__________________________________________________

WINTER/SPRING 2018

MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT

Dear CSC members,

On 23 May 2018, the Ceramics Study Club held the Annual Meeting at the King’s Chapel Parish
House in Boston. This was an interim meeting between “election years,” with a short business
meeting before the program and tea. Treasurer Gregory Lovell reviewed the state of our finances
and Tracy Wiggin continued in his role as Auditor.

I reported to the membership that we are engaged in a process which the Board hopes will
culminate in the club archives finding a safe, secure, and accessible home with Historic New
England. The process involves a series of approvals by various HNE committees and we expect to
hear more later this year. Should our archives be accepted, it is hoped that they will be processed
and available on line; a contribution from the CSC will help to make that happen sooner rather
than later. We will be able to add to the archives on a regular basis, but if longtime members and,
officers in particular, have records from the past, please do not discard them yet as they may have a
place in the archives.

At the annual meeting, we also updated the club by-laws to reflect our new name, adopted in 2017.
This will help us in the transition to non-profit status, a lengthy process now underway.

We have been working to improve the visibility of our club. Lee-Ann Chellis Wessel maintains
our Facebook page and has created a full-color printed “bookmark” which can be left at
appropriate venues frequented by people who love ceramics! So far, they have been well-received
by club members, program attendees, and antiques shops. I would be delighted to send a few to
anyone who wants them. Please email me at carolynroy@comcast.net.

I would especially like to thank Martha B. Vida, Executive Director, The Marks Project, Inc. and a
CSC member for agreeing to be our Annual Meeting speaker and for racing to Boston in time to
deliver her lecture when her pre-arranged travel plans unexpectedly failed. It was a fascinating talk

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with much food for thought about ceramics and the people who make them.

Planning for next year is underway but I do want to mention one program in particular. On
Thursday, 25 October, we will be having a special joint meeting with the Wedgwood Society of
Boston at the King’s Chapel Parish House. Adele Barnett will be speaking on “Shell Shock:
Centuries of Wedgwood’s Shell Fancying.”

Finally, if you haven’t renewed your membership for the 2018-2019 year, please send your dues to
Gregory Lovell. We depend on dues to bring good speakers to Boston and to pay for our meeting
space. We couldn’t do it without you!
Best wishes,
Carolyn Parsons Roy, President

A NEW YEAR STARTS WITH “LOOKING BACKWARD”

The New Year commenced with a talk by studio potter Mark Shapiro who spoke on the subject of
Looking Backward: A Studio Potter’s Take on American Ceramic History. So many of our talks, as
enlightening as they are, speak to objects created in the past, so it was a refreshing change to
actually hear from a working potter whose obvious enthusiasm proved that the art of the potter is
alive and well.

Mark first thanked us for having him to speak as he thought that the worlds of potters, collectors
and scholars do not cross often enough. Mark is basically self-taught with no specific degree in
ceramics. When he decided that he just wanted to “make things” he bought a property in
Worthington, MA and, with a small group of fellow potters, they all quit their jobs, built a kiln,
and started making pots. He said the group was essential to the creative process as you have a
ready-made ‘studio’ who you can go to for advice and criticism; they are still close friends and
collaborators to this day. One of the earliest and continual influences on Mark’s work is his friend
Michael Simon whose work always seemed to be one step, or more, of everyone else’s. Michael
seems to have a command of surface, pattern, image and structure like few others do. Michael had
studied with Warren McKenzie an important post-war potter at the University of Minnesota in the
1960s. McKenzie was a follower of Bernard Leach’s philosophy of the ‘moral pot’, that pieces
should take an ethical stance against industrialization.

Work by Michael Simon Page 2

While working on his own 18th century property in Worthington, Mark came across shards of
crockery and got to thinking about ‘localism’, the idea of objects being made, sold and used locally.
He collected locally, befriending small dealers at swap meets, as well as archaeologists, garnering
information about the work of often anonymous potters. He looked for the smallest marks on
pieces that showed the presence of the maker-something very important to him- and made studies
of early clay pits, many located along waterways for easy transport. He contrasted these easily
accessible clay pits and potteries to his isolated community in rural Massachusetts with no real easy
access and saw the ‘localism’ first hand-what was made there, stayed there and was used there as
there was no big export market.

