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đșThematic Ceramicsđ¶ Est. 2005 by @ayumihorie
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#piaeducation#petervoulkos#bernardleach#1#2#3#marychaseperrystratton#williamstaitemurray#robertarneson#edithheath
Recent posts
Goodbye @potsinaction. Hello www.potsinaction.com! :) After almost 5 years, 2402 posts, over 70 guesthosts and 100 themes, I am drawing @potsinaction to a close on IG and transferring its content to a website, so that it will be more functional, searchable, and useful to the ceramics field.
Itâs a huge amount of work and Iâm hoping to raise $9000 for website design and data entry to complete this transfer. Iâve written an article on the journey of PIA and why itâs coming to a close for @garlandmagazine. If you donât know about this journal, itâs an amazing publication! Its latest issue covers North American and the idea of gratitude. Iâm grateful for the amazing community here! Thank you to everyone who read, shared, commented, posted and helped make PIA such a meaningful project over the years!
If you wouldnât mind, please share a few thoughts about why @potsinaction is important and what it meant to you. If you still believe in this project, please consider a tax deductible donation, whatever you can spare, even $5 helps much appreciated! The donation link is at the end of the Garland article. Help spread the word by tagging friends. With gratitude and love -@ayumihorie
1,062 likes · 91 comments · 18 Dec 2019
PIAEDUCATION PUBLICATIONS
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If you would like .pdf copies of these posts as a zine, or the larger text that informed them, follow the link in my bio @erikscollon. These texts are meant to be shared and spark more discussion.
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The object of study for PIAeducation was our educational institutions and how they have shaped the field of âceramics.â Although these posts were historical in nature, the goal was to unpack how those histories sometimes presuppose our thinking in a way that closes down, rather than open up options. Thank you to everyone who has commented on how our educational institutions have shaped our field.
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Zine #1- #PIAeducation is the collected texts from these @potsinaction posts.
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Zine #2- âGet Butchâ is the latest iteration of the longer text that informed these posts. Repackaged as a zine, new sections have been added that reflect on the connections between how our educational formats changed, those creepy Solder company posters, and those things influence todayâs studio culture. THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I welcome all suggestions.
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#3 Masters Thesis- âUsing Art: A Theory of Contemporary Ceramicsâ is my 2008 masters thesis, which also informed a lot of the content in these posts. At 48 pages itâs a long read, but youâre welcome to raid the bibliography for other great texts. The writing covers #marychaseperrystratton #williamstaitemurray #petervoulkos #bernardleach #robertarneson and #edithheath. It also compares Relational Aesthetics to events in ceramics like The Empty Bowls Project and the work of Ehren Tool @toolcups. I attempt to create more options and space within the usual binary of either functional or sculptural ceramics. It also tries to stake out a model where âconceptual ceramicsâ and utility need not be mutually exclusive.
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If links get changed in the future, you will be able to find these texts by searching âErik Scollonâ and navigating to âThe Brick Factory.â
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If youâd like to get print copies of these zines, see the instructions on a similar post on my instagram @escollon.
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#ceramics #pottery #handmade #clay #art #ceramic #design #ceramicart #craft #sculpture #wheelthrown #instagramscholarship #modernceramics
428 likes · 10 comments · 09 Jul 2019
SUMMER READING LIST
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As PIAeducation winds down toward the last few posts, here are some ways for you to consider carrying your education forward. This is a short list of some of the books that helped inform these PIAeducation posts. You are also encouraged to contribute your own. Please include a short reason why you are recommending the book or text, along with the Title and the author(s). A synopsis of why you found the text compelling will help others sort and prioritize.
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CLAY, by Susan Staubach @suzystaubachwillowtreepottery - A well researched book that examines how clay has helped shape social, cultural, and technical relations across the globe. Studio ceramists will relate to the writing style, and it can help place your studio work into a larger context.
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DESIGN AND ART, edited by Alex Coles- A collection of essays on the relationship between design and the artworld. Although this book is not about clay at all, if one reads it creatively, you can easily apply the various concepts contained within as a way to rethink your own motivations within studio ceramics.
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THINKING THROUGH CRAFT, by Glenn Adamson @glenn_adamson - Adamsonâs thoughtful reflections on craft help place familiar artists like Peter Voulkos, Robert Arneson, and Warren Mackenzie into the context of âcraft.â Critical readers can then understand the constructs that present these artists as important makers.
