Clary Illian and the Hamada-Leach Tradition

(Article appeared in Clary Illian the catalog accompanying her retrospective at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Cedar Rapids IA, September 2012February 2013)

The story of the renowned and fruitful collaboration between Shoetsu Yanagi, Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada has been romanticized, burnished and tarnished by various writers over the years. Here is an overview of that collaboration and of the evolution of the Hamada-Leach Pottery Tradition as it unfolded in Britain and the United States. Within this evolution the philosophy that has guided the art and craft of Clary Illian plays a vital role.

Following the Second World War and the U.S. Governments introduction of the G.I. Bill, which allowed thousands of returning Veterans to consider acquiring a college education, universities and art schools expanded exponentially to accommodate the new demands for instruction. It is at this time we see the birth of ceramic programs in institutions of higher education and the consequent rise of the studio pottery movement in America. To my mind, there are three streams of influence in mid-20th Century American ceramics. They are the Bauhaus Influence, the Voulkous Revolution, and the Hamada-Leach Tradition. The Bauhaus, an art school briefly in existence in pre-WWII Austria, with its insistence on form following function and interest in the moderne was possibly the most important design school in Europe in the thirties. Evidence of its influence can be seen in the dominance of Swedish Modern dcor in the early fifties. Immigration to Britain and the United States of talented artists who came out of the Bauhaus brought these principles to academic institutions and peers in their fields. Ceramists like Hans Coper, Lucie Rie and Ruth Duckworth represented Bauhaus ideals and the beauty, clean lines and elegant use of materials embedded in their work furthered interest in the Bauhaus in America. In the 60s, Peter Volkous and his adherents created a revolution in studio ceramics. Their aim was to make past modes obsolete and they took their cues from the world of painting and sculpture, notably from the Abstract Expressionist Movement. Lastly, and germane to this essay is the Japanese word mingei, coined by Leach, Yanagi, and Hamada in Japan and meant to encompass the

essential aesthetic values embedded in folk objects of utility; the art of the people. The mingei movement in ceramics is called the Hamada-Leach Tradition. Unlike the other streams of influence, the Hamada-Leach Tradition, like the Arts & Crafts Movement of the Victorian era, looked to the past and to functionality as benchmarks for makers. It is this tradition that swept Clary Illian and other American potters into its flow. Bernard Leach, was born a British citizen in the late 19th c. in China, into an extended family of paternalistic and entrepreneurial men who tended to work in the Imperial Colonies of Britain. Leach at age ten was sent off to England to be educated at a Jesuit boarding school in Windsor and it was eventually here that he declared his intention to be an artist and was introduced to the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris. Later, as a drawing student at the Slade School, Leach became more deeply attached to the values of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Whereas most movements in any field look to the future and intend to break with whatever traditions preceded it, the Arts and Crafts Movement extolled the past, particularly the Middle Ages and viewed Gothic art and architecture from a pre-Industrialized Europe to hold to true values based on an a conscious conjoining of head, heart and hand. Upon leaving art school, Leach decided to return to the East. The literal opening of Japan to Westerners in the middle 19th c. drew many adventurous individuals to want to explore this culture. Leachs entree to the art and craft of Japan was to be through the teaching of wood etching and engraving, as he left art school with strongly developed skills in drawing and drafting. The year is 1908. He remained in Japan for eleven years, returning to England and founding the Leach Pottery in 1920. While Westerners were interested in Japan and its traditional arts, the forward thinking in Japan were tantalized by the art coming out of Britain and Europe, particularly Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. It wasnt long after Leach arrived in Japan that he met a handful of Japanese artists and theorists who, along with Leach, were interested in exploring the possibilities of an East-West meeting of minds in the areas of philosophy and the arts. Ultimately, three individuals came to represent these ideas to Western craftspeople: Shoetsu Yanagi, author of the influential book The Unknown Craftsman, Shodji Hamada, the great potter who embodied the very ideals of the Arts & Crafts Movement, and Bernard Leach, who learned potterymaking in Japan and in addition to being a maker sought to propagate Mingei ideals through writing and education. Whereas the adherents to the Arts and Crafts Movement, through the writings of William Morris extolled the past, those individuals who spent time in Japan were able to revel in a world where tradition and past achievements were not merely extolled, but were

