Academic Choice by Crafts Study Centre

ACADEMIC CHOICE Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Crafts Study Centre 30 June to 12 December 2015

CONTENTS Foreword

Introduction 6 Debra Allman

Adrian Bland

Jamie Dobson

Anna Fox

Colin Holden

Richard Hylton

Trevor Keeble

Mark Little

Lesley Millar

Simon Olding

Terry Perk & Julian Rowe

Jean Vacher

Acknowledgements 46

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FOREWORD The Crafts Study Centre plays a unique role in the life of the University for the Creative Arts. It is the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s museum of modern craft, offering a public programme; and it is a research centre of the University, both facilitating scholarship by academics and acting as a resource for advancing knowledge about its unrivalled collections and archives by Centre and University staff.

Academic Choice is an exhibition that has engaged staff across UCA. The collections and sometimes hidden archives have been materials to encourage independent critical views and to set these remarkable works into new contexts. The exhibition has built on the Crafts Study Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions to embed its work into the life of the University, not only for research, but also as a resource for teaching and learning across the curriculum. I look forward to even closer collaborations and initiatives that help us to understand the deeper meanings of the craft object through observation and critical writing. Professor Simon Ofield-Kerr Vice Chancellor, University for the Creative Arts

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INTRODUCTION The collections of the Crafts Study Centre cover a diverse range of materials from ceramics, furniture, textiles to letter carving and calligraphy. They are supported by very significant archives both from craft studios and craft organisations such as Guilds and specialist galleries. The Director of the Museum of Art & Design in New York, Dr Glenn Adamson, has called the Centre ‘Britain’s memory bank for craft’, with the word bank ‘suggesting a vault containing untold riches’. The vault has been opened for this exhibition by an individualistic group of academic staff from the University for the Creative Arts. Some have specialist knowledge of modern and contemporary craft, and some are experts in other fields such as contemporary photography and fine art. They have selected a compelling and idiosyncratic body of work for the exhibition, drawing across the whole range of the collections, and observing them and writing about them with critical insight and sometimes personal accounts. It is a means of looking at the collections in an entirely new way.

Academic Choice presents works selected by Debra Allman; Adrian Bland; Jamie Dobson; Colin Holden; Richard Hylton; Professor Trevor Keeble; Mark Little; Professor Lesley Millar; Professor Simon Olding; Dr Terry Perk; Julian Rowe and Jean Vacher.

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DEBRA ALLMAN

All That Glisters was a survey exhibition of contemporary British jewellery mounted by the British Council in 1991. Subsequently, this collection of work was donated to the Crafts Study Centre, from which my selection was made. There was, and sometimes remains, a tendency to think of jewellery and notions of ‘preciousness’ in terms of metal and stone. Contemporary jewellery can of course be this, but contemporary jewellers have always been exploring and testing boundaries; finding ways to use a new material, to apply a new process, to discover a new combination. We have become used to seeing this in the exciting and abundant range of material and technological applications in current contemporary jewellery practice, most clearly evidenced at Schmuck in Munich each year. So it was with a mixture of reverie and surprise that I made my selection, after opening a series of tissue wrapped objects, to find pieces from the early nineties, which were interrogating the use of a wide range of material and process. From Anne Finlay’s minimal brooch made from PVC, rubber, nylon and steel to Daphne Krinos’s neck chain in oxidized silver and fine gold, what all these pieces have in common is the joy in material, old and new and the jeweller’s capacity to reinvent and invent. Debra Allman Course Leader, Jewellery

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Selected by Debra Allman Black necklace Thirteen black Kelim beads Jane Adam, 1984 2006.20.8 Slotted brooch Titanium and steel Ann Marie Shillito, 1991 2006.20.46 Bangle Hand-dyed sycamore with gold leaf Peter Chatwin and Pamela Martin, 1991 2006.20.17 Brooch Silver and brass Clara Vichi, 1991 2006.20.87 Pendant earrings Silver Cynthia Cousens, 1991 2006.06.20 and 21 Brooch PVC, nylon, steel and rubber Anne Finlay, 1991 2006.20.27 Round brooch Acrylic, pebbles and nylon wire Louise Slater, 1991 2006.20.75

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ADRIAN BLAND Sympathetic Primitivism? Modern Craft and the Importance of ‘Other’ “Gauguin is always poaching on someone’s land, nowadays, he’s pillaging the savages of Oceania” (Pissarro, cited in Perry, 1993: 29) Primitivism, described as a “western interest in, and/or reconstruction of, societies designated ‘primitive’ and their artefacts” (Perry, 1993: 5) has a well established role within art historical discourse. The term is complex, and might be employed to engage with eighteenth and nineteenth century orientalisms, or the more intuitive creativity ascribed to “the more fundamental modes of thinking” (Rhodes, 1994: 8) from the untutored mind of the child or the ‘outsider’, but it is perhaps most associated with an avant-garde of modern art that sought to address western modernity in terms of “the discontent of the civilized with civilization…it is the belief of men living in a highly evolved and complex cultural condition that a life far simpler and less sophisticated in some or all respects is a more desirable life” (Lovejoy & Boas, 1935, cited in Rhodes, 1994: 20). This is seen as the basis for all manner of artistic practices, from the popular appeal of “the going away” (Perry, 1993: 8), exemplified by Gauguin’s travels to Brittany and then, further afield, to Tahiti, to the formal appropriations of African sculpture made by Picasso in 1907’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the ‘innate’ spontaneity celebrated by expressionism. “I love Brittany,” Gauguin had claimed, “I find something savage, primitive here” (Gauguin, cited in Perry, 1993: 8).

