How I started as humble potter's beginner ?
Bernadette Sepulchre who gave me the very first hints on throwing clay on the wheel told me : You travel around the earth and now the earth revolves in your hands ! Thanks to her to have given to me her old clay wheel that helped me greatly to keep practicing ...
Keep practicing is also the motto of Simon Leach who greatly helped me with all his videos !
Keep practicing is also the motto of Simon Leach who greatly helped me with all his videos !
Antonio LAMPECCO
Everything started however with an Antonio LAMPECCO conversation during an exhibition for celebrating his "many" years of pottery !
Question was : Can we start learning throwing clay on the wheel at 50 years old ?
Answer : At any time if you have the passion for it !
Ceramics is a passion and for a passion you don't count, you have to give the best of yourself. After my day at the Abbey, I was given the opportunity to develop my own work. With a lot of patience, of research, without believing in miracles, we sometimes have happy surprises. Ceramics is a love story; when I open a kiln and find that all the pieces are cracked, you have to love to have the courage to start over even earlier the next day.
You should never say to yourself that you are at the top. Someone who has nothing more to discover is someone who is starting to die a little. Sometimes I am amazed, the looks and the signs of sympathy warm my heart, and I do not shy away from this pleasure. But a craftsman should never put his wallet in the place of the heart. Giving without counting and losing rather than stealing from others, we come out enhanced.
Antonio LAMPECCO
Question was : Can we start learning throwing clay on the wheel at 50 years old ?
Answer : At any time if you have the passion for it !
Ceramics is a passion and for a passion you don't count, you have to give the best of yourself. After my day at the Abbey, I was given the opportunity to develop my own work. With a lot of patience, of research, without believing in miracles, we sometimes have happy surprises. Ceramics is a love story; when I open a kiln and find that all the pieces are cracked, you have to love to have the courage to start over even earlier the next day.
You should never say to yourself that you are at the top. Someone who has nothing more to discover is someone who is starting to die a little. Sometimes I am amazed, the looks and the signs of sympathy warm my heart, and I do not shy away from this pleasure. But a craftsman should never put his wallet in the place of the heart. Giving without counting and losing rather than stealing from others, we come out enhanced.
Antonio LAMPECCO
Antonio LAMPECCO Addresses his youngsters under probation (1992)
The probation time is more than a time of apprenticeship, held to learn adroitness and technique in an artistic field. There is as much sensibility of the heart required as from the fingers; it is a condition sine qua non not just to make ceramic items, but to create art pieces. Antonio Lampecco wrote his conception of probation in his workshop, we listen to his message :
Don't believe that it takes you a fortnight to become a potter: if you think that, you'll be deeply disappointed. Manual and technical work demands very accurate motions of the hand, those can be learned by repetition. Creation requires a lot more. Technically, you have to work ten to fifteen years, to work over and over. The French author Boileau, speaking about poetry, another artistic expression, wrote at the end of the 17th century: «Put your work on the stock twenty times, polish it without cease mId repolish it»
A long time is needed to become a good craftsman, also a lot of work and of tenacity, patience too, «molto patienza» and, most of all, love: because we create in this profession and each creation act is an act of love.
What you feel in you, that item that will be born and that you want to see, to touch and to feel, that item will become real, it will have a face. But it will only be the reflexion of what you have felt, if your heart, your feeling had an important part in the creatioll. A ceramic must be a quality product, as far as the technique is concerned, and a message of honesty artistically. That is the reason why you'd never stake on lies or throw dust in people's eyes. Nothing, that lasts forevel; has ever been built on lies, the result «pays» only in the sincerity and the spontaneousness.
I don't like to hold out the beautifull the marvellous aspects of my profession to you: it would give you an illusion, an unreal image of the art of pottery.
I started, when I was very ,voung and I have suffered along the way, till I reached the level where I was accepted, invited and honored. But the passion, that was alive in me, always pushed me to continue and helped to go ahead. It happens to each potter that one day, he stands with tears in his eyes, in front of his kiln, when the firing didn't bring the expected result, when the fire destroyed his «children»; that will happen to you too. But you should have enough strength, enough love to start all over again the next day, with hope and even with joy. If you don't do it, you don't have a very deep feeling in you, then pushes you to make another start, then I can tell you right now, that your heart isn't in it and that your choice is not the good one.
Don't believe that it takes you a fortnight to become a potter: if you think that, you'll be deeply disappointed. Manual and technical work demands very accurate motions of the hand, those can be learned by repetition. Creation requires a lot more. Technically, you have to work ten to fifteen years, to work over and over. The French author Boileau, speaking about poetry, another artistic expression, wrote at the end of the 17th century: «Put your work on the stock twenty times, polish it without cease mId repolish it»
A long time is needed to become a good craftsman, also a lot of work and of tenacity, patience too, «molto patienza» and, most of all, love: because we create in this profession and each creation act is an act of love.
