Reading 7

Garth Clark. “Homer, Ceramics, and Marketplace Anxieties.” Ceramic Millennium. 2006. pp. 318-336.

When a sophisticate object meets a story, it seems that the object becomes a legend regardless of its genre; craft or fine art. More tragic or bizarre the story, more profound it shakes the soul as well as every nerve. It seems unclear whether the story is attached by critics or connoisseurs later or born in the process of object making. Either way, the story could increase the market value of the object. Artists should be the center of the stories. Critics and art historians could lead the way how the stories are consumed and transformed into the legend. The history how the modern painting builds the wealth, fame or power could be a good benchmark. The problem is if ceramists and potters are ready for the responsibility to be the legend. I understand that William Murray, a Zen Buddhist himself, tried to bear the weight by creating the myth of Japanese tea ceremony in western world and by charging high prices for his pots, while Bernard Leach, with a good grasp of the reality, tried to manipulate the limits where the myth existed. 

 

To me, the Otis group is more about sculpture focusing on clay material with a touch of firing process. Does it mean that the strategy the Otis group had taken is the way to survive in high pricing market? Then, should ceramics become sculpture or any state of art trend? I agree to Clark’s saying “the fine arts market is not for everybody...most ceramist do not fit…only particular artists will survive in this world.” However, I believe it doesn’t mean an object from craft cannot be the legend with million dollar value. I believe the breathtaking story is the major factor to differentiate the object from the cheap and fancy stoneware and bone china at wholesale retail stores.   

 

Reading 7

   The article, “Homer, Ceramics, and the Marketplace Anxieties”, gives a brief
history of ceramics.  Not having as stable a history as painting, of which it was
compared, I felt that Bernard Leach was its main drawback.  When he unethically
stated that pieces should be affordable and then went to Japan and sold pieces for

higher prices, he set back potters, ceramists, and sculptors in marketability, and
divided the community.  The ceramic field is slowly coming into its own, but
variable pricing still impacts.  People in the field vary their pricing standards. 
Those who sell low hurt those selling higher, which comes across as a lack of
uniformity and cohesiveness in the field, leading to uncertainty of the value of
the field as a whole.

   Anyone starting out in this career should have a good day job, and work their way
towards a full time career in ceramics because of the market as it is today.  With
established artists crossing over from other fields, competition becomes stiffer.

To do well the individual has to market themselves.  It’s no longer good enough to just
make and sell.    

reading 6

   The article, “Studios, Academies, and Workshops: Ceramics Education From the

Mid-Nineteenth Century to World War II”, gives an idea of what a ceramic education

was like and how it evolved over time.  We’ve come a long way from 30 people in a room with 3 kick wheels and dead mice in clay.  It makes you appreciate the level of teaching and instruction done today.

   Studio Pottery is taught under the category of Fine Art at the university level, but it is available to everyone, young and old, at community centers, workshops, high schools, and junior colleges.  Equipment is plentiful so no one is left standing to observe.  Tools and clay are generally included. 

   The most current state of the art facility opened not to long ago at Harvard University.

It is a 15,010 sq. ft. facility that houses a studio, gallery, independent workspaces for

professional artists, a digital resource room, and a research collection work of visiting artists.  There are skylights and openness allowing viewing of pottery activities.  Offered

are “classrooms for wheel-thrown, handbuilt, and sculptural ceramics, as well as clay

and glaze chemistry labs, plus plaster and mold-making design areas.  There is also a large room dedicated to the use of energy-efficient kilns. Firing options include gas

reduction, soda, electric, raku, and saggar firing.”  It doesn’t get much better than that.  We've come

a long way.

      

Reading 7

In our current practice of ceramics (ours as in here, at CSU) though much of what we are up to in the art building tucked away on campus is unknown, its easy to see that we are free from a lot of the historical limitations and perspectives that ceramics experienced (suffered, really). I was surprised to hear what was considered high or good art, who was considered an artist as ceramics built its way up into the field it now is. The people who made the pots for some time were not the artists, the people decorating and showing them off were the artists. Our culture and ceramic world is strongly individualistic. It is important to see this scope of ceramics historically and recognize the access we have to making a life as an artist, while similar historical pressures still exist. With that access comes a need to discover and learn discipline in practice as a ceramist that allows our art to be projecting forward.