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Notions of finding and appropriating seems particularly significant in relation to the artistic avant-garde of Europe, in that they demonstrate modernity’s “taste for appropriating or redeeming otherness, for constituting non-western arts in its own image” (Howell, in Hiller, 1991: 233), and ‘primitivism’ is, of course, fundamentally “eurocentric, revealing a western-centred view of an alien culture” (Perry, 1993: 5). In this sense, in approaching other cultures, artists usually found what they wanted to find, and it has been argued that “primitivism in modern art has traditionally been seen in the context of artists’ use of nominally primitive artefacts as models for the development of their own work” (Rhodes, 1994: 7). A nominal ‘otherness’ seems evident throughout a great deal of primitivism, attesting to the “cultural assumptions and prejudices” (Perry, 1993: 5) of a western art market dominated by the concept of originality. Central to such cultural appropriation (we might call it mis appropriation) is the degree to which “modernist primitivism depends on the autonomous force of objects… on the capacity of tribal art to transcend the intentions and conditions that first shaped it” (Varnedoe, cited in Perry, 1993: 4). Modern artists often “had limited ethnological knowledge or interests, and what knowledge they had was filtered through the institutional machinery, taxonomies, selection processes and colonial politics of contemporary museums” (Perry, 1993: 58). At stake here is the very concept of context because, with reference to artistic tendencies at least, “such beliefs grant no status to cultural context. Ideas concerning the primitive are the products of the western mind…they tell us much more about ourselves than about the primitive people they are supposed to explain” (Howell, in Hiller, 1991: 233).

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In relation to such art historical discourse, the Crafts Study Centre collection affords a fine opportunity to consider primitivism from a perspective that might be deemed more sympathetic towards contextual value, and it is this that has informed my selection of objects. Certainly, there is strong evidence that the studio crafts shared, even embraced, a range of beliefs and practices in common with prevailing attitudes, from “the going away” (Perry, 1993: 8) evinced by Bernard Leach’s abiding relationship with Japan, Ethel Mairet’s travels in the Balkans in the late 1920s, or Michael Cardew’s appointment as ‘Pottery Officer’ in Nigeria in 1950 during which he established the Abuja Pottery, to decorative appropriations such as the spontaneous calligraphic brushstroke or the fish motif here articulated by both Cardew and Henry Hammond. Attitudes could also be shared, with Leach claiming that the East “could exercise a wonderful influence upon the soulless mechanical output of Europe” (Leach, cited in Harrod, 1999: 35), while Phyllis Barron’s intentions were to “simplify and primitivise” (Harrod, 1999: 29) block printing. But it might also be argued that, rather than being constrained by (or imposing) western conventions, the focus of these craftspeople on materials, processes, skills and lifestyles, perhaps of more import with craft discourse, allowed the studio crafts to transcend the bounds implied by ‘eurocentric’ primitivism, play down the emphasis on individualism, and approach ‘otherness’ not as a means of “having authority over” (Perry, 1993: 4), but as a way to love, learn and celebrate very human acts of making. This would certainly seem to be suggested by the degree of research and collecting undertaken by so many, from Barron and Larcher’s regular visits to the V&A libraries

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and French markets, to Peter Collingwood’s ethnographic collection of over 730 items from around the world, and his published accounts of their construction. Leach revealed his first experience of a Japanese Tea Ceremony as magical “the direct and primitive treatment of clay” and went on to declare that “By this, to me a miracle, I was carried into a new world…” (Leach, cited in Cooper, 2003: 69). It is perhaps such open-armed approaches to ‘other’, the desire of these makers not to appropriate from a “vantage point” (Perry: 1993: 5) but to assimilate, and this with respect, that assists in arguing for differences within art and craft discourses, yet permits the placement of studio crafts firmly within the framework of a cultural modernity. Adrian Bland Co-ordinator, Contextual Studies, Farnham

Bibliography and further reading Cooper, Emmanuel (2003) Bernard Leach: Life and Work New Haven and London: Yale University Press Flam, Jack (2003) Primitivism and Twentieth Century Art: A Documentary History California: California University Press Goldwater, Robert (1986) Primitivism in Modern Art Harvard: Harvard University Press Harrod, Tanya (1999) The Crafts in Britain in the Twentieth Century New Haven and London: Yale University Press Howell, Signe (1991) ‘Art and Meaning’ In: Hiller, Susan (ed.) The Myth of Primitivism London: Routledge. pp. 215–237 Perry, Gill (1993) ‘Primitivism and the ‘Modern’ In: Harrison, Frascina and Perry (ed.) Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 3–85