What you feel in you, that item that will be born and that you want to see, to touch and to feel, that item will become real, it will have a face. But it will only be the reflexion of what you have felt, if your heart, your feeling had an important part in the creatioll. A ceramic must be a quality product, as far as the technique is concerned, and a message of honesty artistically. That is the reason why you'd never stake on lies or throw dust in people's eyes. Nothing, that lasts forevel; has ever been built on lies, the result «pays» only in the sincerity and the spontaneousness.
I don't like to hold out the beautifull the marvellous aspects of my profession to you: it would give you an illusion, an unreal image of the art of pottery.
I started, when I was very ,voung and I have suffered along the way, till I reached the level where I was accepted, invited and honored. But the passion, that was alive in me, always pushed me to continue and helped to go ahead. It happens to each potter that one day, he stands with tears in his eyes, in front of his kiln, when the firing didn't bring the expected result, when the fire destroyed his «children»; that will happen to you too. But you should have enough strength, enough love to start all over again the next day, with hope and even with joy. If you don't do it, you don't have a very deep feeling in you, then pushes you to make another start, then I can tell you right now, that your heart isn't in it and that your choice is not the good one.
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How to throw a closed form on the potter's wheel with Antonio Lampecco
Visit to Maredsous Pottery Workshop
Visit to Antonio Lampecco Exhibition
SHIHO KANZAKI
I met Shiho Kanzaki the first time in May 2010 in Shigaraki Japan and essentially my question was : "Can I be a potter ?"
Nearby there is a Ceramic Center and an exhibition over Hans Coper and Lucie Rie ... I got my answer !
"Do you want to quit? Do you want to quit being a potter?”
The voice tormented me. We may be satisfied with our lives both financially and materially, but seeking material satisfaction alone can take away our very reason for existing.
The choice is this: self-affirmation or self-denial? Do I stay true to myself or not? The voice forced me to answer this question.
Pottery that is made to please others, pieces made purely for the sake of novelty, pieces that are made to show off one’s technical expertise…. The world of ceramic art is overflowing with such things, it has become a world focused on quantity. This should not have happened. But it has happened because we are living according to short-sighted calculation, and living for our own self-interest. This way of living harms both ourselves and others.
Here in Japan our long fascination with Western Civilization, dating back to the Meiji Restoration, and our struggle to join it has produced undeniable benefits. But as we have worked to compete with the West, we seem to have forgotten some very profound truths.
I grew up and was educated during the “time of confusion” following the Second World War. I graduated from college and entered society just as Japan was emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War and experiencing rapid change. Japan was becoming wealthy, both economically and materially. This was the time that I decided to become a potter, a ceramic artist.
While others were enjoying their material blessings, my mendicant-like life began under the dim light of an oil lamp in a tin hut that I built myself. It was a struggle to feed myself. It was only in 1976 that my workshop was finally connected to the electricity supply. During this life of mendicancy (when I sometimes depended on the kindness of others), some people abandoned me and others helped me. It would seem that the latter should be appreciated and the former not, but the truth is that without the former the latter is meaningless, and vice versa. Bipolar opposites exist in the phenomenal world but they are, in essence, one.
I have written a great deal about my encounters with many people, both in my previous book, Honoo no Koe; Tsuchi no Koe (“The Voice of Fire, The Voice of Clay”) and in this book. Because of these encounters, I can create pottery, or to put it another way: “I have become what I am now.” I am greatly indebted to all these people for their kindness to me. Above all, I have wonderful parents, and a wonderful wife and daughter. I was born in a pottery town called Shigaraki, and have the karma of Buddha. Karma reaches back to the past and stretches to all places, it covers everything. Once I realized this, my sense of pride and the sense that I had accomplished success through my own efforts disappeared.
I live now as a result of my encounters with many people and by the grace of The Infinite, the infinite world. I live my life aware of the Infinite, which is the root and source of life. So, I live in gratitude, in total devotion to the root of life. I have no other way to live. To make oneself live in this way is to enable others to live. And when I am living my life to the full, I can create my own ceramics. Everyone has his/her own task, and each has a responsibility to fulfill that task—no one else can fulfill it. Likewise, I have a particular task of my own: to create my own ceramics, pieces that cannot be made by anyone else.
The world of self-interest versus the world of the Infinite. Either we live in confusion, rushing to and fro, misguided by short-sighted calculation and self-seeking, or we become fully ourselves and openly live our lives in the freedom of our essential inner natures. I choose the latter, or at least I try.
“Do you want to quit?” I no longer hear this voice.
Nearby there is a Ceramic Center and an exhibition over Hans Coper and Lucie Rie ... I got my answer !
"Do you want to quit? Do you want to quit being a potter?”
