From the Vault. Lisa Hammond MBE pottery documentary | GOLDMARK.TV

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my influences for pots they're not very direct really I remember seeing fantastic English medieval pots and been very excited by those very simple forms and I think in my functional where that we've been making over the years they're very simple forms and I think the reason I'm drawn to that is because the surface of the soda glaze is so dynamic that too much decoration for me you don't need to decorate it it decorates itself all the fire does that and for me simpler forms are best for that but I think when it came to sort of making more one-off pieces some of the pieces that I made in the past they're definitely inspired by a killer archaeological kind of stuff you know dug out found things you know rather than directly I like making I already enjoy making tea jars actually because I think they allow you to to do something quite individual with each one really the different kind of marks that I make on things with these ledges really accentuate the glaze and the form I think and I'm very much I'm not really a decorator at all I don't decorate pots much the more the most you'll ever get out of mere decoration wise is usually it's kind of very spontaneous suit of mark and so I would say you know I'm very much a sort of I'm a mark maker not not a decorator you know I think these kind of forms allow you to to put that into practice really you know it wouldn't necessarily work on another form so well making charns is kind of where it started for me with all this sort of thing because it's very much hand cutting you know which is very different from the way that I made pots which was you know production stuff and then you know using a metal tool to turn things you know using a wooden tool to hand cut things completely changes the way that you work you know and lots of spontaneity of the marks and that you get from using the tool you know happen it's much more likely to happen with a tool like that than it is with us or the metal turning tool and you know you're trying to keep precision you know but I don't think I am that kind of person anyway I'm not I'm not terribly accurate and precise about things it's not to say I can't make them as the saying I can but you know I prefer to respond to the clay itself or to the piece itself as as you go on you know I don't want everything the same because I do this really kind of quite vigorously for one of a better word and it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't because it's quite you know sometimes I'll go a bit too heavy on it because I want them to be fairly spontaneous you know some you miss some reader but some interesting things happen like you got that corner there you know so whether we can keep that I don't know now what I do is stretch them out when I first saw some of the ports in Japan I kind of really couldn't understand them some of them incredibly especially some of the Meno one spray on the Oribe kind of varies of horseshoe-shaped tea bowls very kind of wobbly and half collapse sometimes and I kind of you know they were kind of I couldn't quite understand them what so this is this is a national living treasure this piece how is that but I think it took me some time to really absorb that and see how special those pots were and there's one particular Potter's never left my frontal lobe it was a Shino pop tea bowl with the most incredible glaze on it it was a white sugary glaze with this red coming up on if you can imagine it underneath the glaze itself so somehow you could see this red underneath the white and yet the white was quite thick and sugary made by toys Oh Erik our and it just blew my mind you know it's just it was just such an amazing pot and I think it wasn't necessarily the form it was just the whole thing together and and that really got me hooked on she knows I'd already started looking at them before I went to Japan but I think seeing some of the Japanese she knows you know we've been much more exposed to see more the Americans - you know they're seeing the Japanese she knows these wonderful colors some of them incredibly quiet with just little red edges and think I just thought they were incredible and made out of such simple materials just felspar and just a little play that's all and that really appealed to my sense of simplicity in the way that I do my glazing you know soda glaze is so simple really you know it's not the firing is actually quite complicated but in essence you're using very very simple materials just clay just a slip which is just clay you know and two types of clay mixed together and then the fire and you know she knows a similar it's how you fire them that that makes them interesting and creates the colors that we get and the combinations of that it makes I can't tell you how much of a difference it makes I was very lucky to meet a very old guy shino glaze maker I didn't realize that in fact in Japan a lot of people don't make their own glazes there are specialists for that they're often clay makers as well and we went to visit this guy mr. Coombe a guy who was already in his 90s by that time very optimistic man though because he was just building a new a new place a new workshop a new clay making place and in his 90s so he obviously wasn't going anywhere at the time and he he actually makes fantastic she knows but you can't really bring those materials back so you know I thought well I have to find my own voice really and so I have to use the materials that are available here saying that some of them are imported from North Cape and from Canada and all the rest of it but I have to work with what's what's with me here and you know try to find my own voice in that I don't want to really replicate Japanese pots or Japanese glazes but I'm heavily influenced by obviously and you know so it's just trying to find your own voice and of course I find them in a soda kiln so it gives them a completely different look and also the way that I fire them when I don't fire them and it is again very different from the way they do in Japan they do incredibly long long long firings I think ken does with his she knows in the gas kiln fires them for nine days and some of the Shino kilns I've seen in Japan have walls that are you know eight to ten feet thick so they cool very slowly well I don't you know I'm I don't have that facility at the moment to do that so I'd act it to do you something interesting for me and it's something that is always I'm always moving on with and I'm always growing with and looking for different ways of firing these things and it's you know it's it's just quite incredible actually how you know just doing something in the farm you make a complete difference to how the end product comes out you know it still