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Rhodes, Colin (1994) Primitivism and Modern Art London: Thames and Hudson Rubin, William (1984) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Primitivismâ&#x20AC;? in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern New York: Museum of Modern Art Torgovnick, Marianna (1991) Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Minds Chicago: University of Chicago Press

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Selected by Adrian Bland Woven cotton horse fringe “mukhiarna” Maker unknown, 20th century Pakistan Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2004.202.444 Basket with shoulder handle, square section with two strand handle; base; 2/2 interlacing, sides held by weft twining Maker unknown, 20th century Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2009.22.77 Bag with interlacing with 2/2 twill (pointed) with black weft, goat’s hair and wool Bhuj, Kutch district, Gujarat, India Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2004.202.14 Beer strainer with loop for hanging. 2 ply warp, plysplit darning Botswana, Southern Africa Maker unknown, 20th century Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2009.22.101 Travel journal kept by Ethel Mairet, Yugoslavia, 1930 The Papers of Ethel Mairet 2002.20 Fish trap of split bamboo with attached handle. Essentially a cicular construction flattened together and closed at one end and at the other, the canes turn inwards to form a narrow entry point. An internal ring at the entry end and towards the closed end hold the shape and are attached with a row of weft twining. There are an additional 5 rows of weft twining, evenly spaced, to hold the canes in place. Maker unknown, 20th century Africa Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2009.22.77

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Circular table mat, Aasan work, raiding in plant fibre Maker unknown, late 20th century Meerut, Uttear Pradesh, India Peter Collingwood Ethnographic Collection 2004.202.274 Hand-block printed length of velvet with a positive print in black Barron and Larcher, c.1930 T.74.211.c Stool, pierced base and thrown central column and handles around the outside, stoneware, dark body and chun glaze overall excluding base Michael Cardew, 1965 P.74.133 Book, Textiles and Weaving Structures: A Sourcebook for Makers and Designers Collingwood, P. B.T. Batsford Ltd. London, 1987 Crafts Study Centre Library Textile sample, made from balloon cotton, mordanted with gall and hand-blockprinted in iron using a wooden block Enid Marx, 1930s TS.76.46.b Brush painted fish, possibly a trout, in oxides, on one side of the pot Henry Hammond, 1984 P.89.4 Tablet woven belt, cotton and animal fibre, possibly indigo and natural dyes. The design is made up of warps floating front and back forming diamond shapes throughout. The warp is dyed red, black, green, yellow, shades of blue. West Serbia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) Maker unknown, early 20th century Ethel Mairet Source Collection 2004.202.35

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Hand-block printed scarf, hand-sewn, brown ground with yellow zigzag pattern on crepe Barron and Larcher, 1923–30 T.77.53 Round-shouldered bottle with small hanging neck, stoneware, white slip, brushed iron decoration Bernard Leach, 1960s P.75.101 Hand-woven women’s belt Maker unknown, early 20th century Kosovo (formerly part of Yugoslavia) Ethel Mairet Source Collection 2004.202.48 Large dish, slipware with a foot ring, green-brown with white slip trailed decoration under a clear glaze and black slip over a red earthenware clay body T. S. (Sam) Haile, 1945–6 P.80.2 Vase, round-shouldered with shallow rim, stoneware, white body, light pepper-coloured glaze overall William Staite Murray, 1924 P.74.57 White and brown plate with shallow rim, stoneware, flecked grey ash glaze overall Michael Cardew, 1962 P.74.126 Rectangular bottle Small standing neck with inverted rim, stoneware, white glaze Bernard Leach, 1969 P.75.103

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JAMIE DOBSON I was directed to the work of David Pye and shown a beautiful fluted hardwood bowl carved with a gouge held in a ‘fluting engine’. The bowl is interesting, a work of obvious skill and craftsmanship, however of more interest to me is the fluting engine. This is a device, a jig to hold a hand gouge, to extend the capability of the tool and operator. To enable a quality of workmanship, the execution of an idea that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. There is room for error, the fluting engine requires an operator skilled in hand and eye. Pye referred to this as ‘the workmanship of risk’, the idea that through a moment of lost concentration the operator may ruin the outcome. Pye describes this being in opposition to ‘the workmanship of certainty’, in which the quality of the outcome is predetermined and beyond the influence of the operator. I’m grateful for my colleagues in the Crafts Study Centre for introducing me to the work of David Pye for whom I now feel a kinship. I too make devices that help me translate my ideas. My tools differ and my outcome is form described through the motion of light on photographic film rather than described through gouge-marks in timber. However for both David Pye and myself ‘the workmanship of risk’, the fact that the process can (and more often than not) goes wrong is common. Jamie Dobson Head of School, Communication Design

