Best New Pottery and Ceramic Books 2026

This post is a round up of the best and most interesting new books on ceramics and pottery published in 2026. The books include artist monographs, technique, glaze recipes, material science, ceramic history, and more.

You might also want to check out our previous guides from 2025, 2024 or 2023.

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Kathy Butterly: Assume Yes

A survey of Butterly’s ceramic work from 1994 to the present, this monograph accompanies the recent exhibition at The Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York. The book includes more than 200 artworks in full color showing the full range of Butterly’s experimental, sensuous works that draw on and reinvent the vessel tradition.

Kathy Butterly: Assume Yes
Edited by Ian Berry with contributions from Kathy Butterly, Forrest Gander, Theodora Bocanegra Lang, and Nancy Princenthal
Harcover, 320 pages
Published August 11, 2026 by DelMonico Books
$65

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Doyle Lane: Master of Clay

The first ever monograph of the Los Angeles-based artist who passed in 2002, the book details Lane’s work in tile murals, pottery, and his well-known “weed pots” or small vessels with textured, inventive glazes that can hold a single strand of grass or a small weed. Published with The Huntington Museum, the book traces Lane’s entire life and career.

Doyle Lane: Master of Clay
with contributions by Lauren Cross, Erin Chase, Cynthia Folette Jackson, and Theresa Williams
Hardcover, 144 pages
Published September 22, 2026 by Marquand Books
$40

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Manu-Facture: Lucio Fontana’s Ceramics

This catalog includes more than 70 ceramics works by the famed Italian / Argentinian artist, who made ceramics throughout his life, particularly in the last half of his career. The catalog accompanied an exhibition at The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy from late 2025 through early 2026, which was one of the first exhibitions devoted solely to Fontana’s ceramic production.

Manu-Facture: Lucio Fontana’s Ceramics
Edited by Sharon Hecker with contributions from Raffaele Bedarida, Luca Bochicchio, Elena Dellapiana, Aja Martin, Paolo Scrivano, and Yasuko Tsuchikane
Hardcover, 224 Pages
Published April 7, 2026 by Marsilio Arte
$40

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Ceramic Oxides: A Practical Guide with 740+ Recipes for Artist

A guide for ceramic artists, this book covers a huge number of recipes based on 33 different oxides. Included are images of test tiles, giving a practical reference for those looking for recipes, along with advice for exploring your own oxides recipes.

Ceramic Oxides: A Practical Guide with 740+ Recipes for Artist
by Philippe Pirard
Hardcover, 144 pages
Published August 25, 2026 by Hoaki
$34

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Material Matters: An Artist’s Guide to Understanding Ceramic Materials
by Linda Bloomfield and Linda Swanson

For those interested in material science, this book explains and breaks down materials, clay, and glaze recipes to give a full picture of what is happening in ceramic works. With full color illustrations and charts throughout.

Material Matters: An Artis’t Guide to Understanding Ceramic Materials
by Linda Bloomfield and Linda Swanson
Hardcover, 240 pages
Published September 29, 2026 by Herbert Press
Listed at $45 but usually available for less

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The Pot Book: A Global Survey of Ceramic Craft and Design

Curated by ceramic artist and writer Edmund de Waal, this book gathers more than 300 ceramics spanning thirty thousand years including many works from present day. This is an updated, new version of the book so you may also find older used copies of previous editions for sale.

The Pot Book: A Lobal Survey of Ceramic Craft and Design
By Edmund de Waal with contributions by Claudia Clare and Sam McGuire
Hardcover, 320 Pages
Published October 14, 2026 by Phaidon Press
$60

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Breaking Tradition: The Avant-Garde in Japanese Ceramics 1948 to 1990

Breaking Tradition: The Avant-Garde in Japanese Ceramics 1948 to 1990
by Andreas Marks and Kida Takuya
Paperback, 144 pages
Published October 6, 2026 by Tuttle Publishing
$30

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Luminous Clay

Part of the ongoing series, The New Ceramics from Bloomsbury, this book details a new technique the author developed of turning bone china into paperclay, transforming and opening up the possibilities of whiteness and translucency.

Check out all the books in The New Ceramics here.

Luminous Clay: Working with Bone China and Porcelain Paperclay
by Angela Mellor
Paperback, 192 pages
Published March 10, 2026 by Bloomsbury / Herbert Press
Listed at $35 but usually available for less.

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Glaze Inspirations: A Photographic Guide to Glaze Practice & Surface Techniques

Louisa Taylor, the author behind The Ceramics Bible, Ceramics Masterclass, and Glazes for the Contemporary Maker, is back with a new book featuring photographs by Simon Punter. The book explores more than 800 illustrated glaze examples, providing photographic reference along with glaze theory and application methods.

Click here to read our look inside Ceramics Masterclass.

Glaze Inspirations: A Photographic Guide to Glaze Practice & Surface Techniques
by Louisa Taylor and Simon Punter
Paperback, 176 pages
Published August 25, 2026 by The Crowood Press
Listed at $28

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Exploring Crystalline Glazes

Some potters really connect with this technique and this book provides an introduction to materials, recipes, and firing techniques to create these almost otherworldly crystalline structures within a glaze surface. Author Diane Creber has an earlier book which contains much of the same info, but this is a new edition that is part of Bloomsbury’s series, The New Ceramics.

Exploring Crystalline Glazes
by Diane Creber
Paperback, 192 pages
Published July 14, 2026 by Bloomsbury / Herbert Pres
$34

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Glazes Uncovered: A Practical Handbook for Ceramic Enthusiasts

A complete overview of glazes by Belgian potter and glaze specialist Sofie Goethals, this illustrated book covers all aspects of glaze materials, development, and application.

Click here to see an instagram reel of the author and a preview video of the book.

Glazes Uncovered: A Practical Handbook for Ceramic Enthusiasts
by Sofie Goethals
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published December 1, 2026 by Lannoo Publishers
$80

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Throwing Clay: The Art of Making Pottery on the Wheel

One of three books published this year in Bloomsbury’s series, The New Ceramics, this book covers wheel throwing and pottery making. Click here to see an Instagram video of the author flipping through the pages. It’s a nicely illustrated book that adds to the growing number of volumes covering wheelthrowing.

Throwing Clay: The Art of Making Pottery on the Wheel
by Rebecca Proctor
Paperback, 192 pages
Published May 19, 2026 by Herbert Press / Bloomsbury
$35

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View this list of books at Bookshop.org:

For more new and recent books, check out these posts from previous years:

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2025

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2024

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2023

Best Pottery Technique Books 2022

Best Ceramic History Books and Monographs 2022

Gift Guide for Potters

See all posts tagged “ceramic library”

View all inspiration posts

Freelance vs Salaried Income for Artists, and a Few Thoughts on Pricing Your Work

It can be challenging for artists to figure out how to price their work, make a business plan, save for retirement, and other financial decisions. The following is a few thoughts to help compare a salaried job versus being a freelancer, and how to price your work based on that comparison. This is the same info I share with young artists I teach and is based on my own years of experience running a studio, and the advice I received as a young artist.

Note: This is very general advice, and is set up as an example only. Everyone’s situation is different and it is best to consult an accountant, tax lawyer, and a retirement / financial advisor for information specific to your situation.

The two charts below show Salary versus Freelance income. This is just an illustration, but the goal was to set up similar incomes and after-tax income in order to illustrate the difference. As you can see, a $60,000 salaried job ends up with about $51,000 after paying taxes. To have that same amount of take-home pay as a freelancer, you would need to gross $90,000 in sales, in order to pay your business expenses, health insurance, retirement, and taxes, leaving about the $51,000 that you can pay yourself.

Note: In reality, many artists have a mix of jobs that pay hourly (or a salary), along with personal / studio / business income. It can be wise to take advantage of the different tax write offs that come with each mode of income, so definitely find a good accountant who has experience working with artists / creatives / freelancers.

