Original Article for „Töpferblatt“ back in 2014 by Mary Ann Steggles. Cover picture: Plate made by Julia Nema for Olympia Restaurant, Budapest.
Four years ago many ceramicists around the world thought that being able to make a full time living and survive making useful objects such as tableware had finally come to an end. The success of the early 20th century studio potters such as Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew and Shoji Hamada dwindled in the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st with sales dropping in Canada due to 9/11 in 2001, further decreases with increased border security and passport restrictions and then finally, in 2008 the financial crisis appeared to have delivered the final blow. Students were choosing not to major in ceramics at university and, in response, universities began to close departments. Everything felt dire until this year. Something is afoot and hope is rising!
In the 1960s and 1970s the ‚back to the land movement‘ was founded on the ideals of living a simple life in the country close to nature. Urban youth found themselves moving to small rural holdings where they built simple rustic houses, created organic gardens and began to raise the consciousness about the food humankind was consuming. Some lived in rail cars, others built stack wall houses while some experimented with solar power to try and stay off the grid. A few established communes where all work including child rearing were shared. As Nancy Janovicek states, ‚All of these rural utopian communities shared the belief that individual improvement and co-operative living were the necessary foundation for a more thoughtful and meaningful life that valued natural beauty, honest work, and community over individualism‘.[1] This ‚counterculture‘ was a part of greater social movements that included feminism, environmentalism, social and political protests against the Vietnam Conflict and a firm belief that radical change could create a better world for all. Life was simple with most rejecting any overt display of wealth instead focusing on an authentic existence where energies were put into what mattered most – raising children, living a healthy life, pursuing a vocation that was meaningful along with self-improvement, and economic survival. Many of these individuals became master craftspeople.
Today, the ‚Slow Food Movement‘ is joining with master potters to create a holistic experience for diners from Tasmania to New York City and in between. Jane Herold was an apprentice with Michael Cardew and has been working in her studio in Palisades, New York for more than thirty years. What might have been a downturn in sales a few years ago has changed. Not that long ago her friends as well as other potters were shocked to hear that she had actually thrown 1200 pieces of dinnerware by herself on a potter’s wheel. She states, ‚It pays to be a dinosaur, I guess. I thought that’s what potters did, throw pots! Who knew that they could be designed and ram pressed elsewhere?‘[2] The potter remembers some of Cardew’s wise little sayings such as ‚Persistence is the only virtue the gods reward‘ and reward came this year in the form of more restaurant orders. Herold says, ‚It was serendipity when a local chef rode his bike out from the city and stopped into a local coffee shop that used her mugs. From there he tracked me down and eventually I made dishes specifically for his food‘.[3] As quickly the word spread and more chefs were attracted to Herold’s simple ware that ’served as canvases for them to paint on with their food‘. [4] For the potter it is the perfect collaborative effort. For those lucky enough to partake in this shared experience it is part of a growing trend of ’slowing down‘ – using locally sourced produce and local handmade dishes. No one would think of using custom-made bowls to serve mass-produced junk food.
Ben Richardson lives on a hill overlooking Pipeclay Lagoon and Frederick Henry Bay in Tasmania. It is here that he digs his own clay and sources all of the natural materials that make his glazes. The artist states, ‚My way of working is a response to a place – a connection through all aspects of making to the relationship between who I am and where I live.‘[5] Richardson taught for twenty years and became frustrated ‚with a system that seemed incapable of seeing pots that realized their full potential in use as a legitimate area of exploration‘.[6] In the end he left academia behind and set out to join ‚the tableware revolution‘. He made vessels for restaurants, cafes, and cooking schools that celebrated food where the produce was locally sourced and reflected not only a place but also a season just as they have for more than a thousand years in Japan. Richardson says, ‚It is not a great intellectual leap to see the inconsistency of putting ’slow food‘ on ‚fast plates‘.[7] One of his first commissions was for Garagistes, a restaurant in Hobart, Australia. Richardson made every piece of tableware. For the potter, the real bonus comes not in the repeat orders from the restaurant but ‚in the orders for the tableware from diners who have enjoyed the work creatively presented‘ in my vessels. [8] The success of supplying Garagistes meant that its owners also decided to supply their second restaurant with Richardson’s ware. Sidecar, a restaurant described as ‚intimately small‘ near the center of Hobart now orders all of the tableware that will adorn its steel clad communal table from Richardson. The master potter is currently making 280 plates for a special dinner at MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, in Tasmania. It is a government supported tourist project to promote Tasmania. The chef using Richardson’s plates is Ben Shewry who runs Attica, the number one restaurant in Melbourne.
In 2011, after a casual conversation with the chef, Lajos Takacs, Dr. Julia Nema began designing tableware for Hungary’s celebrated restaurant, Olimpia.[9] In fact it was the first time that a restaurant in Hungary had used hand thrown, hand formed, and wood fired tableware.[10] Takac’s vision for his innovative use of local and organic products required something special for their plating. Nema’s stoneware and porcelain plates, high fired in a wood kiln, provide a surface that is natural, simple, and tactile adding to the ideals of ‚honest cuisine‘.