-Dehmie

Reading 7

In Homer, Ceramics, and Marketplace Anxieties Garth Clark explores the history of the ceramic market in the west over the last 100 years.  After reading this I was struck by how, like everything else, the pricing and success of ceramics is all about perceived value.  Throughout history the market for ceramics as well as other art has risen and fallen according to social trends.  Many artists who have had successful careers and were able to sell their work (while alive) were equally as good at marketing themselves as they were at their trade.  
We all need to make a living right?  But what is considered acceptable marketing, and what is considered selling out?   And is selling out really that awful?  In every other market the producer/business bases their product or service on what the consumer wants.  But in art we are expected to make work for ourselves, and then sell it...when you really think about it it's totally irrational.  Is it possible to do your own work, while still appealing to a wide enough range of buyers to be successful?

Homer, Ceramics, and Marketplace Anxieties

In the reading the author, Garth Clark, traces the development of the market for individual ceramic artists in the last 100 years in the U.S. and Britain. The article says that the modern ceramics market originates in the trade of Chinese Porcelain in the West in the 16th century. The porcelain that was being traded was primarily for the super wealthy and functioned more as currency and signifiers of wealth rather than fine art to be appreciated. Credit for establishing a larger ceramics market goes to Josiah Wedgwood who opened an "elegant London gallery where London's beau monde could socialize, browse and shop." By the end of the 18th century the basis of the modern ceramics market was created.

More recently, the Arts and Crafts movement took ceramics from solely an object of industry to an individual art and craft. Individual artists were able to make a living by selling pots but most had a secondary mode of income, whether its was teaching or working for a kiln company. The practicality of teaching ceramics became more reasonable as more ceramics programs were popping up around the country. Bernard Leach had an important role, both negative and positive, for the ceramics market. While he personally advocated for affordable pots for the masses, he regularly sold his pots for high prices in Japan.

Out of the 50s and 60s came abstract expressionist like Peter Voulkos and Paul Soldner who were able to sell work at a much higher price than ceramic art previously. This signaled a new age of ceramic art that, although still operating on the margins of the art world, it was at least within it and not without. Since the 80s the ceramic market has proved to be stable albeit limited.

This article is very interesting because I feel like talking about money and the commercial side of things is looked down upon and shunned by the ceramics field. Ceramicists often have a idealist picture of what it means to be a potter, drawing from the morals taught by Leach that pottery is supposed to be a humble and inexpensive art form. This idea negatively affects many potters who struggle to make a living selling their work at unreasonably low prices. All artists, including ceramicists and potters, need to identify how to make money with their art if they expect make a living doing it. As students it is important to learn the "hows" of selling their work, not just the "how" of making it.

Reading 6

"Homer, Ceramics, and Marketplace Anxieties" by Garth Clark was an interesting read on the history of the value of ceramics. From the high value of porcelain to the the arts and crafts movement, the idea of what a potter is has changed drastically from art to craft. In the 1920's, Bernard Leach promoted functional pottery as a craft to be sold to the community at an affordable price while other artists fought for it to be an art. 1950's the Otis Group fought for pottery to be recognized as an art. In so many ways, parts of those movements of pottery still exist today. Porcelain is seen as a delicate clay and is high art for pottery because of the material. Functional wares are desired to be affordable and aren't recognized fully as art. There may be art involved but most people recognize it as craft. The Otis Group I think had the biggest impact on today's value of pottery. Galleries are searching for ceramic sculptures and art, sculptures are priced to the value of the piece, not the medium. And most definitely the structure of universities has changed drastically in what is taught about ceramics, allowing students the freedom of students to produce their own work. There are still issues on universities teaching students to be studio potters but that is slowly improving as the population of ceramicists keeps growing. The main point I got out of this essay was how lucky I am that I have the skills to be a studio potter and the education to be a studio potter. That I can keep growing and know there is a market out there for the things I make, that I have to stay confident and create my art.