Your own situation will be different, but you can start with these basics to begin figuring out your own financial plan. You may look at this chart and think, wow, it would be great if my employer paid health insurance / retirement! If they don’t cover the full amount, adjust the numbers to your situation.

Salary income

Income
Salary		$60,000
Taxes you pay
1/2 of Social Security / Medicare	6.5%	$3,900
Other Federal / State taxes (assuming 15% total tax)	8.5%	$5,100
	Total tax	$9,000
	Net take-home salary after taxes	$51,000
Other benefits paid by employer
1/2 of Social Security / Medicare	6.5%	$3,900
Health Insurance	$300 / month	$3,600
Retirement	9% of salary	$5,400
	Total benefits	$12,900
	Your total cost to employer	$72,900

Freelance / Self employed

Income
Gross income from sales / services		$90,000
Expenses paid by you
Studio rent	$1,000 / month	$12,000
Other costs of running studio (materials etc)	$750 / month	$8,000
	Total expenses	$20,000
	Adjusted Gross Income	$70,000
Tax deductible expenses
Health Insurance	$300 / month	$3,600
SEP or Roth IRA retirement	9%	$6,300
	Total deductible expenses	$9,900
	Net income	$60,100
Taxes Paid on Net Income
Social Security Medicare	13%	$7,813
Other Taxes (15% total tax)	2%	$1,202
	Net take home after taxes:	$51,085

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Thoughts on how to price your work as an artist

Using the above example, let’s say you are a ceramic artist and your studio expenses match the numbers used (about $20,000 a year) and your goal is to make a net income of around $60,000. To do this, you would need gross sales of around $90,000 to cover studio expenses, studio insurance, materials, and other expenses along with taxes, retirement, and health insurance.

To figure out how to earn the $90k in a year, you can either think about how much you can produce, or better yet, how many pieces you can fit in each glaze firing, and how many glaze firings you can do in a year.

Let’s break it down:

Assume that you can do an average of 1 bisque firing and 1 glaze firing per week. That’s 50 total glaze firings per year.

Let’s say you can fit 20 bowls per glaze firing (and the only thing you make is this bowl). That’s 1,000 bowls per year

In order to make $90,000 gross per year, you will need to sell those bowls at $90 each.

This is all a very basic example, but if you have a limiting factor in your studio, such as how many firings you can do, you can start to figure out how much value you need to pull out of each glaze firing and how that can contribute to your overall sales and income goals.

The example of a ceramic artist is just one thought. You could apply this same logic to any number of artistic practices and think about how many paintings / sculptures / photographs / videos / etc you could reasonably make in a year, and start to price things accordingly.

Using the above example, you can see how some very famous ceramic artists, such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, made all their work in single firings (i.e. glaze applied to greenware and glaze fired.) Yes, you would have to change your firing profile but running each and every firing as a glaze firing would speed up the studio production.

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Other thoughts on pricing work

This is the advice I received as a student artist, and I think it holds up as a very basic starting point (emphasis on basic!) to figure out how to price your work. This model is for student artists who are just out of school, or those just beginning to sell.

Add up the total hours you spent working on the project, then pay yourself minimum wage per hour.

Add the cost of materials to this number. Then double the number and that is your “retail” price, and you can expect to get half of that from a gallery.

To break down these numbers:

Let’s say you spent 30 hours on a painting, and minimum wage in your state is $15 per hour.

30 x $15 is $450

Let’s assume the canvas, stretchers, and paint cost $50.

Your total cost is $500

A gallery should price that painting no lower than $1,000, with $500 going to you if the work sells

Once again, this is very basic advice. Don’t underprice yourself or your value! You may have to start with a lower “wage” than you want, but as you start selling, you can keep track of the hours spent in the studio and figure out how much your time is worth, and how to pay yourself the amount you need.

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How to price your work when pieces start selling

This is where things get complicated. It is basically “what the market will bear,” but with an eye to keeping prices in line with future earnings. You definitely want to grow and earn more, but be careful to not overprice (or overproduce) your market. This post is meant more for artists at the beginning of their journey so there won’t be much detail on this aspect of a career.

If your work is selling, you will probably be working with a gallery at that point and they can provide helpful information on how to price work. Keep in mind the charts above, so that you can cover all your expenses while hopefully growing and expanding your practice. I think it’s a good idea to set goals of how much you would like to earn in the studio, and that can help you decide if things are viable, or if you need other jobs to help support your art practice.

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Do Galleries Really Deserve 50%

This is a common question among student artists or those just starting, and the answer is yes they do. A gallery is handling sales, communication, along with providing a physical and digital showroom for your works and introducing you to their network of collectors. It is expensive to run a gallery. Hopefully, along with handling sales they are also finding ways to introduce your work to a wider audience of other artists, critics, curators, museum board members, and more (but, the reality is most galleries are just stuck in sales mode.)

Of course, you could always try to go the direct route and sell work yourself or via your website, but then you will be handling all that extra communication, studio visits, shipping, paperwork, etc. You may find yourself doing all the work that a gallery would be doing for you, leaving you less time to actually make the work. If you enjoy sales more than actually making the work, maybe being an artist isn’t for you and you should think about working at or starting a gallery!

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Pay Yourself Retirement, Pay For Your Healthcare, Plan for Time Off

If you were taking a salaried job, figuring out how much your employer pays for healthcare, what they contribute to retirement, and how much time off you get would be a normal part of the conversation at an interview or when you are getting started.

Just because you are working for yourself as an artist or freelancer doesn’t mean you should skip all of those things.

Try to pay yourself 10% of your adjusted gross income in retirement each year. Figure out what your health care will cost you and incorporate that into your pricing strategy. And plan for time off to rest and recharge. It is not easy being an artist and you should plan for the long term with everything that you do. Having enough money to spend some time away from the studio is part of being an artist too.

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Are You Still an Artist if You Aren’t Selling?!

Yes! Despite all the financial talk in this post, don’t judge yourself if you are not selling or selling very little. The reality is that most artists are their own biggest patron, either with a part or full-time job. Selling art doesn’t make the work better, and not selling also doesn’t make the work worse, or more virtuous, or more pure. There’s really no connection between the quality of work and what it is currently selling for. Try to let your studio time be free and productive and open, and then when it’s time to run some numbers or balance accounts, be a little more realistic and approach things with your analytical side.

I’ll state again that most artists I know have a mix of jobs and a studio practice. Only a few are “living the dream” of supporting themselves entirely through their studio practice.

If you once again return to the above charts, that can help you figure out how to structure your time based on the income from outside work versus studio work, the time and expenses involved, etc. Every situation is different. Try to find a situation that is sustainable for you and the work that you are making or want to make.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these few thoughts will help guide you as you figure out how to set up and maintain a studio, especially from a financial perspective.

Anything that we missed? Any advice you’d like to share? Please leave a comment below.

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You might also enjoy:

John Baldessari on Cheap Art

Shoji Hamada on Making Pots

Akira Kurosawa on Why He Stopped Painting and Entered the Film Industry

Alex Soth on Being Goofy and Following Your Dreams

See all inspiration posts here

Best New Pottery and Ceramic Books 2025

This post is a round up of the best and most interesting new books on ceramics and pottery published in 2025. The books include artist monographs, technique, glaze recipes, material science, ceramic history, and more.

You might also want to check out our previous guides from 2024 or 2023.

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Viola Frey: Artist’s Mind / Studio / World

The first monograph on the celebrated San Francisco Bay-area artist Viola Frey, this book covers more than 50 years of her career with new scholarly investigations, lots of illustrations, and an illustrated chronology. Frey has only become more prominent since her passing in 2004 and this is a long overdue deep look at her oeuvre.

Viola Frey: Artist’s Mind / Studio / World
By Cynthia de Bos, Jenelle Porter, Jodi Throckmorton, and Nancy Lim
Hardcover, 228 pages
Published December 2024 by Gregory R. Miller & Co
$55 but usually available for less

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Clay: A Human History

With a mix of archaeology, history, and her own experience as an amateur potter, Jennifer Lucy Allan tells the story of this material and it’s long history with humans, ranging from early figurines and clay tablets to today. Connecting clay and human history, Allan tells many stories that are illuminating for specialists and a general audience as well.