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LIVE FORM, by Jenni Sorkin @jennisorkin - Helen Molesworthâs @hmolesworth endorsement says it best - âLive Form fills a void in the current scholarship on postwar art. Looking closely at the development of pottery, Sorkin is able to redress the dominant narratives that privilege both painting as the dominant medium and men as its primary practitioners. Instead, she offers us the essential roles played by crafts and women in creating the interdisciplinary and performance-based fabric of our current moment.â
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Please contribute your own texts to the list and donât forget to include a reason why you are recommending it.
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@erikscollon
2,246 likes · 59 comments · 29 Jun 2019
CAN WE EXPLODE THE CERAMICS CANON?
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The slide lecture is a favorite part of arts education. It often is used as an instructional tool which tells the histories of ceramic practice. But, how can it be rethought?
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The typical art historical narrative of creative output is one where a new style replaces or triumphs over the old one. Weâve examined a little bit of that here as part of PIAeducation. The narrative of progress is a double edged sword that simultaneously reinforces a kind of hierarchy of one thing over the other, but also marginalizes all the other histories that are always happening simultaneously to the dominant narrative.
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Can we make our slide lectures better? What makers should students be understanding? How can educators make space for more voices, and develop the tools and techniques of critical thinking? Slide lectures also inspire makers through exposure to the ways others have experienced the world and then responded to it. Can we expand the range of sources and create exposure for other important voices?
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Please list ONE artist you think that students should know about, and a short synopsis of why. For example:
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JADE SNOW WONG- Because she was a model for a full life as a potter, author and mother.
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WIN NG- Because he moved between pottery, illustration, and design. He was unafraid of commercial success and co-founded the department store Taylor & Ng with his life partner Spaulding Taylor. Their store is credited with bringing the Chinese wok to the US and making it a common kitchen utensil among other accomplishments.
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ISAMU NOGUCHI- Because he easily blended industrial design, sculpture and ceramics. He volunteered to be âself interrenedâ in a camp during WWII because he wanted to âmake the camp a hotbed of proactive, Japanese-American patriotism in the cause against fascism.â
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Curiosity, critical thinking, and a pluralistic worldview is exactly why an education in the arts matters. Because if you really want to be an excellent potter, an expensive four year diploma from a university art program is not a path I would recommend. But, the value of a liberal arts education is a sharp mind that can take you far.
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@erikscollon
1,410 likes · 32 comments · 28 Jun 2019
HOW DO WE CREATE âCERAMICS?â
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These PIAeducation posts are my attempt to understand how our conception of âceramicsâ is defined, validated, maintained, and reproduced by our educational institutions. When someone says âIâm into ceramicsâ how do we know that we mean the same thing? How to wrap our heads around a material with multiple global, technological, cultural, and artistic histories? I assert that in the US it is mainly entities like college ceramics programs, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts @nceca, and popular publications like Ceramics Monthly @ceramics_monthly that contribute to the shaping of what we mean when we say âceramics.â
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The pleasure of doing arts research is that along with photographs, interviews, and historical papers- the objects themselves are also primary documents. By observing an object we can tell a lot about who made it, how they made it, why they made it, and what function it served in society. Together, we discuss, interpret, and analyze these documents to come to a fuller understanding.
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I propose we attempt to understand better together. Doyle Lane was a Los Angeles based potter working at almost exactly the same time and place as Voulkos, yet his work is radically different. How can we understand more about him and his work? What methods do we have available? If you are a maker, how do you apply your haptic knowledge of the material to draw conclusions? If youâre a researcher, what documents can you find? If youâre an enthusiast, how do you ask compelling questions?
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Can you describe or relay ONE important thing about him or his work that helps us understand something better? Can you lead us think more deeply? Can you fit it into 120 words or less? You can share in the comments and/or on your own feed, or in the stories.
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Can we collectively define, validate and reproduced by new educational values? If using your own feed, use hashtags #doylelane #PIAeducation and any others you think would help bring a new audience to his work, and your point of view.
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To get started, itsđđŸto state the obvious. Or if you have the ability to go deep, please do, and âïž if you can attribute the source.
1,049 likes · 13 comments · 27 Jun 2019
WHAT DOES HEGEMONY HAVE TO DO WITH CERAMICS EDUCATION?