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Selected by Jamie Dobson Circular dish Made from lime wood that has been scrubbed with bleach â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Rope patternâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of straight cut lines from rim to centre crossed with eccentric lines David Pye, c.1950 F.78.1 Circular dish with a notch Made from French walnut David Pye, 1950s F.78.2 Curved, rectangular dish Made from Brazil Rio Rosewood David Pye, 1960s F.78.3 Oval dish with corss cut pattern Made from cherry wood David Pye, 1970s F.78.4 Oval double dish English walnut with iron staines. Each side is decorated with incised lines from rim to centre David Pye, 1970s F.78.5 Dish Turned wild service tree with black heart David Pye, 1978 F.78.6

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ANNA FOX Photographs from the Bernard Leach Archive I was thrilled to be invited into the Crafts Study Centre archives to look for objects and photographs to exhibit in this show. I made a beeline for the Hans Coper and Lucie Rie pots that had inspired me as a teenager. My Grandmother and Aunt, Connie and Shirley Fox, ran the first commercial art gallery on the South coast of England (opening in the early 1960s and closed around 1990). The David Paul Gallery in St John Street, Chichester showed work mainly by contemporary painters and some ceramicists and it was there that I was first introduced to seeing artworks in the flesh. Connie and Shirley, two extraordinary women, one a big bold red head the other slight, dark and terribly quiet, were running this gallery together, a mother and daughter embroiled in a business partnership that they had got into by accident simply because Connie had taken a fancy to a small shop and eventually brokered a deal to rent it and create the gallery. I was particularly interested in the ceramics they exhibited and remember a small show of the work of Coper and Rie (sometime in the 70s) and how this had inspired me to take up art and ceramics. Further down the line I discovered the work of Bernard Leach that had an elegance I had not seen before. Coper and Rie seemed more experimental, while the reference to Japanese ceramics in the Leach work rendered it exquisitely beautiful. I came to know and love the Eric Mellon work later, Connieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house was full of it and it made me laugh. The Gallery also showed work by artists such as Stanley Spencer, Dolf Rieser, Elizabeth Frink, Edward Bawden, Eric Gill and Eric Ravilious. Some of it was considered outrageous

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by the local press and Shirley recalls

“Because it was art it never worried me … I think some of the people in Chichester were pretty shocked, I remember we got all sorts of comments in the newspapers, my mother (Connie) ended up refusing to talk to local reviewers, they had once asked her to dress up for a photo asking her to wear a big floppy hat – she was not seduced by their ideas about the art thing! We were not interested in making money, we just loved the art, no one from Chichester ever bought anything – we relied on London buyers.” Hunting through the Bernard Leach photographic archive I looked for images of Chichester and something to indicate he might have known the David Paul Gallery, I was convinced that Leach had showed at the Gallery but found out later that this was not true – memory plays great tricks and the relationship between photography, memory and knowledge is something that has fascinated me in my own work. This extensive archive is full of fascinating photographs. I found one picture of Chichester and several from the Ditchling workshops (not too far away). I forgot about vainly trying to find something connected to my relatives and started thinking about the photographs themselves, some of which are quite eccentric. Two photographs from a Leach workshop or talk showed a group of admirers from two different angles. The intensity of their gaze, fixed on Leach, was what intrigued me and the two photographs sitting side by side emphasize this gaze. Another photograph of a small exhibition space with three people arranging pots at a table looking almost like a domestic scene. There are a lot of fairly straight-forward photographs of course, and then some that employ dramatic

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lighting as if the vases are posing for a noir movie, others that portray strange combinations of objects that transcend regular pot pictures to look like still lives dropped out of a theatre of the absurd. And finally I found a quite banal street photograph, taken in Japan, that hints at the very modern photography coming out of the States in the late 50s. Professor Anna Fox Professor of Photography

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Selected by Anna Fox Pen and wash drawing, Ditchling Beacon II Bernard Leach, 1936 2015.4 Two black and white photographs of Bernard Leach talking to a group of students sitting round a kiln at a conference in Chichester Bernard Leach Archive LA.8864 and LA.8865 Figurine The Glass of Fashion (Opus 26) Rolled pottery, porcelain with a transparent glaze Audrey Blackman, 1975 P.77.10 Black and white photograph of what appears to be a biscuit-state wall pot placed on a board which in turns is resting on top of a decorated pot, possibly Cizhou 1939 The Papers of Bernard Leach LA.8471 Black and white photograph of a dark glazed vase containing blossom Handwritten in pencil on reverse: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Liberty (?) 56â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The Papers of Bernard Leach LA.8881 Black and white photograph taken in Japan Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach walk out of a building in Japan, possibly a railway station Japan, 1964 The Papers of Bernard Leach LA.7154