Clay: A Human History
by Jennifer Lucy Allan
320 pages, hardcover or paperback
Published March 4, 2025 by Pegasus Books
Hardcover $30, Paperback $16

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Amazing Glaze Food Safe Recipes: Innovative, Lab-Tested Techniques and Recipes

Following up on Gabriel Kline’s 2018 book Amazing Glazes, this time around he collaborated with chemist Bill Collins to explain testing techniques, equipment and materials to illuminate food-safe glaze techniques and recipes. This guide covers glaze safety, mixing and application methods, and includes more than 100 recipes and combinations. There’s also guidance on troubleshooting common issues with glazes.

Amazing Glaze Food Safe Recipes: Innovative, Lab-Tested Techniques and Recipes
by Gabriel Kline and Bill Collins
160 pages, Hardcover
Published October 28, 2025 by Quarry Books
$30

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The Great Pottery Throw Down: 20 Projects to Create at Home

A complete guide for beginners, this book covers setting up a studio, handbuilding and throwing techniques, and 20 projects inspired by the popular TV show.

The Great Pottery Throw Down: 20 Projects to Create at Home
176 pages, Hardcover
Published April, 2025 by Quadrille
Listed at $35 but usually available for less

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Ceramics: A Green Approach

Part of The New Ceramics series of books, this volume details how potters and ceramic artists can be more responsible in regards to sustainability including firing techniques, sourcing clay and glaze materials, packaging and shipping, and more.

Ceramics: A Green Approach
by Kevin Millward
224 pages, paperback
Published August 2025 by Herbert Press
Listed at $35

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Creative Pottery: Innovatie Techniques & Experimental Designs in Thrown & Handbuilt Ceramics

This innovative book, first published in hardcover in 2020 and then in paperback in 2025, has a unique approach to creating pottery with various combinations of slabs. Covering slabs and thrown molds, it truly is a new approach to creating pottery that will push both beginners and experienced makers to consider new ways of making.

Creative Pottery: Innovatie Techniques & Experimental Designs in Thrown & Handbuilt Ceramics
by Deb Schwartzkopf
192 pages, paperback
Published December 2025 by Quarry Books
$30

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Developing Glazes: Low-Fire Reducation and Oxidation

A guidebook to developing creative and experimental glazes, this book includes techniques and recipes for low fire temperatures (Cone 06 to 04) with step-by-step instructions and more. The book covers glazes, slips, and a guide to the ingredients needed to make these glazes.

Developing Glazes: Low-Fire Reducation and Oxidation
by Mary Fox
160 pages, hardcover
Published Novemeber 2025 by Harbour Publishing
Listed at $35

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Practical Pottery: A Complete Guide to Getting Started in Making Beautiful and Functional Bowls, Plates, Vases, & More on the Wheel

A comprehensive guide to making pottery on the wheel, this book covers choosing clay, shaping, centering, throwing and altering thrown forms. Also included are discussions of drying, trimming, and firing work. In short, a complete guide to making pottery.

Practical Pottery: A Complete Guide to Getting Started in Making Beautiful and Functional Bowls, Plates, Vases, & More on the Wheel
by Sus Borgbjerg and Susan Liebe
192 pages, Hardcover
Published May 2025 by Schiffer Craft
$30

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For more new and recent books, check out these posts from previous years:

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2024

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2023

Best Pottery Technique Books 2022

Best Ceramic History Books and Monographs 2022

Gift Guide for Potters

See all posts tagged “ceramic library”

View all inspiration posts

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Alex Soth on Being Goofy, Following Your Ideas, and How Advice is Meaningless

Photographer Alec Soth started a YouTube channel during the pandemic and the videos range from a tutorial on setting up for a streaming book talk, to talks about his own books and projects.

He doesn’t post as often now, but in a recent video, Soth talks about his recent book, Advice for Young Artists. But there's almost no advice in the book, it's mostly pictures! Still, I think the video is worth a watch for lots of Soth’s wisdom on the artistic process.

As Soth details in the video, his recent book is all about how in his mid 50s, he is constantly trying to reinvigorate and reimagine his artistic and editorial photography practice. He encourages everyone to follow their impulses, stay alive to things, and just experiment, in order to let projects and ideas develop. 

One of the ways he did that was by visiting and photographing undergraduates at art schools around the country, which he then turned into this book. I think the intro statement to the video is quite nice, where he encourages everyone to have fun and just try stuff. He then details a few unsuccessful attempts at projects (such as photographing horror movie conventions in small town hotels) before getting into the book project about 30 minutes into the video.

Soth’s description of the winding road to ending up with the idea to do this Advice project is a great example of how ideas come from work, and you have to be open to what happens along the way.

While sharing some of the images from the book, Soth does show a photo of some rules on a poster so that as he says "people feel like they're getting their money's worth." lol. Anyway, the rules he photographed are from Sister Corita Kent and you can read them here, they're quite good.

At the beginning of the video, Soth mentions it has surprised him that people use his video for ASMR or to go to sleep (he does have a soothing voice) so he closes by saying he hopes people are drifting off to sleep and dreaming of their own books and projects and then he says:

"I hope you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go out and make something goofy, make something new, maybe expose a little too much of yourself and make people uncomfortable because really, in the end, what we're trying to do here is share with each other and remind each other of our vulnerabilities and our humanity."

Advice for Young Artists by Alec Soth
72 pages, published September 2024

Available from Mack, $50

Ellsworth Kelly on Drawing Plants and Nature as “The Ultimate Artist”

The Slip is a 2023 book by Prudence Peiffer that tells the story of art studios on Coenties Slip in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Slip, located at the very southern tip of Manhattan, was an in-between area that had been full of shipyards and sail-making factories, but was about to become the skyscraper financial district we know today. For almost a decade, artists filled many of the spaces, making work, community, and finding new paths forward for American art. It’s a fascinating, wonderful book that weaves together so much, including the stories of Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, and Lenore Tawney.

The following excerpt details Ellsworth Kelly’s fascination with drawing plants.

Plants in the foreground of Ellsworth Kelly’s studio in 1961

Kelly was always planting pits or seeds—he grew avocado, orange, grapefruit, and lemon trees this way. Everyone at the Slip had avocado plants, as they were easy to grow from pits. (A 1951 article in The New York Times) explained exactly how to cultivate these exotic fruites with toothpicks, a glass, and water.) Robert Indiana filled the old elevator shaft in his loft with pots of them, ferns, and fir tree saplings, reflecting his own interest in plants. (His favorite course in Edinburgh had been botany, held in the queen’s botanical gardens.) He also hung found wheels, metal chains, winches, and stencils from the building’s previous occupants, Marine Works ship suppliers. He drew from the avocado plants that “flourish under the skylights of the Marine Works,” as he wrote in his autochronology for the year 1957. Even Daphne Seyrig wrote to her parents in Beirut with instructions on exactly how to grow avocados, and though she hated their taste, she gave a recipe for a trendy new dish that was very easy to prepare and a little like hummus. It was called guacamole.

For Kelly, the plants were more than cheap decor. He made sure he had plenty because he wanted to draw them. They were an “already-made” subject matter of endless variety. Later he would say that he chose them because “I knew I could draw plants forever.” His studio would soon be filled with sketches of plants. They breathed oxygen into his paintings too.

Plants in the background of this 1958 image of Ellsworth Kelly in his studio.

His very first plant drawing was a daffodil on the cover of his junior high school journal, Chirp, in April 1938. In damp February 1949 in Paris, Kelly had bought a little hyacinth plant at the flower market and brought it back to his small, cold room at the Hôtel de Bourgogne to “cheer myself up”; its bright perfume soon filled the air. He began to draw the flower, which was the start of a series of delicate contour line drawings of plants that he would make wherever he was living: fig leaf, seaweed, artichoke, wild grape, burdock.

Kelly’s plant drawings evoked the confident, spare lines of two artists most important to him: Matisse and Calder. But they had their own, independent essence; Kelly called them “portraits.” When he first began making them in Paris, he was also drawing his friends—fast sketches in pencil at cafés, on park benches. Friends were ready-made models, but Kelly’s incessant sketching was also a declartion that these composers, writers, dancers from Merce Cunningham’s company, would make it someday and these portraits would be part of that story. He felt the need to be drawing endlessly, as if there were a direct line between his eyes and hands.

Plants in the midground of this 1961 image of Agnes Martin working in her Coenties Slip studio.

In 1957, the plant drawings became a kind of daily practice at the Slip: when he first got up, or when he needed a break from painting. They were quick, instinctual, mostly made in ink or pencil; he never erased a line as he was working on them, and he discarded a lot.

…

It’s not just that nature provided subjects for Kelly that were “already-made.” or that his drawings allowed him to think through forms in a way that instructed all of his paintings. He saw nature itself as the ultimate artist. “I want to work like nature works,” Kelly said, as if channeling the poet John Keats. “I want to paint in a way that trees grow, leaves come out—how things happen.” That he internalized the process of nature’s spontaneous creation in producing a thing of beauty in itself helps us see how a continous project that might otherwise be dismissed as a hobby could be at the cneter of his art. He called his plant drawings “the point of departure for all of my later work.” This was about figuring out form—the curve or overlapping shpaes of leaves. And about a direct trasnfer of what is seen. “I didn’t solve the painting by doing it; I sovle it before with drawings.” Nature, for Kelly, was not just the world apart from human intervention—it was everything around him that was unaltered, giving his vision a kind of ecology that encompassed the whole environment. The city, then, could be as much a source of nature as a field or an ocean; it, too, is an ecological site. Nature is entwined with place in Kelly’s view. And the persistence of place undergirds every abstraction he ever made. When asked, as an atheist, if there was anything he believe in, he answered without pause, “nature.”

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The cover of The Slip by Prudence Peiffer.

The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever
By Prudence Peiffer
411 pages, published by Harper Collins, 2023

Shop the book new and used at the following links:

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You might also enjoy:

Agnes Martin on Perfection

Ben Okri: A Time for New Dreams

See recent posts tagged Inspiration

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Agnes Martin on “Perfection That Transcends What You See”

The Slip is a 2023 book by Prudence Peiffer that tells the story of art studios on Coenties Slip in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Slip, located at the very southern tip of Manhattan, was an in-between area that had been full of shipyards and sail-making factories, but was about to become the skyscraper financial district we know today. For almost a decade, artists filled many of the spaces, making work, community, and finding new paths forward for American art. It’s a fascinating, wonderful book that weaves together so much, including the stories of Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, and Lenore Tawney.

The following excerpt, from pages 134-135, details Agnes Martin’s exacting approach to art making.

The stakes were always high for Martin. The artist Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali, who went by her first name, remembered seeing paintings in Martin’s studio that she admired, but Martin had already rejected them because of a barely perceived texture on their surface. “When art becomes that austere, everything matters.” If a paintinjg wasn’t going well, Martin would quickly take a knife to her canvas. She could not stand to have things around her that didn’t work. A term that comes up repeatedly in her own writing, and for many that knew her, is perfection. (The critic Jill) Johnston wrote that the value Martin placed “on the known rather than the seen suggests innate ideas which she sometimes calls a memory of perfection.” (Jack) Youngerman remembered “Agnes was a perfectionist about her work.” This need for control was a strange way of negating a necessary step of any creative process—trials, failure—and, ironically for such a private person, a way of self-mythologizing, of “not admitting that you’ve ever done anything ordinary.” And Martin herself once said, “I paint about the perfection that transcends what you see—the perfection that only exists in awareness.”

Despite her frenetic approach, Martin’s canvases in this period grew larger, more modulated, serene even. She had, in her own description, eliminated everything from her landscapes until she was left with only the horizontal lines she liked, the horizons. In a review of her first solo show in New York in 1958 at Betty Parson’s Section Eleven gallery, a critic spoke of her “large quiet abstractions.” And Dore Ashton, reviewing that same premiere, got to the essense of what had been considered but wasn’t there—”The result of many years of refinement. She has eliminated all but essentials for her poetic expression.”

Martin required specific conditions to work. “In the studio an artist must have no interrruptions from himself or any else. Interruptions are disasters,” she explained in a lecture a decade after her time in New York. Her second Coenties Slip studio, at 3–5, where she moved in 1959, was “very quiet,” as Wilson remembered, with “an absence of agitation.” Entering it was like entering “large quiet,” with its white walls, gray floors, and homemade picnic table and benches. Everything needed to be calibrated. “You must be clean and arrange your studio in a way that will forward a quiet state of mind,” Martin insisted. And she wrote in her journal once that “the sentimental furniture threatens the peace.” The artist needed to get past “a lot of rubbishy thoughts” to the inner mind, where inspiration lay. “Composition is an absolute mystery. It is dictated by the mind.”

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The cover of The Slip by Prudence Peiffer

The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever
By Prudence Peiffer
411 pages, published by Harper Collins, 2023

Shop the book new and used at the following links:

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You might also enjoy:

Georgia O’Keeffe on making ‘ordinary paintings’

Wayne Thiebaud on how to avoid being an ‘art employee’

Matisse on drawing trees

See all posts tagged Inspiration

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10 Best New Pottery and Ceramic Books for 2024

There are a lot of great new books focusing on ceramics and pottery this year. This posts covers ten new books on ceramic artists and technique that were published in 2024, and a few from the very end of 2023.

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Complete Guide to Low-Fire Glazes for Potters and Sculptors by Ben Carter

An excellent introduction and guide to the world of low-fire glazes by Ben Carter, host of the Red Clay Rambler podcast and author of the popular book Mastering the Potter’s Wheel. This new book covers all aspects of mixing glazes, and includes numerous full-color images of example work along with a variety of recipes.

Low-Fire Glazes for Potters and Sculptors
By Ben Carter
Hardcover, 176 pages
published September 2024 by Quarry Books
Listed at $30 but usually available for $27

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Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard

Catalogue from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art retrospective of ceramic artist Magdalena Suarez Frimkess. The 95-year-old artist is definitely having a moment this year and this wonderful catalogue is full of images of work, mostly from the past 10 years, along with essays and more.

Check out this post on the catalogue as well.

The Finest Disregard
Published by Los Angeles County Museum of Art and DelMonico Books, 2024
Hardcover, 128 pages
Listed at $49.95

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Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within

Another exhibition catalogue that is a worthy addition to any library is Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within, which accompanies the traveling exhibition of the same name. A long-due exploration of the artist, who lived from 1922 to 2011, the catalogue includes essays, lots of full-color images, and even some writings by Takaezu herself. The catalogue includes many examples of the “closed forms” which Takaezu is known for, along with other ceramics, paintings, and more.

Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within
By Glenn Adamson and others
Published by Yale University Press
Hardcover, 368 pages
Listed at $65 but usually available for less

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Glazes for the Contemporary Maker by Louisa Taylor

Louisa Taylor is a ceramic stalwart now, having published multiple editions of The Ceramics Bible and Ceramics Masterclass in 2020 (Check out a full review of Masterclass here). In her latest book, Taylor covers everything you need to get started with glazing. Chapters include “Establishing Your Glaze Practice,” studio setup, firing, and more, along with 200 illustrated recipes. Not as specific as the Low-Fire book mentioned above, this is a more general guide for getting started at all temperatures of firing ceramics.

