From Function to Art
1876 provided an opportunity to recognize the arts in American culture and society, with the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, officially the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine. While there was concern that American products would not live up to those from other nations, the exhibition included the telephone, Heinz Ketchup and the first typewriter. It also showcased American art pottery, notably the Century Vase, created by Karl Muller at Brooklyn’s Union Porcelain Works. Glazed with 100 years of historic and patriotic images, a profile of George Washington, and buffalo head handles, it embodied the ferocious pride felt by many Americans in the nation’s progress.

Now art pottery was everywhere, in many ways the first public art. Parlors in upscale homes, as well as lobbies of hotels and the movie palaces that were opening across the country, were barren without a centerpiece of art pottery as a focal point. The demand was great for “special” works that showed off indigenous glazes, and schools began curricula to train artists and advance the medium. Upstate New York’s Alfred University became the first, followed by Newcomb College and others.

Adelaide Alsop Robineau working on her Scarab Vase, c. 1910, Courtesy of the Archives of the University City Public Library
Mrs. Robineau studied ceramics at Alfred University.

The potteries that had created functional work were now superseded by art potteries, creating work that shared function and art. Each boasted its unique shapes and glazes, from Jugtown Pottery, in Seagrove, North Carolina to Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Elegant pottery from the Arequipa Sanitorium in Marin County, California, was produced by women undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. The pottery was created within the context of shifting attitude towards health and illness, changing roles of women and Arts and Crafts philosophy.

Clay Today
America is not really the melting pot we’ve always assumed, but actually a salad bowl, and craft, with all its idiosyncrasies, is the dressing we pour on it, bringing different cultures and society as a whole together in a unique mix with every forkful. Clay is the perfect example. Since the mid-20th century we have seen wave after wave of influence washing across the very concept of clay.

The British potter Bernard Leach and his Japanese counterpart, Shoji Hamada, brought their Japanese aesthetic to America and our clay artists when they visited the Archie Bray Foundation and Black Mountain College, influencing generations of students, like Byron Temple, Matthew Metz, and Jim Makins – who in turn have individualized the teachings and taught yet more.

Matthew Metz, Tall Covered Jar, Doug Hill photograph

Abstract expressionism found a home in clay through artists like Peter Voulkos; minimalism is represented by artists like John Mason. And the Funk Art movement found a practitioner in Richard Arneson.

These are just a few examples. What all this proves is that clay, this simplest, most common of materials, has the capacity to take an artist beyond his or her wildest creative dreams. The question that remains to be answered is, What are you waiting for?

Peter Voulkos demonstrating at the 50th anniversary of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Courtesy of Craft In America, Inc.

PAGE 1 : 2 : 3