Tom Turner Catalog

TOM T U R N E R: A PA S SION I N P ORC E L A I N A Fif t y Year Re t rosp ec t i ve

SA L LI E TAY LO R

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TOM T U R N E R: A PA S SION I N P ORC E L A I N A Fif t y Year Re t rosp ec t i ve

TOM T U R N E R: A PA S SION I N P ORC E L A I N A Fif t y Year Re t rosp ec t i ve

A uth o r P at ric k Tay l o r Edito r s M a r yA n n S l o a n Fre dric k Tay l o r Ph oto g ra p h e r s T im B a r nwe ll Steve M a n n G ra p hic D e sig n e r Joseph Moon

A BA S COM G A L L E RY C ATA L O G PR I N T V I L L E : : BI LT MOR E PA R K A S H E V I L L E , NC 2 014

CONTENTS

CUR ATOR’S STATEMENT INTRODUC TION SEC TION 1 2

Hot Rods and Pots: The Formative Years

SEC TION 2 8

Training and Mentors: The University Years

SEC TION 3

18

The Soldier Potter

SEC TION 4

28

The Clemson and Liberty Experimental Years

SEC TION 5

52

The Nomadic Years

SEC TION 6

66

The First Peachblow Years

SEC TION 7

76

Leaving and Returning to Ceramic Art

SEC TION 8

90

The Studio on the Hill AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE LIST OF EXHIBITED WORKS

Sallie Taylor Curator’s Statement Celebrating the accomplishments of a life-long ceramist such as Tom Turner is dear to the hearts of The Bascom audience, as we have been well cultivated through the history of our exhibitions in traditional and contemporary ceramics. Turner’s work springs from ceramic tradition and lands as an alluring precision of form, color and technique that moves the status of the work well beyond functionalism and into the realm of ceramic art perfection.

For a ceramic art collection of this scope and magnitude to be available for exhibition is a fortuitous event that rarely happens. The exhibition presents a complete image of an artist who has dedicated his life to research, innovation and creativity in the ceramic arts. The Bascom is honored to present Tom Turner: A Passion in Porcelain.

We are grateful for the labor intensive contribution of Patrick Taylor, Ph.D., who has dedicated over two years of his personal time to document the history, events and ideas of this major figure in American Ceramic Art. We are also grateful for the contributing essays of Janet Koplos, independent scholar and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft, and Don Pilcher, acclaimed potter, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, and creator of The Rascal Ware Project, which provided the historical framework and validation of Turner’s contribution to the American Studio Ceramic Movement.

But mostly, we are deeply grateful for the life-long passion that Turner has had for his craft and for his willingness to share this collection with an audience who will appreciate the vision and commitment to excellence that Turner has always embraced.

INTRODUCTION

Janet Koplos Turner’s Works in Porcelain In his long career, Tom Turner has worked masterfully with

Although Turner makes no mention of an influence in this case,

various clays and glazes, at various scales, in various shapes.

he is generous with his credits in other works, acknowledging

It’s hard to summarize the work of a highly skilled artist with

such decisive figures in midcentury ceramics as Paul Soldner

an appetite for the infinite options of ceramic vessels. Yet

and Don Reitz. Turner’s works are never copies, however, and

a survey of his work reveals certain consistencies. One is

the acknowledgements simply help a viewer today to see how

“tightness”: such control that one almost hopes that he has

he constantly experimented, trying out new techniques such

edited out hundreds of weak or sloppy works, since it’s hard

as salt glazing, which was popularized by Reitz. Beginning

to imagine anybody being so adept all the time. Typically the

in the early ‘70s, Turner pursues copper-red glazes. These

silhouette of the pot is particularly striking.

glazes, developed by the Chinese centuries ago, obsessed

Another consistency is full form. Starting with a small

many 19th century potters who tried to re-create the effect.

pinch pot and a classical, high-handled coil-built pitcher, both

Hugh Robertson, of the Arts & Crafts-era Chelsea Keramic Art

made when he was still in high school, Turner has pursued

Works, sought that color so determinedly that he bankrupted

swelling volumes along with perfect profiles in virtually all of

his family business. He called the hue “Robertson’s blood”

his works. What changes is the character of the stoneware

rather than oxblood. Turner is still working on that color today,

or porcelain and its response to both structural and surface

so his obsession seems equal to Robertson’s—Turner even

manipulation. Turner has been able to create a vast number of

saved a section of a kiln wall that shows the desired hue—

effects. That early pitcher, for instance, looks almost metallic

although the cost to him has seemingly not been so high.

with its satiny black glaze, and it rises from a simple, ring foot

Turner’s extensive salt glazing in the 1970s gradually gave

with an almost conical expansion. But just three years later, in

way to other effects, from solid copper reds to ash glazes with

a thrown casserole, the lid is softly domed and the flattened

their suggestion of movement across the surface, along with

circle knob echoes that curve, while the glaze is creamy and

gentle celadons and “sticker resist” glazes (a sort of reverse

likewise soft and comfortable looking. Then there’s a flared-

stenciling that creates patterns). He also employed combing

mouth vase dominated by the greenish drips of an ash glaze,

marks, slip trailing and fluting. The vessels of the ‘80s tend

a high-shouldered one that’s rhythmic with the repetition of

to look more decisive than the salt-glazed ones, although the

throwing rings (like the ripple of a stone in water), and one

forms are not drastically different. The mottling of the salt

that shows frenetic scratching on a near-spherical form. The

tended to visually dissolve the surface; while that orange-peel

great modernist teacher Maija Grotell once said that she made

texture has its own charm, in its absence the forms look clearer

spherical vases just because they were difficult. With these

and more dramatic. A new form in the mid-‘80s (for example,

early works showing an innate level of skill—clearly a gift—

a 1984 red teapot) swells from a narrow foot to such a full

Turner seems to have pursued challenges in the same way.

volume that the base seems like a pedestal: the lower portion,

One challenge is to work against his natural type. His jar that was included in the prestigious “Young Americans”

minimized by shadows, is dynamic in its lifting function.

By 1990 that pedestal-like uplift has disappeared and

show in 1969 does not look like a Turner on top: it evokes

the belly of the vases is lower. The foot is emphasized by

the Abstract Expressionist pottery of Peter Voulkos and his

an unglazed line of white that visually separates it from the

associates. There is tension between the raggedness of the

surface on which it rests. Turner continues with that defined

thick, outward-rolled lip and the layered, dense fingers of

bottom line—and his signature full forms—thereafter, even

running glaze on its sides. (But note the full and fine profile.)

as his surface treatments evoke styles from ancient Chinese

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I N T RO D U C TI O N

elegance to southern folk informality. A favorite approach seems to be running glazes on the shoulder of the pot—rivulets or sheets—or strategically placing color to create featherlike or even quilt-like patterns in recent years. The variety continues, and the success of this great range is evidence of Turner’s devotion to experimentation—and perfection.

And it’s in this achievement that he distinguishes himself.

Sometimes experimentation serves to relieve the maker of full responsibility for the result. Moreover, accident may produce a wonderful effect that’s not reproducible. Turner’s experimentation, however, is either blessed or dogged. It is apparent in the alteration of color and texture that make the dazzling differences from pot to pot, each effect not random but targeted and highly developed. A Lunar Bottle of 2007 looks like it is painted in watercolors that bleed down in liquid veils. An oxblood jar of the same year, lidded and capped with a turtle finial, has an almost syrupy rich red coating. Another covered jar from the same year has a dry surface spattered with black and white grit so that it resembles some ancient lichencovered fixture. And still another capped jar from that year has an extraordinarily wide waist, like some obese Chinaman out of Disney’s Fantasia, given a ruffle-edged skirt of lavender blue.

In 2010 Turner worked with overall patterns of oilspot Yuteki glaze, dark spots against light, accumulating like falling leaves.

And there are crystal glazes, one from 2012 looking like a view of clouds from outer space. And of course, past and present, there is oxblood, but now accomplished by a new technique that no one else has done. Turner’s mastery continues.

I N T RO D U C TI O N

xi

Don Pilcher Turner the Professional Potter Even to the untrained eye, Tom Turner’s work is fulsome and

(sold nation-wide) which usually exceed all others, particularly

exquisite. His work is conspicuously inflated and carries a

when one seeks a combination of whiteness, plasticity and

signature style of abundance, generosity and grace.

strength. This is Turner the ceramic engineer. Does it matter

But to fully appreciate Turner’s work, and his uniqueness

that he is the original source of such an important and popular

as a potter, one must attend to qualities which are eclectic,

commodity? No, if we are talking about getting into heaven.

aesthetically nuanced and deeply technical. Historically

But yes if we are talking about receiving credit for making

speaking, his production is tethered by the longest of leads to

a truly great porcelain available to America’s potters – and

the finest and simplest Chinese, Japanese, Greek and Roman

simultaneously enhancing the value of his own work – work

pots ever made. Within that quadrant Turner creates a personal

made by Turner the artist.

expression of invention, atmospheric coloration and seductive

That artist is more deeply attached to his material than

detail. All of these expressive gestures are made in both large

most potters, and potters are notorious for their attachments.

and small scale, whether we look at the full arc of a piece - from

He finds his direction in the potential of a white paste to take

tip top to the foot - or within a single plump appendage, in that

form, give itself to fire and become all but glass. It’s an orgy

half inch which separates its beginning, middle and end. He

of process, insight, prestidigitation and sequential chemistry.

achieves this abundant sensuality by a compression of clay

The detailed appendages on his work - like the rims and lips on

particles and an expansion of form; not a Botox expansion but

every piece - roll, crease and extend as if they contained 65%

the honest to God promise of a potent spring.

butterfat. Look closely - that’s not an exaggeration.

What does this mean? How can a person speak through

Though he would never say so himself, his forms are

compressed particles and expanding form? In Turner’s case

created at the intersection of function and the lexicon of

it’s his deep knowledge of ceramic science. In a quest of over

gl. This result is a body of pottery which demonstrates this

fifty years, he has captured an aesthetic which is singularly

aesthetic and linguistic array - globe, glaze, gloss, glass, gley,

dependent on clay particle size, saturation, lamination,

glamor, glint, glow, and wonderfully, even glop. (See illustration

vitrification and purity. Bullshit you say! I’d agree, but I’ve

TT#75.) Turner achieves these igneous effects by his rare

known him for over forty years and I know how he studies,

ability on the potters’ wheel and the tedious composition

tests, records and eventually solves ceramic puzzles which

and application of glazes, layering of glaze combinations and

never even occur to most of us. He has spent a professional

specific, complicated firing cycles. The results, as shown in this

lifetime immersed in the literature and dust of thousands of

collection, are decades of pots which are respectful of tradition,

combinations of kaolin, spar, flux, extenders and plasticizers.

uncompromising, complete and personally branded. They are

His bathroom reading consists of material data sheets which

not the whole world of pottery making but they own a part of it

describe the purity and modulus of rupture of many of the

and, as such, remain beautiful, instructive and inspiring.

world’s kaolins. The results are his own porcelain clay bodies

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I N T RO D U C TI O N

Patrick Taylor Author’s Introduction I was a US Army trainee at Fort Jackson, South Carolina in the

collection of his professional work, as well as a collection of

late fall of 1970. Like so many young soldiers of that time,

major American potters and historical pots from throughout

I was desperate to find that perfect Army job.

the world. We would leave saying to ourselves that Tom’s

I contacted the head of the Army Crafts Program at the

collections could make several major ceramic exhibitions.

fort and informed him I was a college trained potter and that I

I was also overwhelmed with Tom’s knowledge of

could work in his program. He told me he already had a great

ceramics, his interactions with the professionals in the field,

young potter, Tom Turner. He went on to say Turner was

and his detailed insights about the work and processes he

about to be discharged, and that I could fill his position. The

has developed over the years. Sallie and I both realized an

director said he would make arrangements for my transfer

exhibition of his work covering his fifty years in the ceramic

in the morning. I thought I was saved; a stateside assignment

arts would be of historical significance. Over the years,

awaited me. I never heard back from the director. I served in

Tom has meticulously kept all of his best work in one single

the Signal Corps in Southeast Asia. Years later, I found out the

collection. We both thought it would be a rare opportunity to

director suffered a heart attack two hours after our meeting.

exhibit such a major ceramic collection by a single artist.

Strangely, I knew about Tom Turner even in 1970. As

As a former university professor, I also felt the need

a student, I had seen his work in a ceramic publication, and

to record and document Tom’s thoughts and experiences

knew he was a rising star in the field. After the military I

as a major American potter. Sallie and I both knew that a

became a teacher, made pots and taught pottery for many

retrospective exhibition and catalogue of his work would be

years. I continually tracked Tom’s development as a premier

a significant contribution to the field. While much has been

American potter. I would show his copper red salt glazed pots

written about Tom, there has been no single compendium of

to my students and point out their dynamic forms and glaze

and about his work.

patterns. My students and I were intrigued with his porcelain

In 2013 in preparation for this exhibition and catalogue,

pieces with ash and oxblood glazes. How could a serious

Tom and I started on a long, but wonderful, journey document-

potter not know about his achievements? Turner was in about

ing his work, as well as his professional history and insights.

every major ceramic publication for over forty years. I had

We did a series of in-depth interviews that focused on his

heard the rumors and stories about his kiln building feats, and

remembrances about specific times in his career and about

his working strategy of being nice and tight, resulting in the

specific works in the exhibition. It would take the better part

destruction of almost whole kiln loads of unacceptable works.

of a day to complete each interview.

And I heard how he had left ceramics to make rifles.

Although I followed his career, I never met Tom until he

As potters, we sometimes became very involved in the exact technical processes that he developed, in many

showed up at The Bascom one day in 2010. We had lunch

cases to create a specific body of work. Tom opened up in

and immediately connected. I began to inquire about all

the interviews and spoke his mind, sharing with me a huge

those legendary stories, and discovered Tom was more than

archive of images documenting both his career and the

willing to set the record straight and be very candid about

careers of many major figures in the field. There were photos

his professional career. My wife Sallie , who is the Director

of renowned ceramic artists such as Don Reitz, David Shaner,

of Exhibitions at The Bascom, and I visited Tom’s Mars Hill

Ken Ferguson, and Ralph Bacerra, to name only a few, as they

home and studio several times. We both were amazed that

conducted workshops with students. He revealed a trove of

his home was one big ‘wonder room’ containing a complete

images of Southern folk potters and shared vivid memories

I N T RO D U C TI O N

xiii

of visiting their shops in remote locations. I recorded over fifteen hours of interviews with him, transcribing each interview. Tom would then review each transcription, editing and adding as needed.

From these extensive interviews I have consolidated in this catalogue his accounts of his life as a potter and how he produced many of the works for which he has become known.

Many of the analyses of his pots focus on how they were made and what creative insights drove their production. While the distinguish contributors of the catalogue, Janet Koplos and Don Pilcher, have eloquently captured the significance of Tom’s work, especially in the context of the American Studio Ceramic Movement, I have attempted to capture the intriguing attention to detail and the unfaltering focus that he has brought to the creation of these art pots.

I want to especially thank Tom for his cooperation, his accessibility, and his candid openness to this process of documenting his work and career. Strange as it is, we were both at the same army post some forty years ago, and we both have many common professional experiences. Yet we took different paths in life. In explaining the sheer risks he would take in making a pot, Tom likes to say, “No plunge, no pearl.�

He took the total plunge into his career, dove deep as anyone could go, and created these beautiful pearls of ceramic art.

After all these years, Tom has become a new friend, even though, like so many others, I have known his work for over forty years.

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I N T RO D U C TI O N

SECTION 1

Hot Rods and Pots: The Formative Years

Thomas Turner’s first encounter with clay was in the third

planted rows had to be straight and hay bales formed tightly

grade. There was a fiber drum filled with balls of clay, and

and with precision.

Turner recalls that he was attracted to the smell. It was as if

At age fifteen, Turner took a job at the local body

he had worked with it before. Later in his career, Turner would

shop owned by Auggie Hansen. It was a great lesson in

speculate that he was born to be a potter, and may have even

craftsmanship for the young Turner. Hansen had trained in

worked with clay in another life. “I was drawn to the smell of

Sweden and had worked for the Royal Swedish Family. He

the moist clay and years later I found out why,” he remembers.

was a top-notch craftsman and a perfectionist. He recalls the

Both his father and grandfather were carpenters and

work environment was very straightforward. If a worker did

furniture makers, the descendants of the Thomas Turner

something wrong, Hansen would be certain to aggressively

family of England. And other descendants included a rifle

correct the worker. Everyone, including the fifteen-year-

maker, a clock maker, and possibly even a potter. Turner

old Turner, was taught to do their job absolutely right. This

has speculated that his last name may have come from

commitment to perfection was not limited to the body shop.

an ancestor who was a potter, which was referred to as a

Young people in Morris were taught to always do their best,

“turner” historically.

whether it was working on cars or simply shoveling snow.

From cabinet making, his father worked in construction

During many of his high school classes, Turner would

and built the wooden forms for the concrete walls of the

sit by the window and daydream about girls and hotrods.

Dresden Nuclear Power Plant in Morris, IL. His father was

Nevertheless, he was an excellent student and made good

such a precise craftsman, obsessing over details to the point

grades. His parents expected it.

that he could not make a living.

Turner remembers making ships of scraps in his

The summer of his sophomore year, Turner received a call at the gas station where he was working. On the other end of

grandfather’s workshop when he was four or five years old.

the phone, the high school counselor informed him he had to

Some of the ships were very elaborate. As a teenager he

pick another class for the fall because of a scheduling conflict.

became interested in cars and worked in a body shop. His goal

One option was an art class. Having been in the ceramics

was to build hot rods and race them. Like his father, he learned

room and re-connected to that third grade smell of the clay

how to use tools and strive towards perfection.

barrel, he decided to sign up, lured in part by the prospects of

As with so many accomplished artists, Turner seems to have developed a critical consciousness, and a high sense of

an easy grade.

It was like drinking from an old, familiar well. Prior to

form, at an early age. His early recollections suggest he knew,

that clay class, his identity had been cars. “This class gave

even then, when something looked visually right.

me a new identity where I could excel. I could do better than

He grew up in Morris, IL, a small Midwestern town where everybody knew each other. The town had a population

anyone in the school,” he says. “I embraced and enjoyed my new identity.”

of about 9,000, and the high school of about 450. People

Turner took two years of high school ceramics. “I

had a conservative work ethic with the emphasis on doing

really owe my entire professional career to my high school

the job right and to the best of one’s abilities. There was a

art teacher, Joe Corsello. I have always said that a great

sense of rightness in everything undertaken. At an early

teacher sees the spark and nourishes the flame.” Although

age, his father and grandfather had engaged him in doing

Corsello did not have extensive training in ceramics, (his

what almost everyone did in the Morris area: farm work. His

undergraduate degree was in art with a major in painting), he

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H OT RO D S A N D P OT S

nevertheless knew what the young prodigy needed to learn.

His teacher could not throw on the wheel, so he did not

Corsello had the insight and grace to realize that he would

know what to do with his students who elected to take a

have to put his student in contact with experts in ceramics.

second year of ceramics. He had taught them all he knew about

Turner remembers that the first year was mainly hand building. Students would roll out slabs, cut out leaf shapes and make ash trays. The class made pinch pots, and then

clay in the first year. So for the second year ceramic students, Corsello introduced them to slip casting and plaster molds.

Turner’s first assignment that year was to make a

more complicated slab and coil forms. Corsello used cone 06

master model and then a one-piece mold of that model. The

commercial glazes and fired work in an electric kiln.

assignment turned out to be a rather complex and challenging

There was a brick yard outside of Morris called Goose

assignment for a high school student. He made the mold

Lake Brick Company, which had started in the 1860s,

pattern, a bowl, out of a solid piece of Goose Lake clay. Next

producing salt glaze sewer pipes for major cities like Chicago.

he made a one-piece plaster mold, and after drying and

The man who started the company, N.A. White, was the son

curing, he poured slip into it. The resulting slip cast form was

of a potter from New York. The early Goose Lake workers

decorated with low-fire underglazes from One-Stroke.

made all kinds of salt glaze ware for everyday use, such as

Corsello was always going above and beyond the call of

storage jars. When electricity and refrigeration came to the

duty. One field trip he organized was a visit to Haeber Pottery

region, the company phased out sewer pipe and pottery and

in Dundee, IL. It was there amid the pottery that the tour

converted to brick manufacturing. Like so many art teachers

guide pointed to a potter’s wheel and said, “Forget about that,

did before the emergence of large ceramic materials suppliers,

it is a lost art.” Turner remembers telling himself, “Well, I will

Corsello obtained clay from Goose Lake Brick.

show you.” At that moment he decided to become a potter,

One weekend Corsello forgot and left the kiln firing student work. On Monday morning there was no doubt that

not having a clue as to where he would go to learn those skills.

After his mold-making assignment, the teacher bought

the kiln had over-fired. The building was full of fumes and

some commercial molds. The class would slip cast them

smoke. All the windows in the building had to be opened to

and use the One-Stroke commercial glazes for decoration.

cool the place off. The handmade pieces, along with some

Corsello had also taken Turner and several other students to

slip cast ware, had melted and run down onto the floor. It was

a mold and slip casting business where an artist was giving

Turner who took it upon himself to rebuild the ruined kiln.

a workshop on the use of One-Stroke underglazes. The

Since he had learned basic electrical wiring in shop class, he

students got to participate in applying the underglazes to

felt confident he could do it. Turner began the repair work

bisque pottery.

by carefully chipping the melted pots from the kiln floor.

Even in this limiting atmosphere, Turner would

Next he replaced the electric elements and fired up the kiln.

experiment, imagining how he could do things differently. He

Reflecting back on the situation, Turner now admits he was

would mix the commercial glazes into new combinations to

naive and really didn’t know what he was doing. However,

create his own unique colors. He had the curiosity to do things

his determination and enthusiasm got him through. At that

that had not been done before, and he felt great satisfaction

early age Turner was already showing the self-confidence

when other people would ask him how he got such unique

necessary to take risks and experiment. Rebuilding of that kiln

colors. This clearly revealed Turner’s curiosity and willingness

would be the first of many experiences that he would have

to experiment in ceramics. He did not play it safe nor follow

building and rebuilding kilns as a professional potter.

the easy path.

H OT RO D S A N D P OT S

3

For over fifty years Turner has kept one of his high school

When asked how he was able to create such forms at

pinch pots and a coil pitcher in his personal collection. Both

an early age, Turner still maintains that subconsciously he

pieces, Pot 1 and Pot 2, possess perfect symmetry, balance,

believed he had been a potter in another life. Ideas came so

and evenly-finished lips. They give testament to Turner’s

easily, sometimes from dreams. “We never get away from our

precocious pride in craftsmanship and attention to detail.

personality. I was told that my father was such a perfectionist

Turner recalls devoting a significant amount of time and

cabinetmaker that he could never make any money, so he went

energy to using steel wool to smooth and finish both forms.

into house building like his father, later going into construction carpentry. That is exactly how I started working in clay: perfection was required.” His commitment to perfection has been a guiding principle throughout his career in ceramics.

Turner now jokes that because of his own insistence on perfection, he never made any real money in pottery.

In reference to the coil pitcher with the green glaze, Turner says his teacher showed the class how to make coils and attach them, but that was about it. The teacher had two books. One was published by Chilton Books, probably written by John Kenny, and the other one Turner cannot recall. If anyone in the ceramics class asked a question, the teacher would tell him to go look it up. Upon reflection, Turner remembers that the students in the class may have selected an example from one of the books and then cut out a paper template of the form to make the coil pots. As coils were added, the student had to match the pot’s contours to fit the template. Steel wool was used to finish the pieces during the leatherhard stage.

Turner remembers that a normal day in high school began with walking the halls with his girlfriend. However, most of the time he would end up in the ceramics class working on pots.

The clay had become more alluring. Knowing his love affair with clay, his teacher would give him passes during study hall to come back to the art room to work.

For his high school senior class project, Turner built a table with inlaid tiles. He would arrive at school early and go straight to the ceramics room to cast a tile before classes began. At the afternoon art class he was able to remove the

1-Pot, earthenware, pinch, 2 x 2 ½, 1961, Morris Community High School, Morris, IL.

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H OT RO D S A N D P OT S

2-Pitcher, earthenware, coil, 10 ½ x 6 ½, 1963, Morris Community High School, Morris, IL.

newly-made tile from the mold. Turner fondly remembers those years, and the art teacher who was always going “the

extra mile.” As Turner puts it, “He knew the high school was limited and he would provide us outside experiences that would feed our desire to learn. What was so impressive was the realization that my art teacher was not getting paid more for that extra effort. He did it for his students,” Turner says.

Handmade table with slip cast tiles, senior class project, 1963, Morris Community High School, Morris, IL.

Corsello, who would play a vital role in ensuring that his young prodigy in clay went to college, continued to teach art for fifty-three years. A college art scholarship for seniors graduating from Morris Community High School bears Corsello’s name. In a way Corsello served as a role model for the principle that Turner would always follow, going well beyond what is merely acceptable to reach perfection.

H OT RO D S A N D P OT S

5

6

SA L LI E TAY LO R

SECTION 2

SA L LI E TAY LO R

7

Training and Mentors: The University Years

Late in his high school senior year, Turner remembers that

allowed to study pottery until he had completed a year of

he was still in his hot rod phase. His girlfriend’s father was an

basic art and design courses.

electrician and made a lot more money than other tradesmen.

Turner was equally insistent that he did not want to be an

His plan was to marry his girlfriend, stay in Morris and work

art major but to only study pottery. The university department

for her father.

chair prevailed. Turner reluctantly accepted the requirements.

Although he had taken the college prep curriculum, he had no plans for college. His friends were being accepted to colleges around the state, and one who was exceptional in

And thanks to the support of his high school teacher, Turner even received a scholarship.

Turner struggled his freshman year. He was not happy

art had been accepted to what was then Illinois State Normal

having to take the art foundation and other general college

University. Turner questioned his own plans: “That guy is going

courses. His 1.9 grade point average put him on academic

to college, why not me?�

probation at Illinois State. By the end of his first year, not

His art teacher again intervened. Corsello insisted Turner

only was Turner struggling academically, he was struggling

apply, and even drove him down to Illinois State to meet with

financially as well. He decided to withdraw from school

the head of the art department.

and return home where he had secured a job at the nearby

When Turner was introduced to the department head, he brashly declared that he wanted to come to Illinois State

ammonium nitrate factory in Marseilles.

