Francisco, on a glass bowl by Do-Ho Suh modeled with the impression of the South Korean artist’s cupped hands pressed into the base. It is, Ms. Holt Skov wrote, a “reminder that the hand is present in everything we make,” even if the evidence is not always obvious.

Daniel Duford, a potter and printmaker, wrote more personally about a ceramic bread bowl of unknown origin that had been inherited from his wife’s great-grandmother in Puyallup, Wash.: “It is thick and stout like a Dutch farm wife. For all its stoutness, it has a handsome figure, neither dumpy nor high-toned.”

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Ms. Wiggers has invited the public to contribute writings as well, which are collected online at objectfocusbowl.tumblr.com. And she is encouraging people to render their ideas about bowls at a drawing station installed at the exhibition. Undergraduates from the illustration program at Pacific Northwest College of Art, the museum’s partner institution, were the first contributors, followed by anyone who has cared to pick up a pencil.

Written or drawn, these interpretations encourage us to look at bowls with new eyes and find the poetry in their banality. Bowls are the mother of design, and their unique qualities may be stifled by the comfort of their familiar forms. Take the ancient Song dynasty bowl that created such a stir: Tao Wang, an archaeologist who heads the Chinese art department at Sotheby’s, said that the lotus pattern in the ivory bowl is probably a Buddhist allusion, symbolizing rebirth and purity. This particular bowl would have been used not for dining, Mr. Wang noted, but for making an offering to a temple. “It’s not a simple daily object,” he said.

Which is not to denigrate the everyday. “The simple bowl,” Mr. Wang added, “is the great invention of the human mind.”

www.nytimes.com

Basin 1 by Surabhi Ghosh (2012)

Footed Bowl by Lucy Rie (c. 1980)

Alphabet Bird Bowl by Ayumi Horie (2012)

JUNE 2013


Smíšek was born in the Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia in 1925. After spending most of World War 2 in labour camps due to his efforts in the anti-Nazi resistance movement, he fled Europe in 1948 after the Czech coup. He emigrated first to Australia, and then to New Zealand in 1951.

He worked for the Crown Lynn pottery in Auckland where he created the "Bohemia Ware" line in manganese slip glaze, before moving to Nelson in 1952. There he worked at the Nelson Brick and Pipe Company, where he learned the technique of salt glazing. He left in 1957 and became New Zealand's first full-time studio potter. He also taught pottery at the Nelson Technical School (at the time part of Nelson College) and night classes at Waimea College. In 1968 he moved to the Kapiti Coast, where he established three potteries.

He worked extensively for the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, making about 700 earthenware items for the three films. Frequently he had to make two or three of each piece in different sizes to allow them to be used by the hobbits, humans and giants.

In the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours, Smíšek was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to pottery. He received the Gratis Agit award from the Czech government in 2011 for promoting the Czech Republic overseas.

Smíšek died in Wellington in 2013.

At the time of his death, a retrospective exhibition "60 Years 60 Pots" was touring New Zealand. A number of his pieces are held in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

In Memoriam Mirek Smíšek

1967

JUNE 2013


10 August 1925 -1 January 2013 Michiko was born in Japan where she remained until after WW2. During the allied occupation she was introduced to Bob Love an RSM in the Australian army . Bob returned to Japan after the occupation and Michiko soon found herself in Australia as his bride. Australian attitudes to the Japanese after the war made life very difficult and Michi’s strength and courage were tested on a daily basis. During the 50’s she ventured out to Pottery classes with Francis Kotai at Fremantle Tech where her skill and sensitivity with clay blossomed . Michiko became a practicing artist, teacher and was involved with the formation of the Perth Potters club. Early in her career she became famous for making miniatures, some only a centimetre high. Asked why make such small pots ?(often thrown with the help of chopsticks) Michi would reply that she hated to waste all the small spaces between her bowls and bottles so filled them with the miniatures. During this period she managed to raise a son and daughter. Michi continued to teach and influence potters throughout her life. She was always ready to extol the Japanese way in ceramics as a way to true beauty. Michiko lived a life worth living, built on strength and truth tempered by love. She will be missed by all that knew her. The temple bell stops

But the sound keeps coming

Out of the flowers

(Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694)

~ Thanks to Stewart Scambler for this contribution.

