Alan Caiger-Smith

Alan Caiger-Smith ran the Aldermaston pottery from 1955 until about 1993 when he retired from actively running the pottery. He continued to work on his own pieces at the pottery until the last firing and official closure of the pottery in 2006.

He is also author of several important books on tin-glaze and lustres as well as many articles. He also co-translated and annotated Piccolpasso's book, "The Three Books Of the Potter's Art" covering Maiolica (tin-glaze) techniques of the Italian Renaissance.

I was 'raised' in the "Leach-Hamada-Cardew-Reduction-High-Fired-Stoneware-With-Little-Decoration-School". It was a revelation to me when Nick Chapman, British slipware potter, did a series of workshops at my univeristy. You can actually decorate this stuff! And it's fun!

I discovered Alan's work shortly afterwards and fell in love with the fluid, caligraphic line of his brush work. However, I was totally bowled over by the beauty, elegance and luminance of the lustre ware.

Not only is the decoration lively and fluid but in the smoky reduction atmosphere of the lustre firing, IT MOVES! The metals in the lustres fume and color the surrounding areas. The smoke gets into the glaze as well and turns it a very soft grey in places. You can trace the path of the flame across the pots by the fuming.

And for all you wood fire macho types, this is wood fired!

Through research, scholorship and trial and error, he revived this technique for modern times. His 'autobiography', "Pottery, People and Time", in one chapter describes his early trials with the lustre techniques. I especially love the image of him pushing fudge through the spy holes of his electric kiln to get the necessary reduction.

His work is in many collections including the Ashmolean museum in Cambridge, which is near his home and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. There are lots of images of his work on the internet and if you go to the two auction sites listed earlier, you will find even more. There is also a nice collector's site at http://www.aldermastoncollectors.co.uk/

Since Aldermaston's main focus was on decorated functional ware for daily use, there is a very large amount still being used in private households.

Am I doing too much about tin-glaze? Naw! Two posts doesn't even scratch the surface of this much under appreciated and very demanding technique. There is some really wonderful work being being done today.

I really don't have any prefered pottery style or technique, I just like good ceramics.

Just to keep you happy, the next post will be on something else.

By the way. The platter at the top belongs to me. ;-)

British Potter James Tower

James Tower (1919-1988) was a student of British potter William Newland (1919-1998).

Newland and friends first saw tin glazed earthenware in 1950 spain and were so influenced by it that he and his friends returned to London a set up a studio producing tin glazed earthenware supplying tiles and fixtures to trendy coffee houses at the time.

They were the counter part of Leach and his circle. While Leach was influence by traditional British slipware and eastern ceramics. Newland and his friends were drawing inspiration from Picasso and the British tin glaze tradition. Leach referred to them derisively as "Picassoettes" Newland didn't claim to be anti Leach, he just said "There are other things to do"

Newland was becoming particularly well known for a special technique that he taught to Tower. This involved either applying a black glaze over an already fired white tin glaze and then scratching back the black glaze to reveal a pattern or doing the same with white over a black glaze.

These flat, somewhat leech like forms are also part of his signature work. His work can be seen in many collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (http://www.vam.ac.uk/) and you will occasionally find them at auction at places like Bonhams (http://www.bonhams.com/)and Sothebys (http://www.sothebys.com/)

I was drawn to these pieces when I was working in tin glazed earthenware myself thinking that it was some kind of glaze over glaze reaction. The knowledge that they were produced by a precise method of scraping back the black or white glaze only made me love them more.

I'll let you in on a secret about auction viewing. Before any auction, there are usually several days of viewing where potential bidders can examine the work.

They are REALLY great places to get to look at art up close. The assistants there will even take objects out of display cases so you can get a closer look and often even HANDLE THE PIECE. Often they can answer questions.

Check out the auction sites above, find something you're interested in and then go to the viewing. MUCH better than a museum or a 'Please don't touch" gallery. They also have online catalogues of current and near future auctions and extensive archives of past auctions. These are great places to look at at pots too.

Sure wish I could get my hands on one of these pieces but I just haven't managed to be in the right place at the right time.....yet!

Wood Fired Pots From Clark, Murphy, Franke Show at AKAR Gallery

I'm a potter who likes to look at pots and I look at a lot of pots in the 'flesh', in books, on the internet, where ever I can find them. I've been a potter for 28 years and I have always found that I get a lot of excitement and inspiraton from looking at and expiriencing other peoples pots.

In my artist's statement I describe myself as a pot fondler. You can see my own work here http://www.mypots.com/

I was looking at these wonderful pots by Bede Clark and Dan Murphy from the current exhbition at the AKAR gallery (http://www.akardesign.com/) and thought it might be nice to share these with some other people.

The two platters with the folded over lip are by Bede Clark. I think the colors, the surface effects, the fall of the ash, the undulation of the form a just fantastic.
This wonderful jar and the medicine cups are by Dan Murphy

The medicine cups, I think are fired in a process called "Reduction cooling", which is a technique they practice at Utah State University where he is Assistant Professor.

The kiln is fired off and fired down, in reduction. What happens is that you get a lot of ash deposited on the pots at temperatures too low to melt. This leaves a very rich crusty surface on the pots.

Post firing, they grind away the ash on the surface to reveal these wonderful textures and colors.

I think they're really rich and beautiful.

Swing on over to the Akar Gallery and have a look at the whole show.

It's a terrific gallery that shows terrific work.