A buddy of his who worked at the factory was selling a

to learn to be a potter. The department head informed Turner

Mercedes 190 Coupe, and Turner had to have that car. To him

that he had to be an art major first, and that he would not be

it was an object of great beauty and craftsmanship. Turner

The ammonium nitrate factory where Turner worked for about a year between 1964 and 1965.

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came from a family of meager means, and his parents opposed the purchase. They thought that if he bought the Mercedes he would never go back to school.

Against his parent’s advice, Turner acquired a bank loan and bought the car. By the end of the year, to his parent’s relief, he sold the car and returned to Illinois State for the fall semester. Buying the coupe was an initial step in his life-long pursuit of collecting beautiful objects, no matter the cost.

A well designed car with a beautiful paint job was not very different from a beautifully glazed pot.

Looking back on his decision to return to college, Turner explains that in the North and Midwest, during the 1960s, the only way to study and train to be a potter was though the academic system. There were no pottery or community

Mercedes 190 Coupe, photographed in 1964

crafts programs. The folk potter and its apprentice system had vanished during the Industrial Revolution.

Turner returned to Illinois State in 1965 and completed a few remaining art requirements. “I went into the pot shop and never left for the rest of my college career,” he says. He stayed on each summer, taking ceramics classes and working as a studio assistant to his mentor, Professor Wozniak. “Woz,” as he affectionately referred to his teacher, used the academic program as essentially an apprentice program to give his “hungry” student more than just basic ceramics classes.

The pottery studio at Illinois State had stand-up Fetzer treadle potter’s wheels. Turner would arrive at the pottery studio early in the morning and work on the treadle wheel until late at night, sometimes not keeping a single piece. Even at this stage in his training, Turner pursued perfection. And despite the frustrations, he became confident that he would excel in ceramics.

Illinois State had a strong art department and Wozniak was Turner’s first ceramics teacher. As Turner recounts, Wozniak was the consummate professional and educator.

Mercedes 190 Coupe, photographed in 1964

He was a leader in professional organizations such as the American Crafts Council and the Illinois Craftsman Association. He was also a founding member of the National

T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

9

Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. Wozniak invited

His classmates thought Turner was crazy to do all this

major ceramic artists to conduct workshops and programs at

extra work, but Turner saw it as an opportunity to learn and

Illinois State. As Turner recalls, those workshops in the 1960s

experience all he could about ceramics. As a result, Turner

at ISU, as well as at other Midwestern universities, provided

had more credit hours, experience and knowledge than any

an incredible opportunity to watch and listen to major artists.

graduate student at the time.

Wozniak created a student work program for Turner that

Turner theorizes that the explosion of ceramics at

paid 65¢ an hour. Turner did studio maintenance tasks such as

universities during the 1960s was a matter of fortunate

inventorying all the glaze materials, mixing the clay, and firing

timing. Many of the instructors during this period were

the kilns.

Korean and World War II veterans who had gone to school

Turner recalls that everyone in academic ceramic art

on the GI Bill. During a time of post-war growth in the

was trying to emulate Japanese potters. The only kiln firing

American economy, universities were growing as well, and art

strategy seemed to be to over-fire and over-reduce the cone

departments were expanding. The new return to normalcy

10 pots. Instructors and students were just beginning to

of the post-war period, coupled with the financial support of

develop an understanding of firing. Not many people knew

the GI Bill, gave veterans options to pursue new and more

how to formulate glazes either, and every potter seemed to be

creative programs. These program options had not been

on a fast learning curve when it came to glaze development,

available during the Depression and war years. Along with

kiln construction and firing.

this academic explosion, Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada

Everything was so new. He recalls the majority of his

toured the United States demonstrating the Asian aesthetic.

ceramic knowledge during the period came from attending

Since the United States had no comparable tradition, their

workshops and watching other potters create.

visits were instrumental in the development of contemporary

Turner’s undergraduate training was not limited to the confines of the college classroom or studio. The school had

academic ceramic art.

Universities also began hiring artists as teachers, and

a program where students would go out into the community

that academic shift had a direct impact on ceramic programs.

and demonstrate various techniques and processes at rural

As Turner recalls, a person who had an MFA from Alfred

elementary schools. As part of the community arts program,

University or from the University of Wisconsin could easily

Turner would haul a small Oscar Paul potter’s wheel in the

find a teaching position. Routinely, new graduates from these

trunk of his car and demonstrate throwing pots that provided

prestigious programs would have at least ten offers to teach

a small stipend which helped him stay in school.

at universities. In contrast today, a university ceramic teaching

During this period Turner also assisted Wozniak in completing several large ceramic commissions. In one instance,

opening may have as many as 900 applicants.

With the expansion of university ceramic programs came

he worked on a Harvey Littleton potter’s wheel and centered

a parallel explosion of in-depth workshops. Ceramic artists

forty pounds of clay, opening it up and forming a bowl until

teaching in major universities became highly sought after for

it was about 75% complete. His teacher then took over and

workshops held on campuses, -- especially in the Midwest. For

formed the clay into a baptismal bowl for an area church.

example, Wozniak brought Don Reitz, Bill Farrell, Val Cushing,

Turner also worked on a large fountain commission. For

Don Pilcher and Robert Turner, to teach workshops at ISU.

another commission, he learned how to create large planters from press molding clay into a four piece assembled mold.

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T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

Reitz, who was from Wisconsin, was the leading force behind this workshop movement. Bill Farrell was the head

of the ceramic programs at Purdue. Val Cushing and Robert

Hamada from Japan traveled across the country conducting

Turner were both nationally known ceramicists from Alfred.

ceramic workshops at universities. Their ceramic philosophy

And Don Pilcher was on the faculty of the University of Illinois.

served to significantly shape the idea of the studio art potter.

These artists became for Turner, and his fellow students,

That model called for the potter to be in control of everything

mentors and resources.

in the ceramic process, from mixing their own clay and glazes,

As a student assistant at ISU, Turner was assigned to

to building and firing their own kilns, to promoting their work.

“take care of” the workshop leaders. He provided materials,

The academic literature of the period embraced this concept

tools and assistance to the workshop leader, prepared the clay

as well. Two classic texts of the period were Daniel Rhodes’

for them and made sure they had the correct equipment. In

Clay and Glazes for the Potter and Glenn Nelson’s A Potter’s

doing so, he learned how to prepare for a workshop. And he

Handbook. These works, as well as other texts and articles,

also participated in all the workshops. That gave him a unique

helped spread aesthetic design ideas by showing work by

opportunity to get to know some of the major leaders in the

nationally acclaimed ceramic artists along with technical

field. This is how he met Don Pilcher, who then introduced him

information that reported all phases of ceramic creation and

to Vivika and Otto Heino.

production. These sources recounted ceramic art history and

With Wozniak’s blessing and encouragement, Turner and

covered technical and chemical data. Such sources became

other students would sometimes cut Friday classes and go to

handbooks for any student aspiring to establish a viable

workshops at other universities. Many times Turner and his

pottery studio.

fellow students would sleep on someone’s floor just for the opportunity to learn something new about clay.

One such workshop would have a life-long impact on

The end goal of this ideal was that individual potters would produce unique, one of a kind, and distinctly individual artworks. Reflecting on his own student experience,

Turner. Jim McKinnell was known as a pioneer in building

Turner says this value system, and its approach to ceramic

loose brick, gas-fired kilns. McKinnell would build a kiln on site

creation, was similar to what students in academic painting

as a central focus of his workshop, then disassemble the kiln

programs aspired to through their exposure to their Abstract

at the end of the workshop, box up the disassembled bricks,

Expressionist trained professors. It seemed as if almost all the

and transport them to the next workshop. His technique in

university painting teachers had been exposed to the Hans

building these kilns was a breakthrough in the technology

Hoffman technique of abstract painting, or some other “guru”

in that ceramic programs had previously relied solely on a

of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

limited number of commercial brands such as Alpine and

“The goal was to become an individual artist making your

Dickerson. McKinnell and his wife, Nan, became outstanding

own, unique work,” he says. “Ceramic students were taught to

teachers at the University of Iowa, known especially for their

assimilate, but not to copy. If someone else was putting white

understanding of glaze technology. Turner would use this kiln

slip on stoneware, no one else would do that. They respected

construction technique throughout his career.

that person’s venture into that process.” In the years to

Turner speculates the concept of the “studio potter”

come, Turner would feed his own creative drive by intensely

emerged from the vitality of the ideas generated by the

studying ceramic artists and traditions from all over the world

energy of those university programs and workshops during

and from many historical periods.

the 1960s. That notion of the “studio potter” received further reinforcement when Bernard Leach from England and Shoji

In contrast, the notion of being a production potter was frowned upon by academic faculty members. In these new

T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

11

university ceramic programs all work was to be a unique and creative personal expression. Undergraduate students were encouraged to read and learn about the work and processes of other ceramic artists. Turner recalls that the students would run to the mailboxes at the first of the month to get the latest edition of Ceramics Monthly and Crafts Horizons.

Pot 6 is a cylinder shape that was thrown on an upright treadle wheel in the ceramic studio at Illinois State University.

It is unglazed but has color variations on the clay surface. The piece is stoneware fired to cone 10 in a gas reduction kiln. It was one of the works in the Young Americans Exhibition 1969 and reveals Turner’s influence of Abstract Expressionism.

The exhibition was a revelation in the progression of Turner’s ceramic forms and glazes. This basic work represents the early efforts in this progression in form and in glaze decoration. Turner spent hours in the wheel room at Illinois State constantly throwing cylinders that he would attempt to transform into basic ovoid forms. As his own worst critic, Turner kept very few of these works.

Turner refers to this simple pot as a direct, basic form that was created in the spirit of the Onda potters. Like so many ceramic students at that time, he had seen one of Richard Sperry’s films, The Village Potters of Onda. The expectation was to throw fast, spontaneously, without any worry about the surface finish, like the potters in the film. Throw rings were to be left to show the process involved in the making of the piece.

Turner notes even with this wide footed form, he did put a small bevel foot of sorts, as a way of completing the work. He recalls that while throwing these cylinder forms, he was also practicing throwing small footed swelling forms. He describes this work and other pots of this period as his “learning pieces.”

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6-Bottle vase, stoneware, unglazed, 10 x 7, 1967, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

Turner watched with intense focus and attention to details the potters that demonstrated at the university workshops.

Being an energetic student, the young Turner explored many techniques that he observed in these sessions. Pot 7 is a small thrown bottle that he altered by paddling the leatherhard form. Turner recalls the alteration technique was inspired by watching a Paul Soldner demonstration. At this point, Turner was refining his concept of design by swelling the body of the form and by creating proportional relationships between the foot, body and lip of the pot. Turner is critical of surface decorations that are random patterns of lines tending not to relate to the overall form of the piece. In his estimation it was a feeble attempt to imitate an Abstract Expressionist painter.

Turner provides an illustration of his commitment to be a studio potter. In the summer of 1967 he returned home from his second year of college. He felt the necessity to make his own pots on the back porch of his parent’s house, build a kiln in the backyard and salt fire his pots in the kiln. It was an Turner throwing on parents’ back porch. Turner left, his father, Joe Corsello and Turner’s grandfather, far right, around the backyard kiln.

ambitious task since his college instructor had never built a kiln, and Turner had no clear direction. His former high school teacher, as well as his parents, were very supportive of the young potter’s effort to build a kiln. He was able to secure a free pallet of fire bricks from Goose Lake Brick Company, the same company that had provided clay for his high school ceramics class.

7-Oval bottle vase, stoneware, paddled, 6 x 5, 1967, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

13

Turner recalls that he really did not have much of a

three times before he had to return to school. One might say

roadmap to follow in building his first kiln. The Daniel Rhodes

this solitary summer experience was Turner’s inaugural effort

classic text on kiln building had not been published yet. He

in becoming a fully functioning, self-reliant studio potter. He

does remember consulting a pamphlet that Paul Soldner had

would repeat the process of building a studio kiln six more

just released on building a catenary arch kiln. He also vaguely

times in his 50-year career.

recalls having seen examples of the sprung arch kilns of Don

Pot 3 is one of the few remaining examples of a piece

Reitz. He was aware that Reitz used Big Bertha burners, and

thrown on the back porch of the Turner home and fired in

he wanted to do the same.

the backyard salt kiln. This very early work reveals Turner’s

Reflecting back on that special summer, Turner now

emphasis of horizontal lines to delineate the various sections

realizes he was attempting to do the work of a studio art

of the pot. The lip, neck and foot all have either actual or

potter just as his teachers were teaching him to do. The

implied horizontal lines. The horizontal elements interact

only caveat was that his teachers had not done themselves

with a vertical lift that would become a continuous element in

what they were advocating. Turner had built a salt kiln in his

Turner’s work.

parents’ backyard in the summer of 1967, even before the one built eventually at Illinois State.

That summer, after Turner completed the kiln, he also

The following school year, Turner would take the kiln apart and transport it from Morris to Illinois State. Tim Mather, a new ceramics instructor, purchased the kiln from

made pots for the salt firing. The kiln was fired about two or

Turner and began producing salt glazed pots.

Turner throwing on parents’ porch.

Turner left, his father, Joe Corsello, his high school teacher & Turner’s grandfather far right around the backyard kiln.

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Turner remembers that he would analyze the works of people such as Bob Turner, Paul Soldner, Don Reitz, David Shaner, Ralph Bacerra, Don Pilcher, and Bill Farrell and apply what he had discovered to his own work. The spirit of this approach was to incorporate and reinterpret the techniques of other potters, not to copy or imitate. Summarizing his view about the interaction and influences of master potters, “I have always said my pots are the accumulation of every pot I have ever seen and every potter I have ever watched work. There is something I got from all of those people,” he adds.

Turner believes his undergraduate education essentially taught him and his fellow students that it was somehow wrong to sell their work. Put another way, if a work sold, the reason was that it was inferior. Teachers frequently reminded students that they were in art school to be artists, not craftsmen.

While still an undergraduate student, Turner thought deeply about the difference between what constitutes art versus craft. The concept of the studio potter was an effort to incorporate both of these worlds. For Turner it was a matter of the intent. Academic intent in ceramics seemed 180° from that of production pottery. It is not that one approach was good and the other bad, but, according to Turner, it was a matter of the maker’s intent.

From early in his career, Turner sought out examples of 3-Vase, stoneware, salt glazed, 10 ½ x 7 ½, 1967, Morris, IL.

what potters had done in the past. In the North the image of an artisan making wares in a small shop had vanished more than 150 years ago. By contrast, the Industrial Revolution never fully reached the agrarian South. So Southerners, according to Turner, never completely severed ties with the concept of the craftsman. Small shops with craftsmen making chairs, brooms, pottery, and a variety of needed trades like blacksmithing existed in the South all the way into the early 20th century. These craftsmen and tradesmen had little knowledge, if any, of the Northern industrial production techniques. As other experts have noted, Southern folk potters, such as those at Jugtown, were introduced to

T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

15

industrial production techniques in limited fashion in the

several Southern folk potters did remarkable work, given

first part of the 20th century. As Northerners visited the

the context and resources available to them. Some scholars

region they introduced new ceramic materials and colorants

have compared Asian folk potters to Southern folk potters,

to isolated enclaves of folk potters. As the need for ceramic

especially the Catawba Tradition near Hickory, NC. Turner

butter churns, liquor jugs, and food storage jars diminished

believes there are common themes among all folk pottery

due to the advent of refrigeration and store-bought food, the

traditions. He eventually wrote an article entitled American

Southern folk potter turned more to decorative “art pottery.”

Mingei. “Mingei” in this context means, “crafts for the people.”

Much of their production was encouraged and supported by

Turner was inspired by Shoetzu Yangi’s concept of “design

Northerners.

from necessity.” All great folk pottery, according to Turner,

This bifurcation between folk crafts and academic art was very distinct in Northern educational institutions. The newly established sensibilities of academic design were not

embraces this principle of functional design, but the work of the great folk potters goes beyond function alone.

During his last year in undergraduate school, Turner

to be commingled with the folk craft tradition. There was a

realized he could graduate early. Don Reitz, Bob Turner,

perceived hierarchy, with two distinct classifications divided

and Val Cushing encouraged him to apply to their graduate

by the intentions involved in the creation of ceramic objects.

programs. Unfortunately it was too late to apply to any of

Turner maintains he was one of the few academic potters during this time that came to the South and met most of the last folk potters. He created many long lasting friendships

those programs, so he made a last minute application to Illinois State’s graduate program and was accepted.

Within a matter of weeks of his acceptance Turner had

with such noted Georgia potters as Bill Gordy and Lanier

already developed a proposed master’s thesis. He wanted

Meaders, Seagrove potters Walter and Dorothy Auman, and

to test all the ceramic colorants and their reactions when

the Evan Brown family in Skyland, NC. Pisgah Forest Pottery

mixed with a stoneware body. Moreover, he also proposed

was a favorite of his because of the porcelain and equipment

to test all the same colorants when mixed with salt in the

designed by Taxile Doats, who wrote Grand Feu Ceramics.

vapor firing process. Looking back on this bold proposal, and

Turner’s motivation to document and study these folk

knowing what he knows today, Turner laughs that it would

potters initially came from his reading of Charles Counts’

have taken ten people a lifetime to do what he thought he

book, Common Clay, which contained maps to these potters’

could do in only a year. He had been inspired by attending

workshops. At one point in his early career Dorothy Auman

several Reitz workshops on salt glazing. Reitz had been the

urged him to come to Seagrove, NC, and set up a studio amid

leader in the revival of the salt glazing process as a creative

her fellow Jugtown potters.

medium, and Turner wanted to test colorants in salt glazing

In many academic ceramic programs the Southern

to build on Reitz’s initial experimentation of using colorants

folk potter was not held in very high esteem. Academic

as flashing agents in salt firing. He never got the opportunity

art professors believed their sense of design was not up

to complete his research at Illinois State. He was drafted into

to par, and the work was poorly made. After studying the

the US Army instead.

Southern folk potters for many years, Turner concludes that these potters had entirely different motivations than the institutional art potters. He also believes some of the early critics were rather extreme in their criticism. He believes that

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SECTION 3

T R A I N I N G A N D M E N TO R S

17

The Soldier Potter

The Vietnam War was at its height during this period, and

As he reflects on the traumatic experience he says, “To

in the spring of 1968 the US military was sustaining weekly

go from being in graduate art school to being a draftee in the

casualty rates at levels that hadn’t been seen since the Second

United States Army was one of the most severe psychological

World War. As the demand for more recruits increased,

changes that a person can go through. I went from a creative

student deferments from the draft were harder and harder to

environment to a situation where I was told what to do every

extend beyond four years. Since Turner had briefly dropped

minute of the day. As a grunt soldier you are literally broken

out of school after his freshman year, his student deferment

down and then reprogrammed to follow orders.”

was in jeopardy. After his first semester in graduate school

Pot 9 was one of Turner’s largest works in Young Americans

Turner received a letter with that dreaded statement,

Exhibition 1969, and in many ways it was the signature pot

“Greetings: You have been selected for military service.”

that launched his professional career. The basic swelling form

It was a shock, since his study and career was in its

with two handle-like protrusions on the shoulder are elements

auspicious infancy. He had already been accepted into a

that he would continue to use for decades to come. The lip was

number of major regional ceramics exhibitions, and he was

formed with undulating and flowing pieces of clay. The finish

ready to move to the national level. During that first semester

consists of layers of ash glaze and iron oxide wash.

of graduate study Turner had entered a national juried show

As Turner recalls, the piece embodied the Abstract

called Young Americans Exhibition 1969, sponsored by the

Expressionist style which was valued and taught by so many

American Crafts Council. The exhibition would tour the

of his undergraduate art professors. These instructors urged

country for approximately three years, featuring the most

students to be loose and free-flowing in their approach to

promising young artists and craftspeople in the nation.

clay. Even as Turner explored this stylistic approach, he felt

For the first time in the history of the American Crafts

uncomfortable about the work he was producing. He sought

Council, artists were allowed to submit slides for the jurying

more precision and control. In part, that was reflected in his

process. Turner sent in a set of slides even though he was under

need to precisely record the processes and techniques that

a deadline to report for induction into the army. He was forced

he was using in order to apply and extend them to his next

to leave the university without knowing whether his work

work. Only a few years before, in high school, he had created

had been accepted. He soon learned that it had been, but as a

forms with total precision and balance. Octo Jar had none of

trainee in the United States Army at Fort Jackson, SC, he had no

these qualities. Nevertheless, it became an early pivotal work

means of shipping the work to the American Crafts Council.

in his career.

Turner had given one of his pots to Mather, who had just

Looking back on the experience, Turner says that his

started teaching in the ceramics program at Illinois State, and

hometown background, and the expectations of his family,

one to Wozniak before he left for the army. He had left other

required that he fulfill his duty to serve his country. His father

pots in the ceramic studio at the school. Turner can’t recall

had served as a Navy Seabee in the Second World War, and

exactly what took place, but somehow his fellow students,

both his father and mother believed in duty, service, and

along with Mather and Wozniak, banded together to send

sacrifice. On the other hand, he viewed the situation as a

Turner’s work to the exhibition, barely meeting the deadline.

tremendous setback to his emerging career. “It (the army)

To this day Turner maintains this episode in his early career

totally interrupted the whole energy and thought process

was a miracle, and he is grateful to his former teachers and his

that I had embraced in undergraduate and graduate school,”

fellow students.

he remembers.

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9- “Octo” jar, stoneware, ash glazes, 9 x 10 ½, 1968, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

19

Life is full of forks in the road, and Turner’s induction into

supporters, were trying to get an MOS designation for him

the army was one. Most inductees from Illinois were sent to

in the army craft program, rather than an MOS as an infantry

Fort Leonard Wood in the Ozarks for army basic training. A

rifleman.

friend and classmate, Larry Cranes, had notified the special

Meanwhile, Turner began using the craft shop on a

services office at the base that Turner was coming as a draftee

regular basis and got to be friends with Goldston, who had

and that he would be a great asset to the crafts program there.

attended art school before being drafted. He would sneak

However, on the evening of his induction, the base reached

Turner off post, and the sergeant’s wife would cook the

its training capacity, and Turner’s group was quickly diverted

trainee a good meal from time to time. Goldston also took

to Fort Jackson, SC. Turner was not even sure where South

Turner into Columbia to Richland Ceramics, a studio operated

Carolina was when he learned the news. Reflecting back on

by John Formo.

the situation, the only positive thing was that he quickly found

Coincidently, Goldston also worked in the army printing

out that he would be close to the last of the Southeastern folk

office, and years later Turner learned he was responsible

potters, many of whom he had studied as an undergraduate.

for printing orders for all of Fort Jackson. Goldston was

At the beginning of basic training Turner received the

instrumental in getting Turner diverted and assigned to the

honor of being trainee of the week. This recognition came

craft shop. While the rest of Turner’s training company was

with a Saturday pass to leave the company area. Turner got

eventually sent to Vietnam, Turner stayed at Fort Jackson

right on the bus and went directly to the Crafts Center on

where he was assigned as an orderly for a colonel. With the

the base. He went to the clay area and began to throw on

support of his friends, both old and new, Turner eventually

the wheel. A crowd gathered that included Don Clark, the

was assigned to work in the Crafts Program at Fort Jackson.

civilian shop manager, and Sergeant Bill Goldston. Both men were impressed with Turner’s abilities and encouraged him to come back.

During his undergraduate training Turner had attended

He would go on duty in the craft shop from 1:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. He would use the remaining time to make pots.

He had been in the army just five months when he married his college girlfriend and moved off post. His wife

many workshops and made friends with a number of rising

began teaching high school art in Columbia. Turner was

young potters like Larry Carnes, who had arrived at Illinois

grateful to be at Fort Jackson, and grateful to be doing what

State to do graduate work when Turner was finishing the

he loved: making pots. When Turner wasn’t making pots, he

undergraduate program. Carnes had been a student of the

spent his time hanging out at the Columbia Museum of Art or

famous potters Vivika and Otto Heino, and introduced Turner

at Formo’s studio.

to them. As a product of the Heino tradition, Carnes had

Formo planned to build a large gas kiln and Turner

acquired a great deal of ceramic knowledge and experience.

became involved, hoping that he would again have access

As it happened, Carnes had been drafted and sent to Ft.

to firing his work in a high fire gas kiln, instead of the post’s

Leonard Wood where he ran the craft recreational program.

electric kilns.

Carnes, with the help of Clark and Turner’s former

His daily routine consisted of producing pots at the craft

mentor Jim Wozniak, began to pull strings on Turner’s behalf

shop while he was off duty, and then taking them to Formo’s

to allow him to become an arts and crafts specialist. In those

studio to fire them. He was throwing both stoneware and

days, the army assigned each soldier a military occupation

porcelain. When Turner was on duty he worked with GIs and

specialist (MOS) designation. Turner, and his band of

their family members in the crafts program.

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Turner pot from Formo Kiln, 1970.

Turner working as a specialist at the Fort Jackson Craft Center, 1970.

Formo’s Richland Ceramics Kiln and Turner in army fatigues.

T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

21

He also spent time visiting ceramic and art venues all

my life tightening up and becoming precise in my processes.

around the Columbia area. Turner formed a friendship with

I can see this in this piece. As the salt glazed surfaces got

John Davis, who was an employee at the Columbia Museum

stronger, the forms became more subtle.”

of Art, which had a small raku kiln. Davis proposed to salt fire

The Columbia Museum Pot 10 has a form that is classic

in the raku kiln until it was “done,” and Turner thought it to

Turner, an approach to design that he has continued to

be a great idea, so he enthusiastically joined in the project.

develop and refine for over four decades. The principles of

They rigged a drip fuel oil burner system that used a vacuum cleaner motor to blow air into the kiln’s burner port. The fuel oil would drip into the fire and air mixture in the burner port, resulting in a very hot flame. The two potters salt fired the raku until it disintegrated.

Pot 10 is an example of the work that came from that raku kiln. The piece reveals a major step in the development of his technique from Octo Jar. “We did some crazy things that we knew shouldn’t be done, but we were willing to risk things in order to learn. We knew we were destroying the raku kiln, but strangely enough some interesting things came from it, and we learned a lot,” he remembers.

The salt glazed pot, produced from the converted raku kiln, was a pivotal work for the now re-energized Turner, who was on the verge of leaving the military. It represents a critical moment in his transition from being a student potter to becoming a professional potter. It contains many of the components of his loose, free flowing Abstract Expressionism surface design, yet it set a new direction that Turner would pursue for the next several years.