Glazes for the Contemporary Maker
By Louisa Taylor
Published March, 2024 by The Crowood Press
144 pages
Listed $29.99 but usually available for less

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Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects

Magdalene Odundo is a Kenyan-born, British artist known for elegant vessels that draw on traditions ranging from Aztec to Chinese to African pottery, and are in dialogue with contemporary traditions including modernism. In this survey work, potter and art historian Sequoia Miller provides a new perspective on Odundo’s work, and includes an in-depth look at Odundo’s prints and sketchbooks. The book includes a foreword by Susan Jefferies and contributions by Nehal El-Hadi, Elizabeth Harney, and Barbara Thompson.

Magdalena Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects
By Sequoia Miller and others
Published September 2024 by Princeton University Press
Hardcover, 112 pages
Listed at $49.95 but usually available for less

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Thrown by Lilly Maetzig

Following up 2023’s Handbuilt, Maetzig returns with a new book in a similar format, this time focusing on the pottery wheel. The book includes 20 projects ranging from dinner plates to lamp shades, and includes making, decorating, and firing instructions. If you are a fan of the artist’s Mae Ceramics line, or just looking for an inspirational book, this is a good introduction to functional homewares made on the wheel.

Thrown
By Lilly Maetzig
Published October 2024 by Quadrille Press
160 pages
Listed at $29.99

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Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists From Japan

Accompanying an exhibition of the same name, this catalogue explores 36 women artists from Japan who have made ceramic work in the past 50 years. Richly illustrated with short texts on each artists, this is a beautiful overview of recent work from Japan. The exhibition was at the Art Institute of Chicago last year, and is currently at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, and will travel to The Ackland Art Museum at UNC Chapel Hill in 2025.

Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists From Japan
Edited by Joe Earle
Published Novemeber 2023 by the Art Institute of Chicago
128 Pages
Listed at $30 but often available for less

Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape

The book focuses on the firm Architectural Pottery, which launched in 1950 with modernist ceramic objects designed for the new houses being built in America. Accompanying an exhibition at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, Calif., this book includes numerous black and white and color images. A must for any fan of midcentury modernism, this work also provides a historical background to the numerous artists and companies making large-scale ceramic furniture and planters today.

Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape
By Daniel Chavkin, Jeffrey Head, and Jo Lauria
Published September 2024 by The Monacelli Press
256 pages
Listed $59.95 but usually available for less

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Tecla Tofano: This Body of Mine

A small monograph on the Venezuelan artist Tecla Tofano (1927–1995), this book includes essays and images on this innovative artist. Tofano’s work is often totemic but also domestic, and explores issues of maternity, sexism, and socioeconomic status.

Tecla Tofano: This Body of Mine
Published February 2024 by James Cohan Gallery
112 pages, softcover
Listed at $35 but often available for less

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Dried Peyote and 7 Up: The Work and Vision of Michael Frimkess

A limited-edition book (edition of 250), this book focuses on Los Angeles ceramist Michael Frimkess (and spouse of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess). This is the first monograph on the artist’s 60-year plus career.

Dried Peyote and 7 Up: The Work and Vision of Michael Frimkess
Paperback
$100

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Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms

Organized chronologically with 220 color illustrations, artist and curator Glenn Barkley covers global culture by looking at ceramics, telling stories of how things were made, collected, and what roles they played and continue to play. A fascinating examination of the ceramic medium.

Ceramics: An Atlas of Forms
by Glenn Barkley
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published March 2024 by Thames & Hudson
$65

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For more books, check out these posts previous years:

Best Pottery and Ceramic Books 2023

Best Pottery Technique Books 2022

Best Ceramic History Books and Monographs 2022

You might also enjoy our Gift Guide for Potters

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Two Poems by Arthur Sze

Two poems mentioning clay from The Glass Constellation, a collection of poems by Arthur Sze. Both poems were originally published in Sze’s 2019 book, Sight Lines. Sze is a National Book Award Winner and also received the 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature Award for The Glass Constellation.

Doppler Effect

Stopped in cars, we are waiting to accelerate
along different trajectories. I catch the rising

pitch of a train—today one hundred nine people
died in a stampede converging at a bridge;

radioactive water trickles underground
toward the Pacific Ocean; nickel and copper

particulates contaminate the Brocade River.
Will this planet sustain ten billion people?

Ah, switch it: a spider plant leans toward
a glass door, and six offshoots dangle from it;

the more I fingered the clay slab into a bowl,
the more misshapen it became; though I have

botched this, bungled that, the errancies
reveal it would not be better if things happened

just as I wished; a puffer fish inflates on deck;
a burst of burnt rubber rises from pavement.

Salt Song

Zunis make shrines on the way to a lake where I emerge and Miwoks gather me
out of pools along the Pacific the cheetah thirsts for me and when you sprinkle
me on rib eye you have no idea how I balance silence with thunder in crystal you
dream of butterfly hunting in Madagascar spelunking through caves echoing with
dripping stalactites and you don’t see how I yearn to shimmer an orange aurora
against flame look at me in your hand in Egypt I scrubbed the bodies of kings
and queens in Pakistan I zigzag upward through twenty-six miles of tunnels
before drawing my first breath in sunlight if you heat a kiln to 2380 degrees and
scatter me inside I vaporize and bond with clay in this unseen moment a potter
prays because my pattern is out of his hands and when I touch your lips you
salivate and when I dissolve on your tongue your hair rises ozone unlocks a
single stroke of lightning sizzles the earth.

The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems
by Arthur Sze
Published 2021 by Copper Canyon Press

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You might also enjoy:

Nigerian Pottery by Sylvia Leith-Ross

Akira Kurosawa on Painting and Making Films

Gift Guide For Potters

See all posts labeled #inspiration

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Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard catalogue

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess is having quite the moment, with a retrospective up at LACMA and a solo show at Kaufmann Repetto Gallery in New York City. There’s also a new catalogue and variety of articles, including an ArtNews interview with Carolina Miranda. It’s a long overdue look at the work of the 95-year-old artist, who was born in Venezuela, began working professionally in Chile, and has called Los Angeles home since the 1960s, where she also collaborates with her ceramist husband, Michael Frimkess.

A two-page spread of ceramic Minnie Mouse sculptures, from the catalogue.

In the introductory essay to the catalogue, curator José Luis Blondet cites a 1962 Art in America article where Paul Harris called Suarez “the most daring sculptor working in Chile” whose work “is distinguished by the finest disregard for whatever is supposed to be so.”

Truly a fitting observation for the work of Suarez Frimkess, which looks deceptively simple at first but is full of numerous references to popular culture and art history and is carried through with a sculpting and drawing line that is all of a piece.

Blondet’s essay continues in noting that the finest disregard “assertion is helpful in understanding Suarez Frimkess’s relation to technique, particularly when it comes to her ceramic work…she refused to learn how to use the wheel, experiment with the kiln, or combine pigments to produce glaze.”

On the left, a vessel thrown by Michael Frimkess and painted by Magdalena Suarez Frimkess.

“That’s Michael’s territory,” Frimkess is quoted as saying about her husband, who has thrown thin and accomplished pots that Suarez Frimkess then decorates. “He wanted me to learn, but I didn’t want to mess with that.”

Blondet notes, “Aspirations to craft excellence have never been a primary concern in her practice. Instead…she forged a connection with traditional techniques on her own terms, using her background in sculpture, painting, and sewing.”

The finest disregard, indeed.

The cover of the catalogue.

Along with the essay by Blondet, the catalogue includes an essays by Jenni Sorkin and Carribean Fragoza, and short notes / essays by artists Luz Carabaño, Karin Gulbran, Ricky Swallow, Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka. The catalogue is also wonderfully illustrated with images of work by Suarez Frimkess and includes numerous ceramics and drawings.

The Finest Disregard
Published by Los Angeles County Museum of Art and DelMonico Books, 2024
Hardcover, 128 pages
Listed at $49.95

Click the gallery below to see more images from inside the catalogue.

What do you think of the work of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess? Let us know in the comments.

