Good Weather

Just browsing over the archives and saw this post from a year ago and realized that the hot weather we're having this week can easily yield to cold this time of year in the mountains. Usually Old Man Winter plays his little joke just when the apple trees are blossoming! Well at least there's plenty of wood cut for the wood stoves. I guess I've finally caught up with cut, stacked and dry wood. But for now we're enjoying the sunny warm days! Good weather to make big pots. Film at 11 (p.m.)

Yours Truly

It's been a while and I wish I could say that I've been really productive. But editing OPP¹ can be even more time consuming than just sitting down and composing from the top of my head. But I hope you have been enjoying the diversity of material here on ye olde blogge. Other distractions include taking walks in the summer spring sunshine, canoeing on the pond, lifting riding lawnmowers to the detriment to my neck and shoulders, and playing in the dirt!


I finally finished processing about 500 lbs. of red dirt and came to the conclusion that I need bigger versions of my tools to get a bigger yield! (duuuH) Instead of shovel, 1/2 in. drill with jiffy mixer, I need a backhoe and a 100 gallon blunger! Then we'll be talking! I also had some good feedback from Tom Turner about my clay body and we invented (at least in on paper) a giant french coffee press type of clay plunger. (to separate rocks and small stones from slip before it is dried and pugged)


I finally cut the plates that have been under plastic since Sunday. I noticed this subtle influence as I was looking over this patterned wire cut. Can't say it was a conscious thing, but I had a little chuckle and thought I would share.

freshly thrown plates among stuff confiscated from Jack

Tried to make 12 by 12 (midnight) and did them by 1 a.m. Instead of making after supper pots, I got into selecting and arranging some pots that will be heading to GA and the Signature Shop's next exhibit, The Southern Pot. Below are the pots (on the 1959 Blaupunkt New York console) that will heading to 3267 Roswell Rd. All are for sale. Contact the Signature Shop for the pots and email me if you're interested in the Blaupunkt!

...until next time!


1. other peoples posts.

NCECA Report: Glenn Adamson, Part II

[ed. note-- this a continuation of Mark's coverage of and reaction to Glenn Adamson's lecture at NCECA "...And into the Fire: Post-studio Ceramics", originally published in Sawdust & Dirt on 4th April 2010]

II. A Quintessence of Dust, Eating from Tubing, and Tiny Shoots of Hope

That we are at the end of something is undeniable. It is reflected in the decline of domestic Western ceramics industries just as it is in the decline of studio pottery and ceramics programs generally. Capitulation to, or appropriation of, the strategies of Big Art will always be the arc to which ceramics will have to bend to justify its place within academic art departments and art museums where, however ennobled by theory, it will in the best case still be tainted by the valueless dirt under its fingernails. Academic and museum ceramics exist in a precariously funded environment of shrinking budgets where everything—especially culture—is being put to the sword. Everything, that is, except for the sword-makers workshops, they being indispensable to the unstoppable expanding military and national security complex. No doubt the recent economic collapse has put the squeeze on us all (I know a couple of recent PhDs in micro-electrical engineering who can't find jobs). While studio pottery may be an increasingly small dot on the increasingly small map of non-pop culture, it claims a space within the growing slow-culture critique of late-day capitalism. The buy-local, artisanal, unhurried foodies are interested in connection/specificity/place/ethical production/haptic experience in the face of an increasingly unsustainable and devitalized world order. They bring together concerns around health, ethics, aesthetics, sustainability, and community. They are buying pots at studio tours, home shows, and (Glenn Adamson did allow for the internet's yet-to-be determined dynamic influence) web-based sales directly from the potters themselves, though that doesn't mean it's easy when nobody except the super-rich seem to have any dough. The international movement that announced itself in Seattle in 1999 was a manifestation of a more general reconsideration of the unpaid costs of global capitalism. That rejection runs the spectrum from DIY through backyard gardening, to the hand-couched loaves at upscale farmer's markets, and yes, knowing who, how, and where both your coffee and its cup was made. Any incipient doubts about free-market capitalism’s future were vindicated by the market crash of last year. While we potters are economically minuscule players, we are part of something enduring, radical, and important that begins in its small way to address an alternative vision of a viable future. We are not sentimental dreamers, but contemporary interpreters of ancient continuities that are more relevant now than perhaps ever before. Until we eat and drink from tubing, pots will have a future. As the center becomes more and more aridly self-referential—a sterile promontory—the margins offer tiny shoots of hope.