The blue underglaze decoration, which is a throwback to the Abstract Expressionist approach, was formulated by mixing 99% Albany Slip with 1% cobalt carbonate. It was applied to the gray stoneware. In addition, Turner added some bits of porcelain that had been mixed with cobalt carbonate.

To break the surface of the slip, he took a hacksaw blade and did a squiggly, scratchy pattern on the surface.

Turner continued to wrestle with the free flowing approach indicative of expressionism, an approach that was against his basic nature. As he puts it, “I have spent the rest of

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T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

10-Vase, stoneware, salt glazed, 11 ½ x 8 ½, 1970, Columbia, SC.

design that he employs are grounded in classical treatises

neck of the pot just above the blue slip decoration. Turner

on dynamic form, as embodied by the Asian pots of the Sung

observes that he uses these horizontal lines in his work even

and Tang Dynasties. His design ideas set his work apart from

more today; he describes them as “Turner lines.”

novice potters, and put his work at the upper echelon of the

When reviewing the Columbia Museum Pot, Turner

ranks of modern renowned potters. Turner has inscriptions

muses about his views on basic ceramic design. To him the

all over his wall, and one reads “Tang-full, swelling, almost

basic dynamics of a pot can be seen in the relationship of the

bursting form. Sung-continuous curve, suggestion, stillness

diameters, especially when the potter changes the diameter of

and peace.”

the foot in relation to the neck, lip and body. The proportions

It begins with the statement that his teacher, Wozniak,

create dynamic movement and a vertical lift.

conveyed to him as an undergraduate: The beginning of the pot starts with the foot, which creates visual lift.

Turner has always been obsessed with creating that

If the potter creates curves, the viewer’s eyes are going to curve also. The things potters do to a

“visual lift” in his pots. This design concept can best be

pot are critical in directing the viewer’s vision to

described as a feeling of dynamic movement which defies the

where the potter wants it to be. All of my pots, from

visual gravity that would hold a piece down to the horizontal

the beginning, involve creating this vertical lift.

surface upon which it rests. Turner’s design concept involves

That bevel on the bottom of a pot separates the

the work coming up from the surface as if almost floating,

piece from the horizontal resting plane. Starting

leading the viewer on a journey of interesting swelling forms,

from the bottom of the piece the wall moves up

curves, and indentations, and then completing that visual

and cantilevers out. It then lifts the viewer’s eye

journey back to the beginning. By placing the right decorative

to the upper third of the pot where decoration

element on the upper half of the form the line of sight is

and variation of surfaces mostly take place. After

propelled upward over the form.

reaching that upper third, the viewer’s vision is led

This dynamic design concept is revealed in the foot of

to the neck of the piece, and then goes right out to

the salt glazed Pot 10. Like in earlier works, Turner uses a

the lip to complete the journey. These are the things

beveled cut on the foot to give some separation between the

a potter does to make a piece more interesting.

horizontal surface and the pot itself. Generally, the bevel cut is

The studio art potter is always trying to create a

an efficient way of cleaning up the bottom of a pot. With this

unique work. The predictable and the mundane are

pot Turner creates a full body form and a clean, narrow foot

anathema to his or her goals.

that becomes critical to the total design concept.

The narrow foot of the Columbia Museum Pot also

Following up on this statement is Turner’s recollection of

introduced yet another new design component that Turner

how he created the lip of the Columbia Museum Pot. Instead

had discovered: the basic, simple, horizontal line. In this pot,

of settling for a perfectly symmetrical lip, Turner created an

horizontal lines are placed on the clay surface to function as

organic, undulating lip by adding coils and sculpting his desired

design components.

design. For Turner, this treatment of the lip added much more

The first line occurs about a quarter of an inch above the

to the dynamic qualities than a traditional approach would

bevel cut of the foot. In fact, it reinforces the line that results

have. The shapes captured in the lip correlate with the flowing

from the bevel cut. Turner repeats this horizontal line at the

shape of the slip decoration on the shoulder of the pot.

T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

23

Turner summarizes his views about the design of this

As Turner’s time “got short” (less than six months left

pivotal pot, which was to become the genesis for much of his

on his enlistment), he talked to his wife about moving to the

work, by saying:

country so he could build a large salt kiln. The two of them rented property, a cottage near a pond in Red Bank, SC, near

When I am working, I do things and make decisions subconsciously. It is an intuitive process that is

Lexington.

While he had been helping build the salt kiln at Richland,

autonomic and based on all of the things I have

he discovered that Formo had acquired waste fire brick from a

previously learned and experienced. After I finish

defunct local company called R.M. Stork. The brick was under

a work, or unload a kiln, I spend time consciously

fired, high temperature fire brick.

assessing what happened and what I have done.

The Stork Brick Company had been created in 1831 by

Everything you do adds up to what you are going to

a man named Abner Landrum who had direct connections

do next. If you are able to work consistently, and you

with Edgefield Pottery, located near Augusta, GA. Landrum

are interested in growing and developing your work,

had left Edgefield pottery and moved to Columbia to start a

your pots should become better and better. Even to

newspaper, The Hive. In 1831 Landrum also started a pottery

this day I can hardly wait for the next firing in order

business that later evolved into the R.M. Stork Brick Company.

to get a better pot out of the kiln.

Salt Kiln at Red Bank, 1970.

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T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

Turner got permission to salvage brick from the site to build his own salt kiln. He vividly remembers that on more than one occasion he removed more than 2,000 bricks in a single day. The now older Turner attributes his long-standing back problems to this ill-advised effort. An average firebrick weighs about 7 pounds, so he literally moved more than 14,000 pounds of material, or seven tons of bricks, by himself on five occasions while building his kiln at Red Bank.

With those bricks, Turner built a 25-30 cubic foot salt kiln next to their small rented house. The burners were made from 2� pipe nipples bought at a hardware store. The metal frame was salvaged steel, so Turner describes this first salt kiln, and others that followed, as rubble kilns.

With the Red Bank kiln Turner continued to conduct experimental tests that were related to his thesis proposal back at Illinois State University. Pot 13 is a simple porcelain vase. Instead of the body being white, Turner put a small amount of cobalt carbonate in the porcelain. When the piece was salt fired in the kiln, the cobalt turned the porcelain blue, thereby making the glaze blue as well. This experimental pot provided Turner preliminary data that would lead to his ground-breaking research in salt vapor glazing during his later tenure at Clemson University.

13-Vase, blue porcelain with uranium yellow slip, salt glazed, 5 ž x 4, 1971, Red Bank, SC.

T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

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Turner wanted to fire large, salt glazed, stoneware pots in the Red Bank kiln, ones like his mentor Don Reitz had produced in the late 1960s. Turner had attended several workshops where Reitz demonstrated how he made his pots.

Also, Turner had seen many of Reitz’s large works, as well as slides of the kilns used to fire them. Pot 14 is a large salt glazed stoneware piece that Turner admits was heavily influenced by Reitz’s work. The handles on the pot are Turner’s attempt to capture the movement of a signature Reitz handle.

Pot 14, like the previous work fired at the Columbia Museum (Pot 10) illustrates his emerging sense of dynamic design and form. At the same time, it reveals Turner’s continuing references to Abstract Expressionist influences, such as the swirling decorative patterns on the body of the pot and the undulating coils of clay forming the lip.

His civilian supervisor at the army Craft Shop 4, Don Clark, was the first person to take Turner to meet the South Carolina folk potter Otto Brown in Bethune, SC. As a traditional folk potter, Brown made utilitarian objects such as Rebecca Pitchers flower pots and rabbit feeders. The folk potter had lived in the same area all his life. Brown would dig his clay from a nearby pit, and fire his ware without glazes.

This basic approach to pottery intrigued Turner, who had been thoroughly versed in the comparatively refined pottery methods of academe.

During his time at Craft Shop 4, Turner had the opportunity to work with many soldiers who were having difficulty adjusting to life after Vietnam. Many were suffering from what is now termed post-traumatic stress syndrome in some form or another. Turner recalls these soldiers would come to the shop and paint, make pots or do leather work. He remembers helping many of these troubled young men make pots as a means of therapy and reconnecting to normal life.

In February of 1971 Turner was finally discharged from the Army. It was about that time that he also completed the salt kiln at Red Bank. He was ready to become a full-time studio potter.

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T H E S O L D I E R P OT T E R

14-Bottle vase, stoneware, coil thrown, 24 ½ x 17, 1971, Red Bank, SC.

SECTION 4

SA L LI E TAY LO R

27

The Clemson and Liberty Experimental Years

It was 1970, and South Carolina was celebrating its tricentennial history. Turner was still serving in the army but the Greenville County Museum of Art invited Turner and his

in Turner’s initial ceramic classes were not art majors, but architecture majors.

Soon after arriving at Clemson, Turner bought several

wife, Carrie Gordon Turner, who was a jeweler, to do a two-

Brent potter’s wheels and created a studio in a house on

person show next to the museum’s tricentennial exhibit.

campus. He also started building a 40-cubic-foot gas kiln with

At the opening for that show Turner met Harlan McClure, dean of the College of Architecture at Clemson University, who asked Turner to consider coming to Clemson after his

a swinging door-- all before his teaching contract actually took effect.

However, once he became a new faculty member, Turner

discharge from the army to set up a ceramics program in the

was exultant. He felt completely free to experiment and

College of Architecture.

explore salt glazing.

In his initial interview with McClure, Turner asked the dean how he could teach and start a ceramics program at

In addition to the large kiln he built at Clemson, Turner also built a small box kiln from the brick salvaged from his Red

Clemson since he had not yet completed his master’s degree at Illinois State. Harlan responded that it was standard practice to hire a person with a bachelor’s degree at the instructor level, and the instructor would then take graduate classes toward completing a master’s degree.

Turner was faced with a choice: should he take Clemson’s offer or go back to graduate school at another institution? He surveyed all his past mentors as to what to do. They advised him to take the position at Clemson, take advantage of the GI Bill, and complete his Master of Fine Arts. Turner accepted Harlan’s offer, and in the summer of 1971 the Turners moved to Clemson. It proved to be another turning point in his career, for his master’s thesis at Clemson would eventually lead to his breakthrough development of copper red vapor glazing on salt fired ware.

When he arrived at Clemson he discovered they had only a few pieces of equipment, no ceramic classes, no art major, not even an art department. In the South Carolina university system there was a policy against program duplication among institutions. Since the University of South Carolina had an art department and various art majors, Clemson could not duplicate those programs.

Dean McClure developed a brilliant strategy to get around the limitation. He and the faculty essentially created an art program within the architecture program. Students

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T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

Clemson 40 cubic foot kiln, 1971.

Bank kiln. The interior brick of that old kiln had been destroyed

At that time, Turner was moving away from the

by the salt, but the outside layer was saved and reused. The

Abstract Expressionist influences that he encountered in

brick was stacked in an 18”x24”x24” box. For a kiln roof, Turner

undergraduate school. The blue slip decoration that he had

placed pieces of silicon carbide shelving over the open top,

done with Pot 10, no longer held his interest. He wanted to

and soft firebrick was placed over the shelving to complete the

move away from direct and contrived decorative effects.

roof. One simple pipe burner was used to fire the kiln.

This little box kiln would play a major role in Turner’s

Turner stresses that when he committed to vapor firing with a colorant being injected into the kiln atmosphere it was

experimental copper red vapor salt firings, and to his

all or nothing. The residue left in the kiln’s firebox after firing

breakthrough graduate research: colorants in the body, on the

would re-vaporize, forcing the potter to use that kiln for only

body and in the vapor.

that color in the future.

Clemson experimental salt kiln, 1972.

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

29

Even to this day Turner has brick fragments from these early salt kilns that have the most amazing layers of thick, taffy-like, metallic greens, reds and iridescent running salt glazes. When looking again at these fragments it reminds Turner that he had no fear about committing a kiln solely to a single process that he wanted to explore. If he incurred a problem, he would simply salvage as much brick as he could and build another kiln.

18-Brick portion of experimental copper red vapor kiln at Clemson, 1971. 18 ½ x 8 x 5 ½

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T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

Turner had come to the realization that with copper red

cobalt and other minerals. When the stock salt was placed in

vapor glazing in a salt kiln, he could achieve incredible visual

the firing chamber these minerals would vaporize and become

activity. The decoration would actually come not so much

a part of the glaze, forming a very dark black color within the

from a predetermined decorative technique performed before

glaze itself. So he learned not to use stock salt. However, the

the firing, but rather as a part of the firing process itself, which

experience also confirmed his idea that copper could vaporize

the potter would have to somehow master and control.

and be a part of a salt glaze.

To reach that goal, Turner had to change the way he

From 1971 to 1976 Turner taught at Clemson and

created pots. First, he gravitated towards throwing more pure,

continued to develop his copper vapor glaze. Since both

basic ceramic forms, such as swelling globes with minimal

he and his wife were earning paychecks he was willing to

appendages. He made these forms super strong in order for

experiment with the firing process, even if it meant sustaining

them to survive the rather unorthodox salt firing techniques.

heavy kiln losses of 90% or more. Turner describes his

During this experimental period Turner also changed the

approach to research at Clemson this way:

clay body he was using. The stoneware body that he used in firing pieces at the Columbia Museum fired a gray to brown

Coming from an art school, it was all about research

color. Since the glaze formed in the salting process was clear,

for me. My goal was to do something that had

the pot would be the gray to brown color of the clay itself.

not been done before, to do something that was

With the new process, however, a gray or brown clay would

not boring. Some potters say everything has been

tend to reduce the intensity of the copper red color of the

done before, but don’t tell our scientists that. Not

glaze. Over time, Turner changed his clay body to a “dirty”

everything has been done already. I say it now, and

gray porcelain, and eventually to a white porcelain that would

I said it then, the copper red vapor salt glazing had

intensify the copper red color.

never been done before in the history of ceramics.

Turner’s interest in copper red vapor glazing during the early part of his tenure at Clemson can be traced back to his first semester of graduate work at Illinois State. And at Red

Turner makes the following observation about the path he chose during this period:

Bank he had made an initial start by including cobalt and copper into the porcelain. His Clemson research took him

In 1977 I tried to be a production potter of “one-

right back to where he had left off before being drafted. The

of-a-kind pieces,” but the challenge of porcelain

small box kiln at Clemson allowed him precise control over the

and my artistic level translated to higher prices

firing and salt process on a small scale. Its size allowed him to

than if I had stayed with stoneware. So I eventually

do a fast series of tests in a short period of time.

concentrated on “one-of-a-kind” art pottery pieces.

Reitz had used copper in a flashing process during salt

It was a transitional time and I was finding my way.

firing, where a little bit would hit one side of the pot. Reitz also used a block of stock salt intended for livestock that was full of metallic oxides as vitamins. Reitz’s work provided valuable information for Turner about vaporization. He proved that salt glaze is clear and dependent upon the clay, slips, glazes, or vapor for color. The stock salt contained copper, magnesium,

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

31

Pots 16 and 17 come from one of the first firings in the little rubble kiln at Clemson. Turner states that Pot 16 still

Horizontal lines are strong at the foot of the pot as well as in the upper third. There is more attention to detail in Turner’s

exhibits some references to Abstract Expressionism, with its

view, less loose and free. As the glaze activity increased,

organic handles, the rippling lip and the squiggly lines around

Turner made quieter forms so as not to compete with the glaze.

the pot. By comparison, Pot 17 reveals a shift in approach,

Turner says Pot 17 illustrates what became known as

away from Abstract Expressionism toward more economy of

the “Tom Turner signature design”. From this period to the

design. This pot has a more traditional lip and a more distinct

present, he has continuously worked to refine these basic

foot than previous pots. The handles on the piece have been

design components in his work: the fullness and visual lift

downsized to what Turner refers to as “visual nubbies.”

similar to that of Tang Dynasty pieces.

16–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, 8 ½ x 9, 1972.

Clemson, SC.

17–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, 8 ¾ x 8, 1972, Clemson, SC.

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T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

Turner recalls that potters in the 1970s did not fully

Turner had proved that the copper in the body of Pot

realize that the salt glaze in a standard firing was clear and

16 had vaporized during the firing, producing an excess of

the color of the pots came from the body color, slip colors

copper in the kiln atmosphere that deposited onto Pot 17. He

or the color of the vapor. Even before his work at Clemson,

also learned that the excess copper vapor had permeated the

Turner had conducted tests to prove his contention. While

entire kiln and would remain there during additional firings. It

in the army, he had mixed cobalt carbonate into a clay body

was an “aha moment” for Turner. He now had proof that it was

and then fired a pot in a salt kiln. It resulted in a brilliant blue

not necessary to put the copper carbonate into the body of a

pot, proving his theory that the clear salt glaze would take on

pot. If the copper carbonate was in the atmosphere of the kiln,

the color of the body. He was certain that copper carbonate

a plain white pot would become red.

infused in a clay body would cause a copper red salt glaze in a reduction atmosphere, and his test proved it.

Turner’s initial hypothesis about copper red salt firing focused on having copper carbonate inside the clay itself. He speculated that the salt glaze would react to the copper in the

“I was always intrigued with copper red glazes. The research I read said copper reds loved sodium, so I concluded that since salt is pure sodium one could create a beautiful copper red salt glaze by using it,” he says.

For Turner the next plan was to stop infusing copper

body, coloring the glaze, and if fired properly, would reduce to

carbonate into the clay body, since he now knew that it was

a copper red glaze.

unnecessary. Instead, he mixed the copper carbonate with the

During his experiments with cobalt carbonate in a clay

salt itself. The critical factor for vaporizing the copper, as well as

body, he discovered that the clay body turned blue because

the salt, was a very hot firebox and strong reduction for the red.

of the cobalt, so the salt glaze itself also turned blue. Turner

He discovered by experimentation that if the burner flame was

proved that the glaze resulting from salting at around

too soft and the firebox too cool, the salt and colorant would

cone 8 or 9 was always clear, and that the clay body color

just melt and run out of the kiln. He used Big Bertha burners to

determined the final color. Interestingly, both Pot 16 and 17

insure he had a hot flame and a hot fire box to vaporize the salt

were created in the same firing, sitting side by side in the

and copper quickly. His subsequent firings further confirmed

small box kiln.

his developing theory was correct. The higher the residue of

Pot 16 had a clay body that included copper carbonate as a colorant. Pot 17 was a porcelain based stoneware body

copper accumulated in the kiln, and primarily in the firebox, the more color imparted to the next pots fired.

without colorants. Upon unloading the kiln, Turner discovered that the color on Pot 17 was actually from the copper in Pot 16 vaporizing.

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

33

Copper red salt pot with ceramic cones colored with copper red. This was an accident caused by the cone pack being too close to the pot. When the cones melted they touched and attached itself to the pot. It almost ended up on the scrap heap, but Turner realized its uniqueness.

Turner remembers later on doing workshops with students at various institutions where he explained his

used this technique to produce ruby red glass.

Pot 20, fired in his kiln at his home in Liberty, illustrates

new technique of mixing copper with salt. After he left, the

another glaze treatment also gleaned from glass blowers.

students would throw the copper into the kiln with the salt.

Turner added tin chloride to the firebox during the cooling

Some of their professors contacted Turner to complain about

cycle, just at or slightly below red heat. A smoke vapor of tin

the residual effects of the copper. His defense was that he

chloride passed through the kiln, coating over the salt glaze

didn’t do it, he only showed students how he did it in his kiln.

surface. The result of this fuming process was an iridescent

The top horizontal lines on Pot 17 have a layer of gold

color that covered the copper red glaze. Glassblowers have

luster and Turner says there are very few glazed pots with

created iridescent glass surfaces for decades, if not centuries,

these distinctive embellishments. The gold was applied

before him, using the same technique. From this initial

alongside the already existing incised lines as a means of

experiment Turner expanded this new knowledge of fuming.

enhancing the horizontal breaks or lines.

The refiring of the pot with the gold luster lines to cone

Using his big kiln, Turner modified the technique of placing the tin chloride in the fire box. Instead, he would take

019 had a secondary benefit. After the firing Turner noticed

down one or two courses of the door and set the chloride

that the pot had a more intense red than before. The firing

crystals on top of the kiln door and on the shelves inside when

used to melt and fuse the gold luster to the pot had also

the temperature was between 900° to 1000 °. He discovered

functioned as a striking technique. Striking, or reheating

that this technique was a more controlled process producing

the glaze, can cause the glaze to develop more intensity and

a more uniform iridescence. As the chimney drew the smoky

brilliance of color due to the realignment of the protons and

fumes through the kiln, Turner blew additional air on the

neutrons, which changes the light refraction. Glass blowers

crystals with a special wand that was connected to an air hose.

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T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

He describes Pot 20 as a “lesson pot”, in that it taught

allowed the bottom of the piece to be glazed as much as the

him the necessity of a glaze thick enough to maintain the red

rest of the pot. After seeing Pot 20, Don Pilcher remarked that

reduced copper color in the re-oxidation of cooling. Previously

he could not tell if the pot was glass or clay.

he would discard pots because they were not red enough.

Now he could refire them, increasing the glaze thickness

The discovery process described above illustrates Turner’s attitude of doing whatever it takes to produce the

with a second salting, and get incredible results. This led him

desired effect, regardless of the consequences. It is grounded

to use refiring as a technique throughout his career.

in extreme curiosity, and always asking, “what if?”

Turner remembers making the discovery quite by

Not only is Pot 20 significant in Turner’s development of

accident. One day when he was loading the kiln, he put two

copper red salt glaze, it is also a complete departure from the

recently fired failures that were white instead of red back into

Abstract Expressionist influence. It was a pure form, free of

the kiln. One of these failures was in fact the current bright

any scratching and decoration that would compete with the

red Pot 20.The decision to refire the rejected white pots was a

form itself. It was a purer form for the more visually exciting

whim based on the fact he had empty space in the kiln. When

vapor glaze to dance on. The piece was featured in Studio

he unloaded the kiln Turner was astonished to discover they

Potter, Volume 8, Number 1.

were the brightest reds in the entire kiln. The second vapor firing increased the glaze thickness, added more colorant and maintained the red in cooling. In shock and disbelief he now realized that all those first fired failures that he had condemned to the shard pile could have been refired and thereby redeemed with a high rate of success by obtaining that elusive bright copper red.

Working and developing Pot 20 taught Turner another valuable lesson. During this experimental phase, Turner paid no attention to the “conventional wisdom,” rejecting the old adage that stoneware and porcelain could be fired only once.

He fired Pot 20 three times, and with each firing he discovered an important phenomenon concerning copper red glazing.

There is a zone of thickness for copper red glaze: if the glaze is too thin it cannot hold enough copper to produce the bright red color. If it is too thick, however, there will be too much copper and the color turns toward a dark red producing an almost metallic color. The multiple firings of Pot 20 allowed him to build up the glaze just to the right thickness to create the desired red. The color is also improved by the striking effect created by the multiple firings.

In fact, there was so much glaze build up on Pot 20 that it is hard to read the date on the bottom. The porcelain stilts

20–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, fumed for iridescence, 7 ¼ x 7, 1973, Liberty, SC.

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

35

Around the time of Pots 16, 17 and 20, he was making the

During his second year at Clemson, Turner and his wife

transition from stoneware to porcelain. He describes the body

bought an old house and a small barn out in the country near

he was using at this time as a “dirty” porcelain.

Liberty, SC. The name of the town was symbolic of this period

Turner had been reluctant to commit to porcelain

in his life. The ceramics program at Clemson was off to a great

because there was only one old formula that he knew of, the

start and Turner now had the freedom to experiment and

“equal parts” formula. It consisted of equal parts ball clay,

develop his own way of forming and glazing pots. There were

kaolin, feldspar and silica. The resulting body was very short

no instructors to show him the “proper” way or next step. He

(non-plastic) and hard to work on the wheel. The equal parts

was at liberty to find his own path of creativity and innovation.

formula also limited the scale of the work, and Turner still had

During this second year Turner applied for and received

not let go of his visions of massive four-foot tall forms coming

a South Carolina Arts Commission artist’s grant to build

out of his salt kiln-- just as his mentor Reitz was producing.

a 60-cubic-foot experimental salt glaze kiln. Previously

Turner was able to resolve his reservations about

discussed Pot 20 was one of the first pots from this kiln. In

transitioning to porcelain by making trips to the Georgia kaolin

his application, Turner proposed building his experimental

mines, which were a short distance from Clemson. There he

salt glaze kiln out of high alumina bricks, to minimize damage

consulted ceramic engineers as well as the mine managers.

to the interior of the kiln due to the corrosive nature of the

After some testing he settled on a porcelain formula using

salting procedure. The large kiln would allow him to walk into

Tile 6 and Kaopaque 20. Years later they stopped producing

the firing chamber without the aggravation of bending over,

Kaopaque 20, and he again had to reformulate. Turner went

and without further irritating his recurring back problems. In

with English kaolin instead.

addition, he still wanted the ability to fire large work in a salt

The clay body of these Pots 16, 17 and 20 is a modification of this old porcelain body. Turner added 10% AP Green

kiln like his mentor Reitz.

By using alumina bricks, Turner hypothesized there

Fireclay and 10% feldspathic sand from Spruce Pine, NC. Thus

would be less buildup of salt on the inside of the kiln, therefore

he referred to it as a “dirty porcelain.”

extending its life. He also postulated that if he ever decided

The inquisitive Turner realized the old porcelain formula

to go back to traditional stoneware and porcelain firings,

created a very smooth clay surface. However, in salt firing,

the minimal buildup of salt would facilitate the conversion

a smooth surface does not create the classic orange peel

process. The idea was that, after several firings, the residue

effect during salt glazing that he was after. The addition of the

of salt would have vaporized and left the kiln because it never

fireclay helped break up the surface so that the orange peel

completely fused to the alumina firebricks. Older salt kilns

could develop. Furthermore, the feldspathic sand created

collapsed from this erosion.

even more orange peel by melting into the glaze to create a unique, rough surface.

Turner wrote an article in Ceramics Monthly about the

The brick used were A.P. Green Mizzlu Firebrick, which contained 65% alumina. He also used high alumina ceramic castable in the arch of the kiln. Using a castable arch was

copper red salt glaze process. He acknowledges that even

an innovation in the emerging field of studio kiln building.

today some people do not believe what he did and are

Time would prove that his research kiln did, in fact, retard

surprised when they replicate the process. Turner was known

salt buildup, and that the castable arch was an effective

to work outside the standard textbooks, so it took time for

alternative to the traditional wedge brick arch system. The

others to fully understand and accept what he accomplished.

kiln was very expensive because of the specialized bricks.

