Edmund de Waal and Julian Stair 1 2 3 4 5 - PRINTER VERSION
Published in Ceramics—Arts and Perception, Issue 38, 1999.
Rob Barnard: When did you two first meet?
Julian Stair: We first met at a conference in spring of 1995 that was organized by the Crafts Council. It was very interesting because I knew Edmund's work before I met him. It was very nice to find that he was interested in much of what I was interested in, that we had been working in parallel so to speak. The whole issue of not just making pots, but turned pots and not just turned pots but porcelain. Edmund was also involved in critical projects, he was just starting the Leach book then, for example, and he was doing other writing, as was I.
Edmund deWaal: There was the sense of complete synchronicity; a fellow traveler that was not only involved in the criticism of contemporary work, which is rare for makers in England, but also was involved in historical, contextualizing research as well. Making pots that have reference to history and a tradition.
RB: How did you come to share a studio together?
JS: I had come to the end of a ten-year lease at a studio which I shared with some other ceramists and felt that I was, so to speak, grown-up and was old enough to work on my own. I decided that I needed to work alone because I felt relatively isolated working in an urban environment and making thrown pots. I felt it was better to work on my own than to share space with other people whom I didn't have anything in common. Coincidentally, as it turned out, Edmund was interested in a new studio as well. We discussed it seriously the second time we met. So it turned out that I was sharing after I decided not to share.
EdW: I also had made a decision that I didn't want to share and it really could only have been Julian who could have persuaded me. There were lots of really positive reasons for sharing. I think not necessarily in terms of our work, which is very different, even divergent, but, I think, finding another maker whose autonomy you completely respect, and also who is critically confident enough to be able to engage in a proper dialogue with you, is incredibly rare. It is also very interesting because I had actually been thinking through the relationship between Lucie Rie and Hans Coper for a paper I was writing and coming to the conclusion that their work had absolutely nothing in common at all, but they shared their studio as peers. That actually was perhaps, the first real urban-shared studio. I thought that was a pretty good precedent for us to establish a studio.
JS: I think that Edmund's point of our work not being similar in important. It is a sharing of empathy or approach with a belief in the same sort of values that underpins the whole notion of making pottery, especially in the middle of London. Because the work is so different there is no friction or overlapping in terms of our work impinging on each other.
RB: Another thing I think that is interesting is that both of you are writers, as well as makers. There
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© 1980 - 2025 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
Published in Ceramics—Arts and Perception, Issue 38, 1999.
Rob Barnard: When did you two first meet?
Julian Stair: We first met at a conference in spring of 1995 that was organized by the Crafts Council. It was very interesting because I knew Edmund's work before I met him. It was very nice to find that he was interested in much of what I was interested in, that we had been working in parallel so to speak. The whole issue of not just making pots, but turned pots and not just turned pots but porcelain. Edmund was also involved in critical projects, he was just starting the Leach book then, for example, and he was doing other writing, as was I.
Edmund deWaal: There was the sense of complete synchronicity; a fellow traveler that was not only involved in the criticism of contemporary work, which is rare for makers in England, but also was involved in historical, contextualizing research as well. Making pots that have reference to history and a tradition.
RB: How did you come to share a studio together?
JS: I had come to the end of a ten-year lease at a studio which I shared with some other ceramists and felt that I was, so to speak, grown-up and was old enough to work on my own. I decided that I needed to work alone because I felt relatively isolated working in an urban environment and making thrown pots. I felt it was better to work on my own than to share space with other people whom I didn't have anything in common. Coincidentally, as it turned out, Edmund was interested in a new studio as well. We discussed it seriously the second time we met. So it turned out that I was sharing after I decided not to share.
EdW: I also had made a decision that I didn't want to share and it really could only have been Julian who could have persuaded me. There were lots of really positive reasons for sharing. I think not necessarily in terms of our work, which is very different, even divergent, but, I think, finding another maker whose autonomy you completely respect, and also who is critically confident enough to be able to engage in a proper dialogue with you, is incredibly rare. It is also very interesting because I had actually been thinking through the relationship between Lucie Rie and Hans Coper for a paper I was writing and coming to the conclusion that their work had absolutely nothing in common at all, but they shared their studio as peers. That actually was perhaps, the first real urban-shared studio. I thought that was a pretty good precedent for us to establish a studio.
JS: I think that Edmund's point of our work not being similar in important. It is a sharing of empathy or approach with a belief in the same sort of values that underpins the whole notion of making pottery, especially in the middle of London. Because the work is so different there is no friction or overlapping in terms of our work impinging on each other.
RB: Another thing I think that is interesting is that both of you are writers, as well as makers. There
>>
© 1980 - 2025 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign