“The main restrictions that I have at the moment are a small studio and how I transport my work, unfired, in a trailer that I tow with my bicycle to the kiln service,” Canadian potter Dawn Vachon tells Australian author Amber Creswell Bell in her new book, Clay: Contemporary Ceramic Artisans. Bell profiles fifty-three potters, mainly from Australia, probing how they became involved with clay, why they make what they make, and how they think about it.
The only potter I was familiar with (which doesn’t mean you wouldn’t know who the rest are) is media savvy Frances Palmer of Connecticut whose work was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal, House Beautiful, and Architectural Digest. Palmer has been making pots for more than three decades, primarily porcelain but also white and red terra cottas. And avid gardener, she photographs many of her pieces with flowers and posts daily on Instagram. Despite her success, she tells Bell, “You have to be prepared for failure and yet still enjoy the process. There are many aspects to making pots that are out of one’s control and I find it all a metaphor for many things in life.”
Indeed, dealing with failure is a common thread throughout. Holly Macdonald of Australia talks about the importance of not becoming too attached to one’s work while making it lest it not survive drying and firing. “There are certainly a lot of opportunities to practice non-attachment in working with clay. Non-attachment in relation to the physical things you are creating and the expectations you have of them. I think it’s a good thing, and is a positive influence on the other areas of my life.”
Several of the potters touch on their ever-present sense of the long and ancient history of ceramics. Florian Gadsby, a young London based potter who apprenticed with Lisa Hammond writes, “The methods have barely changed in thousands of years. Losing such an important craft as we enter a digital age would be devastating, as it represents centuries of historical advancement, culture and beauty.” Australian potter Tania Rollond adds, “For almost as long as we humans have walked the earth we have scratched or printed our individual marks and traces into the malleable, receptive surface of clay, and we have formed it into objects that play intimate roles in daily life.”
Clay: Contemporary Ceramic Artisans is a handsomely produced book. There are 231 illustrations. Many of the pots are dramatically photographed holding flowers. There are also photographs of the potters at work, or of their studios, as well as many photos of individual pots or groups of pots all printed on thick, creamy paper.
The work itself ranges from vases and tableware made by throwing, pinching, handbuilding and slipcasting to intricate sculptural work reflecting a variety of points of view and processes. Bell does a good job of presenting the thoughts and philosophies that the potters have about their work without making the essays sound like formal artists’ statements and without using the jargon so often employed by critics. She and her subjects exclaim at the “buoyancy” of the market for handmade ceramics today and share optimism for the future.
Details: Published by Thames and Hudson