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Studio at Liberty, South Carolina, 1972. This building was the first endeavor

by Turner to convert an out building into an artist studio. He would repeat this procedure four more times throughout his career.

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Turner initially created a one-ton arch by using a castable

“Nice and tight” captured the essence of his approach to

refractory mix. Eventually he hammered off the arch and

ceramics, and his inner assessment of his creative work. Unlike

replaced it with a plastic refractory material.

the free flowing and rapidly changing creative developments

When Turner resigned from Clemson in 1976 to pursue

espoused in Abstract Expressionism and modern art, Turner

making pots full-time, he discovered just how right his theory

embraced a more controlled, analytical approach to creativity.

about alumina brick had been. He decided to move away from

Yes, his work would change and go in different directions, but

salt glazing and into traditional glaze firing. He placed pots

not in a fast or erratic path. Turner was very aware that he had

with standard glazes in the salt kiln. During the first firing,

embraced a slow, evolutionary path. There would be creative

some of the salt residue from the firebox and the walls of the

leaps and flashes of insight, but Turner would always be able

kiln vaporized and adhered to the pots, creating an interesting

to analyze and document how he arrived at a specific process.

interaction of salt glaze with regular feldspathic glazes. By the

His followers would never hear vague statements from Turner.

third regular firing the salt had completely vaporized and no

He has always taken pride in explaining, in clear terms, how

longer had any effect on the pots with traditional glazes.

he arrived at a particular technique and he has always been

The gas kiln he built for Clemson was all new materials.

willing to share his research and experimentation with anyone

When he finally had financial resources from the South

seriously committed to the ceramic arts. Consequently, he

Carolina Arts Commission grant, Turner was able to buy all

was frequently invited to teach workshops at universities and

new materials for his own experimental salt kiln at Liberty.

art schools.

The materials cost over $3,000.

Turner had an all or nothing philosophy when it came

Turner’s process of critiquing his work was just as methodical. It was also harsh by any standard. He would

to life and building kilns. He viewed his work, and the entire

unload his 60-cubic-foot salt kiln and sometimes end up

ceramic process, as research. He was willing to spend and do

destroying 90% of the work. Decisions were not only based on

whatever it took to build the best kiln possible for what he

the criteria of technical failure, but also on his high aesthetic

wanted to do. He says that “all or nothing” attitude is still with

standard. A pot might just not be red enough, suffering the

him today. He puts it in a matter of fact way:

fate of a swinging hammer.

Turner maintains that this self-imposed, harsh standard

If I could get incredible copper reds out of my

goes back to his initial training. He had been taught to be his

electric kiln, but destroy the elements in the firing,

own worst critic. At the end of a semester, his old professor,

I would rewire the kiln every time I fired it. That is

Wozniak, would have his fellow students separate their good

where my head is at. That is why I have never made

pots from their bad ones. The professor would then go around

any money. I have always been about the art, not

to each student and point out: “This bad one you selected is

about the cost.

not so bad, and this good one here is not so good.” Everyone would participate in a dialogue concerning what should be

During this period of initial research into copper red firing, a phrase became attached to Turner’s work: “nice and tight.” A workshop class at the Penland School of Arts and Crafts made a tee shirt for him and for class members, which had that phrase boldly displayed on the front.

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kept and what should be thrown away. According to Turner:

Turner ramming the castable for Liberty Kiln arch.

Completed Liberty experimental salt kiln, 1973.

Finishing the arch form of the kiln.

Replacing the first cast arch. The process was featured in an article appearing in Studio Potter.

Not being solely dependent on the income from selling Our critiques ended with the hammer. Pots that

his own work during those years at Liberty freed Turner

didn’t meet our standards met the head face of the

to be a savage critic. He could live up to his “nice and tight”

hammer. Wozniak never broke a student’s pots, the

philosophy. Ironically, Pot 20 had taught Turner a hard lesson.

student did. So we learned, if a pot is not worthy of

When the pot was re-fired the initial pale color became an

your signature, you were to break it.

intense red and Turner abruptly realized that dozens of pots that had been destroyed could have been redeemed through re-firing, if only he had known.

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

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Like all potters in college, he had been taught never to re-fire. Professors were probably motivated by saving fuel and conserving space in the kiln, rather than by any technical

1969 Young Americans Exhibition embodied the spirit of that training,” he says.

Although out of school and on his own, Turner confesses,

reasons. Turner opened a whole new area of research by re-

“I was still under the influence of mentors like Ralph Bacerra,

firing at multiple temperatures. The old adage that a high fire

Don Reitz, Don Pilcher, and David Shaner, potters I revered.

pot can be fired only once is analogous to the notion that you

As a professional potter you gradually work towards

only get one chance to take a test and you get only one grade.

yourself. I gradually worked myself away from the Abstract

The learning is eliminated at the end of the test.

Expressionist influences.”

Turner was willing to accept losses, and he did not

He broke away from those early influences by

hesitate to toss an unacceptable pot onto the shard pile.

subconsciously allowing his personality to take over, and by

Quality control was everything to Turner; there was no middle

“focusing on the glaze and firing processes.” “Everything in

ground. Either a Tom Turner pot was an outstanding example

these pots during the Clemson/Liberty Period came from the

of ceramic art or it was a shard.

glaze and firing, so much so that I didn’t need other things such

Always learning from acute observation, Turner came

as slips, scratches and handles. I used simplified subtle forms

to understand that the copper red had several variables

such as globes. I did small forms, round bottles, that came from

which needed to be controlled to achieve maximum results.

my association with Don Pilcher and Larry Cranes, both Vivika

One critical variable is the thickness of the glaze, essential

Heino students.”

for holding the red color during the reduction cycle. Some

Turner confesses he did attempt to replicate Pilcher’s

initial failures had glaze layers that were very thin, but when

round bottle forms but never could. He finally realized he had

they were fired a second time, the additional layer of glaze

to simply find his own way and take ownership of the forms

was sufficient to capture and hold the copper red. How much

he produced himself. Turner recalls that Reitz once told him,

copper, and how it was mixed in the raw salt, was also critical.

“Let your forms come from the manner in which you move the

The level and time of reduction in the kiln atmosphere was

material, hence everyone’s round bottles will be different.”

another important factor.

Reflecting back on these early professional years, Turner

Summarizing his mindset during this period at Liberty, Turner says:

believes there are two things an emerging potter, like himself, cannot get away from. The potter’s initial training and his or

Everything is based on intent. Creativity comes

her basic personality are critical components to creative and

from being curious, being willing to take chances

professional growth. Turner still believes a young potter must

and to lose work, and to observe and learn from

work to incorporate that basic training in his or her work,

your failures. I did this every firing. As Vivika Heino

while transcending and going beyond it.

always told us, never fire a kiln without a test in it.

For instance, Turner remembers that the strong influence from his first mentors came from the continuous

Turner stresses that, even after all these decades of

effect of Abstract Expression that characterized almost

making pots, he is still learning from every firing. At Liberty he

all university art programs. “In undergraduate school we

did not view himself as a production potter, he viewed himself

were urged to loosen up, scratch, stretch, pull, and tear the

as a studio potter, like a painter in a studio striving to create

form, and then finish it on the wheel. The work I had in the

new art works that are unique and different. His training

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drove him to always strive to go further, to go to a place where

This decision proved pivotal again to his development as

no one else had ever gone. From the perspective of a tenured

an artist. “This was that moment in time when I left academia,

assistant professor, however, he was conducting critical

but I never left teaching. I left Clemson and stopped salt

applied research in his field.

glazing and this was the beginning of my glazed porcelain

“One of the most ridiculous statements that people make is that everything has been done before. Bullshit. Do not tell

phase which I haven’t left.”

Turner had the copper red vapor process perfected by

our engineers and scientists that. They developed Fiberfrax as

1973 and was seeking new challenges. Pot 23 has a copper red

a light weight refractory material for nose cones. It never had

vapor over blue porcelain, so the result is a purple salt glaze.

been done before,” he explains.

Turner recalls that at this point he did not want to fire the lids

From 1973 to 1976 Turner remained at Liberty devoting

on the pot, so he had to design a lid that would stand alone

as much time as possible to making pots and developing his

during the firing. In firing, the salt vapor went everywhere and

red vapor salt glazes. He increasingly became frustrated in

would glaze the lid onto the pot. The same thing happens to

that he had to create work in his home studio for firing in his

the foot, so a potter puts the foot on a tripod of stilts between

salt kiln, and then return to Clemson every day, to work with

the bottom of the pot and the kiln shelf. This sticking problem

his students as a new assistant professor. He describes the

hindered the creation of a classical foot ring on the vessel. The

situation as a constant process of covering and uncovering

process determined how the foot was trimmed and how it was

pots with plastic while traveling between the two locations.

designed. The same concerns were involved in making the lid.

When he decided to resign from Clemson none of his

While the pot could function as a pot without a lid, Turner felt

colleagues knew until it became official. Many wanted him

the form was waiting for a lid. In Turner’s estimation, the pot

to stay, but he was frustrated with the academic process and

could have had a lip even stronger so when the lid was off it

university politics. It only got worse after 1976. Turner says

could function simply as a vase.

he tries not to reflect back by asking, “What if?” Another path

With Pot 23, Turner put a small percentage of cobalt

might have been to go to another university. Even today there

carbonate into the porcelain, perhaps only a quarter of a

are moments when he wishes that he had relocated to another

percent. He had run tests years earlier to show the extent of

school, maybe in the Midwest. As he puts it:

blue produced at each percentage increment. Pot 23 has an iridescence in the glaze surface. This effect was created, as

After all these years I would be retired and very

previously noted, by introducing tin chloride into the kiln as it

comfortable financially. But the counter argument

is cooling around 1000° to 900°F. So again this pot embodies a

that comes to mind is that I wouldn’t have been able

synthesis of accumulated knowledge from previous pots.

to pursue my work with the full focus and intensity

A 2013 DVD on Turner’s working techniques has a

that I did. I resigned from Clemson to focus all

chapter called ‘Turner Lines.’ He makes these lines on the

my attention on my work, no holds barred and no

surface of the pot to delineate different parts of the form. He

stones left unturned.

now knows that an incised line on a pot is going to fill with glaze and get darker. A protrusion will cause the glaze to thin, resulting in a lighter line because of the white porcelain showing through. Initially it was form delineation that he was seeking. With Pot 23 it begins at the foot. What starts at the

T H E C L E M S O N A N D LI B E RT Y E X P E RI M E N TA L Y E A R S

41

foot goes all the way to the top of the pot. He even has a circle

lines throughout the slip. There are a couple of applied circles

in the foot which gives him a defined place to sign and date the

with a dot. Turner explains his design concept for this work

pot. One can also see the three tripod marks and the foot is

by saying:

concave to give the pot stability.

Here the decoration is just an abstract use of cobalt blue slip with some rutile and uranium over the blue, and incised

I make a line and the viewer may view them as periods of the designs, exclamation points or accents. My pots are about visual lift so the decoration tends to fall on the upper half or upper third. So everything I do draws the eye to the top of the pot. So this to me is a very significant pot. It was made in the middle period, which continued to the end of 1976.

How did Turner know he had reached the right amount of salt in the glazing process? Visually, by looking through the peep hole. As he explains the process: I used to explain salt glazing to people as if you thought of sweating. When you begin to sweat the beads are small. The more you sweat the larger the beads get. With salt glazing the pots are sweating in this sodium vapor and the sodium is reacting with the silica. The longer the pot is in this atmosphere the more orange peel there is on the surface. We were after surface back then, we didn’t like dry salt. But now the trend is to do dry soda firing. The process of putting the damper in to hold sodium vapor has a point of no return where you start over reducing. Here again we have to learn and apply the information learned to the process. In industrial salt glazing of block or tile, they would throw in that salt and close down the kiln. The vapor would stay in the kiln and glaze the work. That is where they get that term sewer pipe brown: the ware was salt glazed in heavy reduction, far in excess for pottery.

23–Vase, blue porcelain covered with salt glaze with infused red copper, fumed for iridescence, 11 x 9, 1973, Liberty, SC.

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Pot 27, a teapot, is a basic stoneware piece. When Turner was committed to salt glazing and doing research there were periods where he had so much loss that occasionally it would depress him. So he would do one or two loads of regular salt glaze stoneware, which was relatively easy, and he would see a 100% success out of the firing. At that time, Turner was a member of Piedmont Craftsmen, an organization that held a show in Winston-Salem. They held a teapot invitational show, and Turner decided to make an oversized teapot.

Being art school trained, he was not tied to any tradition. The teapot form has been used by many artists to take off toward sculpture, and it is the epitome of the potter’s problem-solving ability, both visually and technically. There is the pot, the lid, the spout and the handle, all of which are made separately but all needing to be brought together as one.

Pot 27 is a two gallon stoneware teapot, single fired with salt glaze. The decoration is similar to Pot 23. The lid was fired in place and the little bit of alumina hydrate used to keep it from sticking is still visible. In Turner’s experience, stoneware salts slower and develops glazes slower than porcelain. So a lid on a porcelain piece would have stuck much faster than a stoneware lid because porcelain contains more silica.

Since this teapot was made for an invitational show, it was a decorative piece in Turner’s estimation: Who is going to make two gallons of tea? I was

27-Teapot, stoneware, salt glazed over colored slip, fumed for iridescence, 14 x 11, 1975, Liberty, SC.

exaggerating the idea of a teapot. At the beginning of the Academic Ceramic Art Movement, we art students played with the rules of function and pushed beyond

decoration on the spout and lid. There are lines at the

them in attempting to produce art.

lip, and lines at the foot. This piece was made in 1975, but I still do this today.

When the potter is making a teapot, he or she has to first make a good pot and then make the other parts

The darker part of the decoration is Albany slip with

to fit and relate together. It is quite a challenge. This

1% cobalt. Down below is some Albany slip with rutile.

teapot also had the little bits of porcelain as white

The handle was pulled to make it decorative. I have

circles. I still do a similar sort of thing. I have the

a lot of lines in the pulling of the handle. I pulled the

Turner lines in the pot, but I also created a stamped

handle, let it set up, and then attached it to the pot.

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Pot 31 is a classic Turner vertical lift form of the Liberty period. The porcelain body is infused with a feldspathic sand.

The feldspathic particles melt with the sodium salt vapor to form the large rivulets of red glaze. This glaze pattern has been described as “orange peel.” The previous salt fired stoneware teapot did not contain feldspathic sand in clay body, and therefore the orange peel surface did not form. Also the heavy amounts of silica in the porcelain body of Pot 31 aided in the development of the glassy surface.

By 1976 Turner had been granted tenure at Clemson, and the new ceramics program he had created was growing by leaps and bounds. Just when everything was on track and going well, Turner had this nagging feeling that he needed to commit full-time to developing his work as a ceramic artist.

When he resigned, his students and colleagues were bewildered. “No one said I made a smart decision, but I wanted to focus all my creative energies on my pots. I couldn’t do that and serve as a faculty member at Clemson.”

After leaving Clemson in 1976, his career as an artist continued to blossom. He was in as many major shows as he could handle. Back then, Turner recalls that a good potter did

31–Bottle vase, porcelain, salt glazed infused with red copper, fumed for iridescence, 7 x 7 ¾, 1976, Liberty, SC.

not have to sell his work: people came to you and asked for it.

As he launched his career as a full-time studio art potter, Turner had a change in direction. He felt he had explored

While it produced an unusual glaze surface, the salt did not

salt firing enough and wanted to discover and develop other

affect the glaze functionally or aesthetically. This frosting

processes in working with porcelain. Besides, the salt process

effect diminished with each firing so by the fourth firing it had

tended to limit the forms he could create to bottles and lidded

vanished all together.

containers. He had fallen in love with porcelain.

Fortunately, in the design of the salt kiln that used high alumina, salt resistant materials paid great dividends. The light salt accumulation on the inside brick allowed Turner to make an easy transition to doing regular high fired porcelain.

Turner converted to a very traditional porcelain clay body consisting of kaolin, feldspar, ball clay and silica. He

This new focus on traditional porcelain forced Turner to return to more traditional decorating techniques, such as slip and glaze trailing, as well as into combing glazes.

For the remaining time at Liberty, Turner experimented with these and other decorating techniques, always following his mantra to do something different and unique.

He did the very first American Crafts Council Baltimore

made a series of pots and glazed them with regular glazes

Show in 1977. “I became a full-time studio potter and was

and placed them in the salt kiln. On the first few firings, the

doing national and invitational shows, and was in major

pots had a frosted surface of sodium residue on the glaze.

galleries that carried high quality ceramic art. When I

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resigned from Clemson my salary would have been $13,000,

Turner went to college to become a potter. He became a

and I thought if I could sell $13,000 worth of pots that would

potter who loved making pots, but noticed his teachers were

be very cool. Well, I sold $13,000 worth of pots, but I didn’t

not saving any of their work. As he puts it:

make $13,000. I had to handle overhead such as insurance and all those basic living requirements. But my wife, who was

First of all they were not making much, they would

a high school teacher, and I pooled our resources and got by

work during the summer for the upcoming faculty

quite well.”

show. I thought to myself, I’m doing this because

Copper red vapor piece Pot 35 was done in 1976. It was

I love it, so why shouldn’t I keep my best work. So

one of his last copper red salt pieces. Turner describes the

I instituted a policy in undergraduate school that

process:

I would save my best work and that practice has stayed with me throughout my career. So if I was

I have spoken before about influences and

working on a problem and it got to where a work

assimilating but not copying. This is what I call

had satisfied my intent, I kept that piece. Who

a bi-form, and it really came from seeing Don

would deserve it more than me?

Reitz make multiple part pots. The bottom base is a bowl. The top is thrown right side up without a bottom. I always trimmed leatherhard. I can’t throw that form wet, but I can put the two forms together leatherhard. It is a structure within itself that holds together.

Cantilevering porcelain is rather tricky. The big question is, what is the limit to what you can do?

There again, a potter has to take risks in finding out the limits. Nevertheless, I never had one collapse.

The other thing is that I am prone to making these round, bulbous, beach ball forms. I am doing it right now. There are times when I make forms that are not typical of my style. I force myself to work out of my comfort zone just to break up my preconceived mindset, and add a different kind of interest. That is what this piece was all about.

The piece was in 35 Artists of the Southeast, which opened at the High Museum in Atlanta and toured for two or three years. Turner recalls he may have had five pieces in that show that are now in this retrospective.

35–Bi-form, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, blue slip, fumed for iridescence, 7 ¾ x 10, 1976, Liberty, SC.

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Pot 36, done in 1976, was an unusual piece at the time, and part of the transition from salt glaze to chemical glazes.

It has very light salt. The upper half has all the surface decoration which was cog wheeled and stamped. The yellow gold glaze is Tesha, from Bernard Leach’s book. Turner increased levels of iron beyond what Leach called for. Tesha is a high clay glaze, so it was good for this single-fired salt glaze process. Turner recalls that the glaze had 18% iron, but the sodium diluted the colorant strength of the iron. Tesha appeared in Leach’s book as the Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie glaze. If Turner had just used the original formula the color would have come out much lighter, but he wanted more iron activity. The glaze was applied to the greenware pot, and single-fired in the kiln.

This is an example of almost covering the entire piece with a slip or glaze, then salting the piece. It is opposite of the copper red vapor process. He kept the piece because of its unique, contrasting qualities: I didn’t do too many of these. Back in the 70s everything was so new and folks knew very little, so everything was an experiment. Here again, I was looking for that special effect. No one told me what to do. I put Tesha inside a pot one time and saw how it reacted where the salt hit it, so I had accumulated knowledge that it would work on the outside of a pot also. I made the connection that it could then be used as a decorative technique. The previous piece with the Tesha glaze and salt was a transition piece. Pots 40, 41 and 44 are examples of pots I made just after I resigned from Clemson and stopped salt glazing.

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36–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed over iron slip glaze, fumed for iridescence, 7 ½ x 8, 1976, Liberty, SC.

Pot 40 is a casserole form. Giving up the visual activity of the vapor glaze, he now had to create visual activity on the surface of the pot as well as in the glaze. So here, Turner resorted to slip trailing and combing. This wide covered form is really influenced by Ralph Bacerra, but does not look like a Bacerra pot. The inner influence was to make this wide lidded form so one could decorate the top. The concept comes from a traditional casserole, but these were made as art pots to be appreciated visually.

The slip trailing on the form is liquid porcelain. Turner describes his influences this way: What is interesting is that the decoration came from a Michael Cardew plate that I own, but it is in reverse. Michael had put slip on his plate and carved it, I put slip on this piece and ran my finger through it. That pattern is on many Michael Cardew pots, but here again it is assimilation, it is not like Michael’s, but the inspiration came from seeing his work.

The technique for the casserole form started with a slip trailed decoration on the leatherhard pot. It was bisque fired.

Then the piece was glazed and an iron oxide wash was placed over the glaze as a decoration. Iron wash under a glaze can cause crawling. In the lid there is more of an olive green, but it is not a temmoku or celadon. The olive green is due to the amount of iron in that glaze. Turner washed iron oxide on top

40–Lidded bowl, porcelain, combed, slip trailed, iron glaze, 5 x 10, 1977, Liberty, SC.

of the glaze in specific areas, using the wheel to apply the iron wash in bands.

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By comparison, Pot 41 and Pot 44 have a basic saturation iron glaze with an iron wash applied on top of the glaze. That results in an abundance of iron crystals forming to make the decoration. Turner emphasizes the evolution of the process of this decorative motif. He would observe something coming out of a kiln and then make adjustments in the decoration technique, going either lighter or darker.

41–Teapot, porcelain, iron wash over iron glaze, 10 x 9, 1977, Liberty, SC.

The teapot is from that same period. Turner recalls he was trying to find out exactly what a “Tom Turner� teapot was, or at least what a new Turner teapot was. So he tried different shapes, new lid solutions, and variations of spout and handle shapes. Pot 41 was simply one idea at that moment. Again this was an iron glaze with iron wash over it.

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In the casserole glaze the iron wash was very thin. In the other pieces the black glaze and the iron wash were in perfect proportions. It was the same glaze, just thicker. On the large Pot 44, Turner says that he did not believe he could really draw or paint very well, so he resorted to this bold pattern. He took a bamboo brush and dabbed the iron wash onto the pot in a pattern. As Turner describes his process: I work with what happens in the firing. I set up what I want to happen in the firing. By doing that pattern I know that in the firing there will be some flow and all this visual activity will happen.

Pyro-chemistry is my brush. I set up all that I can, but the heat does (or does not) do the actual painting.

In 1979 Turner and his wife divorced, and he moved to Florida. “My studio at Liberty was not very big. The building was larger and the big salt kiln was inside next to my studio.

Later I did another shell where we had another little salt kiln.

Looking back, the Liberty operation worked very well for me as a single studio potter,” he said.

Reflecting back on another turning point in his life, he says: I had to learn a whole new process of marketing, because, like others, I was not taught that in art school. This was the mid-to-late 1970s, and I had

44–Cover-jar, porcelain, iron wash over iron glaze, 13 ½ x 9 ½, 1978, Liberty, SC.

strong national name recognition. I was getting in all the scholarly books and the national shows, so the work I was doing was impressing my superiors.

It was not my peers getting into the books, but my superiors. Looking back, I had very successful early academic national presence. Many professionals in the field knew who I was and appreciated my work.

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SA L LI E TAY LO R

SECTION 5

SA L LI E TAY LO R

51

The Nomadic Years

In 1979 Turner moved to Lake Mary, FL, where he bought land

made any money in my younger days because I

and immediately began planning for a new studio and kiln. It

was always moving, but back then I didn’t think it

would be the fifth major kiln construction project since the

mattered. In hindsight, I realized every move killed

summer of 1967 way back in Morris, IL.

the impetus and advances that I had gained. I had

Turner had dismantled his kiln at Liberty, salvaged as

to recapture the momentum every time I relocated.

many bricks as he could, and transported them to Florida, and he decided to build a car kiln instead of a walk-in version. He

Once Turner had built his studio and kiln, he was very

had read Niles Lou’s article “The Minnesota Flat Top,” in Studio

productive at Lake Mary. Turner believes some of his most

Potter. In the article Lou introduced the idea of a wedge shape

outstanding works were produced during that period.

design for the kiln with a car, floor and door configuration.

Instead of using Lou’s Minnesota Flat Top for the roof, Turner again returned to a sprung-arch system. The kiln constructed at Lake Mary had 50 cubic feet of firing space. A car kiln allows the potter to load and unload without bending over and without removing the kiln shelves. When the car is pulled out of the kiln there is access to the pots on three sides. The car design had an added benefit of putting less stress on Turner’s back. Even before this, Turner’s back was showing signs of stress and degeneration from all the lifting of pots, moving of kiln bricks, and unloading of shelves over the years.

Looking back on the several moves he has made in his career, Turner candidly admits: What I have come to realize is that every time I moved and relocated my studio, my business died.

With each move there was a long period of packing everything up, moving, rebuilding, and starting up the studio again. With this lapse of time you cease making pots. Consequently, there is an inevitable loss of production and more significantly, of creative development. Moving has been a process where with each move you have to back up a little bit and lose some ground that you then have to reestablish.

Every time I moved it would take about three months just to pack the collection. Then I had to go through the house-hunting ordeal, followed by moving in and creating a working studio. I never

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THE NOMADIC YEARS

Lake Mary Kiln Car Kiln, 1980.

Pot 47, an iron blue casserole, represents another

not duplicate many of his pots without taking a tremendous

transition, and it is one of the first pieces produced in Florida.

amount of time re-establishing the technical aspects of a

Turner likes to think he was taking the idea of a lobed jar

given process.

one step further. Turner does not like to call it a casserole.

While contaminants in the glaze proved to be

Influenced by his friend, Ralph Bacerra, who also used similar

serendipitous in the case of Pot 47, the slightest mistake in

large double forms, Turner calls this piece a pillow jar. He

applying the glaze could easily have been disastrous. Turner’s

points out that the bottom section is just 50% of the volume.

margin of error in applying the glaze to the area where the

There is the carryover from previous works with the use of slip

two sections join was less than 1/16th of an inch. However,

trailing, accent dots and lines.

Turner’s experience and knowledge of materials allowed him to embrace his creative motto of “no plunge, no pearl.”

Kiln load from the Lake Mary, Florida kiln, 1981. The tall piece on back right is in the Smithsonian Museum.

In this particular celadon glaze, achieving the blue by using iron oxide as the colorant is extremely difficult. The glaze surface has numerous black spots, which Turner believes are a result of the kaolin component being accidentally contaminated with pyrite during the mining process. Pyrite is a form of iron that would produce the black spots.

