CERAMICS MONTHLY William C

2 CERAMICS MONTHLY William C. Hunt......................................Editor Barbara Tipton.................... Associate Editor Robert L. Creager...................... Art Director Ruth C. Butler............................ Copy Editor Valentina Rojo.................... Editorial Assistant Mary Rushley............. Circulation Manager Connie Belcher .... Advertising Manager Spencer L. Davis ............................ Publisher Editorial, Advertising and Circulation Offices 1609 Northwest Boulevard, Box 12448, Columbus, Ohio 43212 (614) 488-8236 Ceramics Monthly (ISSN 0009-0329) is published monthly except July and August by Professional Publications, Inc.—S. L. Davis, Pres.; P. S. Emery, Sec.: 1609 North west Blvd., Columbus, Ohio 43212. Second class postage paid at Columbus, Ohio. Subscription Rates:One year $18, two years $34, three years $45. Add $5 per year for subscriptions outside the U.S.A. Change of Address:Please give us four weeks advance notice. Send both the magazine wrapper label and your new address to Ceramics Monthly, Circulation Office, Box 12448, Columbus, Ohio 43212. Contributors:Manuscripts, photographs, color separations, color transparencies (in cluding 35mm slides), graphic illustrations, texts and news releases dealing with ceramic art are welcome and will be considered for publication. A booklet describing procedures for the preparation and submission of a man uscript is available upon request. Send man uscripts and correspondence about them to The Editor, Ceramics Monthly, Box 12448, Columbus, Ohio 43212. Indexing:Articles in each issue of Ceramics Monthly are indexed in the Art Index. A 20-year subject index (1953-1972) covering Ceramics Monthly feature articles, Sugges tions and Questions columns is available for $1.50, postpaid from the Ceramics Monthly Book Department, Box 12448, Columbus, Ohio 43212. Additionally, each year’s arti cles are indexed in the December issue. Copies and Reprints:Microfiche, 16mm and 35mm microfilm copies, and xerographic re prints are available to subscribers from Uni versity Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copies in micro fiche are also available from Bell & Howell, Micro Photo Division, Old Mansfield Road, Wooster, Ohio 44691. Back Issues: Back issues, when available, are $3 each, postpaid. Write for a list. Postmaster:Please send address changes to Ceramics Monthly, Box 12448, Columbus, Ohio 43212. Copyright © 1985 Professional Publications, Inc. All rights reserved September 1985 3 4 Ceramics Monthly Ceramics Monthly Volume 33, Number 7 September 1985 Feature Articles Studio Management, Part 2 by Jeannette and Jim Cantrell............................. 27 The B.O.R. Kiln by W. Lowell Baker .............................................. 32 Art For Eating............................................................ 34 Potters, Zombies and Others by Harry Davis....................................................... 35 Wood Firing in America............................................ 37 Washington Craft Show........................................... 43 Unloading by Louis Katz......................................................... 46 Earthenware Revisited.............................................. 48 Breaking Old Patterns by Margaret Ford.................................................. 50 David Taylor by Astrid Brunner................................................. 52 Crystal Glazes by Cameron Covert............................................... 92 Departments Letters......................................................................... 7 Questions..................................................................... 13 Where to Show........................................................... 15 Suggestions.................................................................. 17 Itinerary...................................................................... 19 Comment: Summer Workshop by Ersatz Soubriquet............................................. 23 Technical: Feldspar Fluxing Differences by Jerry Weinstein ................................................ 58 News & Retrospect..................................................... 63 New Books................................................................... 89 Classified Advertising................................................ 