The DIY Ceramics Degree

It’s now possible to create your own do-it-yourself ceramics “degree” by utilizing online and text resources. Most of this content is new in the past 5 to 10 years, giving those interested in this medium an unprecedented ability to learn the techniques, history, and critical theory necessary to understand the field of ceramics.

This post will detail videos, books, and more that I believe can give you much of the technical and historical references you might find being taught in an undergraduate ceramics program.

That’s not to say that a DIY program is a complete replacement for in-person learning. I still spend part of each week teaching and demonstrating in academic studios, and the things that happen there are important to one’s development as an artist. These include group discussions and critiques, getting real-time feedback on technical challenges, and learning and sharing from others who are at the same stage.

So with the very large caveat that I believe in-person experiences are vitally important to growth as an artist and maker, here are the resources I believe would make up a DIY ceramics degree:

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Techniques and Tutorials

Videos and books to get you up to speed on materials and techniques.

Understanding Pottery series from Washington Street Studios

Understanding Pottery is a 43-part YouTube series posted in 2020 that starts with the video What is Clay? and proceeds to cover every part of the ceramics process in great detail and depth in an approachable lecture format. Even seasoned ceramic artists (talking about myself here!) will learn a few things when watching these videos. Think of these videos as a replacement for a clay and glaze class.

The videos were produced by Washington Street Studios in Bolivar, West Virginia USA.

Click here to see the entire Understanding Pottery playlist.

Washington Street Studios has a few other playlists which can be found here.

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John Britt Online Glaze Course

Noted author and glaze formulator John Britt has a 34-part and growing Online Glaze Course posted on YouTube. Started in 2020, Britt continues to expand and update the playlist with more videos. A wealth of knowledge is shared via these videos, and gives a sense of what you might encounter in Britt’s books and in-person glaze classes, and if you watch the whole series, you will most likely have covered more glaze information than is taught in an undergraduate ceramics program!

Click here to see the entire John Britt Online Glaze Course.

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Florian Gadsby: Beginner’s Guide to How to Throw a Pot

Florian Gadsby is one of the most popular potters on YouTubes, and is known for numerous, high-quality instructional videos about making pottery and glaze. One playlist, A Beginner’s Guide to Throwing a Pot, is a multi-part series that covers all aspects of getting started on the pottery wheel.

The first video is posted above, or check out the entire playlist here.

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Other online references

In addition to the three playlists cited above, there are numerous YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other online videos that cover just about every aspect of the ceramic process including handbuilding, loading kilns, centering, etc. There are too many to list here, but just search your favorite platform and you’ll be sure to find the advice you need.

Glazy.org is an amazing website full of user-generated glaze recipes and photos. If you are ready to mix your own glazes or are looking for reference images, it’s a great source.

Digitalfire.com is an expansive website written by Tony Hansen. Full of tips, techniques, formulas, recipes, and more, it’s like an ever-expanding ceramic textbook. It’s not necessarily ideal to just browse, but is extremely useful if you have specific questions or are struggling with technical glaze challenges. Just search the site for whatever you are trying to figure out, especially with glazes, materials, and firing.

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Textbooks, Ceramic History, and more

Sometimes (often?) it’s better to have a physical reference. Below are a few practical books to start building a reference library in your home and studio.

The Workshop Guide to Ceramics

Academic textbooks focusing on making ceramics are mostly out of print, but you can still find them available used. One of my favorites is The Workshop Guide to Ceramics by Anthony Quinn and Duncan Hooson from 2012. It’s a comprehensive and well-illustrated text that covers all the basics. It seems that a 2017 paperback edition of the book that is the same information but is called Ceramics: The Indispensable Guide, is still in print.

For more textbook recommendations, check out this guide to Ceramic Textbooks from 2020.

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The Ceramics Reader

Originally published in 2017, this is a great overview of important texts and ideas relating to contemporary ceramics. I wish this had been around when I was in school! To me, the existence of this book helps solidify the critical foundation of the field of ceramics and hopefully helps build and maintain serious discourse around this medium.

Edited by Andrew Livingstone and Kevin Petrie, the book seems to have limited available at some online shops. Hopefully it stays in print!

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Paul Mathieu lectures on the history of ceramics

Departing from books a bit, there is great series of 14 lectures on the history of ceramics from artist and educator Paul Mathieu. The YouTube playlist is titled “Ceramics! The Art of the Future?" and is equivalent to a semester-long ceramic history lecture series. View the first video below or click here for the full playlist. (Mathieu is also known for his great 2003 book Sex Pots: Eroticism in Ceramics)

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Ceramic, Art & Civilisation

This 2021 book by Paul Greenhalgh is thicker than most art history textbooks and while it is sort of an academic text, I found it to be a very approachable and entertaining read that covers the entire history of the ceramic medium. With amazing images throughout, Greenhalgh is an engaging companion on this journey that should appeal to anyone interested in clay and ceramics.

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Artist Profiles and Conversations

Too numerous to mention them all, but there are now lots of catalogues of museum shows, video interviews, and podcast conversations that can provide you with detailed information about individual ceramic artists from throughout history and today. It is truly a golden time to be interested in learning about this medium.

Here are a few places I check often:

The Brickyard Network: A collection of podcasts (currently 8) produced by the Bray, including Tales of Red Clay Rambler, Clay in Color, For Flux Sake, and more. brickyardnetwork.org

Craft in America: Videos from the PBS show, which features artists from a variety of mediums: youtube.com/user/craftinamerica

Art 21: Videos made for PBS and also direct to online: www.youtube.com/@art21org

For more, check out this list of Ceramic Podcasts from 2022.

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Conclusion

If you take the time to watch, listen, and read all the resources detailed above, you’ll be well on your way to “earning” a DIY Ceramics Degree! But there is always more to learn and share. If there is something that you think would make a great addition to this list, let us know in the comments.

Nigerian Pottery by Sylvia Leith-Ross Book Review

Nigerian Pottery is a 1970 catalogue by Sylvia Leith-Ross. The books includes a few short essays, along with images and information about pottery from different regions of Nigeria. The book was based on the collection of pottery at the Jos Museum, along with research conducted by Leith-Ross.

I have seen the book cited by a few different contemporary artists, but as the book is long out of print, it can be hard to track down. There are occasionally used copies available, but I recently was able to check out a library copy. There are a lot of amazing vessels pictured in the book, including the striking spherical vessel on the cover.

If you are curious to look for used copies of this book, here are a few shopping links:

More Images from Inside the Book

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You might also enjoy:

Best New Ceramic and Pottery Books 2023

Hear Me Now Exhibition Catalogue

Gift Guide for Potters

See all Inspiration posts

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Sign up for occasional emails from The Studio Manager:

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Akira Kurosawa on Why He Stopped Painting and Entered the Film Industry

Akira Kurosawa’s 1982 book, Something Like an Autobiography, is a great read, detailing the childhood of the famous Japanese film director and his and early years in the film industry, up to his breakout film, Rashomon.

In the chapter Negative and Positive, Kurosawa addresses the suicide of his beloved older brother and how that led him to abandon painting and enter the film industry.

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Negative and Positive

What if…” I still wonder sometimes. If my brother had not committed suicide, would he have entered the film world as I have done? He had a great knowledge of the films and more than enough talent to understand filmmaking, and he had many appreciative friends in the film world. He was still young, so I’m sure he could have made a name for himself if he had wanted to.

But probably no one could have changed my brother’s mind once it was made up. He was overwhelmed by that first defeat when as a superior student he failed the entrance examination for the First Middle School. At that point he developed a wise but pessimistic philosophy of life that saw all human effort as vanity, a dance upon the grave. When he encountered the hero expounding this philosophy in The Last Line, he probably clung all the more steadfastly to it. Moreover, my brother, so fastidious in all things, was not the sort of person to be wishy-washy about any statement he had once made. He must have seen himself as already sullied by worldly affairs and on his way to becoming the kind of ugly person he despised.