The iron spots on Pot 47 fortunately function as a decorative element that complements the slip trailing. Turner acknowledges many good glazes have come about because someone incorrectly mixed a formula. He admits he couldn’t easily duplicate this piece now. In fact, Turner admits he could

47–Pillow jar, porcelain, iron blue crackle celadon glaze, slip trailing, 5 x 7, 1980, Lake Mary, FL.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

53

Turner puts it this way: There is the material, the process, and the form that must be controlled. When you know and can control the material, as well as the process, there is the possibility of improving the form. On the bottom edge of that pot there is a big fat roll of glaze that has a darker color. Visually it is absolutely perfect for that pot. There is an indentation where the two pieces come together that is like a belt. I had to get the wax on the pot just right. That was an important first step.

I did lose some of these types of pots. For example, if that pot had been in the kiln where the temperature was 10 or 15 degrees hotter the glaze would have run and stuck the two pieces together. Once the glaze touches the bottom, unglazed edge, it is going to run, and then the pot is a failure. Controlling the flow of the glaze to this degree is part of my attention to detail. I couldn’t have pushed this process any further; it is impossible. My concern was not to leave bare porcelain so I risked destroying the pot by

49–Pillow jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, white glaze trail, 5 ¾ x 8, 1981, Lake Mary, FL.

glazing within a sixteenth of an inch of the edge.

The interior of the lid is decorated in a similar manner to

it fires clear and the white porcelain is revealed. The white

the outside. The “Turner Line” is there as well, but if the pot

porcelain also shows through on the edges of the top knob

is turned over the lines are also on the foot. So the whole pot,

of the piece. The white lines where the two forms meet are

inside out, upside down, has attention to detail and visual

created by a wax resist process were no glaze will stick to

correlation. Turner maintains this is what creative pots are

the porcelain. The wax was applied to the bisqued porcelain

about; this is what sets them apart.

before glazing. The functional purpose of the resist was to

The Copper Red Oxblood Pillow Jar, Pot 49, has more

prevent the glaze from sticking on the surfaces where the

pronounced horizontal lines that delineate the sections of the

lid meets the body of the pot. Turner takes the wax resist

form. There is a distinct edge on the top of the lid, as well as

process a step further to create a distinct and precise line

where the two forms meet in the middle and at the bottom

for the purposes of decoration. In the firing process, if the

foot. The copper red glaze runs off this edge to create a thin

glaze had run down the edge just a sixteenth of an inch, the

clear line. If a copper red glaze is too thin, as it is on the edge,

two forms would stick together and the pot would be ruined.

54

THE NOMADIC YEARS

The same can be said for the line at the foot of the pot. Pot 49 illustrates Turner’s ability to take the functional/technical process of using wax resist and merge it into his recurring design philosophy.

Pot 51 was also done in Florida in 1981. Again it is two pots joined together with the lid being a third form. The bottom is a bowl; the upper form is a dome. They are trimmed leatherhard and joined together with liquid slip. The two forms have to be perfectly designed because when they come together in the leatherhard state they cannot be changed.

Unlike putting wet cylinders together and continuing to throw, this method makes for a very lightweight pot.

Turner recalls that at this point in his career the pot was very large, given that it was porcelain. It is difficult to make a large porcelain piece unless the potter is willing to sacrifice weight, but Turner feels like he made no sacrifices in making this large work.

While in Florida, Turner developed a fake ash glaze that had all the characteristics of a wood ash glaze, but without wood ash. Turner liked this glaze because it had unique qualities at all different thicknesses. Therefore, he intentionally used this glaze both thick and thin. This cover jar has a normal thickness with an extra layer over it.

Through trial and error Turner learned he could apply glaze by misting on layers in a highly controlled manner, ranging from delicately thin to thick runny patterns.

Turner believes this pot is a prime example of the design

51–Cover-jar, porcelain, green fake ash glaze, 18 x 11, 1981, Lake Mary, FL.

concept of “visual lift.” Turner created cork screw coils of clay and applied them to the top shoulder of the pot and to the top of the lid. They are not actually functional as handles, so he

I said no, I don’t think so, but he informed me that

calls them “visual nubbies.” They fill in the shoulder, acting as a

those visual nubbies were perfectly formed African

finale, so to speak. The one on the top of the lid draws a visual

beads from some specific era. His comment made me

correlation and completes the work.

realize that artists from all over the world start at

While in Miami, where Pot 51 was entered in a show,

the same point and follow similar paths. Our Native

Turner met an antique expert who had seen his work and told

American pots are identical to early Chinese pots, so

him that he was obviously into making African beads. Turner

those beginning pots are the same no matter where

describes the exchange this way:

they were made. They have the same mental origin.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

55

At the very top of the vessel is a wash of iron and water to

While his stay in Florida was short lived, it was a

create that orange brown color. This wash helps break up the

productive time for Turner. But just three years after moving

continuous green glaze surface.

there, he met a woman at a ceramics conference who was

Turner goes on to describe the way he created this large form, saying:

from Akron, OH. A romance was born. As a Midwesterner, Turner had reluctantly adjusted to living in South Carolina.

Moving even further south to Florida, with its constant warm

Again this is an example of material, process, and

temperatures, was even less to Turner’s liking. He was more

form. I learned what this glaze could do and how

than willing to relocate to Ohio with his new girlfriend.

to apply it as a way to achieve variation in color and surface. This glaze was sprayed. With a spray gun I can control where the glaze will be thick and thin. So you are decorating with the spray gun, and the firing process brings about the color and surface. If I applied the glaze too thin or too thick it would be different. Because this glaze is so visually active, again there is less decoration on the pot. It is similar to the salt glaze approach. The orange peel glaze surface in salt firing is similar to the fake ash rivuleting that I achieved with this glaze.

I gravitated toward more pure, basic forms.

The porcelain forms are more like blank three dimensional canvases for the glazes. This large porcelain form is a timeless pot. Was it done in

Studio Barn in Akron after concrete floor has been poured. 1983.

200 BC or in 3000 AD? That is what I strive to achieve. As a form this work could be from the Sung Dynasty. In another life I may have been a Sung Dynasty potter.

The large car kiln that he had built was left behind, sold to another potter who had bought Turner’s property. For his new kiln in Akron, Turner bought all new materials as a treat

I have always had the feeling that my calling to be

to himself. Besides, by this time in his career he believed he

a potter didn’t just start when I was a youngster.

deserved a new start with a new kiln. Any nostalgic vestige of

The desire to create the “Timeless Pot” has been in

the old “rubble kiln” was abandoned.

my mind forever. I have an innate sense that this

Turner and his girlfriend purchased property in Medina,

connection and obsession with pottery comes from

just outside of Akron. The new home had ample land, a

a past life. I was born with an affinity for clay and a

century old farm house, and a 32’ x 64’ bank barn. Turner

sense of right form.

was back in the country again. He jokingly recollects that when he was a boy of thirteen and fourteen he worked on a

56

THE NOMADIC YEARS

farm and decided he would never be a farmer like so many folks in Morris. In his young mind farming was way too unpredictable. So what was he doing now, pursuing an even more unpredictable profession as a studio art potter?

Once in Akron, Turner retrofitted the old barn. He went to work on the bottom floor of the barn, where cows lived. He cleaned it out, poured concrete, rewired it, and piped in water.

It took eight to twelve months to set up, just like in previous moves. As Turner has observed on numerous occasions, the designing and building of studios and kilns was part of his creative process. He takes pride in building not only highly well engineered and functional kilns, but also kilns with aesthetic form, from the shape of the arch to the paint color of the metal framing.

Pot 57 is called a “Surprise Jar”. It was made in 1983 at the start of his Akron period. It is another double lobed pot that allowed Turner to work on a relatively large scale for porcelain. It is really four pots: the base, the top lobes, the lid and then the surprise inside part component of the lid. Four pots thrown separately, yet brought together to become one.

Like the casserole which was never intended for use, Pot 57 is designed for “visual appreciation.” No one is going to put cookies in these porcelain jars. It is a surprise pot because when someone takes off the lid, they find a surprise. One can conceal a ring, a gemstone, or something special. If the object is put down in the pot there is no access to it.

The nubbies on his jars were getting more dainty and

57–Surprise jar, porcelain, oak ash glaze 12 ½ x 10, 1983, Akron, OH.

fragile. With that fragility comes greater risk of breakage.

Yet the feeling would be different if they were thicker. Here again, a red iron wash was placed over the oak ash glaze at the shoulder of the pot, as well as some wash on the lid.

By this point, Turner was using both fake ash, oak ash, apple ash and copper red, temmoku and celadon, all in one firing. The oak ash had a small iron crystal. It is not as dramatic as the fake ash, and yet, where it is thicker, there is more rivuleting and visual activity. After applying the oak ash, Turner used a tea sifter to apply more dry ash to the surface.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

57

The teapot, Pot 58, is a classic copper red. He had

Turner describes it this way:

created the copper reds with the salt vapor for a number of years before going back to the chemical copper reds. He

Again, it is a critical matter of materials, process,

methodically worked to master copper red glazes, firing

and form. When I open a kiln and observe what the

after firing. Everything had to be exactly right: the reduction

glazes have done, my big concern is whether I can

atmosphere, at just the right time and in the right amount, the

make that happen again, in consecutive firings. So

chemistry, the thickness.

when I see a copper red that has turned clear on an

This teapot is an excellent example of how the glazing

edge, I see that I can create textures and lines for

and firing process worked in tandem to produce a spectacular

the glaze to break on, revealing the white porcelain

oxblood red. For Turner, it was a beautiful form-- a beautiful

underneath. You see the white being incorporated

spout, an incredible cap lid, all perfectly related to the overall

in the edges on this teapot. Something that will

form. At that point in his career, Turner feels he could not have

naturally occur in the glaze firing can be integrated

made a better piece. Maybe not even today. It is one of those

as a key element of the design.

“Timeless Pots.”

58–Teapot, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 11 x 10 ¼, 1984, Akron, OH.

58

THE NOMADIC YEARS

Turner pretending to eat a copper red pot like a candy apple.

The little point at the top of the lid is the

I still haven’t gone that far. Our own expectations

exclamation point on this piece. All the visual lift

and realizations are the greatest frustration for

of the pot comes up to this point to a resounding,

ceramic artists.

“bam!” The little white crest is the critical ending point. The cap flares out and becomes a handle for

My tendency was to come back and kill everything

the lid. It makes it easier and safer to lift the lid.

with a hammer, which isn’t a good idea. Fortunately, I recalled hearing, at a workshop in undergraduate

This tea pot has all the classical relationships associated

school, Don Reitz say, “If you are disappointed

with a Turner pot. The foot and the lid have the same diameter.

with some pots, put them in a closet and come

The cap is wider to make it a little more dynamic. The

back to them in two weeks.” So in Florida I would

whiteness where the lid meets the lip is almost a necessity.

unload them, clean them up, look at them for a day

That white line is repeated at the top edge of the cap so

or two, analyze them and finally accept the pots

there is this double white line going around the piece. If this

for what they were. Naturally if the pots were not

perfectly red pot could survive the kiln, additional decoration

what I expected, they were still pretty incredible.

was not needed. It was a return to that minimalist position

If they were not just the right color I would be

once again. Here is a gorgeous, incredible form devoid of

disappointed. I had to see who the pots really were,

decoration, with an incredible glaze. Nothing was done to

not who I wanted them to be, same as with people.

distract the viewer; everything needed happened to the piece in the firing.

Still, when the teapot came out of the kiln Turner didn’t

Now in Ohio, this copper red teapot helped Turner to another important revelation about valuing his work. He

jump up and down for joy. He was under pressure to excel.

always had favorite pots going into the glaze kiln and they

Turner felt that when he was in Florida he was making the

would always come out looking bad. This time was different.

best pots he could make. When he would pull that car kiln out

He did not even remember putting the teapot into the kiln.

into the open Turner would sometimes get so depressed that

That taught him not to fall in love with a pot until it came out

he would have to leave the property. Turner recalls he finally

of the kiln.

decided that was absurd! The pots may have not met his expectations, but they were good pots. Turner goes on to say:

Like all teapots, this handle is a critical component of the overall design. The oxblood teapot has a cane handle. Potters during this time were buying Japanese cane handles from

At the same time I got a show catalogue of a

Netleship in England. They would buy what was available

Warren McKenzie exhibit. Warren had this big

and, in many cases, add weaving to them. The handle Turner

old oil burning kiln and that kiln had over fired

bought was not good enough in his estimation so he added the

pots, under fired pots and some pots that cracked.

wrapped components. The handle was called “the oval” from

He put all those pots from that kiln load in the

Fred Netleship, and they were the best quality cane handles

show. I thought to myself that that took guts,

available. For later teapots Turner began making solid copper

that took balls. He was saying this is all that I

handles. He had minored in jewelry as an undergraduate, and

am, this is ceramics unedited or unculled. So I

loved doing all the metal work. Turner was one of the first

tried to start backing off a little bit, but honestly

potters in the country to make metal handles for his work.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

59

Initially he had the idea of a copper handle for a copper red

underneath caused it to melt down and run slightly. That

glaze. But, he found the copper handle was also gorgeous on

melting was pleasing to Turner. He discovered that if you trail

Temmoku. He continued experimenting with handles in the

the white and green dots on bare porcelain they stand up

mid-1990s, but realized he was spending more time on making

because there is nothing to help them melt. Turner remembers

the handles than he was on making the pots.

his discovery this way:

The second teapot, Pot 59, like Pot 57 and 58, has a capped lid, which is not a typical Turner lid. Pot 59 is an

It again goes back to how you used things. It is

evolution of using the ground fake ash over the apple ash. It is

materials, process, form as I repeatedly say. Put that

one of the first examples of Turner’s use of a sticker and resist

glaze on one surface and it will respond differently

decorating technique.

than if you put it on something else. The change

In this process, Turner first applied paper stickers on the

may be very subtle and missed by a less observant

top area and lid of the bisqued pot. The second step was to dip or spray a white apple ash glaze. Next, Turner sprayed a green fake ash over the decorative area, and then removed the stickers. Turner repositioned the paper stickers on the green fake ash areas. He called the process “sticker resist”.

He applied another thin mist of green fake ash over the decorative areas, knowing the thin mist would go tan where the stickers had been. Finally, he glaze trailed the white and green dots over the other glazes.

The small iron dots intermittently appearing over the pot came from a cast iron stove that had rust particles. Turner had burned apple logs and branches in it. First he suspected the iron spots came from something in the apple ash. However when Turner ran out of apple ash he got more from another source. He discovered his new glaze batch had no iron spots, just pure glaze, meaning the iron rust from the old wood stove had been the source of the iron spots in the first apple ash glaze. Since Turner no longer owned that stove, he collected rust scale from other sources, ran it through a tea sifter and added it to the apple ash glaze. It worked perfectly, one of the many, many instances where Turner’s creative problemsolving led to new ideas.

The white dots were not a regular white glaze, they were buttons of feldspar, because he wanted the dots to be in relief.

They did not fully melt down. In some areas the white glaze trail was on top of the apple ash glaze, and the apple glaze

60

THE NOMADIC YEARS

59–Teapot, porcelain, ash glaze with sticker resist, 11 ½ x 10, 1984, Akron, OH.

potter. The green dots were Reeves Green that has chrome oxide. The yellow dots are iron oxide.

Form and glaze development results from keen observation of what comes out of a firing.

I now sound like a stuck record, but here again what I am talking about is material, process, form. I can’t emphasize that enough. Everything on that teapot is knowledge accumulated from all the previous firings. If you are not going to pay attention to what comes out of a kiln, how are you going to know what to do the next?

Pot 62 was the epitome of this period. It has appeared in four books, and was on the cover of Ceramics Monthly in 1985.

Turner remembers creating this work: Sometimes one works on a process and it goes on until you have done about as much as you can do on that process. This pot reveals this quite clearly.

I wasn’t at his workshop, but I was told that Ken Ferguson said this may have been the best pot ever made in the United States. Now that is an incredible comment, especially coming from someone like Ken Ferguson. I have always tried to make timeless pots, and this is a great pot right now and it is going to be a great pot 500 years or 1,000 years from now.

Pot 62 has a specific pattern because of the resist

62–Cover-jar, porcelain, ash glaze and sticker resist, 8 ¾ x 7 ½, 1984, Akron, OH.

Now this piece is the best example of hundreds of

technique. So even though he was setting up a glaze and

prior pots where I used this decoration technique.

pattern, he still relied upon the heat, firing and the flow of

If a sticker decoration was placed in the wrong

the glaze. It all came down to Turner’s knowledge of how the

position, or the first or second glaze was put on too

glazes would flow when he placed them on a particular area of

thick or thin, there would certainly be a variation.

the pot. Each glaze had to be the exact thickness and the firing

This pot represents everything I could possibly do

particulars had to be exact. As Turner reflects:

with that decorative technique.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

61

It also epitomizes the design concept of visual lift, and the

with ceramics, albeit in a limited way. He antiqued in the area

dynamics of the relationship of the diameters. It has a very

on weekends, seeking those unique “potters’ pots.” He also

small foot, a full body that then moves into a narrow neck. It is

used an old bathtub in White’s backyard and experimented

completed at the top by what Turner calls a cap lid. These cap

with the notion of mixing batches of “dirty porcelain.”

lids are different from covers in that they are a continuation of

When Turner returned to Ohio that fall he participated in

the overall form. Turner speculates that if he had put a cover

a ceramic fair at a ski resort outside of Boston Mills. He met a

lid on the piece, there would have been a very different design

woman there who was also a studio potter.

effect, a different character to the pot. Even the visual nubbies

He had no studio of his own, so he accepted a visiting

on the top of the lid work to enhance the visual lift. While the

artist position at his alma mater, Illinois State University

decoration is rather geometric and precise, there is a free

for the 1986 winter/spring semester. The new person in his

flowing quality to the glaze patterns. Turner says:

life accompanied Turner to Illinois, working with him in the university ceramic studios. Turner was to marry Gail Russell a

I don’t know if very many people notice it, and I don’t know why I do, but I will set up a very formal

year and a half later.

For Turner, returning to Illinois State was like going

situation and then break that formality with the

home. The couple rented a house, and he spent the semester

glazing. In this pot you have that formal center

making pots and teaching one or two classes. He continued to

line in the middle of the pot. Rather than simply

explore his interest in dirty porcelain. He theorized that dirty

stopping the decoration at that line, I went over the

porcelain would be a little less limiting than pure porcelain. He

line. I am therefore setting up a specific delineation

rationalized that sometimes it is good to break from a difficult

and then ignoring it. Another way of putting it is

process like traditional porcelain, and then return to it with a

that I am not letting it control the decoration. It is

fresh approach.

like setting up a distinct line in painting and then

Pot 66 is a poignant example of how glazes can change in

painting over the line. So, there is Turner precision

different firing situations. At the ISU ceramic studios Turner

as well as Turner playing with glazes.

had mixed up his stunning bright copper red glaze. He fired it in the department kiln, only to discover the glaze came out as

In conclusion, Pot 62 is one of Turner’s favorite pots and he believes it is one of his most significant.

Turner completed the new car kiln and fired it thirteen

a flambé. Initially, he was very disappointed in the result, but Turner came to believe it was still a gorgeous, unique glaze that would probably never be repeated. He realized that

times while in Akron. He was now up and operating and again

differences in the chemicals at Illinois State, and putting this

producing pots, but his personal relationship was not working

copper red glaze on dirty porcelain rather than on regular

out and there was a mutual agreement to go separate ways. In

porcelain, altered the color. But as Turner learned repeatedly,

the summer of 1985 Turner sold the Akron property and put

sometimes it takes time to see the value of a pot. The

his life in storage. He went to Massachusetts to help an old

greatest disappointments for Turner resulted from his own

friend, Tom White, rebuild his house after a devastating fire.

expectations. However, preconditions can inhibit a potter’s

While Turner had lost a relationship, a house, and a studio, his

ability to fully appreciate what comes out of the kiln.

friend, according to Turner, had lost still more.

While helping Tom White he continued his relationship

62

THE NOMADIC YEARS

The ash glazed cover jar, Pot 67, was a piece that Turner made in the studios at Illinois State. Its design is classic Turner

design, capturing vertical lift and expanding and contracting

caused more fluxing, thereby creating more rivulets in the

proportions in the diameters. It was thrown with dirty

glaze, a primary characteristic of an ash glaze. In a traditional

porcelain, 80% porcelain and 20% Jordan Stoneware clay. The

wood kiln, “fly ash” builds up on parts of pots as the fire and

pot is glazed with the regular wood ash from Leach’s book, 4

heat move it throughout the kiln.

parts wood ash, 4 parts feldspar and 2 parts ball clay.

On the shoulder of the pot Turner sifted dry ash. The sifted ash gave the appearance of the pot being fired in a wood

At the end of his semester as a visiting artist, Tom and Gail began to search for property for a new pottery studio.

They began the search in Ohio.

kiln. The dry ash placed on top of the formulated ash glaze

66–Teapot, dirty porcelain, flambé glaze, 10 ½ x 9 ¾, 1986, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

67–Cover-jar, dirty porcelain, ash glaze, 10 x 9, 1986, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

THE NOMADIC YEARS

63

64

SA L LI E TAY LO R

SECTION 6

SA L LI E TAY LO R

65

The First Peachblow Years

The couple chose to locate in the Columbus, OH, area where there was a five-acre tract on Peachblow Road that had a large barn. Turner knew this was the place for him. They bought the property in the summer of 1986, and he quickly converted it into a pottery studio, and rebuilt the Akron kiln. Peachblow Pottery was soon in operation.

While making antique excursions around the area one weekend, he came across an old glass piece that was called Peachblow Glass. He looked it up and found, to his surprise, that ‘Peachblow’ is a glass-making term for copper red. He went home and told his fiancé what a bizarre circumstance it was to have two copper red potters buy property on Peachblow Road.

A year later the couple decided to marry. They were to stay at Peachblow for eighteen years. As Turner puts it, he had finally found the place, the business, and the relationship that he had always been searching for.

At Peachblow, Turner resumed his work in developing glazes and decorating techniques for porcelain. His research also included working with the ash, copper red, temmoku and celadon glazes that he had been researching since his Liberty/ Clemson and Lake Mary periods.

Those initial years at Peachblow were very successful for Turner and his new wife. The property and studio were soon debt free. Pottery sales were strong, as were his gallery 69–Pillow jar, porcelain, apple ash glaze, glaze trailing, 5 ½ x 8, 1987, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

representations. Turner continued to be recognized in scholarly publications as a leading figure in American studio ceramic arts.

One of the first pots Turner produced at Peachblow was Pot 69, a pillow jar. As in past moves, when he was not making pots for six to eight months while setting up a studio, Turner had to go back and rediscover a form. “I always tell people it is like driving in the snow: if you are stuck you have to back up in order to move forward. So you kind of start off meagerly, but when you get back into it, your pots get better and better.”

66

T H E FI R S T P E AC H B LOW Y E A R S

As with the pillow form he created when he started up his Lake Mary studio, Turner recalls that he and his contemporaries, such as Ralph Baccera and Don Pilcher, would glean visual concepts from functional pots in order to make art pots. So Pot 69 is an extension of a casserole form that he redefined as “pillow jars.” It is a utilitarian form, but created for visual aesthetics more than for the purpose of baking.

Turner applied his apple ash glaze and green fake ash glaze to the piece. The top decorative element was created by a glaze trailing technique that was applied over the other glazes. The intermittent iron spots were formed by rust residue particles from the wood stove that had burned the original apple wood.

The Turner break line occurs right where the top and bottom meet. The lid narrows down so this inward curving form becomes the natural handle for the lid. The shape of the lid is the handle itself. The top form is pretty much a mirror image of the bottom form. Sometimes he would make them identical, but the bottom of this pot is slightly more rounded.

The pillow jar not only represents the start of Peachblow Pottery, it also was a departure from Turner’s previous experimentation with dirty porcelain. It was made with a porcelain body using Georgia Kaolin, resulting in a more pure white body.

In Pot 70, Turner acknowledges that the concept for this large bi-form jar comes from Don Reitz, but he also maintains the pot had nothing to do with Reitz’s forms. Reitz would

70–Bi-form jar, porcelain, oak ash glaze, 11 x 11 ½, 1988, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

throw bowls and then set a cylinder on top to create his cantilevered bi-forms. However, Turner contends he did not merely copy Reitz’s work, but assimilated his mentor’s ideas into his own work.

Instead of using an apple ash, Turner used oak ash as the main ingredient in the glaze. Again, Turner controlled and created variations in the glaze color by applying the glaze in thick and thin layers.

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Turner’s own words best describe Pot 71: This copper red piece was kept by me because, again, it was the epitome of what I could do with copper red oxblood at that time. Many people think if you can put a pretty glaze on a bad pot you will have a good pot, but that is not the case. If you put a good glaze on a bad pot, it still is a bad pot… I could not have made this form, glazed and fired it any better, so it is the best example of my artistic intent.

I could have put another glaze on that pot. If the glaze was properly applied, it would still have been a great pot. Nevertheless, you can also mess up a good form by using a bad application of a glaze, or doing a bad firing. So here again, it is the porcelain I formulated, the form that I created, the glaze I learned to make and use, and the control of the firing. In other words, everything had to be done just right. You may say the stars were in alignment for this pot. You have to be able to control every phase of the process if you want to excel to this point.

The visual nubbies that Turner had incorporated in his work were now taking on an animalistic quality. On this piece there are a couple of eyes, snouts and a mouth. Turner had seen animal finials on antiques, so he started incorporating them into his work.

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71–Cap-jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 3 finials, 9 x 8 ½, 1989, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

75–Bottle vase, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, iron wash, 9 ½ x 8 ½, 1990, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

This porcelain vase, Pot 75, was first dipped in Turner’s

of how Turner lets his glazes “dance” on the surface of the

copper red oxblood glaze. The decorative pattern was created

pot. While the effect appears to be free flowing and even

by the application of the dark dots that consisted of pure iron

informal, the process is very precise. If just one or two of the

oxide mixed with water. A bluish red flambé glaze was sprayed

dots had been applied too thick or thin, it could have resulted

just underneath the iron oxide dots. In the firing process the

in an imbalance in the decorative pattern that would have

iron dots fluxed and flowed approximately two and a half to

destroyed the symmetry of the glaze design.

three inches. With the fluxing action, iron crystals created the

Turner also used a coggle wheel to texture the lip of

yellow flowing patterns. All of this action came from just the

the vase, knowing that the copper red would flow into the

iron dots. The challenge for Turner was to apply the iron oxide

indentations producing an intense red, while the protruding

to the glaze surface just thick enough to create the flowing

surfaces would reveal the white porcelain underneath. The

patterns without causing the glaze to crawl and separate.

simple form of the vase leads the viewer up to a very subtle

The glaze decoration on the pot is a perfect illustration

play of the form against the visually active lip.

