CLIVE BOWEN
goldmark
Price ÂŁ10
CLIVE BOWEN Essay by Max Waterhouse
goldmark 2014
front cover 151. Small Bell Shaped Jar Cream with combed design 26.0 x 13.0 cm
back cover 10. Round Bellied Jar Brown & cream with finger wipes 43.0 x 33.0 cm
page 6 16. Large Medieval Jug Green 58.0 x 19.0 cm
Text: Š Max Waterhouse 2014 Photographs: Š Jay Goldmark Design: Porter / Goldmark
A Goldmark film on Clive Bowen has been produced to accompany this exhibition
ISBN 978-1-909167-17-9
Goldmark Gallery Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com
In that old potter's shop I stood alone With the clay population round in rows. And strange to tell, among that earthen lot Some could articulate, while others not. . . Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam As a child, I recall that my stepfather (to my beleaguered mother’s dismay) would bring guests home to dinner at a moment’s notice. The call would come through – ‘what, tonight?’ – and, with that degree of application peculiar to mothers, she would busy herself in the kitchen. Frantic clattering and assuring wafts of steam aside, the inevitable sign of visitors was a set of Clive Bowen plates laid out across the tabletop. To my siblings and me, these feasts held a faint air of magic. The silken sheen of hot food against the deep Fremington reds of the clay, the yellow-green, custard-cream slip of these special plates and the bohemian company who ate from them lent the whole evening a warming headiness, and we would leave the table reeling in a haze of pleasure. As I grew older and as artists, potters and poets alike came through our door, these pots became symbols of things I now hold dear: of my mother’s ceaseless hospitality; of the importance of breaking bread; of a childhood cherished. Putting into words the significance of Bowen’s work has proved no easy task. Pottery is an ineffable medium. On the one hand, it is fundamentally physical, formed from the elements of earth, water, fire and air; and yet on the other, it so often transcends that materiality, reaching out to us with a voice as personal as those plates in my mother’s cupboard. The physicality is plain to see in every step of Bowen’s process. All 400 cubic feet of his kiln must be filled if he is to
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make the most of expensive wood fuel; each pot, from giant-lidded jar to teacup, must be given the same balance of form, the same freedom of gesture in its decoration - a toll on both hand and eye. That his pots are as consistent as they are is testament to his technical graft. But the source of that transcendent voice lies beyond the technical. Like the language of poetry, Bowen’s pots convey far more than the sum of their decorative parts. Decoration itself is a risky business - for any potter, but especially for the slipware maker whose oeuvre depends so heavily on decorative work. Too much, and the pots appear overworked and busy. Too little, and whatever embellishments have been made become lost, and are either so isolated as to be unnoticed or so focal as to seem divorced from the basic form. The difficulty is compounded when working with slip; the liquid clay stiffens quickly upon contact with a drier surface and must either be manipulated at speed or wiped clean and begun again. The resulting balancing act between speed, accuracy and composition can challenge even a seasoned potter. With less successful results there is a ‘disconnect’ between the decorative surface and the form beneath: the one ceases to relate to the other.
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In Bowen’s work there is no such disconnect, only a quiet harmony between form and decoration, each stroke a true extension of the underlying body (Whiting, Goldmark 2006). David Whiting attributed this coherence to Bowen’s raw glazing; I add to that the breadth and sophistication of his decorative vocabulary. So unified by it is his pottery - from individual pots to a collective identity - that ‘decoration’ seems the wrong term entirely. T. S. Eliot once wrote of the sentence that is right, where every word is at home…neither diffident nor ostentatious, in an easy commerce of the old and the new…the complete consort dancing together (Eliot, Little Gidding 1942). The assurance of which Eliot spoke; the unassuming ease; the exchange between old and new; all this Bowen expresses through his own vernacular of forms and motifs. It is not mere ‘decoration’ with which Bowen communicates. It is a gestural language, with an idiosyncratic vocabulary of trails, combs, pours and drips, of painterly sweeps and sgraffitoed fish. It is an animated language, at times as light as it is vigorous at others. Its words, like Eliot’s, dance for those who read them. It may feel overly academic to talk of a ‘ceramic language’. And yet it is an analogy that we use more often than we might think. Good pots, after all, ‘speak’ to us; and when they do, it is through this discourse of form and gesture. The uniqueness of Bowen’s voice is all the more
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remarkable given how much of his vocabulary he has inherited from the Devonshire tradition. Each Baluster jug, crimped dish and chattered storage jar belongs to a local idiom that has been in production with typical yellows and chocolate browns for over two hundred years. But Bowen is not deferent to this tradition; his repertoire is enlivened with a modern sensibility, an increasingly freer and looser touch. Swiped on a honeypot, straight out of Milne, are pseudo-calligraphic marks while square dishes sit nearby, sporting abstract trails and geometric divisions - what Sebastian Blackie saw as evocations of a Japanese ethos relocated in a very English working context (Blackie, Goldmark 2009). Bowen is an artist who understands absolutely that tradition is not the veneration of ashes but the handing down of the flame. Today’s ceramic world is international and intercultural; if we are to talk of Bowen as a ‘traditional’ potter it must be with that same recognition of tradition as an evolutionary concept, not a stale one, that is as concerned with the essences of things as it is with materials and forms. Essence lies at the very heart of a well-made pot. But it also alerts us to the limitations of our own language versus the unspoken language of ceramics, to the familiar paradox that one silent pot can convey meaning enough for an essay of words. What is it to say that a pot has essence? What demands does this quality make of a potter?