Mark Shapiro is a potter, workshop leader, and occasional curator from Worthington, MA. Mark is reporting from the 2010 NCECA conference in Philadelphia and will join the Sawdust & Dirt bloggers thereafter.
Mark Shapiro has made wood fired functional pots in Western Massachusetts for the past twenty years. He is a frequent workshop leader and panelist. Mark's pots can be seen in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Racine Art Museum, the Mint Museum (NC), the International Museum of Ceramics at Alfred,NY, and the Currier Museum (NH).
Mark can be reached at mark@sawdustanddirt.com

NCECA Report: Glenn Adamson, Part I

I. Alas Poor Cup, I Knew You Well

Glenn Adamson's "...And into the Fire: Post-studio Ceramics" stood out among the general hum and drum of good-enough thinking and speaking at the panels and lectures that I caught at NCECA. This was anticipated; after all it was the "distinguished" lecture. Agree or disagree with his thesis, his performance at the podium upholds—well, maybe in our field it's more a case of creates—a very high standard of discourse. (Jody Clowes was another exceptional presenter. I’m sure there were more—I could only make it to so many panels.) Adamson spoke his speech trippingly on his tongue, with a temperance that did give it smoothness. His argument as I understood it, that the increasing vulnerability and precariousness of the practice of studio-based craft—that's us potters—and the decline of the studio as a sacrosanct space, is a given. The way forward lies in "distributed authorship" a kind of partnering between studio, factory, with a good measure of reappropriation of artifacts thrown in. He points out that craft has always been present on the factory floor (skilled workers cast, glazed, and fired the Great Urinal that Monsieur Mutt signed). He cites John Roberts's—not the guy who recently enshrined the corporation's own First Amendment protection, though given the abstruseness of the logic, could be—idea of a dynamic triangle of "skill" (we know what this is) /"deskilling" (selecting objects)/"re-skilling"(re-engaging those objects in an artwork); any skilled labor can be claimed and re-contextualized into practice—and therein lies a craft. We are left with either the "China syndrome" wherein anything at all can be made cheaply with amazing skill (by people whose working conditions are what?who live how? and are paid how much?) to the specs of our pay-as-go and ship-it-out whims. Alternatively, there are "disappearing acts," studio-based use of non-studio based techniques (sandblasting grandma's china for example), a dystopia of reskilling: subtracting, curating, editing down; the physical and cultural abrading of reappropriated objects. A heap of shards from a doomed pottery industry is piled against a wall in a museum. Clare Twomey's bluebirds for-the-taking are strewn about the gallery floors of the V&A, her swan song in blue to the end of a good run for clay in the Western world, perhaps the one really moving—rather than simply interesting—image shown.


Adamson’s closing remark that monuments to death are some of the most powerful artworks seemed grimly nuanced: Alas poor cup (produced by factory or studio domestically), I knew you well. R.I.P.


