Kecskemét, Spode, Topiary and Willow Trees
Kecskemét, Spode, Topiary and Willow Trees
2 August 2010
I’ve been working on my commission for the Shipley Art Gallery over the past weeks, but in mid-July spent some 10 days at the International Ceramic Studios in Hungary, teaching a Vitrified Print course. It was a busy place - Rimas Visgirda, Billie Theide, Steve Montgomery, Marc Leuthold, Orlaith Ross were all there - with many others... Check out the Kecskemét Facebook page for more info.
Rimas and I taught a Ceramics and Print course together at the International Ceramic Research Centre in Denmark quite a few years ago, it was great to catch up on things. At the end of my teaching I managed to put together some new trees for firing in the salt kiln at some future date. Incorporated some of Rimas’ granite and decomposed feldspar in the clay body, so it’ll be very interesting to see the results (eventually)..
Some pics from the Kecskemét journey below....
New printed ‘Spode Trees’ (for wood/salt glaze firing) drying in the evening sun at the International Ceramic Studios Kecskemét, July 21, 2010.
Top - Rimas working, below, view through to Billie Theide’s studio space
Watering can bought at the Kecskemét Flea market
ICS courtyard early evening
Lightening over Kecskemét July 21 2010
Post-industrial topiary, Keckskemét July 17 2010
Mary Fischer one of the artists taking the print course noticed a remarkable synchronicity between one of my salt glazed wood-fired pieces and a Kecskemét gravestone. The work itself references Bernard Leach’s assertion that: Patterns may be described as concepts of decoration reduced to their utmost simplicity and significance. They are analogous to melodies in music and proverbs in literature. Their significance is enhanced by directness of personal statement and detracted from by mechanical reproduction, for in such reproductions continuous vital interpretation is lacking, however good the original. That is why well painted pots have a beauty of expression greater than pottery decorated with engraved transfers, stencils or rubber stamps. (from Bernard Leach - A Potters Book, Faber and Faber ,1967, page 101). Seems like Bernard had been reading up on his William Morris who in 1882 wrote about industrially produced pottery. He railed against the craft which turns out tons of commercial wares, every piece of which ought to be a work of art, produces literally nothing going to to assert that - As to the surface decoration of pottery, it is clear that it must never be printed (from William Morris - The Lesser Arts of Life, quoted in William Morris on Art and Design page 133 [Sheffield Academic Press 1996, Ed. Christine Poulson])
Presumably Leach’s painted tile has a greater ‘beauty of expression‘ than my printed one...
Below: Bernard Leach, wood-fired Willow tile [1940-1948], 10cm x 10cm. Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections.... then Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s) Willow after Bernard Leach 20cm x 20cm. Salt glazed wood fired tile (Kecskemét Hungary 2008)... followed by Willow from tombstone, Kecskemét Cemetery (photo - Mary Fischer)...