Homer, Ceramics, and Marketplace Anxieties

This reading discussed the history of a ceramic marketplace, explaining how ceramics has only enjoyed a specific fine arts market for the last fifty years. Before that, ceramic arts have been wedged into craft or decorative arts markets. During the 18th century, ceramics only gained recognition within a decorative arts context, with collectors gathering porcelain objects as a demonstration of wealth rather than artistic merit, or antique dealers hopping onto the "vase mania" created by Josiah Wedgewood.

The nineteenth century witnessed several important moments of ceramic advocacy, such as the Arts and Crafts Movement which promoted pottery as a  rebuttal to the low quality industrial product. However, even this movement had its problems; for instance, the "dirty work" of pottery (clay mixing, throwing, kiln firing, etc.) was all completed by "nameless labourers," while the fine artists recognized within the field only completed the plans, sketches, and china painting of pots. In the early 19th century, potters managed to make a living in industry, or by adopting secondary careers catering to tourism or teaching (which often became a primary occupation).

In the 20th century, studio artist Bernard Leach sought to establish pottery as an accessible and affordable art form, but his business plan was full of fallacy, hypocrisy, idealism, and dishonesty. Where he failed in making ceramics accessible, he succeeded in establishing unhealthy expectations that all pots be inexpensive, causing more damage than good to the marketplace. Only in the 1950s did ceramic artists begin to establish their own fine arts market, caused by the academic rebellion by artists like Peter Voulkos. Even so, many potters found themselves existing as part of an insular, self generating economy in which potential fine artists busied themselves teaching instead of making an asserted effort to make and sell art. In the last 50 years, ceramics has enjoyed larger economic growth and acknowledgement as a fine art, but it still lacks the prestige and market value of many painters. It is therefore important for ceramic artists to advocate for themselves in the marketplace.

In order to make it as an artist, a potter must "give up their cherished culture of amateurism," abandon the undiscriminating idealism popularized by Leach, and refute the privileged opposition to involvement with a market economy which is often provided by ceramic artists with other means of income. There is no such thing as a starving artist; fruitless struggles to create art will eventually lead one to take on a new profession and cease to exist as an artist. Advocating for the value of one's art is necessary to sustain ceramics as a legitimate form of fine art.

Reading 6

Tanya Harrod. “Studios, Academies and Workshops: Ceramic Education from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to World War II” (1999).  Garth Clark, ed. Ceramic Millennium. 2006. pp. 259-276

Harrod explains the history how pottery as craft evolved into fine art in UK and US. Facing the crisis in fine art during the 19th century, the “intelligent artists” of the Art and Craft movement and the Avant-garde showed anti-academy approach questioning the skills taught by the academies through systematic study of casts and copy. They took new media and unfamiliar methods for experimentation such as painting on objects of everyday use including ceramics. Pursuing self-education, they used the workshop and studio as the ideal site of learning and considered clay as a resolution for other artistic problems.

Even though originally ceramics program in Europe focus on training students to design for industry, “Murray promoted the status of studio pottery as an area of experimental fine art by keeping technical instruction to the minimum.” But Leach felt art schools were still dismissive while Cardew set a social value on teaching pottery.

Ceramics in US was different from the developments in Britain because of highly professional women potters and detachment from European neo-orientalism. The ideological antipathy to the academy or to industry was not found either. However, education at Alfred and Cranbrook suggests the fragile nature of the crafts (ceramics) with highly gendered courses and emphasis on design, architecture, painting and sculpture.

Looking back over my experience that I started pottery at a community studio and was inspired by Sanam’s workshop there, it is interesting to read the history of ceramics education and its difference between Europe and US. Through CSU programs, I have learned on material and process that the community programs are lacking. The fine art courses gave me chances to development my views on clay works as fine art. But it is also true I am still uncertain about ceramics identity. Harrod’s questions on ceramic education might be still ongoing.     

In this reading Tanya Harrod discusses the evolution of pottery in the United States and Britain in the past 150 years from a simple craft to a fine art. Many modernist painters used pots for explorations of surface design in 3D space. Artists such as Picasso took the art and craft of pottery seriously and had a respect for the process. Harrod then discusses the evolution of ceramics in the United States, looking at Alfred and Cranbrook. It is interesting that ceramics at Alfred has evolved from highly gendered craft to a widely accepted fine art in less than 100 years. The arts and crafts movement of the 60s help lift pottery from purely a humble craft to a fine art in its own right.