In later years when I was chief assistant director on Yamamoto Kajiro’s film, Tsuzurikata kyōshitsu (Composition Class, 1938), the lead was being played by Tokugawa Musei, the famous silent-film narrator. One day he looked at me with a long, curious stare and said, “You’re just like your brother. But he was negative and you’re positive.” I thought it was a matter of my brother having preceded me in life, and that is how I understood Musei’s comment. But he went on to say that our appearance was exactly the same, but that my brother had had a kind of dark shadow in his facial expression and that his personality, too, had seemed clouded. Musei felt that my personality and face were, by contrast, sunny and cheerful.

Uekusa Keinosuke has also said my personality is like that of a sunflower, so there must be some truth to the allegation that I am more sanguine than my brother was. But I prefer to think of my brother as a negative strip of film that led to my own development as a positive image.

I was twenty-three years old when my brother died. I was twenty-six when I entered the film world. During the three-year interval nothing very noteworthy occurred in my life. The only major event had taken place before my brother’s suicide. This was the news that my oldest brother, who had not been heard from for a long time, had died of an illness. The deaths of my two older brothers left me the only son, and I began to feel a sense of responsibility toward my parents. I became impatient with my own aimlessness.

But in those days it was much harder than it is now to succeed as an artist. And I had begun to have doubts about my own talent as a painter. After looking at monographs on Cézanne, I would step outside and the houses, streets and trees—everything—looked like a Cézanne painting. The same thing would happen when I looked at a book of Van Gogh’s paintings or Utrillo’s paintings—they changed the way the real world looked to me. It seemed completely different from the world I usually saw with my own eyes. In other words, I did not—and still don’t—have a completely personal, distinctive, way of looking at things.

This discovery did not surprise me unduly. To develop a personal vision isn’t easy. But when I was a young man, this insufficiency caused me not only dissatisfaction but uneasiness. I felt like I had to fashion my own way of seeing, and I became more impatient. Every exhibition I went to seemed to prove to me that every painter in Japan had his own personal style and his own personal vision. I became more and more irritated with myself.

As I look back on the art scene, it’s clear to me that very few of the painters whose work I saw really had a personal style and vision. Most of them were just showing off with a lot of forced techniques, and the result was mere eccentricity. I don’t recall who wrote it, but there was a song about someone who is unable to state outright that what is red is red; the years go by, and it is not until his old age that he finally becomes certain. And that’s just how it is. During youth the desire for self-expression is so overpowering that most people end up by losing all grasp on their real selves. I was no exception. I strained to perform technical tours de force as I painted, and the resulting pictures revealed my distaste for myself. Gradually I lost confidence in my abilities, and the act of painting itself became painful for me.

What is worse, I had to do boring outside work in order to earn the money to buy my canvases and paints. It consisted of things like illustrations for magazines, visual teaching aids for cooking schools on the correct way to cut giant radishes, and cartoons for baseball magazines. The result of spending my time on a kind of painting for which I felt no enthusiasm at all was a further, more irrevocable loss of my real desire to paint.

I began to think about going into some other profession. Deep down inside I really felt that anything at all would do; all I was concerned about was putting my mother’s and father’s minds at ease. This feeling of casting about was intensified by my brother’s sudden death. Since I had been doing nothing but follow my brother’s lead, his suicide sent me spinning like a top. I believe this was a very dangerous turning point in my life.

Through all of this my father did not let me loose to spin on my own. He just kept telling me as I became more and more panicky, “Don’t panic. There’s nothing to get excited about.” He told me that if I would just wait calmly, my road in life would open up to me of its own accord. I don’t know exactly what kind of viewpoint led him to tell me such things; perhaps he was speaking from his own experience of life. As it turned out, his words proved amazingly accurate.

One day in 1935, as I was reading the newspaper, a classified advertisement caught my eye. The P.C.L. (always called that, though the full name was Photo Chemistry Laboratory) film studios were hiring assistant directors. Up until that moment it had never occurred to me to enter the film industry, but when I saw that advertisement, my interest was suddenly aroused. The ad said that the first test for prospective employees would be a written composition. The theme of this essay was to be on the fundamental deficiencies of Japanese films. One was to give examples and suggest ways to correct the problems.

This struck me as very interesting. From this test question I got a sense of the youthful vigor of the newly established P.C.L. company. The theme of fundamental deficiencies and the ways to overcome them gave me something I could sink my teeth into, and at the same time it appealed to my perverseness and sense of mischief. If the deficiencies were fundamental, there was no way to correct them. So I began writing in half-mocking spirit.

I don’t remember the precise contents of my essay but I had thoroughly savored and consumed foreign films under my brother’s tutelage, and as a movie fan I found many things in Japanese cinema that did not satisfy me. I undoubtedly gave vent to all my accumulated criticism and had a fine time doing so. Along with the test essay an applicant for the assistant director’s job was to submit a curriculum vitae and a copy of the family register setting forth his antecedents. Since I was prepared to take any job that came along, I already had copies of my curriculum vitae and family register waiting in my desk drawer. I dispatched them with my essay to P.C.L.

A few months later I received notification of the second round of testing. I was told to appear at the P.C.L. studios on a certain day at a certain time. Feeling as if I had been bewitched by a fox to have written that kind of essay and have it accepted, I proceeded as ordered to the P.C.L. studios.

I had once seen a photograph of the P.C.L. studios in a film magazine. It showed a white building with palm trees in front of it, so I had thought it must be located along the beach in Chiba Prefecture, many miles from Tokyo. It turned out to be in a southwestern suburb of the city, a very prosaic place. How little I knew of the realities of the Japanese film industry, and how little I dreamed of ever working it it! But I found my way to the P.C.L. studios, and there I met the best teacher of my entire life, “Yama-san”—the film director Yamamoto Kajirō.

— Akira Kurosawa

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Something Like an Autobiography
by Akira Kurosawa
translated by Audie E. Bock
198 pages, 1982, Vintage Books

This excerpt made me think of Crows, a scene about Van Gogh from the 1990 film, Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams.

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You Might Also Enjoy:

Shoji Hamada on Making Pots

Georgia O’Keeffe on Making “Ordinary Paintings”

Alice Mackler: “I do what I want to do”

Thanks for reading. Stay in touch!

Sign up for occasional emails from The Studio Manager:

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The 14 Best New Pottery and Ceramics Books of 2023

Lots of great new titles focusing on pottery and ceramics were published in 2023 and late 2022. Our top picks are below, including a mix of technique and art history books.

For more books, check out these posts from last year:

Best Pottery Technique Books 2022

Best Ceramic History Books and Monographs 2022

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By My Hands: A Potter’s Apprenticeship by Florian Gadsby

Florian Gadsby has been documenting his ceramic journey since his student days via Instagram, YouTube and other social media sites. A dynamic, exacting potter and engaging instructor via his videos, in By My Hands Gadsby shares a behind-the-scenes look at his journey in his first book.

Hardcover, 400 pages, published Fall 2023 by Ten Speed Press, $35

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Handbuilt: A Modern Potter’s Guide by Lilly Maetzig

Lilly Maetzig is a potter who has built a strong following online for instructional videos (search for Mae Ceramics) and in her first book, introduces more than 20 projects that you can do without a wheel including a pedestal bowl, pinched teapot, and nest plates.

Hardcover, 176 pages, published spring 2023 by Quadrille Publishing, $24

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Form and Surface: African Ceramics from the William M. Itter Collection by Diane Pelrine

This book celebrates the African ceramics held in the collection of the Sidney and Lois Eskinazi Museum of Art at the University of Indiana.

Hardcover, 192 pages, published Fall 2023 by Scala Arts Publishers, $50

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Ceramic Artist on Creative Processes by Miguel Ángel Pérez Arteaga

In this book, 25 ceramic artists from around the world describe their art making methodology and practice in their own words. Richly illustrated, it offers a deep insight into the minds of professional artists.

Hardcover, 304 pages, published Fall 2023 by Hoaki, $40

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Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery by Andrew Nairne

Published to coincide with a UK exhibition of Rie’s work, this catalogue includes five new essays examining Rie’s work and career and includes more than 150 images in full color.