One of the early known potters that Mark admired was the Croilus family, a multi-generational
clan from New York city that worked in stoneware from the mid-18th century well into the 19th
century. Before industrialization took hold, the demand for wares to supply life’s everyday needs
was great, and the Croilus family prospered.

The clay quality and the vessel’s form are what Mark finds really exciting, especially the ovoid
shape of early jugs. As a potter it takes far more skill to make an ovoid piece than a cylindrical one.
All this started to change in the 1830s and 1840s as the ovoid shape was phased out in favor of the
cylindrical. Why? With the growth of canals and railroads, along with market demand, localism
started to die out. When shipping quantities, there’s a rationalization of space; there is less damage
incurred from cylindrical forms bumping against each other in shipment than the shoulders of
ovoid shaped jugs. This is the period that Mark finds less inspiring; when stonewares come to the
fore and slip and incised decoration overcomes form. This is when the artist/potter is being
overtaken by the production/potter and industrialization.
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Mark’s other historic well-spring of inspiration, after local potters both known and unknown, is
the Japanese aesthetic movement and the work of Shoji Hamada. Also, the work of Karen Karnes
who studied at the avant garde Black Mountain College with Josef Albers. Karnes was working in a
very modernist perspective until she crossed paths with Shoji Hamada in 1951 and he influenced
her work greatly. Karnes eventually decamped to Vermont with her partner Ann Stannard and
concentrated fully on her work combining both sculpture and pottery.

Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada A work by Karen Karnes

Other influences on Mark and other contemporary studio potters are such themes as Historicism;
Biomorophism; Handmade or Hard-Edged Modernism; Pattern, Surface and Image; Social
Practice and End Time.

And finally, Mark wanted to mention POW! Pots on Wheels, a mobile clay education and
exhibition space that encourages visitors to create handmade objects. It cultivates individuality as
well as encourages participants to make something useful and beautiful and the understanding of
how that can impact the experiences of others. As an exhibition space it showcases the diverse
range of functional handmade ceramics by artists around the country and sometimes by program
participants. Mark said that the truck obviously deals with a lot of school children and he is
amazed that when he offers them a piece to examine, or keep, that it is the first time in their lives
that they’ve actually held a handmade object. That’s a sad commentary on today’s world, but Mark
is trying to remedy that one pot at a time.

Pots on Wheels, aka POW! Page 4

 ANNUAL BIT ‘N’ PIECES
One of the Club’s favorite meetings, our annual Bits ‘n’ Pieces allows members an opportunity to
bring an object or two from their own collection for discussion or identification, and showcases
the wide range of interests that makes up our organization. Here are some of this year’s offerings:

Above, Left: Two earthenware jars, one salt-glazed stoneware, most likely Pennsylvania, circa 1840, the other
redware, thought to be mis-shapened, but it was pointed out the one pinched side of rim was most likely
intentional to facilitate pouring. New member Chris Gutierrez brought these pieces in and said he liked
collecting this stuff because, “It shows the error of the hand as well as the perfection of it”. Middle: A Doulton
Lambeth Factory beaker made in a Medieval style to resemble early copperware pieces with rivets, surprisingly
thin and elegantly potted. Late 19th century. Right: Middle Eastern wares in the Iznik and Kutayah
traditions. The balloon shaped piece a “Coffee Bean Cooler”, most likely a souvenir version of the original
wooden tool, circa 1910. The vase of very Islamic form, but by an Armenian potter, circa 1930. And the tile
done in the Kutayah palette, but by an émigré potter in Jerusalem in 1925.

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Previous Page: Examples of the Imari palette of decoration on both Chinese and Japanese export porcelain
wares: left, two Chinese diminutive teapots, note the melon-form one with a Dutch tulip design. And right, a
square Japanese gin or spirits bottle of square form meant to be shipped in divided boxes, hence the practical
form. All from circa 1700-1720.