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Black and white photograph of a room (possibly an exhibition) Bernard Leach leans over a small wooden table examining a cup and saucer 1950s The Papers of Bernard Leach LA.8880 Black and white photograph of an exhibition scene with pots in a linear arrangement Written in pencil on reverse: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Arts Council Jan 1961â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The Papers of Bernard Leach LA.8881 Vase, squeezed ovoid shape with flower holder inside, stoneware, manganese interior Hans Coper, 1970s P.74.30 Vase, small pinched top, stoneware, fire clay body, manganese under pitted opaque glaze overall Lucie Rie, early 1950s P.74.20 Vase, tapering cylinder with pinched top, stoneware, pitted opaque glaze overall excluding band at foot Lucie Rie, c.1954 P.74.78 Cylinder Stoneware, pale cream, blue and brown exterior. Pattern Decoration: Painted scene of a young woman watching television. Eric James Mellon, 1969 2003.71 Conical bowl Stoneware, thrown and turned, blue/grey volcanic lustre glaze Emmanuel Cooper, 2005 2005.23

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COLIN HOLDEN This selection stems from an interest in liminal spaces. Within the context of Academic Choice this has meant a short excursion into the Crafts Study Centre’s collection hinterland, to seek out material that doesn’t sit comfortably. The hope was to find something off-map and apparently insignificant but nonetheless worth its moment of unexpected public exposure. The pursuit quickly focused on a box of material marked for ‘Disposal’ and a seventeenth century parchment manuscript within. Its lowly status seemed incongruous, the manuscript is an object of some considerable beauty and interest – its age, rich surface quality and disciplined calligraphy. There is no accompanying translation and so its content becomes a subject for investigation. It appears to be a contract, possibly a lease. Little other information is currently held on the manuscript. Alice Hindson, a weaver well represented in the Centre’s collection, received it from calligrapher Madelyn Walker. Significantly, there is no record of transfer of ownership – so although in possession, the Crafts Study Centre does not actually own it. It is likely it was transferred with the collection from the Holburne Museum in Bath to Farnham in 2000, at which time the Centre’s Acquisitions Committee decided to consign it to Disposal. It has been sitting at the bottom of the Disposal box in a corner of the storeroom since then, until now. It should be understood that Disposal in the context of museum collections is an involved process, detailed under the section Deaccession and Disposal in Spectrum – The UK Museum Collections Management Standard. The ultimate

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objective is to find unwanted material a suitable alternative home, ideally within the public domain. This is rarely a museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most pressing concern and with finite resource the process is consequently prone to become pending in perpetuity.

Academic Choice serves to fulfil the manuscriptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s otherwise nigh impossible selection from the Crafts Study Centre collection for public exhibition. It also commits to engagement with the process of Deaccession and Disposal so that ultimately it might be permanently placed within a more meaningful context elsewhere. Colin Holden Head of School, Craft and Design

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Selected by Colin Holden 17th century parchment manuscript Owned by the calligrapher Madelyn Walker and then the weaver Alice Hindson, and offered to the Crafts Study Centre

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RICHARD HYLTON Lucie Rie The invitation to select work from the Crafts Study Centre archive was an opportunity I welcomed. With an internationally renowned selection of ceramics, textiles, papers, prints and books, as well as a great many known histories and possibly many yet to be discovered, the archive exudes an air of order and serenity, even though it is evidently full to bursting. Unfamiliar with these collections, my two very brief visits comprised scanning the shelves fleetingly. Not really knowing what I was looking for or what I was interested in, on both occasions I gravitated towards a diminutive yellow coffee cup by Lucie Rie; perhaps because being the only one of its kind on the shelves it immediately caught my eye. Its colour, form and glaze, suggested to me that this cup was a one-off, a one of a kind. However, I was reliably informed that it was produced, as were other cups in the archive, by Rie in some quantity during the 1960s for the selling from her studio or at shops such as Heals. The ‘thin-walled’ forms so characteristic of these cups is apparently also characteristic of Rie’s wider body of pottery. Looking at objects in the store is without doubt a privilege. As well as being able to discover or even to reacquaint ourselves with an object, which might only be familiar to us in reproduction or from a bygone exhibition, we are also able to hold items. With regards to Rie’s cups, whether they are seen in a storeroom or in an exhibition display, they do radiate an aura. Yet, when I held this cup in my hand, which of course was precisely the purpose it was meant to serve, I also realized how they can be more fully appreciated. Richard Hylton Cultural Programme Curator

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Selected by Richard Hylton Cup and saucer Buff stoneware with thick opaque glaze. Part of a breakfast service owned by Robin and Heather Tanner. Lucie Rie, late 1950s P.91.2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3 Cylindrical-shaped cup or coffee can Stoneware, yellow uranium glaze overall, white rim with traces of iron Lucie Rie 2005.7 Two cups and saucers Porcelain, white body, exterior of cups and upper face of saucers manganese Lucie Rie, c.1955 P.74.114