amazes me really I moved down to Devon three years ago and Darren Ellis was at the time just about starting his apprenticeship I couldn't have done it without him actually I mean he's incredibly strong and incredibly skilled in lots of ways and not just making pots but he's really skilled all-rounder we built a kiln and then yeah set up the studio set up all sorts of things master classes all kind of things and down has now finished his apprenticeship he worked with me for a good two years really one of the advantages of being an apprentice really is the fact that you get to meet people you get to you see how it all works you see the good bits and the bad bits actually you see all of it and you may think well I won't be doing it like that you get the whole picture you know you see how the accounts how to handle people on the phone you know when they're ordering how to get out to the shows and and of course you know when they're with you working with you they meet all the people that are running the show so they're already known to them when they come to apply themselves which must help so I think I think it's really important for lots of reasons not just learning how to make the pots it's the whole business actually because that's what we potters do now we have to market ourself we have to you know we have to order the clay we have to do you know making the pots we have to fire the pots we have to build you know make the glazes there's so much involved in it and you have to be an all-rounder I mean we can't be good at everything but you know we have to try and be all-rounders in that when we add the soda it's a long period of spraying soda in for three hours at a time two of us usually to get in and off and that has to circulate around the kiln and you learn to work with the areas in the kiln there are always dry patches in a soda kiln it's just you can't avoid it really so I use those patches for putting in the she knows because they don't want too much they need a little to give them that red color but they don't want too much so I you know I quite like that now that I can mix the different glazes in the same firing and use those sheltered spots like people used to put you know a lower temperature glaze in an area and a kiln under fires you know it's much the same using those areas to your advantage I've kind of always been quite keen on experimenting with that different ways of finishing the fire in different ways of introducing the soda different ways of reduction at certain periods but it's quite some it's quite a difficult thing really because you're risking huge amounts of pot sometimes and especially when I used to do it in my hundred cubic foot kiln you know but I'm quite lucky to have got away with you know quite a lot of pots really but I think what happens is that when you do that kind of experimentation there's always something interesting comes out of it because you've done something different it may not be what you expected but because you've fired slightly differently it makes a huge difference and you know you you can sometimes get you know dozen or so pots out that are incredibly different and I think if you look through my body of work for the exhibition actually that you'll see you know this difference the same glaze but because I fired it differently it's completely different some of them really lusted some of them are quite mad some of them are you know have gold luster on you know that comes from very late reduction so you know completely different ways of firing gives you what is basically slips a Nishino reacting in numerous different ways so you know when we fire with soda of course I'm firing the she knows in the soda kiln of course it twig a little while later then it's a bit like firing them in a wood kiln because you've got that added flux so in a way it's quite useful to do it in a soda kiln if you're just firing in a gas kiln with no extra flux in there they react again very differently I think you know I've always been blessed with a fair amount of energy but you know it's a pretty hard life sometimes you know working that hard and you know I often used to work seven days a week you know having to not just financially but you know to try and you know get things going and get things right and I can't say I've always got it right you know I think you know I've sometimes worked far too hard and you know and you have to sort of remember you know that you have to get out there and do some other things sometimes you know I think my saving grace has always been having a dog getting out and walking the part and chatting to people and and having children of course you know you have to you can't just ignore them so you know it means that you do get out and do stuff with them and I think that's that's important actually it is important I did have quite a chunk of time teaching and r2 taught in lots of colleges around London and different places and it wasn't till Goldsmith's closed in 1994 that that I actually started setting up my own studio again so I found up again looking for a looking for a building that would be suitable and I came across this old ticket office that maze Hill and approached rail track and eventually they let me have it but it was completely derelict I mean we walked through the door and went through the floor hadn't been used for many years and we had no outside space it was all banked up but we we actually got diggers in there that was quite some day actually when we got the digger I really thought you what have you bitten off you've bitten off far more than you can chew now so we had I think God 10:18 ton lorry loads of saw removed it was huge with a digger so but then we made a space and we put down the plinth and started to build a kiln we used to fire in the dead of night so we weren't sort of you know causing havoc during the day but I think we got some very strange looks from the police you know used to back their cars up and you know what's going on here you know they're very good they sort of left me alone probably after about a year of year and a half of being there it's you know it's very hard work running all that situation and we were teaching she became very popular one of my ex colleagues was now working at Midway my old college and said oh I've got a fantastic Japanese students down here and she'd really looked for some experience so perhaps you could take her on and yo Tom came to me and she started working at weekends it was great working with her I really realized what a fantastic opportunity it was for me as much as anything I was in learning about Japanese culture and all sorts of things and food very importantly actually it was a next student from from Camberwell who was doing a work placements with us in the summer and I said well maybe we should set up some sort of