Above, Left: Stoneware bottle vase by American Art Potter Norman Arsenault (1939-1974). A prolific and
creative potter who taught at the Museum School at the MFA, this vase was created while he was studying in
Japan and reflects that influence. Shown along with a small earthenware vase, possibly Kutayah, most likely
Persian. Right: Member Jeffrey Brown’s sad contribution to the history of world ceramics: a dinner plate
produced by HomeGoods bearing one of his designs. The artist wants it made clear he was not responsible for
the unfortunate color choice!

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Previous Page, Left: A pair of Japanese Arita spirit bottles from the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum.
From a rare set of nine in their original European strong box. The puzzle being there are eight Japanese pieces
and one later replacement purportedly Meissen. Many members suggested the replacement bottle to be a later
19th century Samson copy. The Arita export pieces dating to the late 17th/early-18th century. Right: top, an
English tin-glazed footed strainer/dish. These usually came as a set with an under dish and they get separated
over time. They are sometimes called “strawberry dishes” and this one rightly so as the strawberry decoration
clearly indicates its purpose. Mid-18th century. Along with a flared rim bowl or dish with stacking marks, most
likely Korean or Vietnamese.

Above, fellow member and miniaturist Lee-Ann Wessel’s work never ceases to amaze and delight: left, a group
of miniature blue and white 18th century pieces she’s been working on, as well as, right, a collection of Italian
Renaissance majolica wares she made and hand-painted around the theme of ‘Amore’.

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Previous page, left and right: a tin-glazed earthenware bowl with pie-crust edge with Chinese lotus decoration
from 1730-1750. There was discussion as to its original purpose as collector Bob Barth brought an 18th
century shaving or wig stand into which this bowl fit. Some thought it a powder bowl for powdering wigs, some
thought it might have had a guglet with which to wash, some thought the crimped edge made it impractical to
fit the stand.

Left and right: a coffee can, sold as transfer-printed creamware, it is in fact hand-painted porcelain, produced
in the second Naples Factory, late 18th/early 19th century.

MARCH FIELD TRIP TO HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND

STORAGE FACILITY
Despite dire forecasts for a fourth nor’easter (which did not pan out) CSC members convened in
Haverhill, Massachusetts for a field trip to Historic New England’s Collections Facility where we
were warmly welcomed by Senior Curator and CSC member Nancy Carlisle and her staff, and
were treated to a Redware Workshop with Justin Thomas, followed by guided tours of the facility’s
treasures.

In her introduction Nancy said it was a mutually beneficial meeting as Historic New England had
a fine collection of redware and stoneware but they knew very little about it. Nancy was hoping
that Justin or CSC members could add any insights as we worked our way through the pieces laid
before us that had been culled from the collections. Justin Thomas who is a collector, writer, and
researcher on early American ceramics led the discussion as we navigated our way through items
that he had chosen from Historic New England’s holdings. In addition, Nancy Carlisle mentioned
that some of the pieces we would be examining had a CSC connection as it was a past member,
Margaret Jewell, who left a large bequest to Historic New England, then SPNEA, in 1978.

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Justin grouped the objects arrayed before us by states of origin, beginning with Massachusetts. He
first one he showed us is one of the stars of the entire Historic New England’s collection of
holdings-a modest stoneware pot purportedly made by the Parker Pottery in Charlestown in the
1740s. They were one of the earliest known New England potteries starting production in 1716.
They supplied much-needed everyday utilitarian wares and used slip decoration. Charlestown was
the center of the colonial redware industry shipping their wares all along the coast of New England
and even on occasion into Canada.

(Left) possibly circa 1724-1746 stoneware pot made at the Parker Pottery in Charlestown, Mass.
(Right) back row left to right: 19th century redware jug attributed to John Alld in Hollis, ME, 19th century
redware jug attributed to the Norcross Pottery in Farmington, ME and 19th century handled pot attributed to
the Corliss Pottery in Days Ferry/Woolwich, ME. front row left to right: 19th century redware pot attributed
to the Safford family in Monmouth, ME and 19th century jug also attributed to the Norcross Pottery in
Farmington, ME.