In Memoriam Michiko Love

JUNE 2013


Study Groups and Gatherings

The second half of 2013 brings with it some great opportunities to get together!

18th July 7pm

DISH IT UP: make & decorate a plate, top with food to share and bring along for a show & tell. Also the rescheduled talk by Stewart Scambler WELCOME TO INDIA

19th September 7pm

STUDY GROUP

Janet Kovesi Watt's slide show of the 2013 ABERYSTWYTH conference.

21th November 6:30pm

CAAWA Christmas party with a

Chris Cringle & Raku evening

Bring a plate to share!

See the calendar below for further details or contact Janet:

[email protected]

NSW Wood firer Chester Nealie was in Perth recently and gave an impromptu demonstration to some of Cher's students in her O'Connor studio.

Chester Nealie

Platter 2008

19.0 h x 42.0 w cm

JUNE 2013


Ceramic Arts Association of WA Inc

AGM 1st August 2013

7.30 PM IN THE PEPPERMINT GROVE COMMUNITY ROOM 1 LEAKE ST PEPPERMINT GROVE ( the

community room is next to the Cottesloe library)

Followed at 8.15 pm with Guest Speaker

Jánis Nedėla

Artist, Curator, Writer

AGENDA 2013 CAAWA AGM

WELCOME

APOLOGIES

PREVIOUS MINUTES

PRESENT REPORT

TREAURERS REPORT

COMMITTEE ELECTIONS

OTHER BUSINESS: INCREASE MEMB FEES.

LAUNCH NEW MEMBERSHIP BROCHURE

JUNE 2013


Glaze Recipe Errors

Thanks to Natalie Harrop for this contribution.

I have been in touch with Stephen Murfitt who wrote 'THE GLAZE BOOK" It was a query at first about some ingredients that should have been in his recipes, he has added some amendments as follows to his recipes I am writing because there are lots of potters out there who have purchased this book and would like to know the problem, and this information can be printed in the CAAWA MAGAZINE or emailed as you think fit He

Page 128

1st recipe should read

Glaze A over B

Add 10% Red iron oxide to recipe B

Page 128

2nd recipe should read

Glaze A over B Add

10% Red iron Oxide to recipe B

Page 128

3rd recipe should read

Add 10% Red iron oxide to recipe B

Add 10% Red Iron Oxide to recipe C

Glaze B over C then A over both

Page 150

2nd recipe should read

Add 3% Rutile to recipe A

Add 1% Cobalt oxide to recipe A

2nd recipe

Add 10% Red Iron oxide to recipe B

Recipe A applied over B

Page 172

Recipe 1

Add 3% rutile to recipe A

Add 5% Red Iron Oxide to recipe B

Recipe A over B

I!think!if!you!have!this!book!it!is!worth!changing!the!errors.!Cheers!and!hope!everyone!can!understand!!this.!!Natalie!Harrop

JUNE 2013


Winter School @ Central

Central runs four terms of short courses a year, offering you the chance to experience a slice of Central’s highly renowned creative offering. From photography, furniture, fashion and jewellery design, to music, film

and TV. All the courses are run by industry professionals, usually in the evening or on the weekends. Our visual arts department also offer children’s classes school holiday programs. For more:

http://www.central.wa.edu.au/Courses/CreativeArts/

JUNE 2013


COMMITTEE 2012/2013

Executive Committee

• Cher Shackleton President Website Coordinator [email protected] • Njalikwa Chongwe Vice President [email protected] • Dianne Sigel Treasurer [email protected] • Janet Kovesi Watt Secretary Study Group Coordinator [email protected] General Committee • Jackie Masters Membership Secretary [email protected] • Natalie Acton PYRE Editor Facebook Coordinator [email protected] • Stewart Scambler Workshops [email protected] • Janis Heston Social Coordinator [email protected] • Sandra Black [email protected] • Helen Dundo [email protected] • Rosemary Schoen [email protected]

South of the River Potters’ Club

MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION

GLORIOUS MUD

OCTOBER 12th - 20th

Atwell House Gallery

Cnr Canning Highway & North Lake Road, Alfred Cove

10.00am - 4.00pm daily

Opening Sunday October 13th at 2.30pm

JUNE 2013


The 2013 Central Institute of Technology Graduating Fine Art and Jewellery Students are pleased to present