charity and and she said it's like being adopted isn't it you know you could adopt them so I said well they go fantastic adopter Potter and it was just sort of spawner of that conversation really you know started off with a few of us just donating pots and raffling them and then we had the idea to go to Hatfield and see if we could really do sort of a tombola thing and get everybody involved and it's I think it's been very successful with the demise of the of the colleges in ceramics colleges closing down I mean Goldsmith's was the first pretty well and since then many have gone you know I was really very disheartened by this and and feeling that really it's the only way we can go is actually to sort of set back into apprenticeships again until those in power begin to realise what's amiss in those colleges and that we actually need to put them back in the thing about having good pots is using them in your everyday life it's half the pleasure really you know of course we start with the mug and I think even people who don't buy handmade mugs will often have a favorite mug so you're making decisions about what you choose to eat your cereal out of beer sadly I hope it's not I care or one of those things but you know you're making decision about the size the form when you what's comfortable when you're half asleep you know what do you want to drink your tea out of and eat your cereal out of and and I think when you buy handmade pots you can get such a lot of pleasure out of that you know and I think those sort of things important in life actually okay oh that's nice yeah this is one we made in two parts and then it has slip and then we put some ash on the top just before it goes in yeah I'm quite happy with that a little run here this area here is quite it's quite scorched you know it's obviously got some carbon trapping here but that you know again gives you another layer of character you know if it was all like that it might be not so interesting it's got it here too just carbon trapping underneath which you sometimes get in the corner of the kiln here because you're restricting the flow so you know you can make these things work for you this is quite interesting to look at you know pots that can be you've got it right and you've got it right in the right spot where you've got a you know this one's got a lot of interest in it and the she knows worked you know in contrast to having you know a tea pot that's totally in the wrong space this was a red she no-one and it's been blasted so we've lost all the colour it's not beautiful it's very very rare to get probably 80% out even especially with the kind of firing that I'm doing you know I don't tend to I'm not looking for uniformity so you know you have to work with that and have to expect the losses I don't have many of my own pots in my house I have some nice seconds and things like that I tend to you have to sell the good ones quite good at letting go of pots I mean I a really is hard when you unpack a kiln and the pots go straight away I do like to have them about so I can do exactly what I said noticing you know ah that's worked or whatever so it's quite a wrench to let those things go very quickly and I have a lot of other people's pots which must have an influence on me I don't think it's very directly so I don't see a bowl that will make that shape it's it's something subtle in that again I'm noticing something very subtle in it the way it handles or something in the rim I mean I recently bought some tea bowl in in Korea actually made by a Potter fan lusha Co Wow I just remember sitting there looking at it on the shelf and just seeing this the way the rim turns over and maybe somebody else wouldn't have noticed you know but for me the softness of that rim on that tea bowl just made that pot and that came home with me it's little subtle things that affect me and I try you know I might try and put that softness of rim I'll never achieve it the way that he's done it but it will be there in my mind when I'm making something I might remember that and and that will affect my work so it's not like I see a hammer dough and I want to make a hammer dirt or I see you know toes Arakawa and I want to make one of those it's something in that foot ring or something in the hammer dirt you know the way the glazes drip will affect me so it's not very direct my influences when you're making something large or or even it doesn't have to be large but you know there's something about letting the clay respond to itself and I think you is you never going to see it spinning around in a wheel anyway but to see an edge slightly off-center it's much more interesting actually than it's sort of looking at something that's absolutely perfect for me that's that's true in pots I think it's not true of everything but I think in pots for me you know I want to see something with a bit of energy a bit of life - and keeping it so it's kind of it's got its own spirit really I think you run the risk I think though that kind of thing there is - you know some work and some don't and and it's knowing that when they when everything comes together when the firing comes together and the glazing comes together the making comes together some of my best pots where the glaze actually isn't perfect it's it's been a sort of a happy accident it's chance really and an equally with the making - you know things that I've just done that's all that's interesting I'll leave that you know when those things all come together you know you get some you get a real special pot real spirited pot and that's the kind of pots I aim to make you know I I hope to achieve in my life you know even if if I just make a few I'll be happy [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we need to educate entertain our customers [Music] ok so now we're going to look at some other of his prints taking very seriously about stopping making putts there's nothing forced and I think this jug that I'll really be a fitting event hello welcome to you today's broadcast from the Goldmark gallery one of my most regular places to visit up in this part of the world is the goldmark gallery [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Goldmark Gallery

Views: 13,999

Rating: 4.9466667 out of 5

Keywords: Svend Bayer, Clive Bowen, Nic Collins, Mike Dodd, Jean-Nicolas Gérard, Shinsaku Hamada, Lisa Hammond, Anne Mette Hjortshøj, Goldmark, Goldmark Art, Goldmark Gallery, Goldmark pots, Goldmark films, Goldmark TV, L.S. Lowry, L.S. Lowry School Prints, Fine art films, Shōji Hamada, Ralph Steadman, Lee Kang-hyo, Phil Rogers, Pottery, ceramics, pottery films, pottery documentaries, ceramics films, ceramics documentaries, goldmark gallery, michael cardew, burnard leach

Id: ubIp1v3LR50

Length: 27min 52sec (1672 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 26 2020