revered. It was a wonderful joining of philosophies that led to a fruitful and gripping collaboration that wound its way back to England, and took hold in the United States, especially in Midwest. Leach invited Hamada to join him in England, in the building of an ambitious studio program that would ultimately involve an apprenticeship practice, gallery space, and perhaps most importantly, a commitment to the production of a standard ware that would provide to the public bowls, cups and jugs, and cookware that was hand-formed, reduced to basics in both form and surface and that celebrated Mingei values of folk-craft and utility. In 1939 Leach published The Potters Handbook, which became an assigned text for pottery students in America for the next forty years at least. (I still have my tattered copy, assigned by my first pottery teacher at the U. of Michigan in 1965.) In this influential book Leach first lays out his philosophy in an opening chapter titled Towards a Standard. This is a must-read for anyone wanting a succinct introduction to the man and his ideas. The rest of the text covers all the practical aspects of being a potter from how to make a potters wheel and all the other equipment needed in order to prepare clay, make pots and fire them. It has photographs of great pots from the past and of Leachs own work and is illustrated with wonderful drawings by himself. In any life, Luck plays a defining role. Perhaps being able to identify a lucky break and build upon it is an indication of genius. During Clary Illians second semester of pottery making at the University of Iowa, Warren MacKenzie was brought in as a visiting artist. In the early 1960S, ceramic artists and craftspeople were consumed with exploring the potential of stoneware clays, glazes and firings. In other words, the emphasis was technical. When Warren Mackenzie came down from Minnesota as a visiting artist, fifteen years after his apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery, the gift he brought was something Clary was yearning for: a guiding philosophy that would provide an emotional and intellectual rationale that could sustain a whole life. Clary wanted to know more and hear more of what Warren represented. She spent the following summer working with Warren at his studio in Stillwater MN. Here she learned about Hamada and Leach, grew to understand and love the Mingei philosophy, which embraced a seamless connection between making and using, professing and living. At Warrens, Clary and the other potters who worked with Warren over that summer dove into a set of principles and ideals that were to frame their personal and professional lives from then on. He encouraged young potters to get a detailed and rigorous

training and when settling down, to do that in a country setting, by building a pottery and providing wares for a local clientele to be sold at the most affordable prices. Although bits of that philosophy have been tweaked this way and that (for example, several of Warrens disciples as I think of them, have followed Warren into academia), most of them exemplify his belief in the value of non-urban living, a disciplined and continuous studio practice, and the providing of pottery to a local clientele. Upon graduating from U. of Iowa, Clary sought an apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall, England, which was granted after an extended visit and several interviews. The experience was intense. Apprentices worked forty hours a week producing Leach Standard Ware. Around the edges they were welcome to work on their own pots, which at times would garner examination and critical reflection by Bernard. But it was the producing of standard ware that Clary views as the most significant aspect of the apprenticeship. Studying, practicing and executing basic forms weekly for two years developed her eye and hand and an acute sensitivity to the development of pottery form on a treadle potters wheel. The reality is that, as in all things, only a few individuals rise to the highest level of achievement in any endeavor. Not all Leach apprentices are regarded for the beauty and confidence of their pottery forms. However, for decades Clary has been renowned for the subtlety, beauty, and visual tension in the basic pottery forms she produces throughout each year. I believe that the Hamada-Leach tradition evolved in the United States in ways that underscore stereotypes often applied to Americans. There is a directness, sometimes brashness to these pots that differ widely from the often tidy and more restrained pots of many of the British Leach potters making work at the same time: 1960s to 1990s. The verbiage that grew up around these pots in the U.S. was that they embodied a looseness that was critical and that looked directly to the hallmarks of certain Japanese kilns. At some point, the loose pot became the good pot and the tight pot was quite the opposite. I prefer the word expressive as what I value most in the so-called Mingei pots of American potters like Clary. These pots reflect acute awareness of the material and the desire of the potter to allow those material attributes to assert themselves. The most startling and original contribution to the American Pottery Movement made by this group of potters evolved in the late 1970s and may be traced to Clarys studio doorstep; that is, the altering of pottery form after the initial throwing. This altering began while the pot was still on the wheel and could continue while the clay was still malleable but off the wheel. Clary had a small collection of historical pots. One of them was an early

Italian maiolica pitcher. It had been taken out-of-round by the maker, and the spout was an exaggerated addition to the basic form. Clary found this pitcher intriguing and began experimenting in her studio, and while demonstrating at workshops and conferences throughout the country. The interest in continuing the forming of pots after the wheel was stilled engaged scores of potters across the country and the altered pot is the hallmark of 1980s-90s pottery form in the U.S. In Septemer 2011 Clary gave the keynote address at the Cedar Rapids Ceramic Center Conference and in that address she harkens to her philosophical roots in saying that pots are good for you. Clarys life in pottery has made for better pots in America through her articulate expression in speech and writing, through her book A Potters Work Book, which should be a valued part of every potters tool box, and especially through the pottery she has produced and made available to collectors from her studio showroom and rare exhibitions outside of Ely and Iowa City. She exemplifies the idealism that was passed on to her from Warren, her mentor, and Bernard, her teacher, that there is an ethical component to the good pot, that a pure heart and strong convictions are germane to the process. In one of our discussions I asked Clary how she would summarize her role in terms of the Hamada-Leach Tradition. Ive been a good soldier she responded. As one who thinks deeply about pots and pot makers, about the relevance and use of pots in contemporary culture, and as a maker of profound excellence and influence, Clary embodies what I believe to be primary: a radical activism on behalf of a traditional and humane life work.