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Hegemony can be described as the social, cultural, ideological, and economic influence exerted and continually reproduced by a dominant group in order to make their ideas and values appear as normal, natural and given. If we tell ourselves the story of how Peter Voulkos ârescuedâ ceramics from its lowly status as âcraftâ or as âdecorative artâ over and over again, then we are actively reproducing the idea that Craft and the Decorative Arts are lowly- there is no normal nor natural reason for this hierarchy. Similarly, educators are likely to reproduce the lessons and values that they were taught; as if thatâs the way things should be.
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For example, if a school spends money on a raku* kiln, the institution is invested in incorporating that kiln into coursework. The assignments conceived of by the professor, and the work produced by the students perpetuates the notion that raku* kilns are an important part of ceramics pedagogy. The practice of black, porous pottery that makes the next critique smell like a campfire, is carried forward by students as they become the teachers of the next generation. That raku* firing should be part of every ceramics education is thus presented as a given. This process applies to other practices within ceramics as well.
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Educators: Have you had a moment when you found yourself in the cycle of hegemonic reproduction of an idea that you later let go? Mine was taking the shino glaze out of my Introduction to Wheel Throwing class at @cca_ceramics . I got so grossed out by the thought of all the crawling, pitted glazes on the insides of soup bowls in the dishwasher-less dorms that I had to let it go for health and sanitary reasons.
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Authors note: This is posted with all sincere apologies to the raku* kiln I used at @albioncollegefinearts . That raku* kiln saved me from my own poor time management skills many times. How else can bisqueware get glaze fired only 6 hours before the crit?
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Also welcome in the comments section, arguments for why raku* is an important thing to teach.
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*here I mean the weird mongrel of ârakuâ that was popularized by Paul Soldner in the 50s.
1,080 likes · 61 comments · 26 Jun 2019
âREVOLUTIONSâ WITHIN INSTITUTIONS LIKE THE âARTWORLDâ REQUIRE THE CONSENT OF THOSE INSTITUTIONS
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Martin Irvine sums up the institutional nature of âthe Artworldâ- âThe primary function of the Artworld is continually to define, validate, maintain, and reproduce the cultural category of art, and to produce the consent of the entire society in the legitimacy of the artworld's authority to do so. The Artworld is distributed through a network of institutions (schools, museums, galleries, commercial market systems, and professions), all of which participate in constructing a global, international network...As in all institutions as interdependent networks, you don't need to know you are participating in the Artworld, or in the function of one of its nodes, to be carrying out its primary cultural function.â
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âThe Ceramics Revolutionâ is an oft told narrative about how potters âbroke freeâ of the limitations of function and gained legitimacy within âthe Artworld.â I do not intend to diminish these innovations. Instead, I want to question why it was that schools, museums, galleries and professional chose to recognize the âsculptural vesselâ as revolutionary, while not recognizing some of the other innovations that were happening concurrently.
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In a different revolution, Edith Heath was defining the California lifestyle with her modernist designs, while building a company and a studio with an equitable working environment. She devised ways to lower the firing temperature of her ware, using locally sourced materials, and even had dreams of kilns being fired by solar power. Rosa Novak, @really_rosa is currently doing excellent research on Heathâs legacy.
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Marguerite Wildenhain moved to the woods of Northern California as part of an intentional community of artists, and taught hundreds of students at her Pond Farm summer retreat, also on national tour, and through numerous books. Jenni Sorkinâs book âLive Formâ covers Wildenhain.
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Pause to consider what âceramicsâ would look like today if the âartworldâ had focused itâs collective recognition on promoting these ideas?
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Martin Irvine, âThe Institutional Theory of Art and the Artworldâ Georgetown University
1,929 likes · 35 comments · 25 Jun 2019
UNEASY SITUATIONS NECESSITATE NEW APPROACHES
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To say that ceramic education was in an identity crisis in the post-war moment is an exaggeration. I was more like an awkward teenager rebelling against his mom. We canât know how the men felt as they were being hired to teach ceramics in newly created ceramics departments within college art programs, but a few conditions describe that momentâŠ
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The teaching of ceramics was moving from Home Economics and Teacher Education into Fine Arts.
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It was newly trained men, not the experienced women, who were hired to teach in these programs.
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These men were probably aware of the prejudices their colleagues felt toward ceramics and the gendered associations of the material. This quote by Paul Soldner hints at it â âYou [Voulkos]
suggested I go to S. Paul since they have all those bright colors in a book on the shelf- old lady colors and glazes.â
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These men were aware that their colleagues in painting were garnering much higher prices for work that might have taken less labor than their pots. The âGood Designâ catalog from MoMAâs show in 1955 lists the price for Voulkosâ pots.