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Essence in pottery locates the dialogue between pot and person at the vessel’s very inception on the wheel. Bowen achieves this with an honesty that feels instinctive. Run your fingertips through the swept waves of a bowl and you will feel that it has a tempo, a pulse that began when the slip was first rhythmically combed and that has been beating on ever since. Each decorative line is invested with a sense of narrative too: the slip-lines of a lidded jar, when followed with a finger, guide your hands around the form so that you feel the whole pot intimately. Such pieces have an animation about them, as if they had a life and breath that was instilled by the potter at the moment of creation. When they reach beyond the immediately tangible - when form and gesture are so conceived that they point us towards their infancy - we find that they have real stories to tell. Two months ago I discussed with Mike Goldmark the value of handmade pots. We talked of the difficulty in describing to others their intuitive draw, especially when one has had the considerable fortune of being brought up surrounded by them. ‘Perhaps you could talk about the why.’ The why I had set out to explore in this essay struck me as being quite different to the question Mike had posed. I wanted to explain why
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Clive Bowen is an important potter; he, why pots matter. It was not until I looked at what work we had at home by Bowen that I understood these questions held the same answer. For pots with essence, quite apart from anything else, feel essential to us. It is why, rifling through shelves and sideboards, I could find no work of Bowen’s outside our kitchen. Good pots, whether they are left on a windowsill or brought out daily to hold food, will be of constant use, will provide their owner with unending dialogue, be it through the fulfilment of a physical function or as objects of quiet contemplation. I began with the idea that pots have a voice, the best pots a voice of meaning. When I think of Clive Bowen’s work, I do not think of the beauty of his forms or the deftness of his gestures; I think of buttered apple tarte tatin, of the gentle chatter of gathered guests and of siblings squabbling over dollops of cream. Take a bowl or a plate home today. Use it; share it. Let it speak. As with fine poetry, a good pot will not tell of its own greatness, only of what it means to you. That is why Clive Bowen is a great potter; that is why pots matter. Max Waterhouse is in his final year at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, reading Classics
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147. Tall Bell Shaped Jar Yellow with green slip trail 32.5 x 11.0 cm
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21. Medieval Jug Yellow & brown with green slip trailing 34.5 x 13.0 cm
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opposite 94. Small Square Dish Cream with green impressed frog 3.0 x 14.5 cm next page left 124. Store Jar Yellow with green slip trail 20.0 x 15.0 cm next page right 198,199,202,203. Selection of Teapots Yellow with green slip trailing 16.5 x 15.0 cm - 11.0 x 9.0 cm page 33 56. Large Square Dish Green & cream with brown slip trailing 9.5 x 42.0 cm
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opposite 1. Very Large Lidded Jar Cream with green slip trailing 76.0 x 34.0 cm next page left 5. Large Lidded Jar Black with gold slip trailing 55.0 x 31.0 cm next page right 3. Large Oval Jar Black & cream with green slip trailing 51.0 x 31.0 cm
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33. Conical Medieval Jug Cream & brown 29.5 x 13.0 cm
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143. Jar with Lugs Cream with green medallions 34.0 x 21.5 cm
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opposite 156. Oval Vase Green & black 31.0 x 22.0 cm next page left 172. Shallow Bowl Black with gold slip trailing 6.5 x 26.5 cm next page right 57. Large Square Dish Brown & gold 9.0 x 40.0 cm
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7. Large Jar Black with cream neck & green slip trailing 69.0 x 34.0 cm
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opposite 197. Large Teapot Yellow & brown with green slip trailing 17.0 x 14.0 cm next page left 15. Vase Black with yellow slip trailing 31.5 x 22.0 cm next page left 268. Drinking Bowl Black with gold slip trailing 8.5 x 13.0 cm page 53 204. Tea Caddy Yellow with green slip trailing 19.5 x 9.5 cm
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opposite 136. Flat Lidded Store Jar Yellow with feathered slip 15.0 x 11.0 cm next page 14. Vase Yellow with green slip trailing 32.5 x 20.5 cm
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Selected Exhibitions 1991