The Annual Fundraising Auction All proceeds go to fund the 2013 Graduating Show

At Central Gallery, Aberdeen St, Perth

On Thursday 1st August – Hammer down 6pm

The following Artists and Students will be contributing work in ceramics and other mediums:

Drew Armstrong Jillian Betterton Sandra Black Elaine Bradley Holly Courtney Pippin Drysdale

Sue Flavell Graham Hay

Bela Kotai Alana Lindsay

Karen Millar Fleur Schell

Andrea Vincovic Gill Wilson

Plus works from many more artists and students – a great opportunity to purchase work from your favourite artists at an affordable price!

JUNE 2013


Submissions For PYRE submissions email: [email protected]

WEB ADDRESS

www.ceramicartswa.asn.au

POSTAL ADDRESS

C/- 9 Hartington Way

Carine 6020 WA

DATE TIME EVENT PLACE

4th July 6.30pm COMMITTEE MEETING COMMUNITY ROOM PEPERMINT GROVE

18th July 7pm STUDY GROUP DISH IT UP: make & decorate a plate, top with food to share and bring along for a show & tell. Also the rescheduled talk by Stewart Scambler WELCOME TO INDIA

COMMUNITY ROOM PEPPERMINT GROVE

1st August

7 .30pm doors open 7pm

AGM 8.15 pm Speaker, Jánis Nedėla Artist, curator.


5th September 6.30 COMMITTEE MEETING COMMUNITY ROOM PEPPERMINT GROVE

19th September 7pm STUDY GROUP Janet Kovesi Watt's slide show of the 2013 Aberystwyth conference


3rd October 6.30pm COMMITTEE MEETING COMMUNITY ROOM PEPPERMINT GROVE

7th November 12-4 COMMITTEE MEETING COMMUNITY ROOM PEPPERMINT GROVE

21th November 6.30 CAAWA Christmas party with a Chris Cringle & Raku evening Bring a plate to share

Mosman Park

Dec TBA 6.30 COMMITTEE MEETING COMMUNITY ROOM PEPPERMINT GROVE

Calendar

JUNE 2013


NOMINATION FOR CAAWA COMMITTEE 2013/14

NOMINATIONS CLOSE 1ST AUGUST 2013

NOMINATED

I__________________________________________ A financial member of CAAWA hereby

NOMINATE_____________________________________________________________________________

FOR THE POSITION OF _______________________________________________________________________________________

SIGNED_____________________________________________________DATE______________________

ACCEPTED

I_____________________________________ A financial member of CAAWA, accept the nomination.

SIGNED____________________________________________________________DATE______________

JUNE 2013


M EMB ERSHI P R ENEW AL

1 st Ju ly 2013 – 3 0 th Ju ne 2014

NAME………………………………………………………………………………………………

ADDRESS…………………………………………………………………………...…………….

………….…………...…………………………………………………P/C……………………

PHONE……………………………………………………………………………………...........

EMAIL………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

MEMBERSHIP (please circle) NEW RENEWAL TWO YEARS

FULL $ 50.- $ 100.-

GROUP $ 75.- $ 150.-

FULL TIME STUDENT $ 30.- $ 60.-

ASSOCIATE $ 30.- $ 60.-

NEWSLETTER: post email

CHEQUES payable to CERAMIC ARTS ASSOCIATION WA (INC)

CREDIT CARD: Visa…………………………………………………..EXP……………

MasterCard………………………………………….EXP……………

Name on Card…………………………………………………………

Monies to: Dianne Sigel, 9 Hartington Way, Carine WA 6020. email: [email protected]

Payments may be made by cheque, money order, credit card or direct debit to Westpac Karrinyup BSB: 036027. A/c: 257310. Account name: Ceramic Arts Assocn. of WA Inc. When paying by direct debit, please reference your name on the direct debit and please advise Dianne Sigel via email that you have made the direct debit. Cheques made out to Ceramic Arts Assn of WA (Inc).

Documents

PYRE - Ceramic Arts Associaion WA copy1.pdfPYRE JUNE 2013 CERAMIC ... The Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa describes how making is a process of ... His idea of the ‘thinking