94 Index to Advertisers 96 The Cover Canadian ceramist David Taylor in his Dayspring, Nova Scotia, studio. Initially trained as a painter, he still acknowledges that connection in his clay work, utilizing a palette of slips and glazes to build depth and color on surfaces. CM’s profile of this artist be gins on page 52. Photo: Norval Balch. September 1985 5 Letters New Zealand Impressions Foremost is their inability or unwilling that I disposed of for a colleague. But that John Glick’s lack of historical conscious ness to sell their utilitarian pottery at the does not justify Mr. Troy’s ludicrous and ness in his article, “New Zealand Impres price of art while most prominent galleries unfounded claim that I, or anyone else for sions” (CM, April and May) is appalling. cannot afford to price it as craft. Conse that matter, have been manipulating the Ohr How could he fail to mention Harry and quently, many such potters have turned to market. May Davis? The Davises are probably the making nonutilitarian vessels which sell as As for the rest of the information (which only potters in New Zealand who will be art, but which too often lack the directness seems as much based in fact as the spurious recalled a century hence—so why their ab and vitality of their utilitarian sources. comments about Ohr) I have nothing to say. sence in Glick’s article? Everybody cheers the “expressive freedom” Debating the content of an uninformed, jin No other New Zealand potter, or any oth won by Voulkos, forgetting that the content goistic statement (however well intentioned) er living potter besides Harry Davis, is a co- and intensity of one’s creative focus, not free does not interest me at all. What does interest founder of the modern crafts movement. Be dom, account for quality. me is why Troy, who has written sensitively tween 1931-35, Davis worked at the St. Ives Jack Troy is wrong when he comes to in the past and has indicated a belief in writ pottery and ran it during Bernard Leach’s words and criticism. The problem there is ten analysis, should write such a bitter, anti absences. Davis went to Ghana, Africa, in bad writing and thinking. And I was sur intellectual statement. It is a little like a fem the capacity of a British first-class civil ser prised to find Mr. Troy displaying so much inist writing an ode in praise of male chau vant to operate the pottery at the Achimota of both. vinism. College in 1936. He resigned his position One silliness is Troy’s claim that critics Lastly I protest the sloppy handling of this and left Achimota in 1942, turning the pot are the oddsmakers of the art business—that matter by Ceramics Monthly which should tery over to Michael Cardew. In 1946, the artgoers, like gamblers at the track, read us know how to spell Mr. Ohr’s name correctly Davises started Crowan Pottery in Cornwall for solid bets. He assumes that critical writ (even if Mr. Troy does not) and for their and worked there for 15 years. The Crowan ing prevents people from thinking for them lack of professionalism and courtesy in not Pottery was nearly 100% self-sufficient. In selves. I wish it were so. My uncle was a verifying information that could potentially 1962, the Davises quit England for New handicapper at the track, and he retired ear be damaging. Obviously truth and respon Zealand where they once again established lier and wealthier than free agents from Yan sible publishing matters less than some “fun” a self-sufficient pottery. In 1971, they estab kee Stadium. in the Comment column. lished a cooperative pottery in Peru, where Another is Troy’s notion that criticism in Garth Clark there was no indigenous pottery. Harry forms us about “a body of work.” Criticism New York City Davis raised funds for the project by writing, informs us only about the critic’s opinion and lecturing and giving workshops in Europe, eye. That opinion varies in clarity, and so An Open Letter to Ken Ferguson Australia, New Zealand and North and South does the eye. However, from the most con Dear Ken: Somehow I knew I’d like you America. He currently resides in Crewenna, scientious critics and viewers, one gains a as soon as I read the article about you in New Zealand, editing his two-volume mag sense of where a willing eye may lead. Ceramics Monthly. Anyone who cares as much num opus, The Potter's Alternative, and de Whether the reader is willing to go along is about students and his role as a teacher as signing pottery equipment. another matter. Criticism, I’ve found, can be you do is okay in my book. These are just a few of the Davises’ many enormously self-revealing. That may be why My preconceived opinion of you wasn’t accomplishments, not the least of which is it continues to draw responsible practitioners tarnished in the least when I attended your 24 years of pottery-making in New Zealand, and readers. For whenever one’s eye differs workshop at San Jose State this spring. You’re which John Glick failed to mention. He may with one’s mind—and vice versa—one must an interesting man who has obviously spent have hit the bright spots of pottery in New think. some time thinking about what’s really im Zealand, but he missed the heart and soul— Despite Troy’s

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