Hunter's Cup

The little stoneware cup I chose marks a point on an arc from Cornish ancestors and centuries-old creative traditions to a rapidly approaching, yet unpredictable, artistic and familial future.

For the past two decades, I have worked as a potter, a maker of utilitarian objects. Before that, I labored as a student of the craft for ten years. Perhaps ten years seems like a ridiculously long time to devote to such an education? Perhaps, it doesn’t. In centuries past, a child would have learned the trade in roughly the same amount of time in the context of the family business. But that was not my way, nor was it my culture. I learned to be a potter through a college, and two universities, some books, and a sprawling, worldwide community of fellow potters.

My youngest child, Hunter, is the only one (of three) to have professed an intent to be a potter, too. He shows many of the necessary qualities and characteristics, but I am hesitant to push his training, lest he grow to resent having been pushed. He is helpful around the sales tent. He has traveled to distant Fairs and to the loading and unloading of massive wood-fueled kilns. He has debated with me the merits of a particular design, or of a particular glaze effect. He has helped me pack and unpack my wares, shifting them from box to table to shelf and back again, as needed. He has asked to make his own pots to sell to our customers. He has also just turned seven.

His cup, the cup whose qualities and existence I find to be so evocative, is not one I’ve made. Rather, it’s a small, twin-handled ‘christening cup’ made by an English potter, Seth Cardew, specifically as a gift. Years ago, before Hunter even seemed a possibility, my wife and I traveled to Cornwall to visit Seth Cardew’s Pottery and to stay with him a few days. Seth uses native clays, hand-processed in much the same way that British potters have worked for centuries. And in much the traditional way, he learned his skills and inherited the Wenford Bridge Pottery from his father, Michael Cardew. In turn, Michael learned his art, after a more conventional education at Cambridge University, by apprenticing to Bernard Leach at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall. And it was Bernard Leach, through his unlikely combination of Western education and Eastern upbringing, who inspired the great re-flowering, and re-invigoration of Western Ceramic Art in the twentieth century. Together with Shoji Hamada, the late Japanese ‘National Living Treasure,’ Leach restored a seemingly lost tradition of simple beauty, superior design, and handmade excellence.

Seth Cardew serves, by one measure, as the grandson of that Bernard Leach tradition. And in much the same way, Hunter serves as Seth’s creative grandson.
Seth and I are exactly twenty-four years apart in age. We share the same birthday. By the Chinese Zodiac, we were both born in the Year of the Dog. I have met him on just two occasions, at a workshop he gave at the University of Iowa, and during my four day visit to his home near Bodmin, west of Dartmoor. And yet, he is my most significant role model and mentor. During his workshop in Iowa I wrote pages of notes, and further pages days later as key tidbits returned to my mind. His gift to my son came as an unbidden response to a bowl, of similar purpose, that I had made and sent to his step-daughter, Molly, after our visit.

And so, when I consider Hunter’s cup, I respond materially to the earth of my creative father, Seth, and of my mother’s grandfather, who immigrated from just that part of England. I respond on a physical level, to the glaze, the clay, the weight, the balance, and the proportionality. I respond to the simplicity and directness of his brushwork and calligraphy, as I work to improve those same elements on the pots I make. As a student, I see in that one cup a dozen lessons from my master. As a teacher, I see in it another approach to show to my students, including Hunter. As a traveler, I am reminded by it of my landmark trip to the Wenford Bridge Pottery, with its great wood-fueled kiln that Michael Cardew built, the former tavern house by the Camel River, the great food, and its excellent company. I feel in it Seth’s good cheer, and gratitude for my gift to his Molly. As a colleague, I sense the challenge it offers, to do as well or better, in all the pots I make for my own friends and customers. And finally, as a friend, I touch the clay where he touched it, and it is as if we are shaking hands again. And I cannot help but mark this one little cup as a bridge between the inspiration of Bernard Leach, and the potential for greatness in my little son, Hunter. It will be up to me to not spoil his interest, nor mismanage his education, nor restrict his capacity to do better than us all.

Your Favorite Mug

One of the great delights in being a potter, a maker of utilitarian objects, is talking to people who have fallen in love with one, or more, of those objects. Usually, this only happens because they were already one of your circle of acquiantances, or as return customers at some Fair at which you are selling new work. If you sell exclusively through shops and galleries you miss out on this gratifying interaction.

Unfortunately, sometimes those much-beloved pots get broken, or simply develop cracks that reduce their usefulness. Either way, I am often presented with the heartfelt plea to "make another just like it."

Now, for a wide variety of reasons, much too numerous to go into now, I make one-of-a-kind objects. When people ask if a set of eight, for instance, would cost less per item, I am always tempted to say, "No, more." It's extra effort to make two objects match. And what 'matches' to me, hardly ever 'matches' to the customer.

But I want to restore my faithful customer's happy home life, and I want to be able to assert some degree of mastery over my craft. Why not make a matching item, even if the original is years old, and available to me only as an online photo or a small bag of shards? And then I started thinking about what the customer has really lost.