The next form we discussed was an ovoid high-shouldered jar which Justin says he has found all
over new England and what he has often heard dealers refer to as a ‘syrup jar’. Originally, they
held a conical-shaped drip that set into the mouth of the jar. Pieces such as these were often
produced for export to the Caribbean for the sugar-making process which then led to the by-
product of molasses which was then shipped back to New England to be made into rum.

North of Boston, in Essex County, pot-making started as early as the 1720s-1730s and it should be
considered one of this country’s earliest industries. There were many potters in the area and they,
or their family members, or their apprentices, eventually spread out all over New England
founding other small potteries and instructing others in the trade. One of these local Essex
artisans was William Pecker of Merrimacport (formerly West Amesbury) who worked around
1790-1820; he was one of the few New England country potters who made both redware and
stoneware which was unheard of at the time, the correct clays and know-how not being readily
available. Justin believes he died in a kiln collapse during one of his stoneware experiments.
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More potteries existed down the road from Merrimacport in Peabody, and their work is frequently
confused with that of Merrimacport. There were dozens of potteries, the largest being operated by
a family of Quakers named Osborne, the Quakers having had a virtual monopoly on the industry
at that time.

With the Battle of Bunker Hill and the burning of Charlestown, the British instigated a veritable
diaspora of talent into New Hampshire and Maine. The same scenario, less the fire and bloodshed,
was occurring in Peabody with coastal and urban potters fanning out and migrating into the
interior and establishing new potteries. This was the ‘next generation’ of New England potters
extending from the 1820s well into the 19th century with several families sustaining multi-
generational industries. Like in Essex County, this was by and large a very important early industry
in Maine, some of the potteries characterized by innovative forms and glazes-more so than in New
Hampshire. There were actually potteries in North Yarmouth, Maine as early as the 1790s and
working and well into the 1890s, though not well documented. One ware that is attributable to a
specific pottery is that of Matthias Norcross of Farmington, Maine who created a unusual double-
shouldered jug quite distinctive in profile. The Safford family of Monmouth, Maine seemed to
mark many of their pots and lids with numbers so as to easily match them up after they came out
of the kiln. Working from the 1820s-1860s the Safford Pottery was one of the few that actually
marked some of their work. The trend of migration continued for the Essex County potters as
some moved into Vermont as early as the 1780s-1790s, Middlebury having a thriving shop with
the Farrar family pottery. An attribute of Farrar wares is a wide rim on some pans, but they also
manufactured a variety of skilled objects. But little documentation and research exists on early
Vermont redwares as the later stonewares have gotten most of the attention as that was such an
important industry through the 19th century.

South into Connecticut, the Goodwin and Seymour families had active potteries in the West
Hartford area, and some of their work is recognizable by three concentric circles on the lids of
their pots. Oddly, they must have been fired in a separate part of the kiln as they are never quite a
color match to the pot for which they were made. Connecticut is probably best known for their
slipware and this can be sometimes difficult to identify as there is a lot of cross-over with
Pennsylvania, Long Island and New Jersey makers. The predominant area for redware and slipware
was Norwalk. The slip went onto the wares white in color and fired yellow in the kilns. Slip
decoration was quite prevalent in Charlestown before the Revolution, but fell out of favor soon
thereafter, whereas slip decoration continued in popularity in southern Connecticut well into the
19th century.

As the industrial revolution gradually replaced the need for hand-produced wares, redware potters
started to turn their talents to making art pottery. The first potter to do this was Charles A.
Lawrence in Beverly who began making copies of classic Grecian urns and vases in the early 1870s-
and continued to do so until 1906. The aforementioned Clark Pottery in Concord, New
Hampshire made art pottery as did the famous Chelsea Keramics Works, and in Merrimacport,
the Chase Pottery also did what was referred to as ‘fancy wares’; they were one of the last holdouts
in New England and continued into the 1940s, by which time though, they were importing wares
from Ohio factories for re-sale. Page 10
 (Left) slipware dish from Philadelphia. (Right) variety of Essex County and southeastern Mass. wares with a
jug from William Pecker’s pottery in Merrimacport in the center.

After this enlightening talk on New England redwares, CSC members were treated to more visual
delights as Nancy and her staff gave us a tour of some of the remarkable objects in their storage
facility from ceramics to furniture, paintings to textiles. A richly interesting day all ‘round with
many thanks to Justin Thomas, Nancy Carlisle and Historic New England!

