Beyond Entertaining 1 2 - PRINTER VERSION
Published in Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 9, 1992.
When we think of dinnerware, we think of the European tradition of round, matching components, whose function, more often than not, has been selected to display the wealth and social aspirations of the owner rather than for the purpose of holding food. It seemed that inside this construct the chances of any kind of art experience were impossible. That is the view held by many of us who turned to pottery in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The making of pottery by hand seemed a way one could establish some kind of new domestic order where the mundane aspects of life might be elevated and transformed into meaningful artistic propositions.
This movement was intuitive rather than formal and was intertwined with the movement towards alternative lifestyles which had evolved out of a resistance to the Vietnam war that the 'sunday-dinner, chinaware-culture' of our parents seemed collectively to support. Once the war ended, however, the moralistic fervor of potters seemed to wane. The philosophical idea of creating a domestic art was all but abandoned when potters realized that the buying public was interested in pottery that was colored blue rather than aesthetically challenging concepts. Before we knew it, the materialistic '80s were upon us and critics in the crafts and fine arts establishments with good reason, looked at pottery, whose audience was primarily those who attended craft fairs, as crass and commercial boutique ware. It lost any, if not all of the intellectual or moral credibility it once had and was pushed aside to make room for the 'vessel', a sort of non-functional pottery with pretensions.
We seem to have come full circle and pottery is coming back into fashion. It seems that pottery's utilitarian nature is one of the reasons for this comeback. Usefulness is what makes pottery accessible to us; we recognize its forms and relate to its limitations. These aspects, after all, are a reflection of our own physical limitations. But mere usefulness guarantees nothing. There are countless examples of mute, cloddish pottery that are usable but are hardly better than paper plates (one could even say the paper plate is superior because, unlike handmade pottery, it is without pretense). The insentience of that kind of pottery has, unfortunately, led many in our culture to the mistaken assumption that pottery is incapable of serious and meaningful expression. I would suggest, however, that this kind of pottery should be seen as an indictment against its makers, rather than a limitation of the genre as an art form. The question now seems to be whether this time around the potters will offer our culture work that does more than merely entertain and titillate, work that has aesthetic aspects that can help turn occasions like a meal into the kind of art experience we normally might expect only from painting and sculpture.
Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth tells us: "If mystery is manifest through all things, the universe becomes as it were, a holy picture. You are always addressing the transcendent mystery through the conditions in the actual world." This, it seems to me, is what all significant pottery throughout history has done, and what should be the goal of the modern potter. That is, to address the mystery of what it means to be human through use 'the actual world'. It is the effort to communicate this idea of mystery by a potter that can give a seemingly mundane object like a cup the sort of impact that leads the sensitive user to a previously inaccessible area of awareness. >>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
Published in Ceramics: Art and Perception, No. 9, 1992.
When we think of dinnerware, we think of the European tradition of round, matching components, whose function, more often than not, has been selected to display the wealth and social aspirations of the owner rather than for the purpose of holding food. It seemed that inside this construct the chances of any kind of art experience were impossible. That is the view held by many of us who turned to pottery in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The making of pottery by hand seemed a way one could establish some kind of new domestic order where the mundane aspects of life might be elevated and transformed into meaningful artistic propositions.
This movement was intuitive rather than formal and was intertwined with the movement towards alternative lifestyles which had evolved out of a resistance to the Vietnam war that the 'sunday-dinner, chinaware-culture' of our parents seemed collectively to support. Once the war ended, however, the moralistic fervor of potters seemed to wane. The philosophical idea of creating a domestic art was all but abandoned when potters realized that the buying public was interested in pottery that was colored blue rather than aesthetically challenging concepts. Before we knew it, the materialistic '80s were upon us and critics in the crafts and fine arts establishments with good reason, looked at pottery, whose audience was primarily those who attended craft fairs, as crass and commercial boutique ware. It lost any, if not all of the intellectual or moral credibility it once had and was pushed aside to make room for the 'vessel', a sort of non-functional pottery with pretensions.
We seem to have come full circle and pottery is coming back into fashion. It seems that pottery's utilitarian nature is one of the reasons for this comeback. Usefulness is what makes pottery accessible to us; we recognize its forms and relate to its limitations. These aspects, after all, are a reflection of our own physical limitations. But mere usefulness guarantees nothing. There are countless examples of mute, cloddish pottery that are usable but are hardly better than paper plates (one could even say the paper plate is superior because, unlike handmade pottery, it is without pretense). The insentience of that kind of pottery has, unfortunately, led many in our culture to the mistaken assumption that pottery is incapable of serious and meaningful expression. I would suggest, however, that this kind of pottery should be seen as an indictment against its makers, rather than a limitation of the genre as an art form. The question now seems to be whether this time around the potters will offer our culture work that does more than merely entertain and titillate, work that has aesthetic aspects that can help turn occasions like a meal into the kind of art experience we normally might expect only from painting and sculpture.
Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth tells us: "If mystery is manifest through all things, the universe becomes as it were, a holy picture. You are always addressing the transcendent mystery through the conditions in the actual world." This, it seems to me, is what all significant pottery throughout history has done, and what should be the goal of the modern potter. That is, to address the mystery of what it means to be human through use 'the actual world'. It is the effort to communicate this idea of mystery by a potter that can give a seemingly mundane object like a cup the sort of impact that leads the sensitive user to a previously inaccessible area of awareness. >>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign