Connecting Craft

Crafting Communities: Exploring the nexus between places, people and the changing practices of craft in the 21st century

Connecting Communities Rational for the Project The Crafting Communities mini project was devised in response to the current resurgence of interest around craft practices and sought to identify ways in which supportive networks have evolved from historic models to sustain and future proof contemporary studios / potteries / independent practices.

The purpose of the project was to consider the nexus between places, people and the changing practices and skills of craft in the 21st century.

Final year BA Ceramics students are required to appreciate the nature of the ceramics field, its lineage, its supporters and champions. This field study trip encountered a number of contacts each chosen for their capacity to speak to a diversity of ceramic engagement from sculpture, architecture, design to function, evidencing national, international exchange and spanning both historic and contemporary climates.

This project was designed to foster understanding of how such vibrant, innovative ceramic practice has thrived by strengthening community connections, building selfreliance, and prospecting to establish sustainable economic futures.

We have a lot to learn from established artists the trick is to find the frameworks to gather this knowledge!

Crafting Communities: The extraordinary Influence of Landscape on Ceramics

Connecting Communities St Ives: History The largest migration of artists to St Ives, Cornwall in the 1940’s can be seen as conditioned by two major factors: the violence of the second world war and a landscape exposed to the full force of the prevailing south-westerly winds from the Atlantic ocean – a meeting of man and nature.

The movement was characterised by a testing of the expressive potential of material, of mark making and gesture, while retaining semblances of subject matter, external references or imagery.

Architect David Lewis stated that they each:

…began and ended with landscape, the common factor for all of us, as presence of Initiated by Barbara Hepworth, Ben perpetual power which in its Nicholson and Naum Gabo, the ‘Middle transitoriness reminds us of our Generation Artists’ so called for working between pre-war and post-Holocaust own…any pathway we Britain, established an artist community, a followed, over moors, or down rich, dynamic and innovative collective the shafts of mines, or along that grew to include: Alan Davie, Terry the corridors of gales, led only Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, William Scott and Bryan Wynter. to oneself.”

As a consequence artists also tapped into a tradition of primitivism, specifically of a kind of ruralist revival of the handmade and craft. The untutored painter Alfred Wallis and potter Bernard Leach were not just neighbours to the artists of St Ives, they were talismanic embodiments of values at the heart of artistic practice.

Influences included issues of place, primitivism, craft, myth and nature. These timeless qualities were embraced by artists seeking reassurance and solidarity having witnessed the depths to which human beings could sink.

Landscape and Ceramics: first impressions It’s easy to understand why many aspiring artists over the years have moved to St Ives. This treasure of a town gives many inspiration, derived surely from the very nature of the location itself. St Ives town centre is heaving with galleries. Many artists have been, and still are, inspired by the coast, beaches and the sea that rages underneath the still clear blue sky.

An example of which are the works of Jack Doherty, the colours appear as if liquified on the surfaces of his ceramic outcomes, which take you straight to the sea, as if from a distant memory. Barbra Hepworth’s sculptures capture landscapes and feelings she had of her family, both her house and garden appear to represent a place of both sanctuary and peace.

“The light which is present at this location is truly special seeming to stick to all and make bright everything”.

Whilst St Ives is known as a tourist destination for its beaches and history, more people are likely to continue visiting because of the resident artists. St Ives in a way

exists outside of the world of technology, of cityscapes it is a place of contemplation, joy and light, so much light! The shops hold on to this personality and creativity which makes this a place of the “people’s creative core”.

Craftspeople, artists and designers alike would travel here to find an acceleration of their inner feelings and thoughts, which are then, transformed creating a spectacle of beauty.

Ceramics Influenced by St Ives: Gordon Baldwin The recent drawings of Gordon Baldwin, some in a kind of sequence if not a series, show a playful abstraction of things.

Flights and agitations in response to his physical world, a record of sensation. Just as the birds that populate many of them hover, glide and soar, so do these pictures.

of sound”.

With Gordon’s loss of sight, these are very much ‘felt’ images which show, perhaps paradoxically, an increase in focus, more about, he says, an “awareness” of the landscape than directly seeing.

“Gordon’s words are integral to his drawing. They are far “ Their freedom is aural as more than captions. They are well as visual, about a vision that condenses and distils, a part of the very calligraphic nature of all the marks he diary in shorthand, like bars makes”. of music, notations

Notes for a journal, triggers for the memory. Ewen Henderson talked about drawings needing to be messy, to be evidence of a struggle, and Gordon’s remind me of Roger Hilton’s. There is a similar combination of energy, play and looking into darkness. And serenity too, the economy of a man intently listening, the response of his inner eye to the places he knows, or is exploring further.

David Whiting

Ceramics Influenced by St Ives : Gordon Baldwin

Ceramics Influenced by St Ives: Sara Moorhouse The development of my work into ceramics, colour and spatial perception began with a Masters degree at Cardiff in 2003. The work explores the ways in which spaces within landscape appear altered depending on the ever-changing colours of season, weather, time and farming. The bowls act as a canvas for paintings that distil specific landscape scenes, perceptibly altering the size, depth and shape of the form by the applied colour. The forms can be made to seem wider or narrower, deeper or shallower, heavier or lighter, or they may appear to undulate, bend, move or hover by the juxtaposition of finer lines. The viewing of both inner and

outer surfaces together enables me to exploit colour connections and visual play from one side to another, emphasising or flattening the dimensionality of the form.

As part of my research-based practice I returned to the basics of colour theory and tested out ideas on the three-dimensional conical form.

“I found that colours behave differently when viewed across three-dimensional space than on a twodimensional surface�,

particularly on the inner bowl form where illusions can appear much stronger. The illusory spatial colour phenomena were then used on forms to suggest specific landscape scenes, such as Table Mountain in South Wales and The Rigi in Switzerland, as colour arrangements allude to spaces and atmospheres found therein.

The research has enabled me to develop a vocabulary of spatial colour knowledge specific to the three-dimensional bowl form, in which I have learnt to manipulate and articulate three-dimensional space to a much greater effect.

Connecting Communities PROJECT QUESTIONS

Intersecting Practice

Adaptive Craft Practices

The diverse composition of each artist/site visited on the trip demonstrated alternative and potentially adaptive connections between craft and the community that surrounds it. The four categories below were devised to help students understand the nature of these forces and ultimately make decisions about their own positioning.

Describe the structure of the studio / pottery / residency i.e. how many artists have come together, are there delegated or informal roles to support one another?

What are the opportunities provided by having a diversity of practice within a collective / studio / pottery?

What is the benefit/impact of being part of a well-known ‘identity’ of a studio / pottery / residency and how was this identity built?

Have artists been influenced by each other and have more direct/formal collaborations taken place?

In what way has the studio / pottery / residency needed to change in order to remain or gain funding and support from Design Companies, Industry, Galleries, Residencies, Arts/Crafts council, Heritage Crafts, museums, running workshops, teaching, other?

What is the relationship between historic and contemporary skills/techniques/style? Can you identify a lineage?

Connecting Communities 500 WORD ACCOUNT At each site, students were required to identify key themes and ideas that will form the basis of a 500 word report to be completed on their return.

Divided into 4 small groups to aid discussion whilst on the trip, a collective account was written by each group.

Sustaining Craft Forces

Craft and the Environment

Are there other similar collectives / studios / potteries across either the UK or Internationally and what kinds of connections have been made to them?

In what ways does the environment influence the subject matter or style of the work produced in the collective / studio / pottery?

Where is the studio/pottery/residency positioned in regard to infrastructure routeways, services such as galleries, education, market place and industry?

Can you identify the ‘style of living’ or ‘way of life’ promoted by the town of St Ives?

How has practice changed overtime to tap into changing market forces? What are its future plans?

What publications are used to promote work both material and on-line?

Can you describe the symbiotic relationship between the community of St Ives and the artists who work / respond to it?

Clementina Van Der Walt

Clementina Van der Walt:

Artist in residence at the Leach pottery 2018 From Independent to Small Business & Back

CRAFT AND THE EXVIRONMENT: influence / way of life

liberation of the end of the decade”.

Clementina lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She created her most well known production ware in the late 1980’s referring generally to the Zooamorphic forms of African mythology and drawing from the geometric principals of Zulu and Ndebele beadwork, African textiles, pottery and basketry.

To reflect the joy and the energy of African life and culture remains an abiding characteristic of Clementina’s practice.

“At this time her work had a clear social message almost pre-empting the political

SUSTAINING CRAFT FORCES: infrastructure / promotion As the business grew the studio moved from home premises to accommodate not only production and dispatch but also a retail outfit.

The gallery soon included other local crafts and a running programme of exhibitions.

“Van der Walt reduced the process to decorating industrially produced blanks with overglaze enamel to increase production and size of her business” Obviously these developments took her away from the creativity and actual making of her practice which she grew to regret. However this caused her to identify more essentially an approach to making that still underpins her practice today:

Clementina Van der Walt “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” William Morris ADAPTIVE CRAFT PRACTICES: opportunities and changes Clementina returned to working directly in clay and to reignite her sense of individuality she undertook a residency with Hylton Nel in Bethulie. Renouwned for his idiosyncratic tableware and ornament, exposure to Nel’s practice and philosophy confirmed for Clementina her new direction.

Set against the uniformity of the industrial blanks, Clementina introduced pronounced irregularity to proclaim their handmade status.

This aesthetic continues today. In signature ware she combines geometry, organic rhythms of line, shape and tone initially explored through functional ware and increasingly inclusive of both figurative and ornamental sculpture.

She changed the sign in her studio to read:

“For those who seek the sacred in the ordinary”

INTERSECTING PRACTICE Clementina has been on a long journey from mass produced ware to commemorative, ritualistic and community based practice. The influence of her immediate environment wand orking alongside other people has played an important part in this. Moving from Johannesburg to Cape, and time spent in Dal Josafat, her visit to Bethulie and growing connection to the Karoo community of Nieu Bethesda can all be seen as a more general move away from the condition of city life towards a more reflective, responsive way of life.

Sandy Brown

Sandy Brown: Independent Artist, Independent Studio ADAPTIVE CRAFT PRACTICES: opportunities and changes over time Sandy Brown is a ceramicist who works and lives in Cornwall, she has travelled a lot, having driven to Australia and further living and working in Japan. The significance of working in Japan seems to have fundamentally influenced her ceramic practice. Her work, a fusion of Eastern and Western ideals looks at stillness in different forms and though practising a mindful state, she begins to create and decorate the forms. Her approach has developed through appreciation of

her experiences in Japan, such as the tea ceremony and the simple act of eating.

SUSTAINING CRAFT FORCES: infrastructure / promotion Her gallery spaces exists in the same building as her studio, she uses her space as way to interact with her audience, describing the feedback loop as broken or disconnected as she often does not see the viewers response due to her work existing in external galleries. Her work is experiential in a sense, the temple piece being a key example of something that cannot be represented

by a photo, its scale and detail needs to be experienced in person.

St Ives and Cornwall widely provides an inspirational space which enables artists to communicate ideas and evolve their work process.

Historically many artist communities moved to Cornwall, specifically painters and ceramicists, responding to the sights and landscapes of Cornwall.

This networking produced tight knit communities enabling artists to often exhibit together in turn generate a market for now famous galleries such as the Tate and Penwith.

Sandy Brown CRAFT AND THE EXVIRONMENT: influence / way of life Sandy observed how when meals occured everyone would sit down and admire the taste and the tableware of the meal, the feeling of the objects impacted their experience. In her experience the Japanese were not afraid of using expensive tableware as opposed to keeping it for display. In common occurrences such as a dear friend or family member arriving such table tableware will be used during a meal. The significance of the interaction of table ware and food is more often lost in the West, as such objects of value are coveted

and protected rarely used or taken out of display cases. The parallels between ceramics and food are something Sandy values, she created an event where chefs produced food for her bright plates.

Much like the collaboration between chef and potter in Japan she attempted to bring back these values into a Western sphere, with her fusion plates.

During the meeting with Sandy, Jasper saw the parallels between the collaboration with the chef and potter and her gallery space and her work. Jasper questioned why the chef and potter seemed to be a harmonious relationship, where

one works with another; the plate being a canvas for the experience of the food. Such experiences in a gallery exist, the gallery a canvas the artwork the experience. When asked about how she saw the relationship between gallery and chef, she said that she saw them as entirely different, something that I consider to be one and the same. With this thought in mind her work seems to exist within a traditional context and yet introduced new ideas, bold and innovative.

Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth: Independent Artist, Collective Art Movement CRAFT AND THE EXVIRONMENT: influence / way of life Hepworth’s studio with large windows and plenty of natural light literally radiates the importance of the unique light of St Ives to artists.

The large garden beside Hepworth’s workshop, and small bedroom in her garden shed, demonstrates quite how important it was for her to be close to nature and her work reflects this, influenced by pagan stones, by primitive, ancient rocks and the Jurassic coastline.

The natural resources have been a

huge appeal to artists, from the sea, tributary rivers to mineral deposits.

China clay in particular dominates most of the landscape and held great value as a commodity not only to St Ives but across the UK and Internationally.

St Ives, land and property would also have been much cheaper in comparison to the strong creative pull of London. St Ives exudes a simple way of living, effected by nature and the country side.

This abundance of rock types allowed Hepworth to explore different types of materials.

During the 1920’s when Hepworth, Nicholson and Gabo lived there, they established a strong sense of community, with shared values of respecting nature, celebrating life between wars, an ethos which then trickled down back into the community itself.

At the time of Hepworth’s move to

Barbara Hepworth SUSTAINING CRAFT FORCES: infrastructure / promotion

Artists often tend to gather in a certain area drawn to either the landscape or centres of knowledge / industry.

Once artists have settled and created their own community it can attract outsiders and people journey to visit them and their studios, making them an asset to towns and appealing to tourists.

As a result of St Ives being a centre

for artists to come together, the town now has a Tate gallery showing their lasting legacy.

unusual materials such as ‘amerian walut’ and serevazza marble.

In order to keep up the sculpture park and maintenance of Hepworth’s workshop, the park is open to the public and a gallery created to educate the public about her life. The Tate now owns the gallery and garden.

Hepworth’s work also changed in scale. As she became more well known and her work higher in demand, she received commissions and funding to create much larger architectural work. The nature of her studio and the fact it was a double height ceiling supported her ambition.

ADAPTIVE CRAFT PRACTICES: opportunities and changes over time In the early years she used local stones and wood but later she had opportunity to import more

Leach Pottery: Collective Pottery Founded by Leach and Hamada SUSTAINING CRAFT FORCES: infrastructure / promotion

and elsewhere in the life and work of Bernard Leach, his influence on the development of the ceramic arts and in particular studio pottery”

The Leach Pottery and Museum keep alive ‘Heritage Crafts’ as well as developing high quality thrown ware building on the British Ceramics Tradition through staff independent practice, research projects and a They seek to preserve and maintain competitive international residency his former house and work place at scheme.

Higher Stennack, St Ives, to house and display examples of his work and The Pottery is in fact a Charity Trust those of others whose work (in the with a clear ethos: Trustees’ opinion) may appropriately “To advance the education be displayed with the works of Bernard Leach. They also train people of the public in Cornwall in the art, craft and manufacture

of pottery and related skills and thereby:

“increase the appreciation of the public in the ceramic arts”.

They consider themselves as a part of the thriving Creative Industries sector in Cornwall.

CRAFT AND THE ENVIRONMENT: influence / way of life Established as a Heritage Trust in 2008, in 2018 we find the pottery made up of trustees, admin staff,

Leach Pottery education team and shop attendance. This infrastructure supports the potters themselves.

