A WORKSHOP WITH GWYN HANSSEN PIGOTT

Twenty-five Guild members signed up
for the Apmil 17th session at Emily Carr,
in anticipation of the opportunity ta
meet and hear one individual who has
such a history as a potter. If one spent
the whole six hours with her that day, it
was impossible to come away wilhoul a
silent inner cheer, a “Hoorah!*, for this
person Who has managed to pack what
appears to be several lives into 40 years
of working with clay, all the while
obviously maintaining a very strong.
guilet focus on her work as 4 polter.

She started out the morning with a
demonstration of throwing the simple
vessel forms in poreelain, while
maintaining a dialogue with those
presenl about both technical and
philosophical dilemmas and concerns.
She uses a very short, highly silicious
porcelain clay to accomodate the high
feldspar glazes, wood-flring to Cone 13
in her “Bouri", Freneh-style kiln. While
the clay predicates to a degree the kind
of throwing she presently does, Gwyn
has as her main objective the creation of
“still lives", and her concerns are wilh
the forms and their relationships.
Individual pieces, the small tumblers,
bowls, and bottles are seen as
components in the “sketches” she
assembles. The shino-type glaze she
uses is designed for the wood kiln, using
only soda or potash as flux, with iron
giving a wide range of warm colours, and
stains also being used. With her
traditional background, it’s encouraging
lo knew that ahe has been willing to be
“Headble" and “accept” electric wheels
and commercial stains in her work, She
readily acknowledges the very real
limitations that we may impose on
ourselves and our work by dogmatically
refusing to change. She also admits toa
few “dead ends”, where she had loaccept
that ber direction was wrong Jor her,
and made changes.

With the afternoon slide show, Gwyn
discussed her early influences and
showed a sampling of the pots that had
inspired her, with relatively few shots of
her own Wark prier to returning to
Australia and the Jam Fartory

workshops in Adelaide. She now lives in
tropical Queensland in a relatively
remate area on her own.

[t's been pointed out that Gwyn's visit
was unique in several ways. Firstly,
there haven't been a lot of women potters
in town lately to give one or two day
workshops. The Potters’ Guild has been
visited by numerous men potters, and
there's no denying that Gwyn was an
interesting change, Secondly. and Idon't
think it's related to her being female, her
work [s simpler and more direct than a
lot we have been exposed to lately. And
yet, is it? It certainly makes us look very
carefully.

Owyn's accompanying text to her show
at the Crafthouse on Granville Island
{and where these photos were takerl
included the following statements, which
sum Up quite well her approach to her
work and life,

Morandi, in Nothing if not Critical
(Collins, Harvidl 1990) wrote;

*Modesthy, insistently, Morancli’s images
try to slow fhe eye, ashoing tt togii: up its
inattention, its restless scanning, and
give full weight to something small

When Japanese desthetes spote of the
quality called wabi, they had in mind
something like this; theclarity of ordinary
substance seen for itself, in tts true
quality....Worandi’s entire fe was
predicated on the prelorjed search for
|

Morandi ts an obvious inspiration; Lacie
Rie, too. Hans Caper too. Ivan MeMeekin,
Piero della Francesca. Juan Gris, Ben
Nichelsan too,

And lovely others, people and work. -

But more than these, the mystery itself; “wo *
the Kindness of the stillness beneath the skin.

Luckily, beauty can't be understood - only hoped for

and semetimes felt.

Brancusi’s Birds in Space. a Korean penny rice bowl:

even. perhaps {] fervently believe a beaker.

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, November [99]

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