Losing a cherished mug of daily use can be a great deal like losing a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe you had some inkling that the relationship was on shaky ground, a visible crack, for example. But the moment of loss is always a shock, and a betrayal, and a separation from a comfortable future you may have been depending on. But it felt so right, and it looked so good, and it worked so well, and there are so many shared memories.

And now you are alone.

However, in the same way that it is wrong, and a little bit icky, to want to replace a lost partner with someone new as nearly identical as possible to absent loved one, your new "one-of-a-kind" mug should be allowed to endear itself to you in its own, unique ways. You are capable of loving more than one "perfection." And I am capable of making more than one pot that you will learn to think of as "perfect."

I find that presenting the situation in this way to my customers cools their ambition for an exact copy. And it saves me from taking a fairly stressful type of commission. I have yet to hear if it ever improves their attitude about being unexpectedly single.

In the meantime, for those people still attached to both their partners and their favorite mugs: Be gentle with them; Remember where you put them; Do not treat them casually or clumsily; Don't allow other people to wash them for you; And don't drive away with them still on the roof of your car.

L.

__________
My thanks go to Rob Johnson, the fellow potter who also serves as my best photographer, for reminding me that I hadn't written in awhile, and for urging me to write on this particular subject.

Neighbors

Neighbors

My first thought on the subject was about the folks that live on the same street as my house. Then I thought of my neighbors online, the folks I see from time to time, and whom I know very little about. And then I thought of my neighbors at the University and at my jobs, who I also don't know very well. And, of course, I am a neighbor to all of them, and what do they know, or care, about me?

To our right, as we face our fairly busy city street, are a policeman and his wife the nurse, with their three daughters, thirteen and younger. They've always been civil, no more than that, though they let our six year old play on their trampouline and they've been very tolerant of our two cats.

To our left,...and so on. What do we know? Is it already more than we want to know? What guesses do they have about us that are completely accurate, or totally off the mark?

Would it all be better or worse if we lived in a smaller town? And how much do we value the neighbors who are also our friends? I helped a friend move to a new house yesterday. At one point we, the helpers, had ten vehicles parked in front of her new place. And we were all happy to do it.

It's good to know nice people, wherever they happen to live.

Absence.

Absence.

The rumors of my demise are premature. Thank you, Mister Twain.

Yesterday I turned in my twenty page paper on "A Six Book Course on the Vietnam War." I'd post it here but I don't think anyone wants to read it. I'm worried that my professor, also, does not want to read it, or will regret the time spent when he has read it. But there's nothing I can do about that now.

Tonight, I'm back to the driving, and this being the last day of classes here, the mayhem could be thorough. Tomorrow night, driving the bus, could be extra frightening.

And Monday, there's another chunk of golden prose to deliver to another Professor. And then, it's back to making pots like a trained monkey, because I haven't been doing any of THAT for weeks either.

So, HI! And enjoy the lack of freezing rain.

The Piece You Wish You'd Made

"Originally published in Ceramics Monthly, DECEMBER, 2008, PAGE 80. Reproduced with permission. Copyright, the Ceramic Publications Company"


This is not intended as an essay on the subject of regret, but rather, as an exploration of artistic ambition. However, regret can easily become part of the life of any working artist. What might I have made of my opportunities if I had only approached things a little differently? What objects might I have made instead?



One of the best assignments I ever came up with for a Ceramics I class required leaving the ceramics studio completely. The whole class took time away from the pots to walk over to the library. Some of my students had never actually been in the building before. Even my seniors weren’t very familiar with its layout, and were properly embarrassed about that.

As a group, we puzzled out the location of the ceramics books. I hadn’t taken the time beforehand to see what the library had. Luckily, they had a good selection, almost two and a half shelves worth, probably purchased in earlier decades.

The assignment was simple. Browse. Look at the pictures of pots. Find one that you wish you’d made. Bring the book to class next week. Show us the picture and spend a few minutes explaining your choice. I was also very careful to stress that this was not a trick. I wasn’t then going to require that they copy the piece. I just wanted them to browse (without using the internet), to think about a variety of pots, to make value judgments about those pots, and (most importantly for a beginning ceramics class) to talk about a good pot with the rest of the class.

In effect I had created a first “practice” critique in which very few of the comments or questions would be negative and in which each student could remain relatively unemotional, because they had no “authorship” stake, and because there were no wrong answers to the assignment. As the semester progressed, it helped a great deal to have given the students this early time imagining themselves as fully trained professional ceramicists making skillful decisions about beautiful works of art. And, independent of my prodding, it got the students talking about issues of decoration and form, utility and whimsy.

In my own life I’ve often played a similar game at art galleries, museums, or receptions. It has two parts, sometimes three. First, which work of art do I wish I’d made? Sometimes, it’s a brilliant use of materials, sometimes it’s a combination of ideas and elements that play off each other dramatically. Scale, both large and small can bring me to envy. Technique, particularly the most mysterious combinations of techniques can often catch my eye. Color, texture, form, and harmony all sing their little songs to me.