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And finally, everyone was aware of the institutional prejudice against ceramics as a material. Within the Fine Arts there was no category of âpotteryâ to occupy, only âsculpture.â This remarkably unfeminist quote from art history Rosilind Krauss, who was writing about John Mason really sums it up ââŠto be a ceramicist-sculptor in the 1950s and â60s was in some essential way to be marginal to âsculpture.ââŠIt was that the medium itself had craft associations. And these associations are intolerable to sculptureâŠCeramics retained too much of the landscape (in its material) and too much of the architectonic (in its usage) for it to be acceptable as âsculpture.ââŠAnd in the semantic associations to pottery, ceramics speaks for that branch of culture which is too homey, too functional, too archaic, for the name âsculptureâ to extend to it.â
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Voulkos & Soldner, âCeramics: West Coastâ Craft Horizons, June 1966 Vol. 26 No. 3 p.26
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Krauss, âJohn Mason and Post-Modernist Sculpture: New Experiences, New Worldsâ, Art in America, vol. 67, no. 3, May â78 p120
730 likes · 21 comments · 24 Jun 2019
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MEN STARTED TO TAKE OVER âCERAMICS?â
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US ceramics education expanded in the post-war years through the G.I. Bill, which invested in college education for returning veterans. The influx of men into ceramics necessitated a reorganization. As an illustration, we can look to two influential ceramic artists, Peter Voulkos and Warren Mackenzie. Both returned to college with the support of the GI Bill. Both aspired to be painters, and both âaccidentlyâ fell into pottery when they couldnât get into painting classes. Both excelled in ceramics, both found their education did not cover the parts of the process that interested them, and both sought out further education through apprenticeships and other training. Each was also invited to found a ceramics program; at Otis and University of Minnesota respectively.
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These two werenât the only guys âdiscoveringâ ceramics. Gradually, educated men became interested in what had previously been perceived as womenâs work, or industrial labor. As pottery started to develop a higher social status, more men became involved. Following Leachâs emphasis on total control of the process, this meant that ceramic instruction also focused more on throwing, firing, and mixing your own glazes. Large tools (wheels) and big fire (kilns) were now incorporated into the teaching of âceramics,â instead of being the dirty labor that occurred behind the scenes. It is difficult to discern if it was the incorporation of big tools and big fire was what attracted more men to ceramics, or if the existing ceramics coursework changed in order to accommodate the interests of men pouring into college ceramics. Either way, it is certain that the fine control of china painting, collective production, and a feminine association with the material was giving way to more macho gestures, control of the total process, and the myth of the artistic genius working alone in his studio.
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You can see some of this shift reflected in the advertisements within ceramics magazines. Ads that had been geared toward women and âhobbyâ ceramics, now boast whoâs got the strongest wheels and who has the biggest pot.
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#petervoulkos #machoceramics @erikscollon
1,559 likes · 89 comments · 23 Jun 2019
BE WARY OF COLONIALISM HIDDEN WITHIN YOUR CERAMICS EDUCATION
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Another influential figure of ceramic education didnât teach in the U.S.. Bernard Leach, the son of an English banker, was born in China, and spent his younger years going back and forth between England and Japan. His influence in shaping American Academic Ceramics can be felt a few different ways. First, his foundational text âA Potterâs Bookâ help spread technical knowledge, but also aesthetic values and a moral imperative for the kind of pot one should aspire to make. Second, some American studio potters who apprenticed with him at the Leach Pottery in England came back to the US where they set up ceramics programs within US art departments. Warren MacKenzie is a prime example of a Leach student who absorbed and espoused Leachâs ideas to generations of college educated potters.
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Leach toured the US in the 50s, visiting Alfred and coming in contact with soon-to-be-important figures such as Peter Voulkos. Leach wrote an article for Craft Horizons, critiquing American ceramics. Leach believed that a deep cultural history, or a âtap root,â was necessary for making good pottery. For him, America was too young, too multicultural and too individualistic to create quality work. His ideas were not initially well received, as evidenced by letters published in Ceramics Monthly, and a particularly juicy letter from Marguerite Wildenhain found in the Smithsonian archives.