[ed. note-- to be continued on Monday, Part II. A Quintessence of Dust, Eating from Tubing, and Tiny Shoots of Hope]

Mark Shapiro is a potter, workshop leader, and occasional curator from Worthington, MA. Mark is reporting from the 2010 NCECA conference in Philadelphia and will join the Sawdust & Dirt bloggers thereafter.
Mark Shapiro has made wood fired functional pots in Western Massachusetts for the past twenty years. He is a frequent workshop leader and panelist. Mark's pots can be seen in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Racine Art Museum, the Mint Museum (NC), the International Museum of Ceramics at Alfred,NY, and the Currier Museum (NH).
Mark can also be reached at mark@sawdustanddirt.com

Anna Potters Delivered “Sermons in Stoneware”

Anna Pottery snake jug in the collection of the Illinois State Museum

In the first part of the blog post on the Anna Pottery I promised to describe the amazing temperance-minded objects made by the Kirkpatrick brothers during the second half of the 1800s. They made flasks in the shape of pigs, which were called “Railroad and River Guides.” The idea for the flasks, which were based on old German glass prototypes, was attributed to Cornwall, the older of the two brothers. The stoneware pigs are generally about eight inches long with the flask opening on the nether end of the hog. They were made by throwing cylinders and then altering them with the addition of a snout, legs, a tail, and male genitalia.

two pig flasks showing different sides, inscription

on obverse and

map of Illinois Central Railroad on reverse

These delightful objects were further complicated by elaborate incising overall, usually mapping prominent railroad lines and identifying cities along the routes. Although there are many variations of these routes, the common version shows the Illinois Central Railroad with Chicago (“the corn mart”) at the mouth and Mounds (a town at the tip of Illinois) at the other end. Cincinnati (“the ancient porkopolis” or “the pork city”) is usually underneath. The Mississippi River runs down the spine and St. Louis (identified as “the future capitol”) is shown in the center. There was a movement in the nineteenth century to change the U.S. capitol to St. Louis, which is more centrally located on the continent than Washington, DC.

One reporter in a local newspaper noted that “The pigs are a curious piece of workmanship, and appropriate, for it is rather a hoggish propensity to be guzzling whiskey, and if the habit is indulged in, will soon reduce a man below the level of the hog, and cause him to wallow in the gutter.” In the 19th century people who lived in cities and towns across the US knew a lot about pigs, which were allowed to roam the streets in order to take care of the garbage. Hence, the reference to pigs wallowing in the gutter.

In a broader context these dandy pigs are a metaphor for the economy of the Midwest. Even in the 19th century, corn was a principal cereal crop, but it was worth little on the commodity market. Instead, the clever Midwesterners raised hogs and distilled whiskey as a convenient means of taking this staple to market. These commodities were shipped across the land by railroad. Corn, pigs, whiskey, and railroads formed a tight and profitable economic network that is neatly represented by this humorous artifact.

I can’t think of many examples of metaphorical pottery that rivals these pigs. They are just remarkable objects that combine utility with symbolism in a way that is completely enthralling. Many variations are recorded because the Kirkpatrick's made them on order for saloons and taverns throughout the Midwest and the South.

snake jug, 10½ inches high, private collection

Like the pig bottles, which combine utility with art, the brothers’ snake jugs are remarkable expressions of temperance philosophy. The classic snake jug is about ten inches tall in a shape suggestive overall of the old-fashioned bellarmines (bearded-man jugs – see my last post for more on them and Dan Finnegan’s recent post on his blog). Instead of the bearded face, however, there is the upper torso of a man emerging from the jug, whose head is being attacked by a snake from above. In fact, the jug is covered with snakes. Insects such as dung beetles can also be seen on these jugs, along with frogs, lizards and the like. And there is usually a fair amount of writing that identifies the theme of each jug, many of which are political in nature. The most temperance-minded of the group is called “The Drunkard’s Doom.”

Drunkard’s Doom snake jug, two views, 9½ inches high

It features the bottom half of a male body diving into the jug on one side (labeled “nice young man going in”) and the top half emerging from the other side, looking disheveled and titled “The Drunkard’s Doom.”

This puts me in mind of the scene in Mark Twain’s classic novel Huckleberry Finn (1884) in which Huck describes his father in the throes of delirium tremens: “I don’t know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap, looking wild and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheek—but I couldn’t see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering ‘take him off! take him off! he’s biting me on the neck!’ I never see a man look so wild in the eyes.”

