Recently I arranged for my wife and myself and a fellow potter and colleague to sit for Japanese tea ceremony at the local tea master’s home, here in Lafayette Colorado.  Hiroko Akima’s tea bowls are all from Japan, and turning them over and examining the feet is part of the ceremony, something that potters everywhere love to do. I was immediately struck by the beauty of what I realized were indigenous Japanese clays, dug and used locally, and I realized that American potters are missing something that could solidify and strengthen our identity, by gaining the insight in the use of a native clay body to help teach us who we are as potters and individuals.

When I pulled out my box of test bars I realized that the native clays used by a manufacturer in Alberta Canada, Plainsman Clays Limited, were among the best I had ever tested. By “best” I mean low shrinkage, excellent plasticity, absence of warping and cracking, and variety of color and texture. This last quality of color and texture refer in particular to a blended high-iron Plainsman product known as Firered clay, which includes a maroon clay from my home state of Montana, and which burns black at cone 10 in reduction. My colleague, Sharon Morris, uses a dark firing commercial stoneware body from Laguna, and encouraged me to seek out the making of a black stoneware body.

My method of originating a claybody, gained form Jim Robinson’s 1988 Studio Potter article, “Body Building for Potters”, is first to find a “suite” of clays for us in a clay body, and after the process of sending for samples from Canada, I made a line blend between Firered clay on one side, and an equal parts combination of Plainsman Fire Clay, Palestone, Plasticfire, and Helmer kaolin on the other, including a small percentage of Kaosand for texture. Needless to say I can’t wait to see the fired results! Due to the geology close to home, finding a native stoneware clay in Colorado might be impossibly difficult, and when commercially available and finely ground native clays are available both domestically and internationally, the choice for me is obvious. Also, as I made a line blend between Plainsman’s native stoneware clay, Palestone, and Firered, I noticed an immediate drop in workability in comparison to a combination of the Plainsman clays mentioned above and Firered. My teacher and mentor, Jim McKinnell, always included a wide variety of individual clays in his clay body compositions, and always talked up the need for wide “particle distribution,” for maximum workability and for longevity of the composition, as individual clays become unavailable. Now I understand what he was talking about.

Of all the problems and technical difficulties I have faced in 30 years as a potter, none compares with the intransigence of my audience for valuing what I’ve created. I’ve gained mastery of my craft, but cannot value my experience in terms of price because my audience knows little and cares less about what I make. A recent example: a couple arrives in my studio with their small child, having recently moved to Colorado from California. After looking around and buying a small bowl, the woman turns to me and says, “this must be a fascinating hobby.” Only when an artist has the support of an appreciative audience can fullness of creativity be realized, and I have become confined to pricing my work with those of decades less experience. My creativity is constrained as I rely on “saleable items” to keep bread on the table and the bills paid. So it goes.

I’m cut off from fast-paced American consumer society, and I know I go it alone, but how can I hope to survive financially as the honorable and ancient tradition of pottery-making withers in the face of the latest computer video games? Where is the American studio porcelain tradition upon which I can rely to find nourishment?
If the pots were paintings I could automatically command an entirely different level of pricing. I work within the confines and context of fine arts as they are defined in our culture like every other visual artist, and I find the difficulties of making a living staggering.

It’s my life to struggle to assert my personal vision and originality in porcelain clay. I’m a classisist with a temperment for the vitality of the calligraphic quality of line. For me originality grows out of classic forms of the past, and yet because of my geographic location, even this vision is illegible. I’ve long since learned to ask only for enough money to keep food on the table and the bills paid, but I grew up in upper middle class American society, and I battle my expectations every day. I want a car to drive and a home and studio in which to live and work, and I expect to pay for my life with sales of my work.

Daniel Rhodes was right when he said that obsolescence and neglect follow direcly on success, a success which in my case has proven improbable in the extreme. Mine is the struggle of the artist, the dance of a kind of heroic encounter in porcelain clay, a struggle against impossible odds.

Until I’m able to build a shed around my gas-fired reduction kiln, I must wait for evening to arrive, when the breeze dies down and I’m able to see the flame from the venturi burners which power my kiln. It is a very beautiful thing, this gas and air mixture that combine to produce flame, this fascinating and dancing phenomenon of light and heat which cannot be seen to its fullest extent during the day.
I start two burners at a time, kitty-corner from each other, on very low, and I adjust the gas and air mixture every hour. Slowly, as the kiln and pots are warmed, the air, which is pulled in through the primary air ports of the burners, is increased to meet the demands of the increasing volume of gas, producing a luscious and fat blue flame, tinged with yellow. During the early hours of the firing I give the flame as much air as it needs, but later, about six hours into the firing, there comes a moment when the gas and air mixture must be controlled if the beautiful effects of reduction firing are to be realized. Long ago in Mesopotamia, about 4500 BC, potters learned how to control the atmosphere of a kiln, producing a red veneer on their wares by giving the flame full oxigen, or a black verneer on their pots by starving the flame slightly for air. Although our technology is vastly improved, we are using the very same basic technique 6500 years later. There is a very distinct color change to the flame when more gas than air is present, and a recognizable smell tells the potter that a reducing atmosphere is being created within the kiln. By giving the flame more gas than air, carbon monoxide is produced, which steals oxigen from the glaze and clay and replaces it with carbon, producing the wonderful and characteristic celadons, copper reds, subtle whites and stunning tenmoku glaze colors that are unique to high-fire reduction pottery. More gas than air makes for yet another and extremely beautiful color change for the flame, but it is also at this point that much heat is also needed to allow the kiln to rise in temperature, a point when the roar of the flame must be heard. It is a challenging time, these moments late at night when my ability and communication with the flame either make or break months of work.

In the business and participation of the artist in porcelain pottery making, inspiration enters from many angles. Most often it appears as part of the endless circular process from preparation of clay to greeting customers on opening night. The pots are formed and slowly dried to a leather hard state, then trimmed, decorated, dryed, signed, bisque fired, waxed, glazed, glaze fired, sanded, priced, a show created, a deadline met, and once again a new beginning to the process.
Most often inspiration comes from working, but an artist learns to make room for light that enters fron any angle. A friend and collector from D.C. recently returned from a trip to Japan, including an exhibition of pottery from which she sent me a color postcard. I have explored vibrant glaze color on porcelain for a quarter century, but this image stopped me in my tracks and transported me to another world. The postcard was a picture of a classically formed bottle with a glaze described by the potter as “pink celadon,” which my friend described as “supremely beautiful.” To have some knowledge, gained experience, and recources to be able to pursue such a moment, no matter how dire the ever-present and latest deadline might be, is the great pleasure of my life. I had never considered such a glaze color possible, a pale and translucent pink glaze with hints of lilac, very thickly applied and beautifully crackled. At such times I have always gained the most help from the second edition of a book by Robin Hopper, “The Ceramic Spectrum, A Simplified Approach to Glaze and Color Development.” From extensive exploration of this book, I often wonder about “simplified,” but I love his intent and I understand his use of the word. I anticipate a year’s work to duplicate this astoundingly beautiful glaze, and once again, the great circle expands.