Celebrating a lifetime of original and beautiful work.
Ingatestone Hall. April 2023.
The essential features of Colin's work is that it is mould-made and slip cast, not for the sake of uniformity and low production cost – the usual reason to slip- cast clay objects, but because of the rich associations that belong within the industrial traditions of slip-casting and the positive clarity of statement that the technique allows when unfettered by the demands of mass-production.
Slip casting and mould-making are still thought of as being essentially anti-craft- denying the craftsman’s love of the plastic clay experience and removing the unique touch of the final shape; replacing these with cold mechanical processes developed during the Industrial Revolution. Or so 20th Century prejudices would have it.
But the issue is about being creative or not creative. Slip-casting is an essential ceramic activity, using clay’s material properties in a clear, practical way. Creativity is to be found in the maker, not in the means of production. So it is deeply unfortunate that slip-casting, for creative purposes, has gained hardly a token presence within an establishment that favours the potter’s wheel and direct hand-building techniques as a means of distancing itself from manufacturing industry. Such opposition has resulted, on the one hand, in few arts graduates being trained to work in manufacturing and on the other, only pre-industrial or primitive methods being seen as carriers of aesthetic and creative experience. It appears that the mood is changing with many more young makers seeing slip-casting as part of a new creative process and being recognized by organisations that look to promote craft and design.
Colin Saunders 1938-2023
"I believe that a good piece of work should entail an intimate feel for the craft and would prefer my pottery to relate more to the everyday world we live in. For instance, rather than featuring the mark made by the potters wire in the soft clay, I would prefer to make forms which look outwards to the artifacts we live amongst : The pavements we walk on, the door handles we push open, or the basins we wash our faces in."
The craggy teapots 1980
At a guess, it was in the 1970's that the American painter Roy Lichenstein progressed from his 'comic book' works to using-as a starting point-details from the art of the action who were working 20 years earlier. Lichenstein would isolate a gesture-a brush stroke-which would have taken the action painter to no more than a couple of seconds to produce. Then he'd freeze this gesture. It was the It was the deliberate 'freezing' of the original action or gesture that appealed to me.
I took a lump of clay, and within what must have been seconds, pulled the lump into the form of a tea pot.at least this pummeled sized and had the vestiges of a lid, spout and handle.