DOMESTIC WARE POTTERY:
DILEMMAS

In October 1988, I had a show of my pots at the Gallery
of B.C. Ceramics. The show was part of the Artist -in-
Residence p recently established by the Pot-
ters Guild of British Columbia. I had the opportunity
of being the first participant of this program which
provides a ceramist with opportunity to work on
Granville Island in a spacious, skylit, well-equipped
studio at about one-half the going rate. This is the first
year of the artist-in-residence [I prefer to think of it as
the artist-in-progress) program, It has been a mar-
velous success.

Marvelling, however, is not what I was doing just
before the show. The tension | had felt leading up to
it helped me focus my designs, which I needed to do.
Acouple of days before the show I had an insight about
the anxiety I was feeling: I had been comparing my
pots to those I had seen at other shows of domestic
pattery, shows that were, without exception, of pot-
ters who had been at it for ten to twenty-five years.
Now why would I do such a foolish thing? It would be
more sensible to look at my work in the context of
local, younger contemporary domestic ware potters.
Unfortunately, such a context does not exist, which
takes me to the beginning of my story.

AsIwas looking for either an apprenticeship or school
environment supportive of the training of a domestic
ware potter, I encountered the following responses.
It is a fact that most urban potters work in small, some
would say, cramped quarters. This is the first, and as
things stand now, pretty well insurmountable barrier
in attempting a city apprenticehip.

The local Community College runs a two-year course
in ceramics, but as one head instructor told me, the
facilities are so heavily used and space at such a
premium that the productivity that is an inherent
aspect of making domestic ware would be intolerable.
Vancouver's community colleges turned away over
two thousand people this year due to lack of space and
stall, In conversation with the instructors at the
graduate schools, I learned that making domestic
ware {s all right. However, making more than two
hundred mugs, for instance, would be pointless. |
thought that anything under two hundred would be
pointless.

The provincial government docs provide funding
towards apprenticeships, but they do not recognize
pottery as an apprenticeable trade. When I pointed
out that for the past eight thousand years pottery was
exclusively an apprenticeable trade, they responded
with amusement but no funding, They finally stated
that their mandate is to serve the apprenticeship
needs of industry, not small craft businesses,

In 1987, Harry Hillman Chartrand, head of Research
and Evaluation of the Canada Council, published
“The Crafis in a Post-Modern Economy”, in which he
made two, amongst several, interesting observations:
“Collectively, the fine arts, the commercial arts, and
the amateur arts make up the arts industry, including

advertising, broadcasting, crafts. motion pictures.
performing and visual arts, publishing. sound and
video recording. Compared to all manufacturing
industries, the arts industry is the largest with respect
te employment, the fifth largest with respect to sala-
ries and wages, and the tenth with revenue in 1983 of
$9.2 billion......The arts and crafts are extremely
employment- efficient, enjoying, dollar-for-dollar, a
six to one employment advantage over manufactur-
ing. Artistic and craft jobs also provide meaningful
employment with strong career commitment in spite
of an average self-employed income second only to
pensioners as the lowest paid occupational category
recognized by Revenue Canada.” In light of such
information, the provincial government's position
seems to me to be cbdurate.

About design, Chartrand says, “In both the United
States and Canada, higher quality consumer prod-
ucts tend to come from abroad, particularly from
Europe. Why? Given capital plant and equipment in
North America is as good as that in Europe, the
answer is not supertor production technology. In fact,

it results from superior design”. The roots of design lic
in the practise of making; take for example, Janice
Chalenko or Eva Hess, two very successful designers
who began as potters involved in the entire process of
making. This is the strongest argument for public
support of the crafts in general, and of domestic ware

in paruicular.

During this last year on Granville Island | have been
able to develop my skills to a point where I can sell my
work to the public throughout the Lower Mainland.
The demand for handmade domestic ware ts definitely
strong even though industrial ware is much cheaper,
Why do people need to make pots by hand, and why
do people continually buy them? Do potters have to
move out of the city to survive, do they need to form
working cooperatives, or raise their prices substan-
tially? Do those looking for training need to go out of
Vancouver, press the governemtn for support, or just
pick it up along the way? One encouraging develop-
memt is the Cartwright Gallery's “Design for Use"
exhibition upcoming in 1989.

I have been very fortunate to have been supported by
the Potters Guild of B.C., and by individual potters
such as D'arcy Margesson, Jane Williams, Sam Kwan
and Terry Ryals: certainly my progress would have
been slower without them all.

Nathan Rafla

Dan't go to zoos.

Design in the nude.
Changing, the face of the hill
is no still life but

suggests reproduction,

same photographs,
Anything, you uxint to sayy,

- Ken Belford

(Reprinted, with permission, from the Nov/Dec issue
of CABC’s “craft contacts”)