T H E FI R S T P E AC H B LOW Y E A R S

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This teapot incorporated the sticker decoration

Turner is very specific about the design of the piece, saying:

technique on the bisque. The process used to decorate the piece was an evolution of the technique Turner developed

There is a decoration at the top and the capped

at his Akron studio back in 1984. Turner explains how he

lid. If you look at the capped lid, my pots are about

changed the process over several years:

visual lift, starting at the foot, and about that little point on the center of the lid, which is the

Initially I would put the sticker on the bisque, dip

exclamation point that started at the foot. Also,

or spray the glaze and pull the sticker off and spray

the shape of the handle is critical to the rest of the

or dip some more, so where the sticker was there

form. It complements it. I have a very controlled

would be some glaze. At this point in time, (January

application of the glazed trailed dots where the

1990), the thought went through my head to take

circles of resist are, but then out of these circles

the stickeroff and not put any glaze there on the

I put additional dots. That goes back to Abstract

unglazed spot, so the glaze trail dots were sitting on

Expressionism where I create a formal pattern, and

the bare porcelain. And because they were on the

then I break it, as if coloring outside the lines.

bare porcelain they didn’t flux and flow as much as they would with another glazing. This illustrates

This teapot is signed and dated on the shoulder, not on

my slow evolution of thought about the processes

the foot. Turner makes an analogy to how painters do not sign

I use. I start with an idea, I try it, and I fire it. And

a painting on the back. It was a statement that proclaimed

years down the road that process has evolved into

this pot as art. The signature is subtle and becomes a part of

something that is visually pleasing.

the decoration. The placement of the signature influenced the overall decorative effect, with the signature on the side

This piece also has the copper handle. Turner investigated a number of possibilities and decided to use electrical cable and plumbers’ caps. Turner feels the handles were vital components the teapots he was making. This unique handle became yet another extension of his personal creativity.

For this pot and glaze, the traditional cane handle was not acceptable to Turner.

Turner was using a fake ash glaze consisting of one third Albany slip, one third whiting and one third kaolin in cone 9 reduction. The rivulets coming down the side created the character of a traditional ash glaze’s thick and thin areas. While at the belly of the pot there is a perfectly even application of glaze, Turner purposely made it thicker at the top around the stickers so there would be more running and rivuleting. So it is all about the character of the glaze at different thicknesses.

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opposite the spout adding to the subtlety and balance.

76–Teapot, porcelain, assimilated ash glaze, sticker resist, glaze trailed, 11 x 9 ½, 1990. Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

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Pot 79 has a Peachblow glaze that was made from clay beneath the Turners’ house on Peachblow Road. The glaze is the clay all by itself. The natural ingredients in the clay caused it to produce the tea dust and hairs fur glaze effects. Nothing was added to the clay to improve its melt or color; Turner simply ball milled the clay into fine particles and powder. For Turner, it was a phenomenal glaze, a naturally occurring glaze that many potters search for throughout an entire career, never finding anything like it.

He discovered it when he lowered a sump pump into a hole in the basement floor and began to pump out a liquid slip that he knew was clay. It sat in a bucket for a year and a half before he finally decided to experiment with it. Initially he ran the clay through a bisque firing. It came out an intense orange.

That strong color indicated to Turner that it was high in iron and might work as a glaze. He put a liquid slip solution on the inside of a bowl, so if it melted and ran it would not stick to the kiln shelf. When he took the bowl out of the kiln, he discovered it was phenomenal. No additives were needed whatsoever.

On top of that glaze of this pot is Reeves Green. It is hard to see it but the Reeves Green was glaze-trailed in a horse eye pattern which goes back to Seto, Japan. The pattern on the pot is similar to the horse eye plates in Turner’s collection.

The Reeves Green was slip trailed over the Peachblow glaze and there was a reaction between the chrome in the Reeves Green and the iron in the Peachblow Glaze. Together they created the yellow shadowing in the design. As soon as he saw it happen he realized he could intentionally make it happen

79–Bottle vase, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, green glaze trailing, 9 ½ x 6 ½, 1992, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

again. It illustrates Turner’s acute process of observation. He soon had these glazes working together in the way he desired.

In referring to this piece, Turner reflects:

but now I realize in hindsight that I was creating these very formal forms, and then doing these

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This evolved from my training in Abstract

very informal, albeit patterned, decorations. Each

Expressionism. I would take my very controlled

section is formally patterned, but each facet or

forms, generally subtle forms, and break them up

component is unique within itself. This variation

with abstract decorations. These pots were made

within formal order happened because I knew the

more than 22 years ago. I simply did what I did,

characteristics of the glazes.

T H E FI R S T P E AC H B LOW Y E A R S

The bold blue piece, Pot 82, is the antithesis of what Turner had been taught in school. It could be called his “Who said you can’t” pot.

Like all of his fellow students at school, Turner would have been criticized for using cobalt in a glaze. It was considered too easy, especially in large amounts. Cobalt is blue no matter what is done to it. The glaze on this pot probably has at least 3% cobalt. It was simply an extreme attempt to maximize color.

On the flat top of the lid, Turner applied a tan and blue crystalline glaze to complement the strong blue. Turner believed if there had been the crystalline glaze on other parts of the pot it would have made the piece too busy. Also, the crystal glaze needed a flat surface to fully develop the crystal.

So Turner designed the lid with a large, flat area specifically for crystal growth. Turner reversed the normal process for potters of designing the form, then picking a glaze. This pot was designed to fit the glaze.

Attention to minute details is a signature of Turner’s work. With this piece he was concerned that the nickel in the glaze, coupled with zinc, would promote the development of

82–Dome jar, porcelain, blue and zinc lithium crystal glaze, 6 x 10, 1994, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

blue and tan crystals that would make the glaze very fluid, causing it to run down the sides. To control this potential problem, Turner trimmed the lid to form a small ledge where

About the, “who said you can’t” attitude, Turner says:

the top met the side of the lid. This ledge prevented the fluid crystal glaze from flowing down the sides of the lid and fusing

In my undergraduate school I would have never

the lid to the body of the pot. This pot talks about many things.

been allowed to do a crystalline glaze. It was

The lid cover does not necessarily have to function just as a

considered to be too easy and too gimmicky. Same

part of the pot. It is a complete component in and of itself. The

situation with the cobalt; we could not use cobalt,

white porcelain where the lid sits in the pot works as a Turner

unless it was very, very subtle. In the end we didn’t

design line, and is repeated at the top ledge for containing the

do any oxidation, everything was cone 10, over fired

crystal glaze.

and over reduced.

As with many of the ceramic processes Turner employed, he broke with traditional methods. In firing the crystal glaze

Shortly after making this pot, Turner did something he

on top of Pot 82, Turner pushed traditional boundaries by

had never done: he stopped making pots. His professional

firing the glaze in a reduction atmosphere and not following a

career was at a zenith, but his personal life was moving in the

slow cooling cycle to promote crystal development.

opposite direction.

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SA L LI E TAY LO R

SECTION 7

SA L LI E TAY LO R

75

Leaving and Returning to Ceramic Art

In 1995, Turner decided to get a job that would provide a

to supply an emerging market of target shooters so Turner

regular outside paycheck with benefits. He initially started

started painting stocks. The gun stocks were made of carbon

working in a friend’s hardware store. While the work was

fiber instead of wood because it does not swell in varying

steady, it was not very challenging for a person who had always

climatic conditions. Just a fraction of change in the position of

been a self-directed professional artist with high expectations.

the stock to the barrel could influence the rifle’s accuracy.

At the time, he was deeply involved in competitive

The carbon rifle stocks were painted with custom car

bench rest rifle shooting. This sport was a proving ground for

paint, which Turner loved to spray onto the stocks. The

accuracy, and for Turner it was not very different from the

process was similar to spraying glazes on pots. He also learned

attention to detail he demanded of himself when producing

how to bed the actions and developed decorative designs in

a porcelain pot. The watchword for both processes was total

the painting process. He continued painting stocks for about

focus. As with Turner’s porcelain work, everything in his

two years, but while he enjoyed the creative processes, the

competitive shooting was custom made to the nth degree.

work did not provide the steady income and benefits that he

His gunsmith could not get stocks painted fast enough

originally sought.

Tom Turner painted bench rest rifle stock, 1996.

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The next job for Turner was as a temporary worker at

body that was closer to what is found naturally in the ground,

the Honda Car Plant in Marysville, OH. He hoped he could

one that would be more forgiving and not demand precise

work his way into a permanent position at the car plant that

execution like porcelain.

would provide him and his wife with the stability and benefits they needed.

As a temporary worker on the line, he was assigned to the booth for final cleaning and sanding the car body before painting. Turner had to process a car every 54 seconds.

While working at Honda, Turner continued his hiatus

It was a humble restart of a thirty-year career. The first pieces he created were not even signed, as he was attempting to be “the humble potter.”

Being the methodical worker that he was, Turner developed a forthright pricing methodology based on $6 per pound. Thus, one pound of clay used to create a mug would

from making pottery, but still maintained an interest in

translate into a $6 coffee mug. His pricing methodology was

competitive shooting. He was invited to shoot groundhogs

reminiscent of the pricing strategies of the Southeastern

at a horse ranch and this activity was great practice for

Folk Potters that he had befriended while in the army and

competitions. At the same time, the elimination of groundhogs

later at Clemson. As Turner gained confidence and improved

and the holes they were digging helped prevent the horses

the quality of his production, he increased his base price

from falling and breaking their legs.

proportionally. And he began signing his work again.

The owner of the ranch asked Turner if he knew anyone who would be willing to be the overseer of the ranch property.

Speaking about his four year hiatus from making pots, Turner says:

The job would not involve dealing with the horses, but rather simply maintaining the equipment and property. She said the

When I came back to making pots, I didn’t want

salary would be $24,000 a year.

to try to be the same potter as when I left--Turner

He accepted the position, feeling that working outside would be more fulfilling.

As soon as he began work at the ranch, the daughter of

porcelain pots with high prices. So I thought that if I came back making more functional stoneware at lower prices, maybe it would all work.

the owner who hired him intervened. His pay was reduced immediately and the daughter demanded that he work with a group of high-strung thoroughbred horses.

He continued at the ranch for another six months, but

Turner remembers that he gradually developed a “sureness” in his pots. The new stoneware pots were selling, but he did not want them sold as signature Tom Turner pots.

came to realize he was making about $7.50 an hour for some

Consequently, he simply stamped them with the pottery

very dangerous work. He reasoned that if he went back to

name, Peachblow.

making pots, surely he could make at least that much, if not more. Besides, he was missing being a potter.

After discussing the situation with his wife, he returned

Turner concedes he could have made a comeback in porcelain and just lowered his prices. On the other hand, Turner admits that would have been a blow to his ego. He also

to making pots full-time in 2000. His initial efforts were very

felt it would have been a disservice to the people that had

simple, functional objects in stoneware. Four years was a long

bought his earlier porcelain. Initially he did single fire. The

time for Turner to be away from the pottery, so he went back

casserole, Pot 86, was probably single fired, but Turner cannot

to doing functional stoneware. Not only would porcelain be

remember for certain.

much harder to sell, but he had a desire to go back to a clay

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86–Casserole, stoneware fake ash glaze, 6 7/8 x 8, 2000, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

89–Bottle vase, stoneware, combed, fake ash glaze, 6 ¾ x 8, 2001, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

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90–Cover-jar, stoneware, fake ash glaze, 8 ½ x 8 ¼, 2001, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

Turner continued to produce functional stoneware for two years, while resuming his research, and running 173

It so happened in 2003 that I went to Seto, Japan.

stoneware body tests. He was trying to formulate a stoneware

The woman in charge of the ceramic center was

body from commercially available clays that would have

a Japanese woman with a doctorate in Japanese

been close to what a traditional Ohio potter would have dug.

ceramic history. She looked at me and said, “You

He was concerned about the fired color. In all three of these

make stoneware pots out of porcelain.” In the

pieces the lower third of the body of the pot is unglazed. In

Japanese sense I am sure she was correct. That I

Turner’s mind it was kind of an English design concept. There

was doing porcelain pots with ash glazes made her

are many English pots where the lower portion is unglazed.

come to that conclusion. Also in Japan a porcelain

Perhaps the English potters had dipped the pot only at the top.

cup or bowl has to have a certain form, but we

All three of these stoneware pots have the fake ash glaze.

Americans have no such tradition. So I can make a

He had always used about a sixteenth of a percentage of

covered jar or tea bowl any way I want. My tea bowl

cobalt in the fake ash glaze, which created a green ash. With

or jar doesn’t have to satisfy some tea master. That

these works he left the cobalt out of the glaze, and the fake

is where the academic art potter came into play.

ash looks like a different glaze entirely. Pots 89 and Pot 90 are

The concern of the academic potter was for pushing

in the Phil Rogers ash glaze book, second edition.

the materials and process into a new art form.

On Pots 89 and 90, the lower portion of the pot is

That is what it was about for us. Making all kinds

unglazed, but the upper portion is unglazed also. On the vase,

of pieces, and pushing, pushing, pushing. Pushing

the lip is unglazed so there is the visual correlation between

the materials, pushing the process, pushing the

the lip and the foot. On the lidded jar, the very center of the

form. This is a concept totally foreign to the Asian

lid is unglazed along with the lower third. So again there is

tradition. They did not push, they simply evolved

this visual and tactile correlation. Here again this was not by

gradually. They did not understand what I was

chance. For Turner the decoration was about the form.

doing and actually looked at it negatively.

Pot 89 has a combed surface with a mist glaze. Changing the thickness of this glaze not only changed the surface, it also

A major change had occurred for Turner during his

changed the color. At the bottom of this vase, where the glaze

absence from porcelain. One of his basic materials was no

is thin, there is one shade of brown; where it is thicker in the

longer available. The Georgia Kaolin Company had stopped

middle, another shade of brown; and still another at the top:

making Kaopake 20, a key ingredient in Turner’s personal

all due simply to the thickness of the glaze.

porcelain formulation.

In 2002 Turner resumed working with porcelain. He

He called the chief ceramic engineer at the Georgia

moved away from functional work and went back to lidded

Kaolin Company and asked him what he should do. “Go

containers and bottles. He was back to making art pots for

English,” was the engineer’s response, meaning substitute

galleries.

English kaolin for the Georgia kaolin.

Turner tells an interesting account about showing his

Turner shifted into research mode. Keeping with his

pots to a Japanese ceramics scholar. It shows a symbiotic

own tradition, he began by contacting Graham Turnbull of

relationship between Turner’s work with porcelain and

Standard Ceramics in Pittsburgh and requested all their data

stoneware. Turner recalls:

sheets as well as samples of the English kaolins.

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He conducted some thirteen different tests with the English kaolin in search of a new and better porcelain body, ending up with a formula that he believes was the best he had ever used.

He shared the results with the technicians at Standard Ceramics, and they agreed that Turner’s formula was the best porcelain they had ever tested. They entered into an agreement with Turner to produce Turner Porcelain in bulk for general sales to the public. Turner Porcelain is still available today through the company.

Pot 92 was one of the larger pieces that Turner was making back in his later years at Peachblow. Like many of the cover jars Turner had made in the past, the body of this pot was made in two pieces and, with the lid, became a three piece pot. Again, Turner had to visualize how the two pieces would come together, and then join them at the leatherhard state. Rather than cover up the seam, he incorporated it as a decorative element. It has the fake ash glaze that creates rivulets and visual activity. And again the glaze creates different colors depending on thickness. Turner applied thin layers with a spray gun, especially at the bottom of the pot where a thick, dipped glaze layer would run down onto the shelf. This pot had a thin to medium layer of spray on the outside, but at the top Turner continued to spray the glaze, especially around the nubbies, until a thick surface developed.

He also took a Japanese brush and dabbed extra glaze where he wanted it to really run.

The vertical combing and the flowing glaze patterns

92–Cover-jar, porcelain, combed, fake ash glaze, glaze trailed dots, 13 ½ x 11 ¾, 2002, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

all complement one another; they do not compete. The decoration is homogeneous. Many times potters decorate with no concern about how it relates to the form. When this

Pot 92 again shows Turner’s ongoing concern for visual

happens the decoration takes away from the form. To make

lift. There is moderate decoration at the waist of the piece.

things worse, some potters put a glaze on a pot that does not

Moving up the pot, there is more complex decoration, and

enhance the pot’s form.

then the exclamation dot in the center of the lid completes the

This piece’s flowing glaze patterns create an interplay

process. Turner contends that the viewer’s eye is drawn from

with the stamping and paddling of the porcelain surface,

the bottom to the top of the pot with that last exclamation dot,

harking back to Turner’s spirit of Abstract Expressionism.

precisely sized and positioned.

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On Pot 96 the exclamation dot has been replaced with a small bird finial, which functions in the same way. There is a strong use of horizontal lines with this piece, a flowing decorative motif. The pot reveals how Turner had begun paddling and stamping, as well as pushing out from the inside, to create an undulating surface. This surface movement visually enhances the pot. According to Turner, all of the protrusions and textures would make this a beautiful pot even to a blind person. The protrusions of the pot caused the glaze to be thin on those areas, and in the depressions the glaze pooled and became darker, enhancing the decorative pattern of the pot.

Turner describes this part of the process in creating the pot this way: The majority of my glaze effects happen in the firing. These Turner lines’ function visually in this work, but they also stop the flow of this runny glaze.

They occur in the shoulder and on the lid. They also divide the portions of the pot. The line on the shoulder, and the lines on the lid, capture this lip area, which is a different color because of the glaze thickness. Now I set up that space with the lines, and complemented it with the way I glazed. In my mind, if I had had the lip of the lid too thick, or too thin, it would have disrupted the harmony of the lid.

96–Cover-jar, porcelain, paddled, assimilated ash glaze, glaze trailing, 9 x 8, 2003, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

Sometimes I think I am not really smart enough to do this, and much of this happens subconsciously

This pot came from a series of six to ten pots.

or autonomically. If I am glazing thirty pots, I am so

During this time I tended to work with that many

into the glazing process that, in a way, something

pots all at one time. My goal was to decorate to

automatically takes over my conscious thought.

enhance the form, but most folks just slap glaze on a pot because they have seen it somewhere else. If

Turner goes on to say:

the potter decorates to complement the form and glazes to complement the decoration, the potter will maximize the visual impact of the piece.

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Turner had a very successful firing in April of 2004, and Pot 98 was one the pieces in the kiln. He considers the design and form of this piece not as the antithesis of the forms he was creating, but simply as an exaggeration of the Turner form.

Turner gave it a much fuller body, starting very low at the base.

The pot was influenced by Tang Dynasty vases, but again, Turner stresses that he was not trying to copy a Tang Vase.

Rather he was trying to assimilate its feeling and stature.

To do the paddling decoration and the swelling body form, Turner had to cut the shoulder off the piece and precisely reattach. The pot was finished when a separate neck form was joined to the shoulder, a very complex technique. It exaggerates the dynamics of the diameters.

In addition to paddling to create the textures, he also pushed out the wall of the pot, helping the textured areas to be more pronounced. Pushing the corners out created panels, or a plane for the surface texture. Turner had to be careful not to overwork the material. Only so much manipulation can be done with porcelain before the walls fatigue and collapse. Although the paddle tool was a specific size, he had to intuitively apply it to place the texture decoration around the form. Sometimes the lower level of paddling would be between the upper two areas. If one looks closely, the

98–Tang vase, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze 10 x 7, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

decoration is not absolutely consistent; nevertheless, there is a spontaneity in the process. Here again that Abstract Expressionism influence came into play. Turner did not care if

the decorative pattern would have been lost.

The visual nubbies in the center simply set off that

the decorative pattern was absolutely mechanically consistent,

space. Without the nubs, it would not be as interesting or

but he did strive to create an overall unified visual effect.

complete. Turner also put his “double T� stamp in the center

Like so many of his copper red porcelain works, the textural areas with concave and convex surfaces created variations in color. White and light reds occurred where the

space between the nubbies to truly divide that area into four quadrants.

2004 was a great year for Turner at Peachblow. He had

glaze flowed thin on convex surfaces because the thin glaze

been there eighteen years, had produced significant works

did not hold as much of the copper red colorant. The deepest

with his kiln, with his porcelain and with his glazes. All of

reds occurred in the recessed areas where the glaze had

these things had come together very well. While it cannot be

pooled. The thicker and darker coloring highlights the textural

said that Turner was in the operational mode of a production

effects. Had the glaze not been applied absolutely to the exact

potter, nevertheless, he was working full-time in the studio

thickness and fired to a precise level of reduction, the effect of

producing a large number of pots. Things were good.

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Pot 99 has a form with a lower center of gravity. The

potters simply by looking at how a lip has been formed. On

fullness intentionally starts much lower than with many of

occasions, as a pot has become leatherhard, Turner has added

his pots. Along with the very full form, the top of the pot has

a coil of clay to an existing weak lip, then placed the pot back

four visual nubbies. They are not really handles, yet they refer

on the wheel, re-forming a stronger, more distinctive lip.

visually back to Japanese tea jars. Asian pots would use these

We have previously discussed the Reeves Green glaze

little handles to tie down lids. That function was not Turner’s

trail decoration Turner used on his cover jars and teapots. On

intent here; his intent was totally focused on visual design.

Pot 99 the Reeves Green, which is a chrome glaze, reacts with

The lip on Pot 99 is distinct. Many potters do not think

his Peachblow glaze, which is a high iron glaze, to develop

about lips, but for Turner they are the first thing he sees. He

a yellow-gold brown halo. In reference to this glaze effect,

views lips as signatures, visual markers of who made the pot.

Turner confesses, “I can’t paint this, but I can make it happen in

Turner maintains he can identify works by many well-known

the firing. Once I see the reaction of two glazes, I can use that to my benefit.”

The Peachblow glaze covering this pot came from the same glaze material that is on Pot 79. Turner contends that he has never seen a Japanese or Chinese glaze this beautiful coming from a single material. It has both the tea dust and hairs fur affects. Where it is thin, the sheen is matte, and where it is thick, it is gloss. He maintains no one in the entire world has this unique glaze except him. He still has several five gallon buckets of this Peachblow clay in his Mars Hill studio.

The glaze had a wide range of success whether applied thick or thin. A thin coat could be sprayed on a pot and then a glaze trail, or brush decoration of the same glaze, could be applied thickly over the thin layer, in order to create pattern.

It generated areas of light and dark, matte and gloss. Again the decoration was accomplished simply by exploiting the various characteristics of the glaze itself.

The tea dust on the lip is a magnesia crystal. On Japanese and Chinese pots, Turner does not believe those glazes were formulated. Instead, he thinks those potters would work out the glazes based on whatever local materials were available.

In the case of Turner’s Peachblow glaze, this clay contained talc. The magnesia crystals, a characteristic of tea dust glazes, formed in the firing and cooling. Turner notes that if the glaze

99–Bottle, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, chrome green glaze trailing, 9 x 8, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

was fired in oxidation, the crystals may not occur. Also, the rich iron color does not occur in the oxidation atmosphere of an electric kiln.

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Returning to decorating on the pot, the interaction of the

He recalls that he had made copper handles on previous

two glazes caused more melt. The Reeves Green does not flow

teapots, but he did not want to use copper handles here

by itself, but placed over the Peachblow glaze, the two glazes

because they took too much time to produce. The handle

together flowed almost an inch down the pot. The decoration

arrangement on this teapot came from English teapots that

was Turner’s interpretation of the horse eye decoration that

had a front lug, so that a finger on the left hand could assist

can be seen on 18th century plates from Seto, Japan. As with

in the pouring. Other fingers were used to stabilize the lid, so

all his influences, he did not try to copy the Seto plates exactly.

it was a two-handed pour. A teapot that size can be heavy, so

Rather, they were a source of inspiration as he was glaze

Turner states his design was primarily a functional solution.

trailing this pot. Surprisingly, where the glazes melted and

The ideal spout, according to Turner, has a continuous

flowed together, there was a breakup of the horse eye pattern

taper. The spout on this piece tapers in and then flares out

and a more complex design developed. Turner describes it as a

at the end. Turner maintains this flaring makes the liquid

pleasing contemporary pattern.

follow the shape of the spout and creates a gurgling effect.

The uniqueness of this piece, Pot 101, comes from

He countered this effect by cutting the end of the spout at an

stamping the outside and the inside. As with several pots

angle. According to Turner, this design makes for an excellent

during this period, Turner recalls that there was no way that

pour. Later on he would put a little face on the end, and it

he could get his hand down inside the body. Instead, he cut

would make the spout pour even better.

the shoulder of the piece off and did the stamping and pushing out. Then he put the shoulder back onto the body.

The spout problem for Turner was a question of dealing with function as well as aesthetics. “If I find I have to make a

101–Porcelain teapot, assimilated ash glaze, chrome green glaze trailing, 7 x 11 ½, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

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decision between the two, I go with the aesthetics. This spout

Turner goes on to reflect on this teapot:

functions, but aesthetically, it is a more dynamic spout,” he says.

The stamping on the sides and in the front of the pot

Here again, there is not a way to make this teapot

provides vertical lines. Turner put them on the lid and handles

more than it is. It is maxed out. Everything came

as well, so there is a visual correlation throughout the pot.

together. This is not normal: I don’t get every pot

The green dots create a pattern with a black connecting web

out of the kiln where the decoration, glazing and

system. By observation, Turner knew that the green dots

firing all turn out to be exact and together. I used

would have a black area at the thin outside edge. When he

to say it may occur one in a hundred. There is

put a Reeves Green dot on top of fake ash it created a burst

a completeness about these kinds of pots, and

of color. Green is in the center of the dot and black forms on

that is the reason I keep them. That’s why I don’t

the outside edge. When he saw that, he said to himself, “What

want anyone to be around when I unload a kiln.

if I were to put them together? What if I shifted each layer?”

It is too intimate. There is too much programmed

What he got was the gray, shadowy halo effect. When the dots

disappointment, since my expectations are

were placed next to one another in the right pattern it created

so unrealistically high. It is a formula for

a fish scale design. The lines were from the glaze melt itself. He

disappointment every time I unload. If people are

was to put this knowledge about halos and patterns to use in

there they can disrupt my connections to the pots.

many other pieces in the future.