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TREVOR KEEBLE At the moment I’m thinking and reading about the relationship between modernism and postmodernism for a piece that I’m writing on the designs and motifs of twentieth century furniture. Whilst I find myself wondering how useful these paradigms of critical thinking and reasoning actually are, I find that my thoughts keep coming back to the complex and arguably central role that the surface plays in these discussions. On the one hand the surface is apparently subsumed within an earnest rhetoric of form following function. On the other it is the liberated cypher of anything and everything. Alan Peters’ Collector’s Cabinet, and Alison Britton’s Vessel challenge these simplistic positions in the very particular way that crafted objects can. Though very different as objects, they each testify to the continuous traditions of material, process and technique in such a way as to wear these traditions within and through their surfaces, through their insides and their outsides. Professor Trevor Keeble Executive Dean, Learning, Teaching and Research

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Selected by Trevor Keeble Collectorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cabinet Ebony and satin aluminium Alan Peters, 1976 2006.25 Earthenware vessel Alison Britton, 1985 Gift of Ed Wolf 2015.11

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MARK LITTLE Fragments formerly a bowl made by Lucie Rie. Fragments that would have been discarded if this were not such gilded rubbish. Fragments that capture the moment of transformation when this thing came into contact with another thing. A cup and stand, porcelain, with engraved celadon glaze. This repair made so apparent here, freezes an instant in history and remakes the cup from that moment. The kinsugi technique recognizes the transition of the object as a part of its trajectory through space and time. Rice bowl that has warped, porcelain (around 1600). The resistance of worked matter, as it reasserts itself entropically and transgresses toward its reabsorption as stuff â&#x20AC;&#x201C; hyle. Mark Little Executive Dean, Faculty of Fashion, Architecture and Design

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Selected by Mark Little Cup and stand, porcelain with engraved celadon glaze Maker unknown Korea, 12thâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;13th century P.79.32 Fragments of a work by Lucie Rie Rice bowl that has warped, porcelain (around 1600) Bernard Leach source collection Maker unknown Arita, Japan P.79.60 Pen and wash drawing, Ditchling Beacon II Bernard Leach, 1936 2015.4

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LESLEY MILLAR My Choices I set out with the intention that my choices would in some way have a personal connection to me, and in the end they mostly do. When Simon Olding invited me to make my selection I knew immediately that I would include the work of Mary Restieaux. When I began as a weaver, the public expectation of handwoven cloth was that it would be woolly, yellow, green or heather coloured. And then I saw Mary Restieauxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s incredible silk weavings that vibrated with colour, colour that penetrated the fibres and shone out. It was a revelation that I have never forgotten and I still feel when I see her work. There are two other weavers and a printer amongst my selection. For any weaver who learnt and worked in the second half of the twentieth century, Peter Collingwood was a towering authority. His meticulously researched books describing various techniques were our handbooks, all of us learning from his generous sharing of knowledge, and it is wonderful that his Archive has come to the Crafts Study Centre. Susan Bosence and Amelia Uden both have close connection to the Textile Course at Farnham, and believed passionately in its values, as I do also. The pots I have chosen, apart from the Emmanuel Cooper, really are the result of my time in the Crafts Study Centre Archive. Various friends knew Emmanuel or had been taught by him and spoke highly of him. I would see him in the distance and be intimidated by his presence in his black motorcycle leathers and fierce expression. Then, when I was showing at Chelsea Crafts Fair with an ex-student of his, he stopped by our stand and to my total astonishment bought

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one of my rugs, and he was delightful. I love colour and was so happy to find Emmanuel’s fabulous yellow pots here in the Collection. The other pots just caught my eye and called ‘pick me’ and I did. Given my very close connection with Japan, how wonderfully serendipitous that the small bowl may have been made by Henry Hammond. So thank you very much Simon for the fabulous opportunity – we should do it again sometime! Professor Lesley Millar Director, International Textile Research Centre

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Selected by Leslie Millar Hand-block printed length Cotton. ‘Fursdon Spot’ (only half the length is discharged), printed in manganese and discharged ‘spot’ in citric acid Susan Bosence, 1970s T75.8 Cotton length Positive print of touching rings and spots in blue, then with circles paste-resisted and over-dyed in brown Susan Bosence, 1987 T.75.15 Large jar Earthenware, lustre tin glaze, bold copper-red and gold calligraphic design painted over crisp white ground Alan Caiger Smith 2010.3.15 Woven 3D macrogauze constructed as three separate panels (a–c) In linen using a strong but subtle range of colours from yellow/ orange, brown/olive green to brown and red. One of a pair commissioned by the British and Commonwealth Office for the British Embassy in Brussells. Peter Collingwood, 1990s 2009.27.1 Woven sample Drawloom-woven, Procion-dyed cotton in geometrical design of red, blue, white and grey, plain weave with mercerized cotton brocading Amelia Uden, 1980s T.82.11 Group of ikat-woven silk belts Mary Restieaux, 1985 2006.20.9 –15 (excluding 14)

