Clive Bowen 'Born, not made' - film about British slipware potter

I've always made functional bot spots for the use in the kitchen or the home this is my great love how to present that meal how to offer the food I think it's so important the first time I had a meal at Michael Carter's for example I was presented with a large bowl of coffee in one of his Stanley Cups and it was like such a great moment and so when you have friends and family around and you lay the table up and you've got all these wonderful pots to serve food and drink it's just what I love doing you know so the whole idea of function to me is vital to what I make whether then that comes into the argument of art or function I just think it's all the same it's like beautiful things to use in your daily life one of the beauties of living here in North Devon was the North Devon tradition of pottery which stretches back to the 17th century so the remington clay was already established the local slips were available and the whole idea of having a clay and everything traditionally worked out for me meant that I had a kickstart I didn't have to test anything this is the stream running through our wood and we're collecting clay to make a decorating slip this wonderful ochre color it gives you a wonderful terracotta color under the glaze and it's also a very nice clay to make pots with although on the whole I don't use this clay for the major part of the pottery production it's definitely part of the decorating sequence in fact we had a Japanese famous Japanese Potter here suzumura Shiro suzumura he actually came down here and used the clay straight from the stream and made made wonderful pots that was back in the 90s nineteen ninety three or four it's a very plastic clay lovely self having lived in North Devon and started the fam young family I had two children by the time I moved here Dillon was four Nicolette was five so we needed schools to find and we had the Devon Coast to go to the beach it was just quite a lovely area to live here really so we hunted around for a property and found this old small farm with plenty of chicken sheds to convert into kiln sheds and so I guess I was in my early 20s I moved in borrowed the money to buy the house and start building my first kiln which was easily done because I just went to the local power station came back with all the scrap bricks and built a small kiln I remember my first firing in fact spen when he was on apprentice with cardoon came up to help me and we fired the kiln and totally melted half the kiln and the other half was all right so I immediately took them in my van and took them down to the Chag gallery and I'll never forget she actually took my first pots I'll always remember that after about five years I decided that I couldn't fit any big pots in the small kiln so I decided then to build a big kiln of course when you have a big kiln you need you need help to fire it because it takes at least 30 hours to fire so you need to organise a team of helpers I just need to put this one some people become regulars and will note people come in just for one or two firings I'm ever so grateful that you know some of the family members they still we have five children between us and they come back helping occasionally so we have a great family atmosphere here you need gloves it looks so far I mean we've got many pots to go but we're just in the doorway and that looks good so far I went to work for Michael leach who was the second son of Bernard leach I had a four-year apprenticeship with him he taught me everything about studio practice at the tail end of my apprenticeship I was introduced to Michael guard you and I used to help him fire his kill and then that was a major another major influence this was my first introduction to wood firing I wanted to really be slightly English in my approach because you must remember if I've been trained with Michael Leach which was looking towards the east looking towards Japan in looking at pots from China and so meeting card you was the turning point looking at English slipware English medieval plots because at the time I felt that I couldn't use Japanese brushes you know the delicacy of decorating with Japanese brushes wasn't in my nature I needed something like scruffy tore combing something else I remembered I read that year now either Japanese philosopher said to Bernard leach we love your English slip where it's born and not made and I thought yes I like that this one is the famous remington clay which the local potters in North Devon made pottery back to the 17th century with this clay this is much redder stoke-on-trent clay so I'm making a blend of the two in order to eke out my feminine supplies I mixed with the clay this waste sand from the china clay industry in Cornwall which is very the locally call it silver sand but it's mainly mica and feldspar wonderful texture to the clay so I add that to the clay through the the old pug mill I really enjoy making things off that we all occasionally like square dishes and tiles and the tile especially will give me a flat square thing to decorate it's like a canvas to play with if you like okay I get it going first oh yeah for making the tiles I've got this rather ancient tile press which must be at least a hundred years old same as my pug mill okay it's going