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The Potters

Harry and May Davis, Nelson

Doreen Blumhart, Wellington

Mirek Smisek, Manukau

Barry Brickell, Coromandel

How far towards commercial production do you consider it is desirable for a potter to go?

Harry and May Davis: A potter has to earn his living and therefore has to engage in commerce to sell his wares. By this definition a painter and a writer are also engaged in commerce. Nevertheless one might fairly say there is no place for a handcraft potter in modern society unless he can give exression to aims and motives which are to a high degree non-commercial. Failure to do this makes him phoney—just a phoney as the factory manufacturing "studio ware" or "crafted pottery". All these are examples of commercialism seeking to cash in on what is thought ( or known) to be fashionable, and ignores the motives of the authentic porter, who is seeking human values in this ultra-commercial age.

Doreen Blumhart: This is entirely individual and cannot be answered by generalisations. It depends on what you mean. Most of the studio potters in N.Z. have to work-hard to make a living and must make a certain amount of domestic ware as this inevitably sells best. The more the potter can speed up his bread and butter lines the sooner he can get on with making the work he as an artist likes to make most which of course may be domestic ware. A small commercial pottery like the Waimea Potteries seems a sound way of approaching it and all work is still hand made. It is really in between the individual studio potter and the large commercial pottery like Crown Lynn.

Mirek Smisek: This question is not quite clear to me, but I would like to say that we all work to sell our pots and that is a form of commercialism. I feel it should be explained like this one: one should make pots for people but also for one's own aesthetic satisfaction. At no time should one be influenced by some kind of taste or trend. You naturally make a thing to sell but the guidance should be your integrity. You must follow honestly your feelings and when you feel you can improve something you should work for that. You must make things people can enjoy fully. But in making them aesthetic values should be the prime concern—not whether you are going to sell them or not.

Barry Brickell: Again as in the first question—depends on the individual approach which aspect he is most interested in. There is opportunity for both commercial production and individual expression.

IS enough being done to make the public aware of differences in the quality of local pottery?

Harry and May Davis: I do not know what, if anything, is being done in this direction. The numerous exhibitions held up and down the country only emphasise aesthetic excellence—and that is mostly the reflection of the tastes and prejudices of selection committees. Technical excellence is not taken into account.

Doreen Blumhart: It is difficult to educate the buying public, and most potters try to keep a high standard. However, while it seems impossible at present for potters to saturate the New Zealand market, and everything sells, a good deal of badly designed and badly executed pottery is being sold. There are on the other hand definite signs that people are becoming more discerning. The New Zealand Society of Potters sets high standards for those who wish to join it, and at their exhibitions work is rigorously selected. Outside the Society there seems no way of restraining beginner potters from exhibiting and selling their work.

Mirek Smisek: We are still at the stage of reaching for maturity; where we have to recognise the spiritual content of the pot and express though it one's love for people, for nature. The more you are involved in these things around you the more you can give into the things you make. This is what in life we have to do—search for one's love to give and to express we should go for.

Barry Brickell: No. As yet there is not sufficient informed and firm opinion voiced publicly about the work of potters, or for that matter any other art form going on yet.

Nearly all critics are fairly amateur. Too many belong to commercial news agencies whose opinions are tactful rather than truthful, or they are groping rather than informed.

Pottery over the last twenty years has become established in New Zealand, what new objects do you see ahead for the potter?

Harry and May Davis: With a history of only twenty years the objective for most New Zealand potters is surely to become better potters. In fact this could fairly be the objective of any metier with a creative content. Painter, writer, potter—it doesn't matter which—when the urge to become a better exponent of the art in question has faded it is time to give up. He who carries on after that has become a commercial hack.

Doreen Blumhart: The objects of a potter will be, as ever, to express his ideas as an artist, through clay and fire, and to aim at maintaining his own highest standard.

Mirek Smisek: Whatever knowledge and skill we happen to acquire we should be willing to pass on. I feel strongly that it is our duty. It is not always possible to provide the facilities at our workshops but we can at weekend or summer schools or by having students for short periods at our studios. My own aim is to set up a bigger workshop where I could have, say, two people who have had some practical experience to come and work for a year or two and acquire everything that is available.

Barry Brickell: The sorting out of the truly significant contributing innovators (artists) from those who are trying to jump on to the new pottery band-wagon. The objects ahead for many of the latter will doubtless be establishment ideas.

What means are available for the passing on of the accumulated knowledge and skills of an established potter. Do you think special provisions should be made to encourage apprenticeship in pottery?

Harry and May Davis: A characteristic of the potting movement has been, and still is, that people of mature years, trained in other walks of life, will seek to apprentice themselves to a master potter. This type of applicant who has become conscious of shortcomings in the modern way of life, is willing to make the sacrifices involved in such a change of vocation. The school leaver who is conscious of what is involved is in any case a very much rarer type of applicant.

The tendencies in New Zealand follow a very similar pattern, but there is a lamentable absence of freedom to make contracts realistically related to the lack of skill, and the varying capacity, of persons of mature years. In other words it is illegal. The number of school leaver applicants is very small, and the number of those likely to fit into a set-up which does not put commercial considerations first would be even smaller. In fact the bulk of future potters is most likely to come from the older age group. So long as apprenticeships in the crafts are seen through the eyes of Trade Unionism —in terms of wages and hours—so long will this country fail to train its potential craftsmen properly, and would-be craftsmen will continue to "mug it up" as best they can, while allowing their work to shelter behind the heading "Art". At present the number of potters in New Zealand (a) with adequate knowledge and skill, and (b) with adequate premises to accommodate additional workers, and (c) with willingness to take apprentices, is minute, so that training often has to be sought overseas.

Doreen Blumhart: Much of the accumulated knowledge of potters is passed on through the magazine The New Zealand Potter which has for the last ten years been published twice yearly. There is a great friendship between potters and many young potters often visit more established potters. May weekend and summer schools are held all over New Zealand at which knowledge and skills are passed on.

Apprenticeship in pottery is impossible for the majority of studio potters. While they could make good use of a young apprentices. In any case I do not think this is the primary need. The most urgent need is lor student potters to have training at an art school (neither of our schools of art have courses in pottery), where they can obtain a training in design and in techniques. The majority of potters at present are self-taught and have no artistic training. Many are highly skilled technically, but few have the background for the making of aesthetic judgments.

Mirek Smisek: No. There are exhibitions of course—of invited potters, but more could be done. Something perhaps in lectures and demonstrations and in having very good work on display. There should be somewhere where the very best pottery, the work of the Japanese masters for instance can be seen and have its beauty appreciated.

Barry Brickell: Apprenticeship, formal or informal, is the traditional and best way to pass on methods and ideas of pottery making i.e. the basic experience itself. The more that efforts are made to encourage apparenticeship in pottery, the more will ordinary working people be drawn into the craft and then the more utilitarian, plain and functional and, we hope, honest, would hand made pottery become.