Image: Bowl, Jinny Whitehead
For the most part, this blog is used to keep members apprised of the travelling exhibition BC-in-a-Box and the APA component Wide Open. However, we are considering having a blog with different questions to get members thinking about issues in contemporary ceramics and to give them a chance to express their point of view. We are hoping you will take the time to log in and leave a comment.If we get interesting comments, we'll report them in the next PGBC Newsletter.
On Friday, September 9th, the North-West
Ceramics Foundation sponsored a panel discussion at Emily Carr University on
the recently-published book Thrown:
British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries.
The book grew out of a very successful exhibition held
at the Belkin in 2004 that included some 600 studio pots made by Leach
apprentices Glenn Lewis, John Reeve, Michael Henry and Ian Steele as well as by
BC ceramists influenced by these apprentices including Charmian Johnson, Gathie
Falk, Wayne Ngan and others. Works for the exhibition were selected from collections
around BC and Canada, with some literally being taken out of their owners’
dishwashers. Archival photographs, letters and other materials contributed to
the understanding and context of the exhibition and the subsequent publication.
An especially interesting and heated discussion arose
among the participants regarding whether or not ceramics should be collected by
museums. One person expressed the opinion that pottery is kept alive through
use, and museums are nothing short of a tomb. Another
disagreed, stating that it is in museums and galleries that ceramics become
valued additions to the artistic lexicon, and that by collecting ceramics,
museums and galleries contribute to the value and context of these works.
One potter suggested that ceramics go
through different stages of function, beginning with use and then finding a new
role to play in being displayed, especially as the work gains provenance, while another thought ceramics could spend more time developing the sort of discourse the art
world admires and through which museums justify their collections of art.
What do you think? Should pots be collected by museums or
left out to be used by the people who treasure them? If you attended the
panel but did not get a chance to express your point of view, or even if you did not, please log on to our
BC-in-a-box blog and have your say. We hope
to hear from you—if we get some interesting ideas, we’ll print them in
the next newsletter.
Thanks to Debra Sloan for her notes on the panel.
Thanks to Debra Sloan for her notes on the panel.
For more information on the North-West Ceramics Foundation, please see our website at www.nwcf.ca.