Ceramic Color; Centering on the Afterthought

1 Ceramic Color; Centering on the Afterthought A collection of writings from artists, scholars, educators and critics. 2 Index Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 4 Standards of Beauty……………………………………………………………….. 5 Bernard Leach on vitality of materials………………………………………………… 6 Soetsu Yanagi on beauty in regard to tea………………………………………….... 7 Rosanjin on subdued color…………………………………………………….………... 8 Marguerite Wildenhain on color, form, nature and art………………………..... 9 Brother Thomas Bezanson on truth in color use………………...…………….. 10 Paulus Berensohn on being one with material………………………………….. 12 Ramifications of Unpredictability…………...…………………………………... 14 Viola Frey on investigative approaches…………………………………………... 14 Peter Voulkos on glaze frustrations...………………………………….…........... 15 Philip Rawson on general expectations...……………………………………….. 16 Michael Cardew on virtue of necessity...…………………………………………. 17 Robin Hopper on ceramic color circumstance…………………………………... 18 Daniel Rhodes on color or form…………………………………………………... 19 Linda Arbuckle on skill and restraint….………………………………………….. 20 3 Warren Mackenzie on futility of intentions….……………………………………... 21 Peter Voulkos on dumb glazes….………………………………………………... 22 Historical Application……………………………………………………………... 24 Betty Woodman on cobalt respect….……………………………………………. 24 Philip Rawson on green….………………………………………………………... 25 Edmund De Waal on white….……………………………………………………... 26 George Woodman on problem of color…………………………………………... 27 Inspirations and Influences……………………..……………………………….. 29 Philip Rawson on gloss..…………………………………………………………... 29 Val Cushing on poetry…………………………………………………………….... 30 Richard Devore on texture……………………………………………………….... 31 Betty Woodman on sources….………………………………………………….... 31 Ron Nagle on choice….……………………………………………………………. 33 Janet Koplos on Toshiko Takaezu ……………………………………………….. 34 Jack Troy on fire science ………………………………………………………….. 35 Kirk Mangus on red….……………………………………………………………... 37 Conclusion……………………..……………………………………………………. 38 Sources………………………………………………………………………………. 39 4 Introduction Ceramic color is astoundingly diverse and many of the effects out-match and outlast any surface that can be achieved through a paint medium. While technical information on how to execute color is plentiful, theoretical readings on ceramic color are few and far between. The formal ramifications of color choices in studio pottery are largely undiscussed outside of references to painting. Ceramicists that approach their surfaces in a painterly fashion are given high praise, partly because art critics understand how to frame the discussion around said surface. However, ceramic color is vastly different from paint medium in two major ways; it is 3 dimensional and it is created through a material transformation. Color and surface is often an afterthought in American studio pottery practice. The absence of discourse surrounding theory related to ceramic color sends a message about the insignificance of color in the critical reading of a ceramic object. The complexity of ceramics as a whole leaves little room for traditional color theory and the unpredictable nature of glazes leads conversations amongst makers towards serendipity or pity versus intentionality. While form is the center of most ceramics dialogue, there must be something said of the unique qualities of color in ceramics by artists and scholars. An examination of a wide array of texts has illuminated context and attributes that are specific to ceramic color. Excerpts of texts are provided here to form a sort of collective ceramics color theory. This is not a prescriptive overarching theory, but rather a way to explore the ideas about color that are specific to the field of American studio pottery from 1940 onward. The culling of texts is organized under 4 subheadings: standards of beauty, ramifications of unpredictability, historical applications, and influences and inspirations. 5 Standards of Beauty The history of studio pottery in ceramics has been shaped by the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain, The Mingei aesthetic from Japan and the Bauhaus style of schooling from Germany. To begin the exploration into ceramic color scholarship, readings by pioneers of the field of American studio pottery are provided. Ceramics’ most honored artworks are marked by the integration of form and surface, that is to say that one would not stand up without the other. However, many of these preliminary text, which formed the intellectual basis for the field of ceramics, reveal a bias which is the groundwork for color and surface as afterthought, discounting the expressive potential of color. Each author in this selection holds strong ideas for standards of beauty. Within the subtext of these standards