They may say they want to buy a piece, and I am

While the decoration was purposely put into a pattern,

not ready to sell it. It takes me two or three days to

the dots on the spout were random. Turner would start out

get past the expectations and really see the pots

with the intention of having total control and then deliberately

for what they are. When I pulled this teapot from

bounce out of it. He did that with this pot. All of the green

the kiln I didn’t immediately realize how successful

was very controlled, and he put a dot on the front and back

it was. I have a saying in my studio-- “You have

handles, and a dot on the spout. It was a kind of play for

to be inquisitive, you have to be willing to take

Turner. As he describes it, “I was showing the control of the

the risk, and then you have to be observant if you

patterning and then just playing with the placement of these

want to grow.”

other dots. If one looks at the pot as being visually balanced, that dot on the spout is a part of that visual balance. It is visually balanced from the back handle to the spout.”

The lid can be turned upside down and it will fit, and have

For Turner the potter has to take risks, be willing to lose work and to accept the possibility of total failure. Turner has always been a gambler. He will devote a great deal of time to

a knob on the top. He did not intentionally trim the lid to be an

making a pot and then risk it all in glazing and firing it. But that

exact fit, but turned upside down it does.

is what is required in order to obtain that unique, one-of-akind, timeless pot. The prospect of suffering financial loss in the process never deterred Turner. Artistic growth was the ultimate objective. To paraphrase the famous author M. Scott Peck, Turner has chosen a “potter’s road less traveled.”

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A professional potter develops certain forms that become

ash glazes. Since the Young Americans period, Turner has had

his or her signature forms. Pot 102 is one of those forms for

an infatuation and love affair with both wood ash and fake

Turner. It moves from the foot upwards to create visual lift

ash glazes. Ironically, Turner has metaphorically danced back

and features his own signature full body. The contour of the

and forth between passionate love affairs with two glaze

lid’s dome flows onto the body of the pot without interruption,

“mistresses.” He has been obsessed with those shiny copper

except for the horizontal line created by its slightly flared lip

reds, their precise flow and stunning colors, but on the other

and the contour break line on the ledge located near the mid

hand, he has also loved those textured, runny ash glazes with

lid area. The horizontal lines of the lid are repeated by the line

more muted colors.

at the bottom of the piece, created by the formation of the foot rim.

This particular piece was made for a show in Johnson City, TN, at East Tennessee State University. The show was called Wood Fired, Gas Fired. This piece has a shino glaze that was fired in a gas kiln. Turner sifted wood ash on it before the firing to make the pot appear that it had been wood fired. This piece, too, was done in his April 2004 firing.

The glaze treatment on the pot looks like a buildup of ash in a wood fire kiln, and illustrates Turner’s belief that there are many ways to do a process and achieve an effect. Many people would believe the glaze on this pot was a result of building up fly ash over an extended period of firing time. Turner’s close friend, Tom Coleman, used a similar approach. He entered a gas fired pot in a wood fired show and won first place. Afterwards, the juror found out that the pot had not been fired in a wood kiln and was very upset. Both Coleman and Turner enjoy pushing boundaries and perceived limits. What others say cannot be done always poses a challenge for Turner.

By sifting the ash on the pot, he simply speeds up what happens in a wood kiln firing, but with less work and time.

Instead of a wood firing with a firing cycle of twenty to forty hours, this pot was fired in a gas kiln in a normal cycle with other pots that had various types of glazes on them.

This piece, with the glaze treatment, harkens back to the Young Americans Exhibition that Turner entered at the beginning of his career. While the Octo Jar in Young Americans did not fully reveal Turner’s command of form, the approach to glazing was very similar. The major connection is the wood

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102–Cover-jar, porcelain, shino glaze with ash sifted over, 8 x 8, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

Turner expresses his love affair and passion for his pots in the collection by confessing:

Particularly wrenching was the realization he would have to abandon his kiln.

Don Pilcher had told Turner the Peachblow kiln was the

I kept these pots for 45 years. I still get great

most beautiful one he had ever seen. It embodied Turner’s

enjoyment looking at them. I am really enjoying

obsession with details.

looking at this pot, just looking at the relationship

He and his kiln had been in total sync. Like many

of the foot to the body, to the ledge on the lid to the

professional potters, Turner knew how the kiln would respond

dome of the lid, to where the handles are placed

to everything he asked of it. It was his pride and joy, but he

and then to the exclamation point in the center of

knew he could not take it with him. The kiln would have to be

the lid. It is just an extremely successful pot. Again, I

left behind.

could not do that any better, so I have kept it.

The Peachblow years were a time of great productivity for Turner. In many respects it was a period of creative normalcy. It was the longest period of working in one studio.

On the other hand, toward the end of this period there were moments of great stress and challenges in Turner’s life, such as those five years where he left his abiding passion for pottery behind entirely. Looking back Turner sadly reflects, The Army could not stop me from making pots, but the situation with my wife did. For the first time I loved a woman more than I loved making pots.

Whatever paths we choose, they add something to us. I continue to make mistakes daily, but if you are reaching you learn to accept the mistakes.

Peachblow kiln that was transported and resembled from Akron.

Turner was to give up that eighteen-year dream of Peachblow and much more. Despite his efforts to “fix” his marriage, it ended in divorce. But Turner could not stay away from his passion; he returned to making pots at the beginning of the new century with as much intensity, energy and creativity as he had had before.

Turner was once again trying to transition from a free fall to landing on his feet. He accepted the hard reality that he would have to leave behind many things he cherished, including the wonderful pottery venue, Peachblow.

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SECTION 8

SA L LI E TAY LO R

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The Studio on the Hill

Turner knew relocating again would be hard, both physically and mentally. It would take all the energy and resources he could muster. Nevertheless, Turner decided he would relocate to the Asheville, NC, area, a vibrant and emerging arts community. He had specific requirements for the property that would be his new home and studio. First, he wanted a rural setting with several acres of property. Second, he needed a house that was at least 4,000 square feet. His rationale was that he would be leaving an 8,000-square-foot house in Ohio, and that it would require a minimum of 4,000 square feet to house his huge ceramic collection, accommodate the new studio, and still provide living space.

He found the property he was seeking near Mars Hill, NC, a small college town that is approximately twenty miles north of Asheville. He spent the next three months getting the house renovated to handle his collection and setting up a porcelain studio. Shelves had to be anchored to the floor to provide a secure space for the hundreds of pots in his massive collection. A new spray booth system had to be installed, along with many other fixtures required for a functional studio. Next to the main house, a concrete slab was poured just outside his new studio door. For the first time in his life, Turner decided to buy a large gas kiln rather than build one himself.

He selected a Geil Kiln. “If it is good enough for my friend

105–Cover-jar, porcelain Temmoku and iron glazes, turtle finial, 8 3/4 x 6 1/2, 2006, Mars Hill, NC.

Tom Coleman, it is good enough for me,” he reasoned. When the Geil arrived Turner had to use a forklift to transport it the four-tenths of a mile up his mountain driveway. The Geil was

those glazes. When creating Pot 105, Turner purposely made

placed on the newly poured slab and a metal building was then

fluted lines on the body of the pot so that the glaze would

constructed over it.

break thin on them. On the lid, he added extra iron on top of

A year and a half after moving to Mars Hill, Turner

the Temmoku. This illustrates Turner’s holistic approach to

was ready to resume making porcelain art pottery, and he

creating a pot. He was simultaneously making decisions about

continued doing what he had done in Ohio, cone 9 reduction.

both the decoration and about the glazing of the piece. For

Again, his overarching goal was to push the boundaries of art.

Turner, decisions about the design, construction, decoration

His watch words continued to be, “if it is easy to do, I don’t

and glazing all begin at the conceptual stage and mature

want to do it.”

as the work evolves. After so many years of research and

Turner had literally taken the glaze buckets from Ohio with him to Mars Hill, and he continued to experiment with

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experimentation, Turner has developed an impressive “tool box” of techniques available to him when he begins each pot.

It was at this time that images of turtles begin appearing

leatherhard stage. He incorporated his “Turner lines” at the

on the lids and shoulders of his pots. Turner remembers he

points where the components were joined, but even more

had a Canadian friend who continually referred to the old,

importantly, they became the key design elements in the

native Canadian saying of “walk behind the turtle.” Turner

overall form. A line occurs at the lower third of the pot, and

maintains that he was not very patient, so he started doing

then again at the upper third, on the shoulder of the pot. Like

turtles on his pots as a type of a personal object lesson.

a classical Greek vase, visual activity occurs within the area

Ironically, many of Turner’s peers have always viewed him as

defined by those two lines.

being very methodical. Many would characterize him as being very measured, slow and observant. In contrast to the turtle metaphor, one could say that throughout his career, Turner has avoided running like the proverbial hare, hopping on every new fad or trend in ceramics.

Pot 105 is an example of one of the first pots Turner made at Mars Hill, and the turtle image may well have been symbolic of the slow, methodical way he was to go about restarting his career. As before when he had returned to making pots after a major relocation, Turner wanted to re-hone his skills and build a solid base in his new studio. “I simply did what I knew how to do best,” he says. “Once I had learned the kiln, and the pots were flowing, then I had the confidence to start reaching out to the next level.”

This Temmoku pot shows Turner’s desire to force the issue of aesthetics over form. It has a wide lid, so the casual viewer assumes that the body also has a wide opening at the top. In fact, Turner deliberately made the opening into the body too small for a person’s hand, effectively curtailing its functionality.

As a result, the pot is to be valued purely for its beauty.

As Turner gained confidence using his new Geil Kiln, he once again began to push the porcelain process on a larger scale. Pot 108 reveals a return for Turner to making multipleform pieces, here consisting of four parts. He first threw a bowl-like base, followed by the large tapering cylinder wall for the wall of the jar. Another bowl form was thrown to form the opening for the lid. Finally a lid with a flaring ledge completes the form. Like his previous multi-forms, Turner had to visualize how all the components would come together, throw them to exact measurements, and then fit them together at the

108–Turtle jar, porcelain, fake ash glaze, green glaze trailed dots, 19 x 13, 2006, Mars Hill, NC.

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91

As in much of his previous work, such as the teapot (Pot

quality that is illustrative of the American Ceramic Studio

101), Turner used a stamping and pressing technique to create

Movement. Turner has captured a postmodern attribute of

a continuous decorative pattern. He also incised a pattern

responding to past historical styles while translating and

over the stamped area to make it more distinct. Instead of

infusing them into a new, creative artistic statement.

relying on visual nubbies, as on other pots, Turner placed small

He had been at Mars Hill nearly three years when he

turtle finials on the shoulder. And rather than relying on an

began sifting wood ash on Shino glaze. This technique gave

exclamation dot on the top of the lid, as he had done with so

him a more defined response. The effect of the ash on Shino

many of his cover jars, Turner substituted the turtle image to

was more pronounced than any other glaze. Many years ago

complete the form.

he had seen Don Reitz grab raw feldspar and throw it onto

The glazing of the piece is again an interaction of

a pot. This Shino pot has both sifted wood ash and thrown

traditional ash and fake ash glazes, applied in thick and thin

feldspar. The feldspar gives it a totally different dimension,

layers. Reeves Green, a glaze he had used for years, was

creating the white spots, but also providing relief to the glazed

applied as a means of highlighting specific areas. Small green

surface. This process evolved from trial and error. Turner calls

dots were added in a decorative band in the middle of the form.

what he did “little tricks” that enhance his pots.

At the top area of the opening of the jar, there is a green band, which is repeated at the top of the lid, under the turtle form.

The thick application of the ash glaze in key areas of the

Turner stresses that the way a Shino glaze is fired makes a big difference. Shino fired in an electric kiln closely reassembles what might be called a Hagi glaze. In fact, he

form is a critical part of the decorative design. On the very top

suspects that Hagi ware is really oxidized Shino. The result

of the shoulder of the pot near the opening, a thick application

is rather pale, but the orange color in the Shino on Pot 110

of the ash glaze even overlaps the Reeves Green. This creates

comes from reduction firing. Reduction enhances the color

a pattern of vertical rivulets that run down to the edge of the

of a Shino by darkening it in some areas while in other areas

shoulder. The glaze is stopped by a small ledge that Turner

producing blonde variations.

left on the shoulder for that very purpose. Turner repeats this

Throughout much of his career, Turner’s training and

thick application of ash glaze just under the line located at the

research was in reduction kiln firing. He observes that

lower third of the pot. Here again, the thick glaze flows and

the Temmoku turtle pot (Pot 105) would not have been

runs, forming vertical rivulets. The glaze decoration on the jar

as interesting had it been fired in an oxidation process in

provides an interaction of vertical and horizontal movement

an electric kiln. The breaking color would not have fully

that plays on the classical Turner vertical lift. It juxtaposes the

developed, yielding only a shiny black. Additionally, the iron

formal structure of the pot itself, with the informal flowing of

on the lid would not have crystalized, failing to produce as

the decorative patterns created by the glaze.

strong a color.

While this piece has formal elements that harken back to

For the first several years at Mars Hill, Turner continued

classical Asian and European styles, the incorporation of wood

to experiment with the glazes he had developed at Peachblow,

ash glazes suggests that it is also a hybrid of classical and folk

as well as Shino glazes and copper red glazes. By 2009,

pottery genres. The previous observation by the Japanese

however, he began to turn his attention to oil spot and

ceramic historian -- that Turner’s pots were stoneware pots

crystalline glazing. Traditional oil spot glazes, also known

made with porcelain -- may capture the essence of this piece.

historically in Asia as Yuteki glazes, conventionally require

While it has classical elements, it also has a modern, creative

oxidation firing rather than reduction firing in a gas kiln. The

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oxidation process produces an atmosphere that allows the layers of glaze to boil. In a similar way, it has always been accepted wisdom that crystals in a crystalline glaze develop more strongly in an oxidation firing. Crystal development in a reduction atmosphere is normally minimal. Titanium crystal glazes are an exception. The crystals will develop in reduction firing, but they are usually smaller and less numerous.

At Mars Hill, Turner initially tried to fire his Geil gas kiln in a manner that mimicked oxidation with these two new glazes, but he could not create the consistent and sustained oxidation atmosphere needed. To solve the problem, Turner had L &L Kilns design a custom electric kiln that would easily reach cone 9 and maintain the oxidation atmosphere. The new custom kiln had thicker walls and stronger heating elements that enabled it to work efficiently at the higher temperatures. Another important component was a top-ofthe-line programmable controller. The controller enabled the replication of a firing schedule within very exact parameters.

“I could visualize the process taking place in my head,” he remembers. The new controller enabled Turner to adjust firing cycles with absolute precision, even more so than with gas kilns equipped with state-of-the-art oxygen probes and pyrometers for measuring temperatures within the kiln. With the new ‘tricked out” electric kiln, Turner began yet another ambitious series of tests to develop the oil spot and crystalline effects he sought.

110–Cover-jar, porcelain, Shino glaze with ash over, gas fired, 9 x 6, 2007, Mars Hill, NC.

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93

Pot 116 is an example of Turner’s initial exploration into crystalline glazes. Most crystalline glazes, especially those containing zinc, develop their character in the oxidation firing and in the cooling process, therefore the firing cycle needs to be controlled precisely. Ironically, this work utilizing titanium crystals was not fired in an electric oxidation kiln, but in Turner’s Geil gas kiln. Through methodical experimentation, Turner developed a titanium glaze of just the right thickness to maximize crystal development during the reduction process.

Once again he defied conventional wisdom, asking “who says you can’t.”

Pot 116, like all of Turner’s glazes at this time, was fired in the same cone 9 range. In fact, the Temmoku, the Shino with sifted ash, and titanium glazed pots were all fired side by side.

Conventional wisdom was that any crystal glaze will build crystals if it is cooled slowly, but Tuner did not worry about a slow cooling cycle. The result speaks for itself. Again, this was another instance of Turner asking “who says you can’t?” He has always been a creative boundary breaker, not a follower of standard practices.

This pot was first glazed with a blue celadon, and then over sprayed with a titanium crystal glaze in three different bands. Iron oxide mixed with water was applied between the bands of crystalline glaze.

After hundreds of pots, Turner had learned what the titanium overspray would do. As evident in Pot 116, the tests

116–Vase, porcelain, titanium crystal glaze over blue celadon glaze, 8 ¼ x 6, 2009, Mars Hill, NC.

revealed that even though the titanium crystalline was matte, it would flow down the side of a pot and push the iron oxide lines as much as three quarters to an inch. Secondly, Turner

During this period of exploration, Turner also

learned that the glaze was sensitive to even the slightest

experimented with altering the form of a pot to make it more

variation in temperature. For instance, this pot was placed

visually interesting. Pot 117 is paddled triangularly and then

near the edge of a kiln shelf. There was about a five- to ten-

vertically fluted to enhance the three panels. This altered

degree increase in temperature on the side of the pot facing

bottle form illustrates an evolution in the porcelain forms he

the edge of the shelf. That area had a pinker color and the

was creating. The change in form was necessary to maximize

titanium glaze tended to flow more. Turner maintains that

the effects of the oil spot and zinc crystal glazes he wanted to

there is nothing wrong with that variation, one side is simply

use. The flat shouldered forms suited the characteristics of the

different from the other.

glazes, and functioned as theatrical stages on which the glazes

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when I unloaded the kiln each time, I paid attention to the visual details of the firing. The small details told me what I had to do during the next firing.

This bottle was one of his first oil spot pieces fired in his new electric kiln. The oil spot effect can be achieved in different ways. Here Turner sprayed a thin coat of Ron Roy’s black magic Temmoku over a Mike Bailey oil spot glaze. Both of those glazes will boil at the higher end of the firing cycle.

Again, after running hundreds of tests, the surface of this pot was the one Turner preferred. Turner describes the oil spot process this way: The key to the process is the bubbling caused by the iron gassing out from the glaze. If you get glazes that are eight to ten percent iron oxide, the iron disassociates at approximately 2,280 degrees and gives off oxygen. At 2,280 these glazes are somewhat melted. The oxygen creates a bubble that is given off and floats to the surface.

It will burst and leave iron at the surface, thereby creating the oil spot pattern.

I was in Seto, Japan in 2003 and I wrote an article 117–Triangular bottle, porcelain, oil spot Yuteki glaze, 6 ¾ x 4, 2010, Mars Hill, NC.

saying the Japanese were locked into tradition, and we are locked out. In Japan, the oil spot glaze is revered in the tea ceremony. So their oil spot is generally used for tea bowls and tea caddies.

could perform. It could be said that Turner had returned to

Oil spot glazes in Japan do not get very far from

his former days when his copper red salt glazes provided the

that function because that is their tradition. They

decorative effect on the surface of the pots during the firing

would not normally put this glaze on something

process. As Turner describes the situation:

else. They certainly would not find other glazes to spray over it like I did on Pot 124. So because I am

Wanting to do the oil spot and zinc crystal glazes

not locked into a tradition, I can take the idea of

dictated the (new oxidation) kiln that I had to use.

bubbling and boiling and test it in any way that I

Doing the glazes also dictated the forms I had to

want to explore. Pot 124 has three glazes on it. All

create. This was the development sequence, and

three glazes boiled. The cover glaze is not a high

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95

iron glaze, but it boiled like crazy. Many glazes may

After two years of testing and working with oil spot

boil and bubble, but they settle down. We may

glazes, Turner felt he had mastered the use of both the glazing

never actually see what they do. I was able to take

process and his first electric kiln. Initially, the oil spot process

the oil spot concept which is bubbling and boiling

was a very creative endeavor, but once he learned the process

and take it further, as in the case of Pot 124. One

it became boringly predictable. He was now ready to move on

other thing: I took the concept of the traditional

to exploring zinc crystal glazes in more detail.

gourd shaped sake flask from Japan and made it into a covered jar for this piece.

The non-running zinc crystal glaze on Pot 126 originated from a glaze that Ralph Bacerra gave Turner in 1976. At that time, the glaze was more of a snowflake type. Unlike the titanium crystalline glazes he had been using (such as on Pot 116), Turner wanted to develop a non-running zinc crystal glaze. The fact that zinc crystal glazes are best fired in oxidation was perfect for Turner’s new electric kiln.

Turner combed through a hundred pages of personal notes that he had amassed over forty years of study to find the recipe that Bacerra had shared with him nearly thirty years before. He remembered that the zinc glaze had never worked well in gas firings, but with some adjustments he speculated it would work well at a cone 9 oxidation firing. Turner set up a classic line blend test to experiment with Bacerra’s zinc crystal formula. He incrementally adjusted the ratio of ingredients until he found a glaze that would not run. These adjustments transformed the glaze into a beautiful and highly reliable cone 9 glaze. The formula was no longer the one Bacerra had given his young protégé. Now it was Turner’s own formula.

Nevertheless, Turner gives credit to his old mentor for establishing the foundation that enabled him to develop his own recipe.

As was the case for much of his career, Turner had to blaze a new trail and develop his own techniques for firing these oil spot and crystalline glazes. According to most pottery authorities of the day, it was recommended to fire oil spot glazes at cone 9 or 10. After reaching that target, it was advised to drop the kiln temperature down to 1850° and hold it for a period of time in order for the boiling bubbles

124–Gourd shaped cover-jar, porcelain, oil spot Yuteki glazes, 8 ½ x 6, 2011, Mars Hill, NC.

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to subside. However, Turner realized that at 1850° a normal cone 9 glaze would have already solidified, and holding it all

Explaining how he fires his electric kiln now, Turner says: I forget about cones and forget about numbers in books. I find the shut off point where sequence and time fire the glaze to create the effect that I want.

I learned how to program that controller to get the final effect. That is how I fired the oil spot. Then I started experimenting with the zinc crystal, right along with the oil spot. So the zinc crystal glaze I formulated was developed to work in that oil spot firing cycle with just an hour hold.

Turner also found during his tests that the zinc crystals would become even larger if the reduced kiln temperature is held for two hours, instead of one.

Even during those initial years at Mars Hill while he was experimenting with other glazes, Turner never lost his passion 126–Bottle, porcelain, copper/zinc/ titanium lunar crystal glaze, 7 x 7, 2012, Mars Hill, NC.

and love for oxblood copper red. He knew he had mastered that process in a gas kiln, but could he achieve copper reds in the oxidation atmosphere of an electric kiln? If so, could copper red glaze be fired alongside oil spot and zinc crystal

day long at 1850° would not change anything. Instead, Turner

and how would they all interact? As always, Turner was

had to find the ideal temperature at which to stop the firing

intrigued by the challenge.

for each new glaze formula, then program the kiln controller

He began to study the literature on this issue. Back in his

to drop fifty degrees and hold it one hour. This firing cycle was

early years as a student he had read how silicon carbide could

complicated because he had to actually shut off the kiln before

be added to a copper glaze, and that if all the conditions were

reaching cone 9. This was because of what is known as heat

right, the carbide would chemically reduce the copper to red

work. Even if the firing is stopped slightly below the desired

in an oxidation firing. But, how successful was the process,

cone temperature, the glaze will continue to melt as if the

who were the potters who had done it before, and did they

cone number had been reached because of the total amount

obtain consistent results?

of time the heat works to melt the glaze. It took extreme

The legendary Arthur Baggs at Ohio State had written

patience with the controller to find the right shut off time that

as early as 1932 about chemically reducing copper in a glaze.

would give the exact result Turner wanted. Once that cycle

And Harding Black and Edgar Littlefield had both published

was programmed into the controller, it did the work for all

articles in Ceramics Monthly in 1953 about the process of

subsequent firings. As it turned out, Turner discovered that he

chemically reducing copper with silicon carbide to create

could fire both the oil spot and non-running zinc crystal glazes

oxblood reds. Even as recently as 2010, Michael Bailey

in the same firing, with the one-hour hold.

and Dean McRaine had written in Ceramic Review about

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97

how different sized particles of silicon carbide affected the

the effect of the size of the silicon carbide particles on the

resulting reds. But perhaps the biggest clue was the work

copper red color produced. Smaller mesh carbide meant less

done by Max Compton, an Alfred graduate, who had worked

red. After numerous tests, he found that 800 mesh silicon

at Catalina Island Pottery in California. From the 1920s until

carbide worked best for producing strong copper reds he

1942, Catalina Island produced some the most stunning

was after.

copper red glazes Turner had ever seen. He had discovered

Even with the right glaze formula Turner still had to

a piece of this pottery back in 1973, and collected various

control the thickness of the glaze exactly, and find the perfect

pieces on his antiquing excursions through the years. Initially

firing cycle. He had faced those same basic problems, of

he did not realize the work was from Catalina Pottery

course, when he had previously fired his copper red salt vapor

because the first piece he bought did not have a distinct mark.

pieces in a reduction kiln. The glaze must be applied just thick

Turner spent years tracking down the source of the work. He

enough to build the intense red color, but not so thick that

speculated that these copper red glazes must have been done

running and crawling occurs.

in oxidation firing, since the copper glazes inside the pots had

After so many years of research in testing glazes and firing

the predictable green color one would have expected from

techniques, Turner had developed a gut feeling for what might

oxidation firing. Yet the glaze on the outside was an intense

and might not work. He had a hunch that his forty-five-year-old

copper red. It would not have been possible to get both colors

copper red formula, the one he had used for reduction firing,

if the pots had been fired in reduction. So he knew brilliant

could be adjusted to work in oxidation firings as well. The exact

copper reds could be achieved during an oxidation firing. The

percentage of copper in the glaze is critical. If there is too little

question was how?

copper the red cannot develop. If there is too much copper

From personal experience in mastering reduction-fired

the glaze will go to a dark burgundy color. Turner found that

copper red glazes, and from reading the literature, Turner

even less copper is required in a glaze intended for chemical

knew that there were certain materials that critically affect

reduction during an oxidation firing than would normally be

the process. Zinc, potassium, magnesium, and tin all steal

required in atmospheric reduction in his gas kiln.

oxygen from the firing process, thereby chemically facilitating

After extensive testing, he arrived at a formula that

reduction. Turner hypothesized that by adding some of these

produced the desired copper reds in an oxidation firing on test

materials to his formula in the right amount, along with

tiles, but there was more to it. An interesting phenomenon

silicon carbide, he could create a copper red glaze that would

can occur when going from the test tiles to the actual firing

chemically reduce in an oxidation firing.

of production pieces, even with exactly the same glaze

As with the oil spot and crystalline glazes he developed,

formula. While the test tile may turn out with perfect color,

Turner used a similar methodical approach to finding the

the same glaze on a full ceramic form may have a different

right silicon carbide formula to achieve the copper red effect

outcome. Turner discovered that the copper in the glaze

he wanted. He conducted hundreds of tests with copper and

vaporized before cone 8 was reached. On small test tiles this

silicon carbide. He began searching for suppliers of the key

vaporization was just right, producing a brilliant red. However,

ingredient, silicon carbide, and contacted Washington Mills,

on the large pots there was too much copper being vaporized

a major producer of silicon carbide. He obtained samples that

and that could sometimes result in a very dark color, even in

ranged from 500 to 1200 mesh. Turner was able to replicate

metallic spotting in certain areas of the surface. The solution

the results that Bailey and McRaine had reported concerning

was to reduce the amount of copper in the formula.