It is very exciting that artists today have combined the different aspects of clay (craft, art, design, engineering) into their artwork in different ways. As artists and potters today we must drawn on these different aspects and put them into our work.

Reading 6: What is art anyway, how many dead mice does it take to make a good clay body, who gives a damn about clay?

In Studios, Academies, and Workshops: Ceramics Education from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to World War II, Tanya Harrod explores the emergence of ceramics as an expressive art form. In both the UK and America, ceramics received little recognition as a legitimate field of study and artistic expression during the early-mid 19th century. While there were various ways in which artists utilized clay, it was commonly viewed as an experimental medium for painters or designers to explore form or function. Some artists like Bernard Leach defended ceramic arts as a means to an end instead of as a mere tool, but there was still a very distinct division between these artists and the rest of the art world.

What struck me about this article was the divisionism between different material artists. It seems to me that the struggle to elevate and legitimize ceramics almost widened the rift between it and other art forms. I get the impression that it polarized ceramic artists and critics: on one side, there were those who thought it deserved academic recognition and respect as an art form in general, and on the other were those who saw it as a mere experiment. 

There were still more divisions within the ceramic community. Biases of a Eurocentric, patriarchal nature are evident in the different studio roles which men and women filled, as well as the belittling of African ceramic tradition by European academic potters. Even among self proclaimed ceramic artists, it seems there was contention regarding who could make art well, or what constituted worthwhile ceramic art. 

After WWII the debates regarding context and relevance seemed to fade into the periphery. Thankfully so; I know I would personally be bored to tears if china painting was still primary curriculum in ceramic studies, and I greatly appreciate working in a facility bereft (for the most part) of dead mice. 

Reading 6 (Ceramics Education in the 19th Century)

     Tanya Harrod discusses the many different approaches that have been taken to the education of potters. Early in the reading she mentions how in Europe potters had an anti-academy view of education, going to the countryside and learning from rural potters with no formal training. Even today an informal training could be extremely beneficial to the artist's sensibilities. Ignoring contemporary ideals or instruction allows for an expansion of imagination and for unique or just plain bizarre approaches to form, function, methodology, and intentions with the possibility of permanently and radically changing the field of ceramics.
     When learning from someone, regardless of their background and training, the student cannot help but to incorporate elements of the teacher's style into their own work. The more formalized that training is, the less original expressions of the student's own ideas. This is not to say that ceramic education should be solely exploratory or guesswork but that teacher intervention should be kept to the absolute minimum, allowing the student to pursue their interests within the field while giving them the tools to do so without contaminating their budding insights. CSU has found a nice balance between individual expression and formal instruction.

Reading 6

In this reading, author Tanya Harrod describes the ways in which artists experimented with ceramics and other media at the end of the 19th, and into the 20th century. Harrod raises important questions regarding how an why certain artists, including Picasso and Matisse, chose to experiment with ceramics in response to the growing dissatisfaction with the art academies. For European painters, Harrod says, "one way of questioning the skills taught by the academies of art through the systematic study of casts and copies was through self-taught experimentation in other media" (Pg. 260)

At the time, ceramics had become a new type of expressive art, and not just an elevated area of industrial design. Experimentation by artists in this, and in other media was also sparked by, as Harrod states,  "...that familiar anti-modern nostalgia for earlier cultures and non-European cultures", and anti-industrial desires. This is an important point, as it seems only fair to say that the appropriate response to industrialized products would be hand-made objects, and ceramic made objects as the perfect vehicle

For these artists, the "ideal site of learning became the woodshop and the studio, not the academy" where "processes of self-introduction were favored." (Pg. 261). This raises questions regarding the "studio" potter, and the occasional ceramicist. Harrod questions "How much of the vigor of what we more commonly see as "studio" pottery...derives from a self-taught, experimental approach?" (Pg. 263) In other words, how did studio potters view the role of ceramics in the academies, and how does this help them relate to, or differ from, other artists working in this media.