Sally Michener, Continued

My project was to interview potters -this
was in 1956-_ [set up interviews with
national crafts associations, and went to the
Netherlands and looked up potters and
small potteries, including those clay pipes,
Then | wrote a hundred page honours paper
onitall. [ got my masters, and I gota job
in Minnesota and started taking classes with
Warren MacKenzie. I wanted to learn
wheel throwing.

Warren was teaching at night at the
University of Minnesota, about seven years
after he got back from apprenticing with
Berard Leach. He was this messianic,
wonderfully self-righteous teacher who was
very influential and changed my direction.
1 was always afraid to show him my work,
because | had started doing some hand
building too, and 7 assumed that he would
think that it wasn't the right thing to be
dome, so | wouldnt show it to him.

He found it, because he did all the firing for
us at that time, as well as the glaze mixing
(he had a theory that we had enough work
to do just making the things and glazing
them, so we shouldn't have to worry about
the chemistry as a beginner). So he found
my pot and said “Who did this” and I
thought he was just going to lambast me,
but he said “It’s really nice”. And of course
after that 1 could show him same of my
work, even thought I assumed it wasn't
very good. It took me a long time just to
learn how to throw properly. I bought a
Leach kick wheel at that time as well as an
electric kiln, a small one, but I still doubted
my work. It seemed to me thar it would be
an avocation, rather than a vocation.

[ got married, moved to Bellingham and set
up my studio. My kiln was on the back
porch and my wheel and working arca was
in the attic, so [ schleped everything up and
down the stairs. I was primarily making
pots and reading, as it was the first time out
of school that I didn't have a full-time job.

{ was also trying to set up a discipline of
working in the studio. 1 had a test kiln built
and T started experimenting with glazes,
pretty much by myself I was reading
books and then playing with the glaze
formulas. My throwing wasn't improving
immensely, but it was enough that I started
to make some standard cups and bowls, |
was starting to do litthe handbuilt pieces and
adding them to the thrown pieces, like little
mermaids as casserole handles.

Then we went to Cincinnati, where I set
up a studio and started taking classes with
Roy Cartwright. Roy, at that time, found
wheel throwing pretty boring, which
made me mad, but also challenged me to
change. [| was mainly throwing at that
point, but | was also spending a lot of
time making all these extra parts to add
on, like the mermaids. He really kept
pushing me to do it, and then about
halfway through the year -because I was
stubborn, as all students are - it finally
happened and I suddenly got interested in
soft slabware.

L kept working at stoneware temperatures
though, making platters, punch bowls, to
tables and stools. These were quite
popular and sold quite well. They hit a
market, because they were both functional
and yet sculptural. When I look back it
wasn't a huge amount of money, but at
the time I thought that it was fabulous to
be able to sell most of the things that I
could make. [ was included in a couple of
exhibitions of local art, and was one of
only two ceramics people to be inchuded
in the shows.

[ was offered a part time job at the
Vancouver School of Art and John Reeve
was teaching there. He was part of the
reason | wanted to come, as I really
admired his pots. So I came here and
then John up and left and went back to St.
Ives after one semester.

Karen: Which brings us to the question of
your goals as a teacher...

Sally: I see my role in a variety of ways.
First of all, because lam passionately
involved in ceramics, [ want to share that
intensity, my convection that this is a
really exciting medium to work in. I've
also tried over the years to become better
al giving out technical information,
because | was taught in an era where it
was down played so heavily that it
influenced my own teaching. It was akin
to the theory that children will learn how
to read if they are studying something
they love. That was my theory about
learning the technique, so I never came
from a very heavily structured technical
point, ie. I make this kind of work, so
you make this kind of work. I've always
tried to get my students to come from
projects that have content and then sneak
in all the other things.

page 5

[ve also tried to integrate the issues that
Students deal wath as ceramicists with the
issues that other artists deal with, When |
retire I want my replacement to be
someone who's primary concem is
ceramics. | think that we have a lot of up
and coming young artists who are doing
very good work.

Excerpted from a longer conversation
with Sally Michener, Karen Opay

Seattle Asian Art Museum

On a recent trip to Seattle, [ visited the
Seattle Asian Art Museum. For those
who are not familiar with it, ] would like
to write some lines of recommendacion.

They have a great selection of are from
Japan, Korea, China, India and Southeast
Asia, and their recent reinstallation of che
Chinese galleries is called Wonders of
Clay and Fire: Chinese Ceramics
Through the Ages. This is a truly
interesting and well displayed collection.
Plates, vessels and sculprure from as far
back as 1500 years ago, some with visible
bruises of time and some as if they had just
been pulled out of a kiln! The museum
also has an elaborately stocked giftshop
with a good selection of books, and a
Japanese style tea-garden with all kinds of

teas for sale.

In the Educational Resources Room, | had
a great Gime watching the following two
videos: The Korean Onggi Potter,
describing traditional pottery production
in Korea with a healthy sized wood-fired
kiln (chat thing - 1 am noe joking - fired
maybe 300 - 400 pots in one go), and
Porcelain for Emperors, showing the
creation of saggars and other vases for the
Japanese Emperor's court all the way from
clay preparation co throwing, firing (after
appropriate prayers to the kiln god are
conducted), glazing, enamel painting, and
breaking (OUCH!) of chese pieces thar
do mot pass che stringent quality control.
both these videos are produced by the
Smithsonian Institute, in 1992 and 1981
respectively, and run for abour 20 and 15
minutes. [ am confident thar any potrery
lover will enjoy visiting this Museum.
(The address is: 1400 East Prospect Street
in Volunteer Park, Seattle, tel: (206) 654

- 3100). Happy Travelling!

Laura Arpiainen