In the snake jugs Wallace Kirkpatrick combined a fascination with serpents

small coiled snake in collection of Illinois State Museum, 4 inches across

and his strong feelings against alcohol with a remarkable ability to model stoneware caricatures of human and animal life. The ghastly images evoked in these jugs are brutal and meant to be a warning to those tempted by liquor. Kirkpatrick “preaches sermons in stone,” noted a reporter in 1874.

It would not be fair if I did not mention that another writer on the Kirkpatricks has taken a different interpretive route. Richard Mohr’s ideas have their followers as do mine. Mohr does not believe the Kirkpatricks were temperance-minded. Instead he feels that their work was produced with tongue in cheek, whereas I doubt that an artist could come up with things that are so compelling unless he/she held a strong opinion, such as being temperance-minded in the case of the Kirkpatricks’ snake jugs and pig flasks.

Other Kirkpatrick jugs investigated the whiskey revenue scandal of President Grant’s administration (1876, now in National Museum of American History, Smithsonian) and the NY City Hall boondoggle perpetrated by Boss Tweed and his gang of nefarious politicians (1871, a gift to cartoonist Thomas Nast). One interesting variation is owned by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Collection in Williamsburg. It has many movable parts.

You can see more Kirkpatrick work at this website.

I wonder as I contemplate all of this whether the upcoming booze vote in Burnsville will engender such commentary in local craft. Perhaps one vote in one town does not a movement make, and it is national/international political events and situations that provoke commentary among today’s potters. My thoughts turn to some of the sculpture by Viktor Schreckengost and Robert Arneson. I know you will think of many more examples of clay used as political expression. Please share them in your comments to this blog post.

There has long been a lot of blather about so-called functional ware vs. sculpture in ceramics and other craft media. But I think the lesson one can take away from the Kirkpatricks’ work is that utility need not limit one’s desire to express opinions on political or social situations, hence bottles in the shape of pigs and jugs covered with snakes. In fact, the Kirkpatricks’ use of utilitarian forms as their starting point is integral to the themes and metaphors of their work.

And Ayumi Horie’s invention of “Obamaware” in 2008 as a fundraiser is proof that the ability to express political opinions while also practicing utility with one’s work is not dead.

Cornwall Kirkpatrick and his children with a giant pitcher

Ellen Denker is a consulting curator and independent scholar of material culture, specializing in American ceramic history. She has many publications, some of which have won awards from obscure organizations. For “Sawdust & Dirt,” Ellen contributes historical insights into contemporary issues in studio ceramics and review books and exhibitions that feature ceramics. Ellen can also be reached at ellen@sawdustanddirt.com

Key Texts: They're the Bomb

Ezra Shales presided over a look at the critical discourse in ceramics. He asked Garth Clark, Jenni Sorkin, and Glenn Brown to talk about their picks of key texts in 20th-century criticism. There seems to be a lot of talk (maybe here specifically in advance of NCECA's planned Critical Santa Fe conference planned of this fall) about the absence, need, etc. for a discourse of one's own, to rise up and, as per Ezra's first slide: "Stop wallowing in cultural amnesia, solipsistic rants, medium-based inferiority and love the bomb"

I'm not sure the bomb had as much bang as we'd all have liked.

