Just One Year

cleaning one’s office space during a pandemic may uncover old relics that now look entirely different than when first acquired.

Many years ago a list of questions circulated at an NCECA conference, aimed (primarily, I believe) at ceramic art student attendees. The intention was to encourage critical evaluation of one’s work. One of the questions on this list, however, exemplifies a sort of ‘art school trope’ that too often continues unexamined into a professional potter’s career.

To wit: “If you had one year left to live, how would this affect the pots you make?”

Obviously, the point is to examine why what you make is so important to you. But, considering it’s full implications, this question is largely premised on privilege and shallowness.

What you might make knowing the end is neigh could well be something without value of any kind beyond what you feel while making it. As such – the privilege part – the question implies that earthly things like paying bills, supporting families, and interests of people who buy from you are, at best, secondary.

Equally, the question ignores potential consequences – the shallowness part – of not thinking in the long term, or about anyone but yourself. Honing skills takes time. Operating entirely ‘in the moment’ suggests a near total lack of concern for the finished product or, again, needs of others.

Customers, clientele, audience, community, followers, or whatever you call those who buy your work, are necessary and co-equal partners in your or any professional artist’s enterprise. Their participation provides not only the capital needed to stay afloat, but valuable insight into how effectively you express your thoughts and skills. Without their input, you simply cannot work at this level (unless you or your spouse are independently wealthy, see the privilege part).

Tropes reinforce biases more often that they define reality; “those who can’t do it, teach it,” (said mostly by students); “if you make things to sell you’re simply a ‘commercial artist’ whereas the true ‘fine artist’ makes things for themselves,” (the literal definition of a ‘hobbyist’); “if it’s made well, you’ll find a buyer” (just about any craft fair proves there is no accounting for taste). Of course, for better or worse some tropes do hold up: “a blue glaze will probably sell well.”

The World Turned Upside Down

The phrase “everything happens for a reason” makes sense only when one looks backward. It’s cold comfort to anyone facing an uncertain future. Still, some things actually do happen for a reason.

In the early 18th century, for example, French king Louis XIV found himself once again out of money. His costly wars against the English and Dutch (i.e.; the War of Devolution, the Dutch War, the War of the Spanish Succession, etc.) led him to enact various Sumptuary Laws restricting the amount of silver, gold, and other metals that the flock of aesthete nobility around him could flaunt. The Sun King needed precious metals to fill his coffers and base metals to make his cannons.

This situation turned out to be very good for the potters of France, and it’s a fair bet they knew this. After all, their wares could not be melted down into ingots or shot. French potters, inspired and instructed by Italian tin glaze potters, had mastered the “grand feu” maiolica process in the mid 16th century. By Louis XIV’s reign, they greatly expanded their color pallette with the “petit fue” faience enameling process. A host of new, flamboyant styles burst on the scene.

The Rayonant style, inspired by Japanese Imari porcelain (then all the rage) defined French Rococo faience. Armorial plates were a big part of this new French work. Faience parlant (speaking faience), with imagery featuring cartoons and text, was equally popular.

Another unusual style was called Singerie. It featured monkey imagery – “singe” means “monkey” in French. Prancing, mischievous monkeys hopped across a wide variety of wares. They were so mischievous they hopped across national boundaries to create a continent-wide fashion. Monkeys were seen on English tankards, chopping down trees full of eligible bachelors to the delight of on-looking maidens. In sprawling Portuguese tiled murals, they were livery attendants to sumptuous weddings of hens…

An entire genre of prancing, mischievous monkey pottery came into being because of the proclivities of a powerful man with no sense of fiscal responsibility.

Of course this result only makes sense if looked at, mischievously, backwards. If one looks the other way, and tries to discern possible future outcomes of a man who is today in a position of power and who has absolutely no sense of responsibility – fiscal or otherwise – one can only imagine what mischievous results we might end up with…

Readings:

Tin-Glazed Earthenware In North America. Amanda Lange. Historic Deerfield/Deerfield, MA. 2001.

Gifts for Good Children; The History of Children’s China, 1790 – 1890. Noel Riley. Richard Dennis Publishing/Somerset, England. 1991.

Azulejos; Masterpieces of the National Tile Museum of Lisbon. Editions Chandeigne/Paris. 2016.