is a place for color which is sometimes coded as infantile, feminine, vulgar and marginal. Marguerite Wildenhain, while not having a disdain for color, does state that a ceramic artist must choose either form or color as their primary interest. These attitudes about color are not separated from traditional color rhetoric. In David Batchelors book, Chromophobia, he chronicles this prejudice and the oppression of color which is bound in language and film in western culture.1 Specific to American studio pottery is the relative shortage of scholarship and reliance upon pedagogical methods to transfer the ethos of pottery. The seminal texts in this collection are still some of the most important documents in the field. Examining some of these color attitudes side by side illuminates a bias which denies critical understanding of color in the reading of ceramic objects. 1David Batchelor, Chromophobia, (London, Reaktion illustrat ed, 2000). 6 Bernard Leach A Potter’s Book, 1940 (pg. 134) Bernard Leach is known as the “father of British studio pottery” and A Potter’s Book was considered the “bible” for many 20th century potters in Europe and America. He merged the worlds of Japanese folk craft aesthetic with that of the Arts and Crafts movement in the West. A primary concern of Leach’s life’s work as an author, artist and educator was truth to materials. In this passage, he focuses on the devitalizing effect that industrial standardization has had on color in glaze and emphasizes nature. During the last century we have suffered far too many ingenious attempts to make pottery look like anything but what it honestly is; even metal, glass and wood have been imitated. Besides this, during the same period the industrialization of pot making has involved such a heightened degree of standardization of material that it is now no longer the universal practice for potters to know their glaze materials and to make their own glazes. It is even difficult to-day to make the old glazes, because the simpler, cruder and more natural materials have given place to others which although chemically purer, are at the same devitalized. From the standpoint of character standardization is inevitably deadening. If the reader will bear in mind what I have already said on the subject of cobalt he will find it is not an isolated case, for the same principle runs through most of our commercial practice, and is inherent in all mechanical processes. Quantity may necessitate standardization but not false standards of beauty, and in the trade it is not only the necessities of large output which rule but false conceptions of beauty. As far as glazes are concerned, part of the trouble is a forgetfulness of what constitutes character of materials. At the moment in other trades besides pottery this being increasingly felt, both here and on the continent, but as a rule a certain lugubrious element in English tastemakers our decorative efforts look dull beside the French for example. When we think of the artificial and nauseating obviousness of the ‘broken colours’ of trade fireplace tiles, in which rutile plays the part which open firing and less purified ingredients used to do, we can only turn with relief to plain 7 commercial glazes. But even if we compare the plain glazes on our table-wares with the most straightforward and rather similar glazes of the Ting ware of the Sung dynasty, or the porcelain glazes of the Ming period, what a profound difference there is! The one is dead, the other alive. This ‘life’ in the old glazes is due in large measure to the presence of elements in the raw material which the old potters either did not know how, or did not desire, to eliminate. The most common was a small percentage of iron, which in the Ting wares produces a creamy colour, and in Ming porcelain a greenish tinge. If they had removed this and other ‘impurities’ as we call them, at least half the vitality and charm of the glazes would have vanished. And curiously enough, if we to-day, usually because we cannot buy our raw materials unrefined, artificially try to return to glazes their variable or inherent characteristics (for nature is never stereotyped), the results are not the same, they look precisely what they are, self-conscious. I do not say that it is impossible, with greater subtlety of perception, so to obtain moderately good results, but i do urge a return to nature if only to learn greater humility. Soetsu Yanagi The Unknown Craftsman, written 1952, published 1972 (pg 148) Soetsu Yanagi had a background in philosophy and was the founder of the Japanese folk craft movement, Mingei, in 1924, which later had a broad impact on American studio pottery. In this passage by Yanagi, he describes color’s place in relation

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