For those of you interested in learning more Justin Thomas maintains a very interesting website
called earlyamericanceramics.com.

Our two Historic New England hosts and guides; Curator Nancy Carlisle and Collections Manager Nicole
Chalfant

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 CHELSEA BOTANICAL PORCELAIN IN APRIL
In April, our group welcomed a speaker from ‘across the pond’ as Independent Scholar Sally
Kevill-Davies, who was on a speaking tour from London, addressed CSC members on the subject
of, Chelsea Botanical Porcelain and the Rise of the English Landscape Garden.

Sally’s narrative began with a larger-than-life personality, Sir Hans Sloane, who epitomized the
Enlightenment gentleman of the 18th century. He was a physician who studied medicinal plants at
the Chelsea Physick Garden in London, as well as being physician to three monarchs, the
successor to Sir Isaac Newton at the Royal Society, the President of the College of Physicians and
the first physician to be made a baronet. He was also an incurable collector whose collection of
70,000 medals, coins, manuscripts and natural specimens formed the nucleus of the British
Museum. In 1712 he purchased the manor of Chelsea as a private retreat and a place to house his
growing collections. Adjacent to the manor was the Chelsea Physick Gardens where he had
studied as a young man. Hearing they were in dire financial straits, in 1722 he made a financial
conveyance to the Garden so that they could continue their cultivation and study of medicinal
plants in perpetuity. In return he asked a rent of five pounds per annum, as well as fifty dried plant
specimens for the Royal Society’s collections. Sally is convinced that this is the beginning of the
association between the name of Sir Hans Sloane with the famous botanically-decorated Chelsea
porcelain that first appeared in a 1758 advertisement, referring to the design as “Sir Hans Sloane’s
Plants”. This pattern must have been a robust success, for despite being made from only 1753-
1758, it survives in some numbers to this day-and remains much sought-after.

The Physick Garden was quite an operation, outfitted with glass-covered beds as well as hot houses
with stoves to acclimatize the rare and delicate plants that were being brought in from all over the
world to England’s climate. These plants, from one place in the empire, were nurtured and
sometimes re-exported to other colonies, a case in point being Georgia’s staple cotton crop which
came from the West Indies via the Physick Garden.

In 1731 a ground-breaking book was published called The Gardener’s Dictionary which had an
enormous influence, especially on the aristocracy, many of whom were re-thinking their gardens
and estates in terms of the newly-fashioned natural landscape gardens over the old-fashioned
baroque style formal gardens. In re-designing these new gardens, plants, and especially trees, of
new and unusual form, color, foliage, and fruit were desired in order to appear attractive through
all the seasons. A wealthy textile merchant (and avid gardener) by the name of Peter Collinson was
convinced that there was a lucrative market for novel specimens of trees and shrubs with this rising
fashion of the landscape garden. Through mercantile contacts, he was put in touch with a
Pennsylvania farmer named John Bertram and engaged the man in his off season to go off into the
wilderness and seek out any and all native American plants, cones, nuts or seeds he could forage
(not an easy job in the American wilderness).

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One of the first customers back in England was Lord Robert James, Eighth Baron Petre, who had
inherited a vast fortune and was able to indulge himself in all his gardening extravagances. He had
the largest hothouses in the country and grew all the rarest plants. Lord Peter died in 1741, but the
market for these specimens continued to flourish as great dukes and members of the aristocracy
scrambled to acquire the newest and the rarest examples for their estates.

Another person who contributed to this frenzy of botanical interest was Georg Dionysius Ehret, a
German artist, encouraged by the great botanist Linnaeus, to turn his talents to botanical
illustration. As these plants were coming into Chelsea Physick Gardens’ inventory, they had to be
catalogued and illustrated, and it appears some of Ehret’s meticulous drawings or prints were used
as direct inspiration for the porcelain decoration.