The voice tormented me. We may be satisfied with our lives both financially and materially, but seeking material satisfaction alone can take away our very reason for existing.
The choice is this: self-affirmation or self-denial? Do I stay true to myself or not? The voice forced me to answer this question.
Pottery that is made to please others, pieces made purely for the sake of novelty, pieces that are made to show off one’s technical expertise…. The world of ceramic art is overflowing with such things, it has become a world focused on quantity. This should not have happened. But it has happened because we are living according to short-sighted calculation, and living for our own self-interest. This way of living harms both ourselves and others.
Here in Japan our long fascination with Western Civilization, dating back to the Meiji Restoration, and our struggle to join it has produced undeniable benefits. But as we have worked to compete with the West, we seem to have forgotten some very profound truths.
I grew up and was educated during the “time of confusion” following the Second World War. I graduated from college and entered society just as Japan was emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War and experiencing rapid change. Japan was becoming wealthy, both economically and materially. This was the time that I decided to become a potter, a ceramic artist.
While others were enjoying their material blessings, my mendicant-like life began under the dim light of an oil lamp in a tin hut that I built myself. It was a struggle to feed myself. It was only in 1976 that my workshop was finally connected to the electricity supply. During this life of mendicancy (when I sometimes depended on the kindness of others), some people abandoned me and others helped me. It would seem that the latter should be appreciated and the former not, but the truth is that without the former the latter is meaningless, and vice versa. Bipolar opposites exist in the phenomenal world but they are, in essence, one.
I have written a great deal about my encounters with many people, both in my previous book, Honoo no Koe; Tsuchi no Koe (“The Voice of Fire, The Voice of Clay”) and in this book. Because of these encounters, I can create pottery, or to put it another way: “I have become what I am now.” I am greatly indebted to all these people for their kindness to me. Above all, I have wonderful parents, and a wonderful wife and daughter. I was born in a pottery town called Shigaraki, and have the karma of Buddha. Karma reaches back to the past and stretches to all places, it covers everything. Once I realized this, my sense of pride and the sense that I had accomplished success through my own efforts disappeared.
I live now as a result of my encounters with many people and by the grace of The Infinite, the infinite world. I live my life aware of the Infinite, which is the root and source of life. So, I live in gratitude, in total devotion to the root of life. I have no other way to live. To make oneself live in this way is to enable others to live. And when I am living my life to the full, I can create my own ceramics. Everyone has his/her own task, and each has a responsibility to fulfill that task—no one else can fulfill it. Likewise, I have a particular task of my own: to create my own ceramics, pieces that cannot be made by anyone else.
The world of self-interest versus the world of the Infinite. Either we live in confusion, rushing to and fro, misguided by short-sighted calculation and self-seeking, or we become fully ourselves and openly live our lives in the freedom of our essential inner natures. I choose the latter, or at least I try.
“Do you want to quit?” I no longer hear this voice.
TOSHIKO TAKAEZU, LUCIE RIE and HANS COPER
I have a large debt to all of these potters who are inspiring me always ... We cannot look at the Antonio Lampecco closed forms without having a thought to Toshiko Takaezu for instance ... Nobody is inventing something new, we are only re-discovering forms that have been made in the past.
Toshiko Takaezu (June 17, 1922 – March 9, 2011) is a ceramicist and painter who was known for her simplistic closed form vessels, subtle brush work, and her series of Moonpots. Her work stems from her cultural Japanese heritage and her studies in Zen Buddhism. Takaezu has amassed a wide array of pieces in her ceramic career. Her diverse education, both formal and informal has led her to create works that distinctly carry elements of Eastern and Western cultural influences, including Japanese tea ceremonies, nature, and the relationship between art. Early in her career, Takaezu created functional works but eventually transitioned into creating abstract nonfunctional pieces. She mainly worked on the potter’s wheel but at times would hand build her pieces. Using stoneware or porcelain, her works varied in size, shape, and color, with her most well known works being a closed vessel form with a small bottled, almost nipple-like, neck that would range in size and consist of her subtle and painterly glazing techniques.
Toshiko Takaezu (June 17, 1922 – March 9, 2011) is a ceramicist and painter who was known for her simplistic closed form vessels, subtle brush work, and her series of Moonpots. Her work stems from her cultural Japanese heritage and her studies in Zen Buddhism. Takaezu has amassed a wide array of pieces in her ceramic career. Her diverse education, both formal and informal has led her to create works that distinctly carry elements of Eastern and Western cultural influences, including Japanese tea ceremonies, nature, and the relationship between art. Early in her career, Takaezu created functional works but eventually transitioned into creating abstract nonfunctional pieces. She mainly worked on the potter’s wheel but at times would hand build her pieces. Using stoneware or porcelain, her works varied in size, shape, and color, with her most well known works being a closed vessel form with a small bottled, almost nipple-like, neck that would range in size and consist of her subtle and painterly glazing techniques.
