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The Case for Clay in Secondary Art Education A symposium on The Case for Clay in Secondary al education in the arts for the development of Art Education was held in New York, New York, the individual; to survey current research and to on January 28, 29, and 30, 1988. Originated by the establish directions for future research; to recog­ Studio Potter Foundation and conducted with the nize excellent practitioners in the field and to collaboration of and on the premises of New provide models for success; and to develop an York University, the symposium focused attention advocacy role for future action. on art education at the primary and secondary The three-day symposium was attended by levels, and specifically addressed the value of over three hundred people from all parts of the working with clay for educational growth and de­ country and from abroad. It was addressed by velopment by bringing together women and men panels of distinguished art educators, scholars, from wide perspectives in art education and re­ artists, teachers, psychologists, and administrators. lated disciplines to share ideas and experiences. Awards of excellence were presented to teachers Two years prior to the symposium, members of of innovative school programs, and grass-roots the Studio Potter Foundation identified problems networking was begun. growing within ceramics education on the pri­ The symposium concluded its presentations mary and high school level, and were concerned with a resolve to form a strong position of sup­ these problems were not being adequately ad­ port for clay in elementary and secondary curric­ dressed in existing forums. At the same time, ula. It recognized the importance of leadership at ceramic artists, teachers, and administrators ex­ the university level in the need for increased co­ pressed fears that the use of clay as a teaching operation between lower and higher educational material was suffering a disproportionate decline institutions. It voiced encouragement for pursu­ because of recent cutbacks in art education. Lack ing such future opportunities-germinated at of supportive research on the educational value the symposium-as might present themselves of three-dimensional media, they felt, tended to through publications, networking, and substantive undermine those fragile programs. Furthermore, academic dialogue. It forcefully supported the im­ advocacy of a discipline-based education-a phi­ portance of political advocacy to persuade con­ losophy perceived by some to be detrimental to stituencies of power to continue curricula using hands-on school instruction-became the focus the three-dimensional media in elementary and of a lobbying effort by powerful institutions and secondary education. exacerbated the problem. Sruo10 POTTER is proud to have helped facilitate The Studio Potter Foundation felt it imperative the Case for Clay in Secondary Art Education. Pa­ to call attention to the case for clay in secondary pers presented at the symposium are presented art education. A symposium of focused goals was herewith. developed. These were to assess the current sta­ Gerry Williams tus of art education in three-dimensional media; Editor, Studio Potter to emphasize the importance of three-dimension- STUDIO POTIER is an unendowed, nonprofit foundation whose purpose is to further the ceramic arts. It publishes Studio Potter, a noncommercial, biannual magazine for the professional potter. It produces books, monographs, audio tapes, and films. It sponsors symposia and lectures, and supports network services to the potter's field. For further information, write Studio Potter, Box 70, Goffstown, New Hampshire 03045, USA. COMMERCIAL SPONSORS of the symposium include The American Art Clay Company, Kohler Company, Miller Ceramics, Ceramic Supply of New York and New Jersey, Rovin Ceramics, Trinity Ceramic Supply, and Sheffield Pottery. DONORS include Irving and Bunzy Sherman, Karen Johnson Boyd, Mary Nyburg, Robert Turner, David V. Becker, J. Patrick Coady, Jack Larsen, Abbie Conick, and the University Council for Art 17 Education (NYC). SESSION I: PERCEPTION AND DEFINITION Clay: Arguments For and With Perception - Past and Present: A Form Makes Thoughts Edmund Burke Feldman, Keynote Speaker William Daley When Clay Is Play and Play Is Art If Clay Is the Answer, What Is the Question? John Lidstone, Moderator David Ecker Education as Initiation M. C. Richards Clay: Arguments For and With by Edmund Burke Feldman INTRODUCTION What follows is an attempt to understand why the timeless, uni­ the emergence of Homo sapiens has taken place along with the versal art of ceramics has fallen to its present low estate in edu­ evolution of art, starting with the discovery of clay as a material cation. I offer you a grouchy diagnosis that is probably only half­ that can be shaped by man for distinctively human purposes. right, but better than a passionate celebration of the warm, love­ Second, ceramic art from the beginning to the present has tran­ able qualities of pot makers, some of whom are my best