to be noisy I thing the reason I'm making these Wow noise the reason I'm making them so that they're slightly soft is so I can decorate them this machine originally was made for dry press in tiles but I've adapted it so I can actually slip trail on the leather hard clay I found that the slips would flake off the bone dry pot so I've had to adapt the machine to my direction of decorating really when I was here as a young man starting the pottery a lot of my friends who were traveling on what they call no gap years and friends would say you know Clive never likes to go anywhere but now it's kind of reversed we're always off somewhere rather over the last ten years I've been invited abroad to demonstrate and talk about ports especially in Japan in the last four or five years there's been a great resurgence in slip we're back about five years ago they had a major slipware exhibition which was so influential that many young japanese potters are now trying to make slip where it's just such a exciting thing to go to japan eventually after all these years but to go and introduce slip where there it is good actually traveling as a no AP the idea of being anti tradition is very very tricky one really because I think you have to bring the glass with you otherwise if you've got no past to bring with you where do you start working from you have an old musician that worked a hundred years ago you have to listen to him to go with new or you look at old pots or old paintings so I think it's just something you carry on in your life looking back when you're a young man and you're full of enthusiasm in your 20s and you think you're the greatest Potter or you're the greatest person in the world full of ambition and then when you reach your 70s you look back and you think no you were you know you were just too young and I think the you know the the time I've been making pots you know 40 40 plus years is that in those in that great time everything becomes automatic hmm so I'm not thinking too much it's a sort of gut reaction of what you like and what kind of pot you like it just hits a spot pottery is such a therapeutic thing to do when you're working you have to concentrate and you just get into a routine out of all the pots I make I think my favourites are probably jugs and storage jars you know I think the jug in particular is a form that you've got to get right it's got to feel right you've got to fill it with liquid if it's too heavy you can't lift it from the table so it's all those considerations I don't sign my work I used to sign my pots back in 1971 and - at the time the unknown craftsman was published which was another like a major book for me to read and then I realized all the great pots in the world were made by people that were on known and so again as I was so young I thought I'm not going to sign my part so I'm going to just make BOTS and so for example this this is a very influential favorite pot of mine it's an early North Devon jug made by an unknown Potter they didn't worry about the clay being needed they didn't worry about cleaning the bottom it's just a perfectly functional jug made for use made in quantity and there's no ego there there's no I made this sign anyway so it was this kind of jug that set me on my course plus the unknown craftsman book you know don't sign your work think about pots that there's an old thing about less is more and I find it very hard not to decorate when I see a pot in front of me and I cover it with slip I just can't help touching that slip or making a mark or scratching through it you know it's just like something I have to do decorating to me is part of the pleasure of making pots although I remember you know watching somebody decorated pots and you've got it you've got to hold back it's like you make a mark sometimes that mark is like yeah that's it you've got to leave it alone but you can go then over the top and spoil something you can over decorate you just gotta know when to instinctively stop and that's the trick I think but I just love the gestures of slip trailing and mark making and the whole feel of the slip where will it's tough on a decoration yes unpacking this kiln has been really exciting because most of the pots were for the exhibition at the golden art gallery I always like to work right on the edge so most of the pots were fired for the exhibition I can never keep things back too far and so I like them to be as fresh as possible and out of the kiln into the gallery as fast as possible so some of some of the parts I know I'll probably never see again you know just a memory of something I've done nice colors sir always test it I liked it just check everything marvelous there's so far you

Channel: Goldmark Gallery

Views: 127,451

Rating: 4.9470201 out of 5

Keywords: Slipware, films about clive bowen, Clive Bowen, Potter, Devon (English Non-metropolitan County), Ceramics, Fremington, Clay, Pug Mill, Tile Press, Film, Video, Films about ceramics, Goldmark Gallery, Burnard Leach, Michael Cardew, www.goldmarkart.com, Film (Film), Pottery (Hobby)

Id: E2IiAGBOcSU

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 20 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/true2source]

Really loved this, thanks for posting :-)

[u/ranpo]

One of the best posts in this sub in a while. Absolutely beautiful.