[11] Nema and Takacs are both inspired by Japanese culture and together they worked to merge their individual talents – Takacs with the food and Nema with the plates. Each plate is different, the ash for the glazes coming from various trees. Even the chef’s father collected ash from the trees in his orchard. When Takacs was asked, ‚how important is the plate?‘ He responded, ‚the 2nd most important after the food‘![12] In fact, Takacs was not happy with the factory-produced dinnerware, which he found too cold and lacking in personality for the locally sourced seasonal produce. In no time he began to realize just how unique each piece of Nema’s wood fired ceramics actually is. Together the pair spent over a year designing at first a few unique pieces. These were tested and modified. ‚Later they fell in love with the plates that they wanted to throw out all of the mass produced ones even though they were of a good design and quality‘.[13] And, in fact, later they did! Nema admits proudly that ‚today there is a growing interest and there are restaurants and potters who are following us‘.[14] She has now six restaurants that order her tableware in Hungary alone.
Ashville, North Carolina’s Nick Moen began supplying restaurants with tableware a year ago. Moen underscores the participatory factor in the slow food movement when he states, ‚The culture of the table has garnered attention because of an invigorated farm-to-table movement‘.[15] Moen continues by noting that ‚the core ideals of sourcing local food parallel the essence of practicing craft. Both farmers and makers cultivate beauty and an experiential enrichment from their labor‘.[16] In a recent article in Bon Appetit, Bell Cushing says, ‚Forget about Granny’s china. Elegant hand-thrown dishes are the new heirlooms‘.[17] The New York City Editorial Assistant at Bon AppetitCushing knows a trend when she sees one declaring that having organic meals at the top restaurants in the world, including Noma in Copenhagen are all part of the new ‚artisanal‘ experience. [18]
So what is it that the potters and chefs have in common? They fundamentally believe in a quality of life that celebrates the bespoke. The menus feature locally sourced seasonal organic produce that is presented elegantly on handmade ‚earthy‘ ceramics not finely painted china that would detract rather than compliment. They believe in the savoring both of the combination of the right ingredients of the chefs but also the right design and coloring of the tableware to enhance, rather than detract. We could also say that they celebrate the moment when one is dining, when one is slowing down from the daily demands that penetrate contemporary life. They each believe in a quality of life that transcends the ordinary. I am reminded immediately of Ananda Coomaraswamy, philosopher, art historian, and curator of Asian art at the Boston Museum of Fine Art and his discussions of the eminence of life and the handmade. Instead of consuming mass amounts of factory-produced suits, furniture or ceramics that add no joy or beauty to our lives but keep us tied to jobs we detest in order to make the money to feed our lives with objects of no value or meaning, Coomaraswamy believed that purchasing one well made suit, table, or ceramic object, would help to stop this endless cycle. The bespoke not only brings joy but will also be handed down to future generations, with pride. Underpinning everything is the fundamental certainty that less is more. It is something to ponder while celebrating ‚the slow life‘.
[1] N. Janovicek, ‚Rural Countercultures‘ in D. Carr and N. Janovicek, Back to the Land. Ceramics from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands 1970-1985. Victoria: 2014, 10.
[2] Correspondence with the Jane Herold 5 May 2013. Herold lives in Palisades, New York and summers on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
[3] Correspondence with Jane Herold on 5 May 2013.
[4] Correspondence with Jane Herold on 5 May 2013.
[5] Correspondence with Ben Richardson on 5 October 2014. Ben Richardson lives in Sandford Tasmania and runs Ridgeline Pottery. Richardson gave a talk at the 2nd European Woodfiring Conference at Guldagaard on his tableware commissions.
[6] Correspondence with the artist 5 October 2014.
[7] Correspondence with the artist 5 October 2014.
[8] Correspondence with Ben Richardson on 5 October 2014.
[9] Correspondence with Julia Nema on 18 November 2014. Nema recently received her Ph.D. She lives and works in Budapest. Nema gave a talk during the 2nd European Woodfiring Conference at Guldagaard on her tableware commissions.
[10] Correspondence with Julia Nema on 18 November 2014 and on 28 November 2014.
[11] Comments of the chef provided in correspondence with Julia Nema on 23 November 2014. There was a Design Week in Budapest that featured the work of Nema and a discussion with the chef at Olimpia in 2012. That information can be accessed at http://designhet.hu/2012/en/event/olimpia-restaurant.html
[12] Correspondence with Julia Nema on 18 November 2014.
[13] Correspondence with Julia Nema on 18 November 2014.
[14] Correspondence with Julia Nema on 18 November 2014.
[15] N. Moen. ‚Dining with Makers. Studio Potter. (Summer 2014): 20-21.
[16] N. Moen. ‚Dining with Makers. Studio Potter. (Summer 2014): 20-21.
[17] B. Cushing. ‚Why Restaurants are Ditching White China for Hand-Made Ceramics‘. www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/
[18] B. Cushing. ‚Why Restaurants are Ditching White China for Hand-Made Ceramics‘. www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/
Pingback: Woodfired Porcelain for Fine Dining | Handmade & Authentic - Der Gourmet-Teller – Keramik, Küche, Garten, Kritik