friends. scended all the familiar dichotomies of art: religious vs. secular; In presenting these remarks I am thinking especially of a great useful vs. expressive; multiple vs. one-of-a-kind; practical vs. aes­ ceramics teacher, Wesley Arnold Mills, with whom I taught at thetic; plain vs. decorative; representational vs. abstract; hand­ Carnegie Tech in the 1950s. Mills has been retired for several made vs. machine-made. Third, ceramic art is well nigh universal years now, but his silvery head can still be seen at ceramics because clay, like mud, is very widely distributed; objects made conferences around the country. Wes Mills knew his trade, of of clay are created and prized in all human cultures. Fourth, the course, but he was a great teacher because of the man he was ancient association of clay utensils with such basic human activ­ and is. I like to think that good teaching-especially in the ities as eating, drinking, and storing makes it impossible to ex­ crafts-is closely related to the moral integrity of the teacher. punge their form and function from our collective conscious­ Years ago, Martin Buber said that education is first of all a moral ness. Fifth, making things with clay, like drawing with a pointed enterprise. Some people thought it was a matter of applying the instrument, has not gone out of style despite the invention of principles of agronomy to the problems of classroom manage­ new materials and technologies. From this I conclude that the ment. Now we are finding out, to our chagrin, that Buber was perceptual, kinesthetic, and tactile rnmensions of human behav­ right. Whatever we say about the advancement of some phase ior are so intimately related to our historic experience with mak­ of education for the benefit of students, it comes down to the ing and using clay objects that the material has become a moral-including the intellectual and aesthetic-improvement of paradigm for our bodies and the tt,ings we make with our teachers. bodily extensions. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT What I am saying, in sum, is that humanity is the product of an artistic as well as a biological process; that human biology is Shaped clay-most likely in the form of animal and human figu­ by no means independent of our tool-making and tool-using rines-was our primal artistic medium. It belonged to the general habits; that craft became part of our genetic heritage long before corpus of Paleolithic technology and can be called primal in the the emergence of art galleries and museums; that forming, sense of "first" or "original." Ceramic art understood as the mak­ throwing, molding, firing, decorating, trading, and collecting clay ing of clay pots, jars, and utilitarian structures was a later-proba­ objects is something our species will always do; that no matter bly Neolithic-development. In both cases, clay is part of the how wise or rich or sophisticated we become we shall continue prehistorical heritage of mankind. Also womankind, since pottery to interact with clay objects because that is the way we shape was in all likelihood a female invention. and caress the stuff we are made of. If I am right-if clay is our primal art medium-what does that imply for art education? First, the evolution of humanity since THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT From an economic standpoint the divorce of art from industry is Edmund Burke Feldman is professor of art at the Department of Art, the Uni­ a scandal. It represents the breakdown of the organic relation­ Georgia, in Athens, Georgia. is past president and Distin­ versity of He a ship between artisans, consumers, and the design process. That guished Fellow of the National Art Education Association. He is the author of relationship is what we celebrate in the model of art derived 18 Art as Image and Idea, Art in American Higher Institutions, The Artist, and Varieties of Visual Experience. from craft. When that model is abandoned, we get the prolifera­ connections between visual form, human use, expressive mean­ tion of mass-produced ugliness due to the inability of industry to ing and social effect. It is all right to provide instruction in the exercise artistic controls in the determination of quality in pro­ so-called principles of design provided students learn that think­ duction. By "artistic controls" I mean the artisan's ability to re­ ing about form in isolation is very misleading. Artistic forms, like spond to a user's needs while exercising the standards of ideas, have consequences: intellectual consequences, emotional making required by the craft tradition. The absence of such con­ consequences, behavioral consequences. trols leads to the dehumanization of industrial work, the aliena­ For the sake of a complete art education, there is no substitute tion of workers from their product, and the separation of for the critical examination of clay objects; we have to find out function from appearance in the form of a debased art called how they work practically, expressively, and symbolically in our styling.

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