98

THE STUDIO ON THE HILL

Turner also discovered that firing to cone 9 in oxidation was not the same as firing to cone 9 in reduction. In a cone 9 glaze almost all of the materials composing the pot, namely the clay and glazes, have iron in them. Iron acts as a powerful flux that improves the melt in reduction firing.

During oxidation firing, however, the iron does not act as a flux. So while cone 9 glazes can be fired successfully in either atmosphere, there may be less melt during the oxidation process. That required some minor adjustments in adding fluxes to the formula for designed for oxidation firing.

In fact, he found that the firing schedule that he had used for oil spot and zinc crystal glazes worked equally well for the copper red glaze. He was now able to fire copper red glazes right alongside his oil spot and zinc crystalline glazes in the same kiln. Going a step further, Turner combined copper red and zinc crystalline glazes on the same pot (Pot 127). He thinks that he may be the first potter in history have to combined the two glazes on a single pot. “I can’t verify that, but I have never seen copper red and zinc crystal together,” he says.

Pot 127 has the zinc crystal glaze on the top and a copper red oxblood glaze on the sides. Before Turner’s groundbreaking efforts, this would have seemed to most potters to be an incompatible match. While firing a copper red in an oxidation kiln was not new, Turner certainly took it to a new level of intensity.

For Turner, moving to the electric kiln opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Oxidation firing of pottery

127–Oval bottle, porcelain, chemically reduced copper red oxblood and copper lunar crystal glazes, 6 ¾ x 3, 2012, Mars Hill, NC.

in today’s electric kilns will, in Turner’s estimation, usher in a new day in ceramics. As he put it, “I always thought that trying to do a copper red glaze in an electric kiln was not necessary because I had gas kilns. Now, with these new electric kilns, I view the possibilities as unlimited,” he says.

The choice of an electric kiln no longer comes down to a tradeoff between saving money and artistic success. High efficiency electric kilns are now not only cheaper to operate, but thanks to Turner and others, they now offer potters as many or more opportunities for creative expression as any

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99

other means of firing. Turner was on the leading edge of that trend from gas to electric kilns. Turner and his recent work have been featured in numerous advertisements and articles in professional publications touting the advances made in recent years in electric kiln technology. And his research has served as a major resource for potters who want to take advantage of this new technology. Certainly, advancements in electric kiln technology are driving this transition, but it has been the work of Turner and others who have shown new ways of using that technology.

Turner opening an electric kiln of copper red glazes, 2013.

Red and zinc test tiles in Turner’s studio.

10 0

THE STUDIO ON THE HILL

Early in his career Turner did ground breaking ceramic research at Clemson with his simple, basic salt-fired porcelain forms that featured brilliant copper red glazes. Now, over forty years later, he continues to break boundaries and overcome perceived limitations in the field of the ceramic arts. Pot 129 is a simple, but elegant, form with a glaze that is truly unique. The depth and intensity of the red that Turner was able to produce through chemical reduction in the electric kiln rivals any of the previous copper reds he was able to achieve using gas-fired reduction kilns. In fact, it may be difficult, if not impossible, for even a trained eye to distinguish between the two. Turner’s achievement points the way to future possibilities.

129–Vase, porcelain, chemically reduced copper red oxblood glaze, 6x6, 2013, Mars Hill, NC.

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101

Patrick Taylor Author’s Epilogue From that first smell of clay in grammar school, Tom Turner felt a calling to be a potter. Perhaps, as he suggests himself, he

I stamp, sign and date my pieces. At times I have

was even a potter in a past life. Nevertheless, for more than

used my stamp as decoration. I have a chop stamp

half a century now he has devoted his life to mastering the

that I have used both as a decoration and a stamp

art of pottery, elevating that form well beyond most others

that I have used since the mid-1960s. Now I have a

in the field. His work comes above all else in his life, with

double T stamp and a “Turner Lane” stamp. I hand

near total focus on creating unique, one of a kind “art pots.”

sign and date each piece. I think it is very significant

Throughout his life, the ideal instilled in him as a boy to do the

to document your work. Going back to high school,

very best work possible has been his guiding vision, and he has

my art teacher taught us to take pride and respect

transformed that simple work ethic into a constant striving to

your work by putting your name on it.

do the next piece better than the last. At the same time he has embraced virtually every artistic and technical challenge that

There have been ups and downs in his personal life.

any artist could possibly encounter in a single lifetime: not

He has now lived alone for over a decade, but Turner has

simply overcoming them, but often breaking new ground for

remained faithful to his calling to his art. While many of his

the countless others who followed. When others said, “it can’t

contemporaries ventured and led avant-garde explorations

be done,” Turner asked, “who says I can’t?”

in ceramics, especially as a sculptural medium, Turner has

Whether risking financial stability or academic success,

remained faithful to the vessel form itself as an object of

Turner has been willing to pay whatever price, whether it be

beauty. His work has an ongoing, honest consistency to it,

personal or professional, to pursue his artistic expression.

despite the fact that it has continuously evolved and ventured

Whether it’s meant leaving a tenured university position

into new realms.

to devote all of himself exclusively to creative work, or the willingness to critique his work with a hammer, or relocating

Turner describes his vision and commitment in the simple, but straightforward declaration:

multiple times hauling tons of firebrick, Turner has always shown an uncompromising commitment to his work. Only

Someone in 100 years may look at these pots and

extraordinary passion for his art can truly explain it.

will not have to guess who made them. These pots

The meticulous manner in which he has documented

are forever. My intent was to make “timeless” pots.

and preserved his best work – much of it currently in this exhibition – is a testament to Turner’s professional commitment. The pride he has always taken in his work is reflected by this approach to how he signs his work:

102

AU T H O R ’ S E PI LO G U E

That he has done.

LI S T O F E X H I B IT E D WO R K S

10 3

LIST OF EXHIBITED WORKS

Early Works:

Military Service Works:

1–Pot, earthenware, pinch, 2 x 2 ½, 1961, Morris Community High School, Morris, IL. Turner’s first pot made in his first high school ceramics class.

10–Vase, stoneware, salt glazed, 11 ½ x 8 ½, 1970, Columbia, SC. Pot made at Craft Shop 4, Ft. Jackson and fired at the Columbia Museum of Art.

2–Pitcher, earthenware, coil, 10 ½ x 6 ½, 1963, Morris Community High School, Morris, IL. Awarded best of show in ceramics at the annual high school art show.

11–Plate, porcelain, iron crystal glaze, 1 ¾ x 11, 1970, Columbia, SC. Plate made at Craft Shop 4, Ft. Jackson, and fired at Richland Ceramics in a kiln Turner helped build.

University Works:

12–Vase, stoneware, salt glazed, 14 x 11, 1971, Red Bank, SC. One of the first large salt glazed pieces from the Red Bank kiln.

Turner’s surface decoration inspired

by Abstract Expressionism.

3–Vase, stoneware, salt glazed, 10 ½ x 7 ½, 1967, Morris, IL. Pot fired in the first kiln Turner made in his parents’ backyard in the summer of 1967.

4–Casserole, stoneware, 7 ½ x 10, 1966, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Work created after being influenced

by Robert Turner in a workshop.

5–Cylindrical vase, stoneware, 10 x 5, 1966, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Glaze was a test of Red Art clay and wood ash glaze. Glaze application was an early influence of Abstract Expressionist painters.

6–Bottle vase, stoneware, unglazed, 10 x 7, 1967, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Inspired by Richard Sperry’s film The Village Potters of Onda, Japan.

7–Oval bottle vase, stoneware, paddled, 6 x 5, 1967, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Inspired by watching Paul Soldner in a workshop demonstration.

8–Oval jar, stoneware, 12 ½ x 9 ½, 1968, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Pot shown in a regional juried show at Evansville, Indiana Art Museum, 1968.

9–“Octo” jar, stoneware, ash glazes, 9 x 10 ½, 1968, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Exhibited in Young Americans Exhibition 1969, National American Crafts Council Juried show that traveled the United States for 3 years.

10 4

13–Vase, blue porcelain with uranium yellow slip, salt glazed, 5 ¾ x 4, 1971, Red Bank, SC. Cylinder was a preliminary test for his development of a copper red salt vapor glaze.

14–Bottle vase, stoneware, coil thrown, 24 ½ x 17, 1971, Red Bank, SC. Inspired by Don Reitz large salt glazed forms and decorative influence of Abstract Expressionism.

15–Bottle, blue porcelain, salt glaze infused with red copper, 6 x 3, 1976, Liberty, SC. Clemson and Liberty Works: 16–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, 8 ½ x 9, 1972.

Clemson, SC. One of Turner’s first attempts at a copper red vapor glaze in the Clemson experimental kiln.

17–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, 8 ¾ x 8, 1972, Clemson, SC. Pot 17 was fired alongside Pot 16 and copper from Pot 16 vaporized and was deposited on Pot 17. Gold luster fired after the salt glaze firing.

In Contemporary Ceramic Techniques, John Conrad, 1979.

18–Brick portion of experimental copper red vapor kiln at Clemson, 1971. 18 ½ x 8 x 5 ½.

LI S T O F E X H I B IT E D WO R K S

19–Bottle vase, porcelain, square lip, salt glazed with infused red copper, 6 ¾ x 6 ¾, 1973, Liberty, SC. One of the first pots produced in an experimental vapor kiln funded by an Individual Artist Grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission. In Ceramics Monthly, February, 1974.

29–Cover jar, porcelain, salt glazed with infused green copper, slip decorated, fumed for iridescence, 8 x 8, 1975, Liberty, SC.

20–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, 7 ¼ x 7, 1973, Liberty, SC. Turner fumes with tin chloride for iridescence and subjects to multiple salt firings. Turner makes a breakthrough discovery that copper red glazes had to be thick to hold the color. Work appeared in Studio Potter, vol. 8, #1, 1979.

31–Bottle vase, porcelain, salt glazed infused with red copper, fumed for iridescence, 7 x 7 ¾, 1976, Liberty, SC. Exhibited in 35 Artists of the Southeast, 1976, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Toured for 3 years.

21–Cover jar, stoneware, salt glazed, 17 ½ x 6 ½, 1974, Liberty, SC. 22–Vase, blue porcelain covered with salt glaze with infused red copper, fumed for iridescence, 6 ¼ x 7, 1973, Liberty, SC. 23–Vase, blue porcelain covered with salt glaze with infused red copper, fumed for iridescence, 11 x 9, 1973, Liberty, SC. Exhibited in Southeastern Invitational Crafts Exhibition, Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC,1974.

In Studio Potter, Vol. 8 #1, 1979.

24–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, fumed for iridescence, 10 ½ x 7, 1974,Liberty, SC.

25–Lidded jar, stoneware, salt glazed, 6 ¾ x 7, 1974, Liberty, SC. 26–Lidded jar, porcelain, slip cast, 9 x 7, 1975, Liberty, SC. As with this pot, Turner was developing his technique of salt glazing over slips and fuming for iridescence as the kiln cools.

27–Teapot, stoneware, salt glazed over colored slip, fumed for iridescence, 14 x 11, 1975, Liberty, SC. 28–Cover jar, porcelain, salt glazed, colored slip decoration, fumed for iridescence, 7 ½ x 7, 1975, Liberty, SC.

30–Cover jar, porcelain, salt glazed over colored slip, fumed for iridescence, 9 ¾ x 8, 1975, Liberty, SC.

32–Bottle vase, porcelain, salt glazed, slip decoration, 8 x 8, 1976, Liberty, SC. Exhibited in 35 Artists of the Southeast, 1976, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Toured for 3 years.

33–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed infused with red copper, blue slip, fumed for iridescence, 1976, 9 x 8, Liberty, SC. In History of American Ceramics: The Studio Potter, Paul Donhauser, 1978.

34–Bi-form bottle, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, blue slip, 9 x 7, 1976, Liberty, SC. 35–Bi-form bottle, porcelain, salt glazed with infused red copper, blue slip, fumed for iridescence, 7 ¾ x 10, 1976, Liberty, SC. Exhibited in 35 Artists of the Southeast, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Toured for 3 years. In Studio Potter, vol. 8 #1, 1979.

36–Vase, porcelain, salt glazed over iron slip glaze, fumed for iridescence, 7 ½ x 8, 1976, Liberty, SC. 37–Cover jar, porcelain, salt glazed over iron slip glaze, fumed for iridescence, 11 ¾ x 12, 1976, Liberty, SC. Exhibited in 35 Artists of the Southeast, 1976, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Toured for 3 years.

38–Lidded bowl, porcelain, combed surface, celadon glaze, 4 ¾ x 6 ½, 1976, Liberty, SC. This pot is from first firing of the Liberty experimental kiln that was not salt fired. The frost on the glaze was from some residual sodium from previous salt firings. Turner was making a transition to standard glazes.

39–Lidded bowl, porcelain, combed, assimilated ash glaze, 5 ½ x 9, 1976, Liberty, SC. 40–Lidded bowl, porcelain, combed, slip trailed, iron glaze, 5 x 10, 1977, Liberty, SC. 41–Teapot, porcelain, iron wash over iron glaze, 10 x 9, 1977, Liberty, SC. In Teapots, Rick Berman, 1980.

42–Vase, porcelain, fluted, iron wash over iron glaze, 7 x 5, 1977, Liberty, SC. n Studio Potter, vol. 6, #2, 1977.

43–Casserole form, porcelain, propeller handle, scrap glaze, 5 ¾ x 8, 1978, Liberty, SC. 44–Cover jar, porcelain, iron wash over iron glaze, 13 ½ x 9 ½, 1978, Liberty, SC.

50–Teapot, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, white glaze trail, 10 ¾ x 9, 1981, Lake Mary, FL. In The Ceramic Spectrum, 1st ed., by Robin Hopper, 1984.

51–Cover jar, porcelain, green fake ash glaze, 18 x 11, 1981, Lake Mary, FL. In American Crafts: A Source Book for the Home, Kathleen Pearson, 09/1983.

52–Teapot, porcelain, apple ash glaze, 9 ¾ x 8, 1982, Lake Mary, FL. In Ceramica, Spain, ANO 5, # 20, 1985.

53–Surprise jar, porcelain, green fake ash glaze, 8 ½ x 8, 1982, Lake Mary, FL. Exhibited in “Functional Ceramics, 1983, Wooster, Ohio.

Akron, Ohio Works:

Lake Mary Works: 47–Pillow jar, porcelain, iron blue crackle celadon glaze, slip trailing, 5 x 7, 1980, Lake Mary, FL. 48–Teapot, porcelain, slip trailed and fluted, celadon glaze, 10 x 7 ¾, 1980, Lake Mary, FL. In Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook, 5th ed., Glenn Nelson, 1984.

49–Pillow jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, white glaze trail, 5 ¾ x 8, 1981, Lake Mary, FL. Appeared in Ceramics Monthly, March, 1982. In Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook, 5th ed., Glenn Nelson, 1984.

62–Cover jar, porcelain, ash glaze and sticker resist, 8 ¾ x 7 ½, 1984, Akron, OH. Cover for Ceramics Monthly, April 1985. In Ceramics Review, January-February, 1987. In Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose, Robin Hopper, 1984. In Ten Thousand Years of Pottery, Emmanuel Cooper, 2000.

63–Cover jar, porcelain, ash glaze, 9 ¼ x 8 ¼, 1984, Akron, OH. In Ceramics Review, January and February, 1987, England. In Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose, Robin Hopper, 1984.

54–Removed 55–Surprise jar, porcelain, fake ash glaze, wax resist, 1983, Akron, OH. In American Craft Magazine, October /November, 1984.

56–Bi-form cover jar, porcelain, apple ash glaze, 10 ½ x 7 ½, 1983, Akron, OH.

45–Removed 46–Removed

61–Cover jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 9 x 8, 1984, Akron, OH. In Ceramica, Spain, ANO5 #20, 1985. In Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose, Robin Hopper, 1984.

57–Surprise jar, porcelain, oak ash glaze 12 ½ x 10, 1983, Akron, OH. 58–Teapot, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 11 x 10 ¼, 1984, Akron, OH. In Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose, Robin Hopper, 1984.

59–Teapot, porcelain, ash glaze with sticker resist, 11 ½ x 10, 1984, Akron, OH. In Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose, Robin Hopper, 1984. In Ceramic Review, January and February, 1987, England.

60–Cover jar, porcelain, ash glaze with wax resist, 9 x 8, 1984, Akron. OH. In American Craft Magazine, October/ November, 1984. In Ceramica, Spain, ANO5 #20, 1985.

Illinois State University Artist-In-Residence Works: 64–Bottle vase, dirty porcelain, ash glaze, 8 ¾ x 9, 1985. Illinois State University, Normal, IL. 65–Removed 66–Teapot, dirty porcelain, flambé glaze, 10 ½ x 9 ¾, 1986, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. 67–Cover jar, dirty porcelain, ash glaze, 10 x 9, 1986, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. 68–Casserole, dirty porcelain, temmoku glaze, 6 x 9, 1986, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Peachblow Pottery Works:

72–Bottle vase, porcelain, apple wood ash glaze, paper sticker resist, glaze trailed, 8 x 9, 1989, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 1, 1992.

73–Vase, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, glaze trailing, 10 ¾ x 6, 1990, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 74–Cover jar, porcelain, fake ash glaze, sticker resist, glaze trailed, 8 ½ x 6 ¾, 1990, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 1, 1992.

75–Bottle vase, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, iron wash, 9 ½ x 8 ½, 1990, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 76–Teapot, porcelain, assimilated ash glaze, sticker resist, glaze trailed, 11 x 9 ½, 1990. Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. Turner designs and makes handle out of twisted copper wire. In Ceramics Monthly, October, 1991. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 1, 1992.

77–Teapot, porcelain, temmoku glaze, blue glaze trailing, fabricated copper handle, 11 x 9, 1991, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 78–Bottle, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 7 ½ x 7 ½, 1992, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 79–Bottle vase, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, green glaze trailing, 9 ½ x 6 ½, 1992, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 80–Bottle vase, porcelain, temmoku glaze, iron wash, 7 ½ x 7 ½, 1992, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

70–Bi-form jar, porcelain, oak ash glaze, 11 x 11 ½, 1988, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 1, 1992, and ed. 2, 2002.

81–Teapot, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, fabricated copper handle, 9 ½ x 10, 1992, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Contemporary Studio Porcelain, Peter Lane, 1st ed., 1995. In The Teapot Book, Steve Woodhead, 2005. Exhibited at NCECA Touring Exhibition, 1992. Won the Shimpo Award.

71–Cap jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 3 finials, 9 x 8 ½, 1989, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

82–Dome jar, porcelain, blue and zinc lithium crystal glaze, 6 x 10, 1994, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

69–Pillow jar, porcelain, apple ash glaze, glaze trailing, 5 ½ x 8, 1987, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

LI S T O F E X H I B IT E D WO R K S

10 5

83–Bottle, porcelain, copper red oxblood and zinc lithium crystal glazes, 7 x 7 ¾, 1994, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. Turner begins to fire zinc lithium crystal glazes with copper red glazes on the same pot in a gas reduction kiln. A unique process since strong crystal development does not normally occur in reduction.

84–Dome jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood and zinc lithium crystal glazes, 9 x 9 ½, 1994, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 85–Cover jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood and zinc lithium crystal glazes, white glaze trailing, 8 ½ x 9, 1995, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. Turner leaves pottery making in 1996 and returns in 2000.

86–Casserole, stoneware fake ash glaze, 6 ¾ x 8, 2000, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 87–Cover jar, stoneware, beige matte glaze, 14 ½ x 9, 2000, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 88–Bottle, stoneware vase, copper crystal glaze, 6 ¾ x 8 ½, 2000, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 89–Bottle vase, stoneware, combed, fake ash glaze, 6 ¾ x 8, 2001, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 2, 2002.

90–Cover jar, stoneware, fake ash glaze, 8 ½ x 8 ¼, 2001, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Ash Glazes, Phil Rogers, ed. 2, 2002.

91–Bottle vase, stoneware, salt glazed, fluted, 7 ½ x 8, 2001, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. Pot fired in John Peterson’s kiln in Indiana, body test #147.

92–Cover jar, porcelain, combed, fake ash glaze, glaze trailed dots, 13 ½ x 11 ¾, 2002, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Clay Times, March-April, 2004.

94–Tang vase, porcelain, fluted and combed, fake ash glaze, 10 ¼ x 6 ½, 2002, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 95–Cover jar, porcelain, carved, stamped, fake ash glaze with trailed dots, 16 x 12, 2003, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Clay Times, March-April, 2004.

In Making Marks, Robin Hopper, 2008. In 21st Century Ceramics Exhibition Catalogue, American Ceramics Society, 2008.

96–Cover jar, porcelain, paddled, assimilated ash glaze, glaze trailing, 9 x 8, 2003, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. Beginning of Turner’s incorporating animal motifs in his decoration with the addition of a bird finial. In Clay Times March-April, 2004.

97–Vase, porcelain, paddled, carved, stamped, blue teadust and flambé glazes. 8 ¼ x 9, 2003, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. In Making Marks, Robin Hopper, 2008. Exhibited in 21st Century Ceramics, Columbus College of Art and Design, 2008, Columbus, OH. Also in the exhibition catalogue, 21st Century Ceramics Exhibition Catalogue, American Ceramics Society, 2008.

98–Tang vase, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 10 x 7, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 99–Bottle, porcelain, Peachblow slip glaze, chrome green glaze trailing, 9 x 8, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH. 100–Cover jar, porcelain assimilated ash glaze, chrome green glaze trailing, 10 ½ x 8, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

Mars Hill Electric Kiln Works:

103–Tang vase, porcelain, assimilated ash glaze, green glaze trailed dots, 12 ¾ x 6, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. Exhibited in Legacy & Innovation In Contemporary Clay, 2006, Dubuque Museum of Art, Dubuque, IA.

117–Triangular bottle, porcelain, oilspot Yuteki glaze, 6 ¾ x 4, 2010, Mars Hill, NC.

104–Bottle, porcelain, copper red oxblood, temmoku and iron glazes, 8 x 7, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. Exhibited in Make It New, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC. 105–Cover jar, porcelain temmoku and iron glazes, turtle finial, 8 ¾ x 6 ½, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. 106–Bottle, porcelain, ash glaze, green glaze trailed dots, with bird sentinels, 13 ¾ x 12, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. 107–Bottle, porcelain, fake ash glaze, green glaze trailed dots, turtle sentinels, 18 ½ x 11, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. 108–Turtle jar, porcelain, fake ash glaze, green glaze trailed dots, 19 x 13, 2006, Mars Hill, NC. 109–Cover jar, porcelain, copper red, oxblood glaze, turtle finial, 9 ½ x 6 ½, 2007, Mars Hill, NC. 110–Cover jar, porcelain, shino glaze with ash over, gas fired, 9 x 6, 2007, Mars Hill, NC. 111–Lunar bottle, porcelain, lithium copper glaze, 7 ¾ x 6 ½, 2007, Mars Hill, NC. 112–Cover jar, porcelain, titanium gloss over titanium matte glazes, 7 ¾ x 7 ½, 2008, Mars Hill, NC. 113–Cover jar, porcelain, titanium crystal glaze over celadon glaze, 9 ½ x 6, 2008, Mars Hill, NC.

101–Porcelain teapot, assimilated ash glaze, chrome green glaze trailing, 7 x 11 ½, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

114–Cover jar, porcelain, copper red oxblood glaze, 9 x 7 ½, 2009, Mars Hill, NC.

102–Cover jar, porcelain, shino glaze with ash sifted over, 8 x 8, 2004, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

115–Gourd bottle, porcelain, titanium crystal glaze over celadon glaze, 12 ¾ x 7 ½, 2009, Mars Hill, NC.

93–Cover jar, stoneware, shino glaze with ash over (fake wood fire), 12 ½ x 11, 2002, Peachblow Pottery, Delaware, OH.

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Mars Hill Works:

LI S T O F E X H I B IT E D WO R K S

116–Vase, porcelain, titanium crystal glaze over celadon glaze, 8 ¼ x 6, 2009, Mars Hill, NC.

118–Oval bottle, porcelain, oilspot Yuteki glaze, 7 x 5 ½, 2010, Mars Hill, NC. 119–Bottle vase, porcelain, oilspot Yuteki glaze, 8 x 7 ½, 2010, Mars Hill, NC. 120–Double lidded jar, porcelain, oilspot Yuteki glaze, 8 ½ x 6, 2011, Mars Hill, NC. 121–Lidded jar, porcelain iron/zinc crystal glaze, 8 x 4, 2011, Mars Hill, NC. 122–Bottle, porcelain, copper/zinc/ titanium crystal glaze and oilspot Yuteki glaze, 8 x 6, 2011, Mars Hill, NC. 123–Teapot, porcelain, iron over copper red oxblood glaze, 7 x 11, 2008, Mars Hill, NC. 124–Gourd cover-jar, porcelain, oilspot Yuteki glaze, 8 ½ x 6, 2011, Mars Hill, NC. 125–Cover-jar, porcelain, copper red, oxblood glaze, 8 x 7, 2012, Mars Hill, NC. One of Turner’s first pots where he chemically reduced the copper in an electric kiln to produce a copper red oxblood glaze.

126–Bottle, porcelain, copper/zinc/ titanium lunar crystal glaze, 7 x 7, 2012, Mars Hill, NC. 127–Oval bottle, porcelain, chemically reduced copper red oxblood and copper lunar crystal glazes, 6 ¾ x 3, 2012, Mars Hill, NC. 128–Bottle, porcelain multiple zinc crystal glazes, 7 ½ x 6 ½, 2012, Mars Hill, NC. 129–Vase, porcelain, chemically reduced copper red oxblood glaze, 6x6, 2013, Mars Hill, NC.