Much of the rest of Sally’s talk continued to expand upon the market for exotic plants and the
frenzied rivalry of aristocrats to have the newest and rarest. It is amazing the influence these
arrivals from the colonies had, not just upon the landscape of England, but on the decoration of
Chelsea porcelain. Sally said she had begun her research when she had once heard that the
exuberant botanical designs on Chelsea plates were just fantastical rococo designs of a bored
factory decorator! The premise of her research seems to prove that it was no coincidence that the
Chelsea Porcelain Factory was next door to the Physick Garden, and that the allusion to “Sir Hans
Sloane’s Plants” in a period advertisement for Chelsea porcelain further points to the Garden’s
design inspiration, as does the fact some of the designs follow so faithfully the brilliant illustrations
of Georg Ehret.

Finally, Sally had researched the inventories of some of the great houses and found listings of
botanically decorated Chelsea porcelain, and she would like to speculate that some of the exotic
delicacies imported from afar, and grown in the estate hot houses, were served upon Chelsea
porcelain inspired by the same botanical passion and mania.

Above, and on the next page, two examples of Chelsea “Hans Sloane” plates and the Ehret prints undoubtedly
that inspired their design.
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 ______________________________________________

CSC ANNUAL MEETING AND TEA CONCLUDES THE SEASON

WITH A TALK ON THE POTTERY MARKS PROJECT
The Ceramics Study Club of Boston concluded another stellar program year with its Annual Meeting and
Tea on a lovely Spring afternoon at King’s Chapel Parish House. It is Club tradition to usually have a
member speak, and we were fortunate enough to hear CSC member Martha B. Vida, Executive Director of
the Marks Project, Inc. address the group on the subject of Its about the Clay: American 20th Century Studio
Pottery Movement.

As a collector Martha realized the need for a resource for post-war American studio ceramic artists
when she began seeing the works of artists, many still living and working, as being catalogued as
“by anonymous”. The Marks Project was founded as a research hub of American ceramics from
1946 onward, focusing on the creator’s mark as an indicator of authorship. The project
documents both nationally and regionally known American postwar ceramic artists. The website is
a publicly supported search tool for historians and collectors and a documentation tool for the
living ceramicist and his heirs. The project also raises the artist’s visibility and presence in the
marketplace for collectors, researchers and gallerists. At present, the website has about eighteen
hundred artists listed and about six thousand users a month. Martha feels that they need a list of
at least ten-thousand artists before researchers have a realistic expectation of finding an unknown
maker.

One of the reasons the project works to catalogue regional artists is because all too often those
artists, despite the quality of their work, are not really known outside their region. This Martha
feels is not because their work is second rate, but because those people “who choose the artists”
oftentimes don’t look for them or know about them. Case in point Ruth Rippon from
Sacramento, CA -a brilliant artist who spent her career teaching, and who, at age 94, is just getting
her first retrospective.
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American studio pottery isn’t about an approach to clay, it’s about the clay itself. It is often
thought of as the lone artist toiling away in his studio, when in fact, these artists are part of a broad
network of artistic, intellectual and institutional support. The American studio pottery movement
grew out of many disparate sources: the late 19th century factory and settlement houses; the arts
and crafts movement; the exposure to Japanese ceramics; the WPA, World War II and ensuing
immigration to ceramics centers across the country; not to mention returning soldiers and the GI
Bill. As Martha said, “It is not a clear linear history, but a rather messy, overlapping one”.

Settlement houses in major American cities helped to assimilate an immigrant population,

teaching them English and employable skills and crafts. From this lead, art and museum schools
were founded and offered advanced training in the arts. In 1894, the first school dedicated to
ceramic engineering was established at Ohio University. The expansion of university ceramic
programs at the turn of the century gave birth to exchanges of technical information through
ceramic journals. The Potter’s Journal, published in 1909, added the subjects of aesthetics and
ceramic history to their content besides technical articles. Alfred University, still known for its
ceramics program taught talented studio potters who moved out across the country and set up
their own studios and mentored their own students. Moving forward to the 1930s, Martha said the
influence of the Works Project Administration cannot be overemphasized. Between 1937 and
1943 it provided a working income for artists. Commissions given to Native American potters for
example, encouraged new interpretations of their pots with new surface decoration. During the
first quarter of the 20th century clay was often disparaged as a sculpting medium; the WPA helped
change that attitude and encouraged artists to create finished works in clay (a medium far less
costly than bronze or marble). Established artists such as Glen Lukens changed the discourse of
this medium. Museums and collectors began commissioning and collecting ceramic works of art.