Solo Exhibition - Contemporary Applied Arts, London British Council Tour - India and Malaysia 1993 Form and Function - Contemporary Applied Arts, London 1994 Clive Bowen and Michael Rothenstein - Oxford Gallery Solo Exhibition - Contemporary Ceramics, London 1996 Solo Showcase - Tate Gallery, St Ives Objects of Our Time - Crafts Council, London Solo Exhibition - The Harley Gallery 1997 Time for Tea - British Council, South America Solo Exhibition - Dartington, Devon 1998 20th Century Studio Ceramics - Israel A View of Clay - Contemporary Applied Arts, London 1999 Still Life - Contemporary Applied Arts, London Solo Exhibition - Oxford Gallery History and Invention - Australia (Contemporary Ceramics) 2000 Contemporary Ceramics - British Council, Brazil British Contemporary Ceramics, Denmark 2002 Solo Exhibition - Galerie Besson, London 2003 Solo Exhibition - Rufford Crafts Centre 2004 Solo Exhibition - Beardsmore Gallery, London Table Manners - Crafts Council Gallery, London Solo Showcase - Contemporary Applied Arts, London 2005 Functional Form Now - Galerie Besson, London 2006 Solo Exhibition - Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham Solo Exhibition - Contemporary Ceramics, London 2007 The Pot, the Vessel and the Object, 50 Years of Change and Diversity in the Craft Potters Association - Aberystwyth and touring A Celebration of Slipware - Long Room Gallery, Winchcombe Joint Exhibition with Kouichi Uchida - Gallery St Ives, Tokyo 2008 Solo Exhibition - The Octagon, Whichford Pottery, Warwickshire 2008/09 Solo Showcase - Mashiko Museum of Ceramics, Japan
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2009
2010 2011
2012 2013
2014
Joint exhibition with Masaaki Shibata - Gallery St Ives, Tokyo and Shikama Fine Art, Kyoto Tableware - Rex Irwin Fine Art, Sydney, Australia Slipware - Leach Pottery, St Ives Solo Exhibition - Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham Black - Leach Pottery, St Ives Clive Bowen and Masaaki Shibata – Gallery St Ives, Tokyo and Shikama Fine Art, Kyoto Bowen and Bowen - Clive and Dylan Bowen at Contemporary Ceramics, London Clive Bowen and Svend Bayer - Burton Museum and Art Gallery, Bideford, Devon Clive Bowen and Masaaki Shibata – Gallery St Ives, Tokyo and Hankyu Department Store, Osaka Solo Exhibition - The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Legacy - Isaac Button Exhibition, Imagine Gallery, Suffolk Clive and Dylan Bowen - The Oxford Gallery Solo Exhibition - Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham
opposite 267. Drinking Bowl Cream with sgraffito & green slip trailing 8.0 x 13.5 cm next page right 51. Large Square Dish Green & cream with brown slip trailing 8.0 x 44.0 cm
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opposite 30. Conical Medieval Jug Cream 30.5 x 12.0 cm
Collections Victoria and Albert Museum National Museum of Wales Ulster Museum Crafts Council Collection York City Art Gallery Exeter Museum Nottingham Museum
Liverpool Museum Stoke on Trent City Museum Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada Mingeikan, Tokyo Mashiko Museum of Ceramics, Japan Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Articles and Publications Emmanuel Cooper, Alison Britton, Eileen Lewenstein, Paul Vincent, Anne Boston, Alan Powers, David Whiting, The Beauty of Craft, David Whiting, Sebastain Blackie
Beginning to Lose Your Tail, CERAMIC REVIEW, Sept/Oct 1991 Clive Bowen Exhibition Notes, Contemporary Applied Arts 1991 CRAFTS, Jan/Feb 1992 STUDIO POTTERY, June/July1993 The Master Potter, COUNTRY LIVING, November 1996 Still Small Voice, CRAFTS, July/August 1997 Sources of Inspiration: Clive Bowen, CRAFTS, Jan/Feb 2002 RESURGENCE, Craft Anthology New Pots, 2006, GOLDMARK catalogue New Pots, 2009, GOLDMARK catalogue
Television The Great Picture Chase with Kate Adie choosing ceramics for the BBC collection
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PREVIOUS POTTERY CATALOGUES
1 Phil Rogers
2 Clive Bowen
3 Lisa Hammond
4 Mike Dodd
5 Ken Matsuzaki
6 Svend Bayer
7 Jim Malone
8 Phil Rogers
9 Lisa Hammond
10 Ken Matsuzaki
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13 Svend Bayer
14 Nic Collins
15 Ken Matsuzaki
16 Jim Malone
17 Mike Dodd
18 Anne Mette Hjortshøj
19 Lisa Hammond
20 Svend Bayer
21 Jean-Nicolas Gérard
22 Ken Matsuzaki
23 Takeshi Yasuda
24 Nic Collins
We've made twenty-seven pot catalogues to date, one for each show. They're mostly 64 pages, fully illustrated with scholarly essays. 25 Phil Rogers
Mike Dodd
Clive Bowen
Watch our films and learn more about the great makers. Goldmark catalogues and films are £10 each plus p&p goldmarkart.com
26 Ten Japanese Potters
PREVIOUS POTTERY FILMS
FILMS
K • LIC AR
E•
CE-FRE EN
L • GO DM
1 Phil Rogers
6 Mike Dodd
2 Ken Matsuzaki
7 Anne Mette Hjortshøj
3 Svend Bayer
4 Nic Collins
5 Jim Malone
8 Lisa Hammond
9 Jean-Nicolas Gérard
10 Takeshi Yasuda
11 Phil Rogers 2
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