Garth's paper, carefully read by Ezra--Garth is sadly attending to a medical emergency and could not attend--was a billet-doux to Philip Rawson's Ceramics that evoked the rich language--"kinetic traces", "silhouette", "linear articulation", and those great black on white taxonomic charts of shapes, lip and foot designs. Jenni Sorkin, a PhD candidate at Yale, talked about MC Richard's Centering (1964), in print for almost 50 years. While considered as irrelevant by today's ceramic students, Sorkin drew some provocative parallels between Marshall McCluhan work on media and MC, and argued for MC's relevance as a model for "thinking through" (I might say continuously evolving and reflecting on that evolution) as a creative project). Glen Brown chose Rose Slivka's well known 1961 article in Craft Horizons "The New Ceramic Presence" that identified Voulkos & co's abstract expressionism. I had the impression that Glen somehow believes that if Slivka had just carried the clay ball all the way into the end zone of real art eschewing her more inclusive footnote about the value of the old ceramic presence we'd all be driving better cars now. For me the notion that one writer's characterization (in Craft Horizon no less) could be so determining seems a stretch.

Next: Glen Adamson: Studio Ceramics, R.I.P????

Mark Shapiro is a potter, workshop leader, and occasional curator from Worthington, MA. Mark is reporting from the 2010 NCECA conference in Philadelphia this week and will join the Sawdust & Dirt bloggers thereafter. Mark Shapiro has made wood fired functional pots in Western Massachusetts for the past twenty years. He is a frequent workshop leader and panelist. Mark's pots can be seen in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Racine Art Museum, the Mint Museum (NC), the International Mueseum of Ceramics at Alfred,NY, and the Currier Museum (NH).

NCECA Envy

dispatched from the conference in Philadelphia.
captions to follow...

Sam Taylor is a potter living in Westhampton, MA. His wife Carol is a real photographer but Sam is playing "potteratzzi" while attending the NCECA conference this week. Hopefully Sam will continue to contribute to the blog in the future with his "pot on the spot" series that will begin in May. Sam can be reached at sam@sawdustanddirt.com as well as dogbar pottery!

5, 6, 7 + 3

Containment! @ Crimson Laurel Gallery

Here's a little covered jar from firing #34 that's in the show "Containment" at the Crimson Laurel Gallery, here in Bakersville, NC! It was originally part of the "covers" series from the last session in the studio. Small town, but BIGtime studio pottery gallery! You shouldn't be surprised that we would have a hot gallery here in town, considering all of the potters in the area! If you want this piece you better get on the horn. No online shopping cart! To purchase a piece, please call 828-688-3599 or email crimsonlaurelart@aol.com. Good luck!

A Parochial Mess? The End of Somethng??

Paul Greenhalgh, interviewed by Walter Ostrom in the June 2005 issue of Studio Potter¹, offered this withering critique of NCECA:

The North American scene is huge, and so we will always be able to find great artists. Taken as a giant single thing, however, it is in a bit of a parochial mess. American ceramics has forgotten about the rest of the world. The endless miles of post-funk, post-modern, post-George Segal, post-Zen, post-sincere, over-ornate, neo-neo-Rococo, under-intellectualized (and for the most part under-skilled) rubbish is truly depressing. It all feels the the end of something rather than the beginning of something.And rarely does one ever hear interesting discussion of what is happening in Europe, in China, in Brazil or in India. It has become and assumption that there is nowhere outside the States...

Greenhalgh goes on from there and believe me it doesn't get any prettier.

Today, the panels and lectures start. I did notice a panel on whether British ceramics education can survive--that seems at the top of everyone's list of international concerns--and now that there are so many universities with partner programs in China (since they own the US anyway), there are a few presentations on China. I will hope that Greenhalgh's take proves uncharitable and that this event is evolving toward a broader and more rigorous program.

More to come.

1. (The Studio Potter, vol.33 #2, June 2005)

Mark Shapiro is a potter, workshop leader, and occasional curator from Worthington, MA. Mark is reporting from the 2010 NCECA conference in Philadelphia this week and will join the Sawdust & Dirt bloggers thereafter. Mark Shapiro has made wood fired functional pots in Western Massachusetts for the past twenty years. He is a frequent workshop leader and panelist. Mark's pots can be seen in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Racine Art Museum, the Mint Museum (NC), the International Muesun of Ceramics at Alfred,NY, and the Currier Museum (NH).