The Pre-World War II period was filled with innovation in ceramics with an expansion of aesthetic
and technical writings on the subject, as well as research into glazes and clay bodies, surface
technique and kiln technology. Despite strides in the use of clay for sculpture, the vessel form
remained dominant in ceramic production. There remained three approaches to creating this
form: the industrial vessel; the traditional vessel; and the expressive vessel, or American Modern
vessel. The industrial vessel basically followed the Bauhaus mantra of “Form follows Function” in
such things as mass produced tablewares. The real focus of The Marks Project lies in the
traditional and expressive vessel forms. The traditional form of utilitarian vessels retain the
elements of regional pottery such as the clay, the body, and the surface technique as well as
production methods and firing techniques. The work of Maria Martinez, Arthur Baggs and the Jug
Town Potters fit into this group. This category continues to this day making utilitarian wares in
regional styles and techniques.

The expressive, or American Modern vessel was the area in which we see a new sensitivity to the
medium of the clay itself. Glen Lukens, Karen Karnes and Paul Soldner were some of the leading
artists who concerned themselves with the character of the clay itself as their entire focus. Each
found and accentuated an aspect of the medium; utility was no longer a primary consideration.
Page 15
World War II changed things further with the influx of ceramicists from Europe creating another
wave of influence. Before the arrival of Austrians Gertrude and Otto Natzler in 1938, many
ceramic programs did not even include the art of throwing pots on the wheel! European
immigrants brought with them a further reinforcement of the concept of clay as an art medium.
The GI Bill which made college tuition possible for returning soldiers had another great influence
as many of these veterans became teachers, and part of their training was a class in the crafts-the
first time many of them were exposed to hand-made ceramics. Many of these teachers went on to
inspire another generation of potters, one of them being Paul Voulkos who was considered a
master of expressionism. He created monumental, fractured, sculptural forms. He went on to
teach at the University of Berkeley where he brought in a divergent group of established
ceramicists to work alongside his students.

While California is often seen as the center of post war expressive pottery, it is not as clear cut as
that. From the 1950s to the 1980s music, art and social influences flowed freely influencing
potters in many areas of the country; New York City, the world center of abstract expressionism
had a huge effect in itself. Form continued to be taken over by surface, method and sculptural
content. Throughout all of this, many craft studio potter continued their work retaining its
Page 16
connection to the vessel. Artists like Herbert Sanders, Karen Karnes and Val Cushing pushed the
limit of the vessel while retaining traditional forms and honoring the function of the vessel.
Basically, creating sculptural objects that were vessels of utility.

The American studio pottery movement throughout the 20th century displayed this divergence
between the traditional and the expressive. Unfortunately, this seems to have created an
undercurrent of resentment on the traditional potters towards “those who choose the art”, and
that which gets attention and that which gets ignored.

Martha concluded her talk with some remarks about The Marks Project’s work, their focus and
website. The Marks Project encourages potters to self-publicize as much as possible, and to get “on
the record”-something easy to do in an internet world. But, this is is why so much effort of the
project is placed on recording as many marks of potters from a “pre-internet” world because that
information is being lost. As they are proceeding the project is realizing how little is known about
so many potters and their work. She also discussed how difficult compiling this information
becomes as there are several ways an artist can sign their work-or not sign their work-which leads to
much frustration and a great deal to detective work.

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Martha invited everyone to please visit this new and exciting resource at
www.themarksproject.com.
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UPCOMING EVENT

A PASSION FOR PORCELAIN: A SYMPOSIUM IN HONOUR OF MEREDITH CHILTON

The GARDINER MUSEUM in Toronto, Canada is sponsoring a two-day symposium with many
noted scholars and porcelain specialists speaking on a broad range of subjects from the 17th to the
19th century. The dates are September 21st and 22nd 2018. Check the Gardiner Museum website
for a detailed list of speakers and topics.
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