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Woven sample Drawloom-woven, Procion-dyed cotton in geometrical block design of red, blue, white and grey Amelia Uden, 1980s T.82.12 Two small vases, irregular shape Bone china, unglazed and pure white with pierced decoration down a part of one side which gives a delicate lacy effect Angela Verdon 2010.3.7â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 8 Bowl, shallow foot Porcelain, matt glaze overall Henry Hammond, 1969 P.74.3 Stoneware bowl Denis Moore, second half 20th century 2003.39 Jug Porcelain, thrown and modelled, yolk yellow glaze and gold lustre decoration applied as spots Emmanuel Cooper 2005.22

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SIMON OLDING My selection is perhaps both prosaic and obsessional. I have chosen works for display for the simple reason that I have played some minor part in the acquisition process. In the case of the Robin Tanner etching, I simply saw the work on behalf of our Acquisition Committee, checked its provenance with our Curator, and became the art handler to bring the work back from Malmesbury. I did the same for Gary Breeze’s punning slate panel. I put the Tanner’s chest on my Barclaycard, so as to release it from the auction house where we had bid for it. The obsession relates to the etching by Bernard Leach. Ever since the Crafts Study Centre acquired, by gift, his etching plates, I have studied the works in order to build up a comprehensive understanding of his output (leading to a publication Bernard Leach Etchings for the Centre). Etchings from the first edition are very rarely offered for sale, and although this is a student work, it demonstrates Leach’s facility for line. And I suppose there are works here which have a deeper personal resonance. We acquired the piece by Gillian Lowndes in memory of the writer and curator Amanda Fielding, a member of our Acquisition Committee until her untimely death. Ewan Clayton’s Tranquillity is my touchstone for peace. And the Georgina von Etzdorf dressing gown reminds me that I have more of her ties at home than is strictly reasonable. Professor Simon Olding Director, Crafts Study Centre

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Selected by Simon Olding ‘Single Hook Figure’, sliced loofah dipped in grey slip with a fish hook attached Gillian Lowndes, 1991 2013.14 Galerie Besson Photographs of Lucie Rie at the Galerie Besson in 1989 Crafts Study Centre archive Commemorative ‘Philadelphus Bowl’ Stoneware, philadelphus ash glaze, painted decoration of contemporary figures and mythical creatures. Made for the silver jubilee year of the Craft Potters’ Association in 1958. Eric James Mellon, 1983 2014.1 Lettering on Aberllefenni slate, ‘Archimedes’ Blues II’. This Greek inscription brings full circle a humorous quotation from an old time blues singer, ‘Gimme a guitar and a place to play and I’ll shake this old town’, who alluded to Archimedes’ comment on levers: ‘Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth’. Gary Breeze, 2003 2015.1 Panel, the word ‘Tranquillity’ is written in shakyozumi ink using a balsa wood pen on handmade Japanese paper dyed with persimmon juice. Ewan Clayton, 2006 2006.26 Sweet chestnut coffer, plain plank top over a horizontal panelled front raised on plain plan side. The floor is Cedar of Lebanon (often used for blanket chests). The end plank on the top is quarter sawn. It bears a copper plaque to the underside ‘The Gordon Russell Workshop, Broadway, Worcestershire’ and is possibly made by an apprentice. Gordon Russell Workshop, 1930s 2015.3

ACADEMIC CHOICE

Etching, ‘Aldhelmsbury’ Robin Tanner, 1984 2015.10 Etching, ‘Storm in Venice’ Bernard Leach, 1908–10 2014.16 Wrap-over dressing gown Chiffon satin stripe, sewn-in tie belt, hand-stiched hem, ‘Wind Haver’ design Georgina von Etzdorf, early 1990s 209.20.20 Pottery Notes David Leach, October 1933 Crafts Study Centre archive A letter from Robin and Heather Tanner 13 April 1931 The letter mentions the Gordon Russell chest (on display in the exhibition), a wedding present to the Tanners from Cecil Crouch CRO/1/107

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

TERRY PERK & JULIAN ROWE Korean Water Sprinkler We recently undertook a research project, exploring a rather peculiar and short-lived religious sect 1 known as the Euphratean Society, which operated in Kent during the late 1940s and 1950s. During the research, we were given the rare opportunity of access to the stored personal effects of its eccentric leader, Jonah Shepherd 2. The Euphratean Society had Southcottian 3 origins and saw themselves as successors to the Medway-based Jezreelite 4 sect, whose perceived failings they criticized at every opportunity. The Euphrateans drew on a broad and heterogeneous range of religious and spiritual writings to inform their ideas, from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism and Swedenborg to Blake. Through Jonah Shepherd, the sect accumulated an eclectic range of artifacts relating to rituals and religious ceremonies from many cultures. Amongst these was a 17th century Yi Dynasty Korean water sprinkler, or kundika, almost identical to the one shown here, which we unexpectedly came across while exploring Bernard Leach’s personal collection of pottery in the Crafts Study Centre’s research rooms. Encountering this matching sprinkler at CSC was an uncanny experience, a serendipitous moment that wouldn’t have been lost on Shepherd himself. Shepherd’s own kundika is thought to have been a gift from George Wingfield Digby, an expert on Leach’s pottery who was responsible for cataloguing the piece on display here, as part of the Pots of Inspiration exhibition at Bath University in 1979 5. It’s believed Shepherd met and corresponded with Digby in the early 1950s, a few years before the art historian published his seminal text on symbolism and imagery in the work of William Blake 6.