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In order to correct for this lack of tap root, Leach urged potters to âadoptâ the style and values of of others- namely Chinese and Japanese pottery. One might say that Leachâs tap root was actually the English colonial impulse. This is evidenced as he writes âNorth, South, East and West are ours and all the cultures of the world open their secret doors to us.â He repeatedly sets up an East/West binary in his writing and he privileges the work of educated cultural production which âborrowsâ from what he identifies as âfolk potters.â
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Is âborrowingâ another cultural style a colonial move, cultural appropriation, or just post modern remixing?
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Bernard Leach, âAmerican Impressionsâ Craft Horizons, 1953, Winter 1950 p.18
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#bernardleach
1,893 likes · 77 comments · 22 Jun 2019
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE BETTER POTS, STUDY INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
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In the first part of the 20th century, it seemed as if ceramic teaching might become aligned with Design. In 1924, Adeliade Alsop Robineauâs hugely influential âKeramic Studioâ was changed to âDesign-Keramic Studio.â Then in 1931, the Keramic Studio portion was dropped, and the magazine became known simply as DESIGN. The lead article under the new name, âDesign Problems of the Tableware Industry,â really sets the tone for the kind of topics the magazine would cover. The title change implied that conception and planning of made objects was the important emphasis, rather than a limited focus upon a single material and personal expression. Yet there was still a wealth of information about ceramics within its pages. DESIGN was thinking through ceramics as a process that would intersect with industry and commodity production.
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Ceramics Monthly was first published in 1953. The first few issues of CM report on the various strains of ceramics that were being practiced at that time. There is a tribute to Robineau on the cover, but the visual placement might indicate that she is a declining figure of the past. Some of coverage of Bernard Leachâs U.S. tour is included (more on that later), and an article addressing âCeramics in the Art Program,â by ceramic designer Florence Forst. In it, Forst praises a close connection between ceramics and design. Forst may seem like a very minor figure in ceramics history today, but at the time she was regularly being recognized for her work alongside other well known potters. Notably, she was included in a show at New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art, which included Forst, Marguerite Wildenhain, Bernard Leach and Carlton Ball under the title âIntroductions to Modern Design.â
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What might US based ceramics education look like today if the strong relationship to industrial design had been manitained?
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Edgar Kaufmann, âIntroductions to Modern Design,â MoMA, Arno Press, reprint 1969
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#AdelaideAlsopRobineau #MargueriteWildenhain #FlorenceForst #petervoulkos #ceramicdesign #PIAeducation
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p.s. Even Peter Voulkosâ first exhibition at MoMA was in their Design wing. đ
329 likes · 6 comments · 21 Jun 2019
AMERICAN ACADEMIC CERAMICS WAS BUILT BY IMMIGRANTS
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Of course there were many different potters sharing knowledge outside of the American higher education system. But at the turn of the century, U.S. colleges faced a unique problem- How to find knowledgeable instructors that were suitable for the classroom? As mentioned previously, a "male potter would be needed to work the clay, throw the pots, fire the kiln and handle the glazing" so that the women could practice china painting on the pottery.(1) But, if the available potters with technical knowledge were perceived to be blue collar laborers, who could lead the classroom studies? Many American colleges turned to immigrants, who had been trained in European factories and production pottery, because they were more likely to be perceived as being of higher status.
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These professionals were connected to the system of World Expositions and fairs- something the china painters aspired to as a marker of quality. As U.S. colleges began to develop their ceramics instructional programs, immigrants shaped the instruction. Charles Fergus Binns worked at Royal Worcester Porcelain Works in England. Binnsâ âprimary positions at the Royal Worcester factory were administrative, but he became a recognized scholar and lecturer concerning world ceramics.â(2) Binns emigrated to the U.S. and became the first director of the New York State School of Clayworking and Ceramics (now Alfred). Newcomb Potteryâs Joseph Meyer was âborn in France to a clan of red ware potters.â(3) Frederick Hurten Rhead, from Stoke-on-Trent in England, studied at Wedgewood, became the art director of Wardle Pottery, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1902. Together with French potter Taxile Doat, who trained at Sevres factory in France, they helped found the Art Academy and Porcelain Works near St. Louis, Missouri. (4)
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(1)Poesch & Main (2003) Newcomb Pottery and Crafts: An Educational Enterprise for Women.
(2) The Stonewares of Charles Fergus Binns- https://ceramicsmuseum.alfred.edu/exhibitions/binns/
(3) Carol Schlueter -https://news.tulane.edu/news/works-newcomb-master-potter-joseph-meyer-display
(4) Wikipedia entries for Rhead and Doat
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@erikscollon
788 likes · 15 comments · 20 Jun 2019
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