Second, which work of art would I most like to own? (Not for its resale value but for the pleasure of living with it.) Many successful works of art are nonetheless disturbing and hard to be around for any length of time. These pieces, though impressive in their own way, may be part of why museums of contemporary art are often so difficult to linger in. They communicate in ways that may be ideal for those with short attention spans, but which ultimately run contrary to the search for personal harmony.

And third, when price lists are available, which of all the pieces in the show has the highest price tag? In other words, which piece do I think the artist found most successful, or was the most reluctant to part with?

Now some may wonder how often the piece I wish I’d made and the piece I most want to own are different pieces? Quite often, actually. I have a lot of fascination with, and respect for, skills and visions I don’t personally want to possess. Also, art in a home creates a sort of open dialogue from piece to piece and from piece to person. I don’t want to live in an internal landscape populated exclusively with my own work. That’s much too much like sitting in a corner talking to myself.

Nor am I interested in copying the works of other artists I wish I’d made myself. I try to learn from them. I try to make my future work successful in some of the same ways. I try to take courage from their success. But I don’t make copies, not even of my own work. The lessons I need to learn come from my own ongoing improvisational work, incremental variations on the various themes that reflect my personal jumble of values and preferences.

We can look for challenge and inspiration outward or inward or in our current work. It’s all bound to help in some way, even if that help is often mysterious. What always helps, though, is having a sense of ambition about our future work, wanting it to be terrific in some way we only get hints of in the work of other artists. If you’re just making product, just trying to fill the shelves for the next show, then you’re leaving an important part of your brain (and your heart) out of the fun. You’re just having another day at your job. And maybe ambition hasn’t been a part of the picture for a while.

Because our shows, and portfolios, and careers are always based on pieces we’ve already made – last week, last month, or last year – we can easily be forced to spend too much time focusing on our own past work. Terrific or horrible, promising or unexciting, past efforts should not be what fills the thoughts of a working artist. The greatest source of emphasis for the artist must always be the piece at hand, the piece of greatest suspense, the emotionally charged masterwork of the near future, the combination of solutions answering the freshest questions.

As an artist, it’s up to you to organize your life so that today you can spend some time working on “the piece you wish you’d made” yesterday. There are no guarantees. Your vision may prove flawed, your techniques inadequate, and your materials defective, but if you’re good at harnessing the unrelenting energy of your ambition, day after day, you will inevitably improve your work and find joy in having made it.

Fame and fortune? Those are different ambitions entirely.

The Drinking Holidays

The Drinking Holidays

I had meant to write an essay last Tuesday, but it was St. Patrick's Day, and other things happened instead. It did get me thinking, though, and what I was thinking about was holidays.

First, it occurred to me that here in the United States we can clump our holidays into various groups. One of these would be the drinking holidays. Given our willingness to drink, perhaps it would be easier to examine those holidays which are specifically NOT drinking holidays. Veterans Day, for instance, is not really an occasion for getting drunk. I suppose fellow Vets might raise a glass in honor of fallen comrades, but no one goes to the liquor store and cheerfully suggests that they're buying this case, or that bottle, "for the holiday." Christmas, too, even with egg nog and hot toddies, is too much about kids to be about booze. Similarly, Easter.

On the other hand, Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day clearly are about gifts and candy in ways that Labor Day or President's Day never will be. Labor Day CAN be one of the food holidays, though. Admittedly, it's typically grill and picnic sort of food, rather than the kitchen full of smells that we enjoy, nay demand, for Thanksgiving. Have you ever gone out to a restaurant on Thanksgiving? It can be a very quiet experience with a fairly dispirited staff at your service.

Naturally, some people may decide that every Friday is a drinking holiday. Saturdays, too. And I suppose the best way to truly establish which ARE the drinking holidays would be to ask the liquor store clerks and managers. When is it normal for people to make extra purchases because of a particular upcoming holiday? New Year's Eve, certainly.

In our current culture, we might find that the answers include days that aren't even holidays at all. For instance, Super Bowl Sunday generally involves house parties with food and drink. Basketball tournaments and the World Series can, too. Not so much with the Olympics, though. Perhaps because few of us could survive constant drinking for a week or more.

And that got me thinking about the annual nature of most of our holidays. In soccer, the World Cup comes around every four years, like the Olympics. But I couldn't think of anything with a longer term of orbit. I suppose a certain amount of drinking goes on at High School or College Reunions, and many of those are held at five or ten year intervals. But I can't think of anything else.

Of course, there is the once-in-a-lifetime drinking holiday so common to our College campuses, the twenty-first birthday. In my new job I get to meet some of these celebrants, awkwardly dashing themselves at the first day of their legal drinking age. I can see why it's not usually considered a family occasion, but I certainly wish it could be developed into a proper rite of friendship. It's just plain sad to see these kids celebrating either in solitude or to self-destruction, all for the lack of wise companions.

Perhaps that's just the universal challenge of finding and keeping worthwhile friendships, a problem from which there is never a holiday.

Younger Son's Chair

The photo of the chair now gracing my page is actually two views of a chair made for my younger son, Hunter. He's just six and a half now, and already starting to outgrow this chair. It does point out the difficulties in establishing scale with photographs of art.