The potters are made up of ‘Lead’ Potter, Apprentice Potters (one funded by life style brand ‘Sea Salt’) and production potters amassing no more than 8 people working in the studio at a time. Each potter works on the ‘Standard Ware Range’ and is skilled in all aspects of its production. All involved adopt the ethos of the pottery, upholding the significance and pride of highly skilled craft.

The pottery also raises bursaries for

its potters to continue learning through travel bursaries serving the dual purpose of educating others and being educated.

work stocked in multiple galleries and shops. They also have a steady passing trade and online presence.

ADAPTIVE CRAFT PRACTICES: opportunities and changes over time

The pottery also raises money and awareness of the pottery through a number of other ventures from running pottery courses, talks demos to community engaged projects.

The ‘Standard Ware’ has mildly adaptable perimeters keeping to the core characteristics of Leach Tradition and changing only to assert a ‘unique’ version of the ware to each buying context. Such market for this ware includes restaurants both local and International (Japan included) with

It keeps contributing to the field by working with Universities to support the delivery of a range of PhD/MPhil research fellowships across ceramic history and practice.

An Open Letter to Sandy Brown: with many thanks!

The Studio and gallery of Sandy Brown is situated in Appledore about 20 minutes from St Ives, (a town which has its own train station and bus routes). Visiting her studio allowed an insight into the studio life of a celebrated and contemporary ceramic artist. The studio and gallery is based in a large building which has a vast open space to work in and a bright airy gallery. It was very organised, and comprised of a studio which is decompartmentalised into sections of different processes.

These areas included tilemaking and slab building, throwing,

glazing, reclamation and cleaning.

With an airy, high ceilinged, bright gallery upstairs which allowed natural light through large windows overlooking the sea and bay beneath.

Here she is displaying her amazing and varied bright coloured works.

With more artists using social media and the internet to develop and maintain relationships, artists all over the world can collaborate with each other, without having to meet, therefore ever changing artists practices.

Commission based, Sandy has many ventures under her belt, from tiles and dinner settings to her own interpretation of a temple made from ceramic tiles which may represent the comfort she feels from where she lives and from within the building.

When asked how she finds her work she mentioned that she networks.

Sandy gave us a tour of her studio and gallery, telling us of an adventure which she undertook, stating that she had gone on a road trip in a campervan from England overland and eventually was to receive training in Japan.

She talked about the different influences that inform her work

An Open Letter to Sandy Brown: with many thanks! and stated that she does not pre-design or think about her work beforehand. She mentions finding an inner calm, a peace with herself where she can find a “oneness” with the material, this enables her to become uninhibited by process and predefined outcome.

Basically she “centres herself” and just begins making, creating various pieces of work ”wondering” where they may take her. She allows both colour and pattern to speak, and in doing so, by not overcontrolling the outcome she allows her pieces to find their own voices. She has a friendly, nature which emanates from her work, creating a playful atmosphere

for all to behold. Sandy is a seriously creative woman, passionate and has real drive. Her work is expressive and yet abstract, simplistically playful but never naïve.

Thank you Sandy for your hospitality…

Kind regards Jasper Smith, Yixia Lin, Olivia Antonio, Sassie Raw, Adilina Ruslan, Andrea Pykett, Nam Pornrattanawanrom, Cristina Sabata Hayes, Elin Hughes, Liam Clayton, Ady Barker, Hannah Gourlay, Lucy Jenkins, Cameron Benn, Jonathon English, Lucy Thwaites

Connecting Communities With tremendous thanks to: The Leach Pottery: Creative Director: Libby Buckley director@leachpottery.com Learning and Participatory Officer: Jackie Clarke education@leachpottery.com Lead Potter: Roelof Uys Deputy Studio Manager: Kat Wheeler Production Potter and Apprentice Co-ordinator: Britta James Production Potter: Lawrence Eastwood Apprentice (3rd yr): Matt Foster Seasalt Apprentice: Annabelle Smith

Artist in Residence at the Leach Pottery: Clementina Van der Walt info@clementina.co.za Albie@clementina.co.za Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden Tate Gallery St Ives The New Craftsman Gallery

Sandy Brown sandy@sandybrownarts.com