ACADEMIC CHOICE

Shepherd died in 1996 in a fire at a boarding house in Dover. By this time, he was living in straitened circumstances. Most of his more valuable possessions, including the Korean water sprinkler, had for many years been held in safe-keeping by his erstwhile friend William de Chanzy 7, who inherited the items upon Shepherd’s death. The Euphrateans largely eschewed ritual, except when inaugurating their many building projects, and though we have no evidence for it, we like to imagine that Shepherd’s kundika may have seen libatory service at these occasions. Dr Terry Perk Reader in Fine Art and Associate Head of School of Fine Art Julian Rowe Lecturer, MA Fine Art

he Euphratean Society was a millenarian movement founded by T Jonah Shepherd in 1948 and dedicated to the physical construction of a New Jerusalem in East Kent.

Michael Jonah Ethelred Shepherd, 1912–1996

ollowers of Joanna Southcott, the 18th century prophetess, best F remembered for ‘Joanna Southcott’s Box’, a sealed collection of prophecies to be opened at a time of national crisis and in the presence of 24 bishops. See: Chisholm, H, ed. 1911, ‘Southcott, Joanna’ in Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Baldwin, R A. 1962, The Jezreelites: the rise and fall of a remarkable prophetic movement. Lambarde Press

oscoe, B. 1979, Pots of Inspiration, exhibition catalogue, 27 April R – 30 July, The Crafts Study Centre, University of Bath, Avon.

igby, G W. 1957, Symbol and Image in William Blake. Oxford: D Oxford University Press.

illiam de Chanzy, 1931–2008, was a founding member and W Treasurer of the Euphratean Society.

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Selected by Terry Perk & Julian Rowe Water sprinkler Porcelain with white glaze Korea, 17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18th century Unknown maker P.79.35

ACADEMIC CHOICE

JEAN VACHER Audrey Blackman (1907–90) The Crafts Study Centre’s ceramic collection includes very little figurative work, so these rolled clay models occupy an interesting and arguably uneasy position between sculpture and studio ceramics. With their 1960–70s social commentary, these highly expressive pieces are a delight and a surprise. Five of the figurines were gifted to the Centre by Audrey Blackman in 1977 for its opening exhibition at the Holburne Museum (then the Holburne of Menstrie Museum) in Bath, in response to its call for the ‘work of the pioneer craftsmen of this century’ 1 and the sixth in 1980. They reflect the importance that it attaches to groundbreaking craft which in this case demonstrates considerable powers of social observation, a study in anatomy and a deep understanding of the materials used. For example, she writes that Onto the Wing (P.77.13) shows off the translucency of David Leach’s porcelain body and the way it can be draped. The object in this figure was to create the effect of movement’ 2. The delicate translucency of the porcelain and the coloured stains are indeed used to exquisite effect. Blackman’s work is found in both private and public collections, such as the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and ranges from dancers, sportsmen and animals to social groups commenting on contemporary life. This will be the first time that these pieces have been displayed since the Centre’s opening exhibition in Bath in 1977. I have chosen these five pieces because whilst the details applied to the attitudes, gestures and dress indicates a

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

very specific period in time, they also have a timelessness that transcends this and speaks to us today. Jean Vacher Curator, Crafts Study Centre 1

etter from Barley Roscoe to Audrey Blackman, 3 March 1977 L (Crafts Study Centre papers).

Blackman, Audrey, Ceramic Review, Jan/Feb, 1976, p.15.

ACADEMIC CHOICE

Selected by Jean Vacher Figurine French Argument (Opus 47) Rolled pottery, white earthenware Audrey Blackman, 1951 P.80.3 Figurine Women’s Lib (Opus 1) Rolled pottery, bisque, porcelain clay. Built using David Leach’s porcelain body based on Podmore’s recipe. Audrey Blackman, 1977 P.77.14 Figurine Onto the wing (Opus 18) Rolled pottery, porcelain with transparent glaze. Built using David Leach’s porcelain body based on Podmore’s recipe. Audrey Blackman, 1976 P.77.13 Figurine Bank holiday aftermath (Opus 24) Rolled pottery, earthenware clay Audrey Blackman, 1957 P.77.11 Figurine Bridging the generation gap (Opus 1) Rolled pottery, stoneware stained with oxides and body Audrey Blackman, 1976 P.77.12

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Curator: Professor Simon Olding Curatorial support: Jean Vacher Graphic design: David Hyde Administration: Margaret Madden and Ingrid Stocker Technical support: Hannah Facey and Peter Vacher Paper conservation: Frances Lunn Archive support: Shirley Dixon and Debbie Hadi