Hans Coper was born in Chemnitz, Saxony, to Julius – a successful Jewish businessman – and Erna. The family encountered antisemetism in their home town and moved to Dresden, where Coper studied textile engineering. In 1939 Coper emigrated to England but in 1940 he was interned as an enemy alien and sent to Canada. In 1941 Coper volunteered to return to England to join the Pioneer Corps and in 1946 began working as an assistant to the Viennese potter Lucie Rie. Coper rarely glazed his finished pieces, to allow artistic flourishes to be added. He exhibited at 1951’s Festival of Britain and in 1959 opened his own Hertfordshire studio, where he produced a wide variety of pottery, from roof tiles to bathroom items. In 1967 he teamed up with Rie again for an exhibition at Rotterdam’s Boymans Museum and moved to Somerset the same year, continuing his humble way of living despite his growing international fame. In 1969 he exhibited his “Cycladic” pots at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1975, which sadly affected his work, in 1979 he was forced to retire. His reputation has never waned, and his more famous works can be found in museums across the globe.
Lucie Rie is an Austrian-born studio potter, known for her distinctive 20th-century modernist style. Her perfectionism and an eye for details enabled her creativity and precision to come to the fore. She gave the new meaning and purpose to materials such as clay, stone, and minerals, by turning them into pieces of art. Unlike her contemporaries, she didn’t follow the strict lines of an aesthetic direction, but instead, she was inspired by the surrounding nature and architecture. Being forced to move to the United Kingdom, Lucie continued to do what she loves and does best, except a short trip outside of her comfort zone, when she made buttons, buckles, and jewelry during the WWII. She was one of the pioneers responsible for giving new light and identity to the world of ceramics. Lucie Gomperz was born in Vienna in 1902, as the youngest of three children in a Jewish family. Her father, Benjamin Gomperz was a doctor, also famous for his acquaintance with Sigmund Freud. At the age of twenty, she started studying art and crafts at the Kunstgewerbeschule, where under the mentorship of Michael Powolny, she learned to throw, a technique she used throughout her career. Her curiosity immediately noted the potter’s wheel, so her journey could begin. Pots, and some bowls, that Lucie Rie made at the beginning of her career, by using a limited palette of colors like white, beige, grey, and black, had a touch of Josef Hoffmann’s influence. After the war, the artist met young Hans Coper, also an exile, who was supposed to help her with the production of buttons. Instead, his talent, support, and persuasion convinced Rie to return to the creations she originally made in Austria. Rie constantly upgraded, refined and ennobled her craft-pottery, invented new shapes and effects that became her trademark
To make pottery is an adventure to me, every new work is a new beginning. Indeed I shall never cease to be a pupil. There seems to the casual onlooker little variety in ceramic shapes and designs. But to the lover of pottery there is an endless variety of the most exciting kind. And there is nothing sensational about it only a silent grandeur and quietness.
To make pottery is an adventure to me, every new work is a new beginning. Indeed I shall never cease to be a pupil. There seems to the casual onlooker little variety in ceramic shapes and designs. But to the lover of pottery there is an endless variety of the most exciting kind. And there is nothing sensational about it only a silent grandeur and quietness.
JINGDEZHEN
The city is the hub of all fabrications but also a center for the creation of ceramic art. Foreign ceramists (American, Japanese, European, etc.) come to set up their workshops and recently young Chinese ceramists, leaving institutes, are appearing on the market. Today this new generation of potters are remaking the classics but also producing contemporary functional or art objects. The city has about 500,000 inhabitants and 90% are potters.
I have thrown the very first time old porcelain on the wheel there ... In China, the potter are making the clay growing like the gardener with vegetables and flowers. That's the clay here in Jingdezhen that feeds people ...
I have thrown the very first time old porcelain on the wheel there ... In China, the potter are making the clay growing like the gardener with vegetables and flowers. That's the clay here in Jingdezhen that feeds people ...
MUANG KOONG - POTTERY MAKING VILLAGE in THAILAND
I have been in many places to meet potters ... In Japan, Korea, China, Ukraine, Kenya, Thailand, Cambodia ... but the Village of potters of Chiang Mai left me a deep impression. There is no glory for a lazy person however good looking !
BACK HOME
When I am throwing clay on the wheel at home, all these visits and meetings with potters worldwide, are influencing my vases and pots ... Nothing is really from me while my soul inside as well.
Nic Collins and Sven Bayer ... Master Potters from DEVON
Leasing by yourself is great especially on throwing clay on the wheel ... but sometimes you do need a confirmation you are on the right way ! That's the reason I registered for 2 stages in the Devon with Nic Collins and Sven Bayer ! Many thanks to them ... and the Kigbeare Studios & Gallery with Maddy Carragher !