Hardcover, 240 pages, published September 2023 by Kettle’s Yard, $45

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Beginner’s Guide to Decorating Pottery by Emily Reinhardt

A thorough guide for beginners, this book covers glazes, inlay and surface decoration, lusters, patterns and mark making, and more in an easy-to-follow format. Part of a series of beginner’s guides to ceramics.

Paperback, 160 pages, published September 2023 by The Quarry Books, $25

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Kate Malone: A Life in Clay by Emma Crichton-Miller

One of the UK’s leading ceramic artists, this monograph examines the work and career of Kate Malone, born 1959. With essays, color photographs and more, this book will be sure to delight fans of Malone’s work and others, who may have seen Malone as a judge on the Great Pottery Throwdown.

Hardcover, 252 pages, published by Skira, December 2023, $60.

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Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio by Shinya Maezaki

This book takes a deep and comprehensive look, for the first time in English, at the Kyoto studio of Seifū Yohei, who was the first ceramist to be named an Imperial Household Artist. The book includes essays and images of 100 artworks, as well as discussion of technique, forms, and glazes that were unique to the studio.

Paperback, 216 pages, published September 2023 by Giles, $30

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Promise Me The Earth by Kristin Morgin

This monograph examines Los Angeles artist Kristin Morgin who makes unfired sculptures from a mixture of clay, glue, wood and other materials. Known for her wit, craftsmanship, and ability to twist pop art to her own ends, this book includes a lengthy interview with the artist as well as numerous illustrations. Each copy is signed by the artist and includes a small drawing.

Hardcover, 120 pages, published Marc Selwyn FIne Art, late 2022, $60.

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Earth & Fire: Modern Ceramicists, Their Tools, Techniques, and Practice by Kylie Johnson and Tiffany Johnson

Earth & Fire explores the techniques and practices of 45 ceramic artists, ranging from potters to sculptors to jewelers and more. The book includes more than 300 color photos and illustrations, illuminating a wide variety of ceramic techniques.

Hardcover, 272 pages, published by Thames and Hudson, September 2023, $50

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Ash Glazes: Techniques and Glazing from Natural Sources by Phil Rogers and Hajeong Lee Rogers

Updated and edited by Hajeong Lee Rogers, this classic by Phil Rogers explores the history of ash glazes, how to test and mix the, and how to apply them to get the best results. With images of potters who use ash glazes from around the world, this new edition provides inspiration for ceramic artists interested in exploring and reinventing this age-old tradition.

Hardcover, 192 pages, published October 2023 by Herbert Press, $40

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Nina Fránková: Hollow by Nina Fránková

The first monograph on the Czech artist, who was born in 1987, the book includes numerous images and five essays.

Paperback, 160 pages, published fall 2023 by Onomatopee Projects, $18

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Ceramics in America 2023 edited by Robert Hunter

The latest edition of the yearly journal, the 2023 edition includes essays on backwoods North Carolina potter John Wesley Carpenter, contemporary artist David Mack, a snuff box made in London in the 18th century from American clay, and more. Richly illustrated throughout.

Hardcover, 240 pages, published Fall 2023 by the Chipstone Foundation, $65

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Roger Capron: Céramiste by Pierre Staudenmeyer

(Book is in French) A vastly expanded reprint of a 2003 monograph that examines the life and career of French ceramic sculptor and ceramic manufacturer Roger Capron, 1922–2006. This richly illustrated edition includes text by Pierre Staudenmeyer and an interview between Capron’s wife Jacotte Capron and Flavien Gaillard.

Hardcover, 208 pages, published October 2023 by Editions Norma, $60 (French language edition)

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Are there any recently published ceramic books that we missed? Let us know in the comments.

For more books, check out these posts:

Best Pottery Technique Books 2022

Best Ceramic History Books and Monographs 2022

See all posts tagged “Ceramics Library”

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Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina exhibition catalog

Simone Leigh on being a “weirdo sculptor”

In the catalog for the exhibition Hear Me Now, there is a wonderful conversation between the artist Simone Leigh and historian Jason R. Young. Young first asks Leigh about her interest in making sculpture out of fired clay, which started in the early 1980s. This excerpt starts with Young’s second question:

Jason R. Young: You say you were interested first in making water pots. Were you drawn to the form itself or to the materiality of the clay?

Simone Leigh: I was drawn to the idea of a handmade readymade and how these beautiful objects were valued and why. As far as formal concerns, I felt these objects were modernist masterpieces. I was also drawn to the fact that there’s clay covering the whole earth that is available to everyone, unlike so many raw materials acquired through violent extraction. The material connects to time from a geological perspective. That process was beautiful to me. I was interested in the feminist implications of a tradition most often restricted to women and that so many who worked in it were anonymous. I think there’s no Black woman artist who doesn’t have to come to terms with the fact that their foremothers are largely anonymous. The first ceramist that I was aware of was Ladi Kwali from Nigeria. And the first person I saw working in a way I wanted to work was Magdalene Odundo. When I came to New York and was developing skills working with clay, I realized that people did not understand what I was trying to do as a conceptual enterprise. So I abandoned the idea of being an artist who worked in the field of ceramics and just became this kind of weirdo sculptor.

JRY: That was a very brave decision to make. Another artist might have decided to move into a different medium, but you stuck with it.

SL: I was really interested in coming to New York and being int he art world as an intellectual activity. We already had Duchamp, using a ceramic object, make it clear that anything could be art. But when I came to New York, I was told that this material was not something I could use seriously in my conceptual work. So that made me dig in my heels.

Read the whole interview in the catalog. More on the book below

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In addition to the conversation with Simone Leigh, the catalog features four essays, maps, a bibliography and 154 illustrations. The show was quite densely installed at the Met, so it’s a pleasure to revisit each artwork in this beautifully illustrated book.

The catalog features a cover printed with a picture of a stoneware storage jar by Dave the Potter, and a clear plastic slip cover with the title. Edited by Met Musum curator Adrienne Spinozzi, the essays are by Spinozzi, Vincent Brown, Jason R. Young, and Michael J. Bramwell and Ethan W. Lasser.

This book is a must have for any fan of 19th century pottery and it contains new scholarship that is enlightening and revealing.

Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina
Edited by Adrienne Spinozzi
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Hardcover, 200 pages with 154 illustrations
Listed at $45 but typically available for less.

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Images from Inside the Book

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Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art catalogue

Jaguar God of the Underworld, a 7th-8th century ceramic censer from Palenque, Mexico on view as part of Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art.

In the introduction to the catalogue Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art, anthropologist Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos describes how representations of gods in ceramic incense burners are viewed by Lacandon people (present day Maya in Guatemala and Mexico), and this contemporary practice gives us clues as to the importance of historical depictions of gods. For the Lacandon, the censers have autonomous spiritual qualities, with volition and power of their own, and a life cycle tied to the life of the ceramic sculpture.

Making censers is comparable to giving birth and newly made censers must be cared for like children. Small stones placed inside the censer are regarded as their souls and the embodiments of the gods. People provide food and drink for the censers, which age and eventually die. Special ceremonies mark the death of the old censers and their renewal with freshly made ones. Similarly, Lacandon ceramic drums have the face of K’ayom, the god of music, and are considered to be animated beings, engendered by the women who make them and educated by the men who add the membranes and play them.”

The catalogue accompanies a museum show of the same name on view at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City from November 2022 – April 2023 and at the Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth Texas from May – September 2023.

Images of the ceramic whistles depicting gods emerging from flowers.

Beautifully illustrated throughout, the catalogue further expands on the exhibition, which includes numerous ceramic and stone sculptures, ceramic vessels and whistles, relief carvings in stone and wood, and video. The catalogue includes an introduction and seven essays, based on recent research and new interpretations of Mayan texts.

One of the most delightful parts of the show were small ceramic sculptures of people emerging from flowers. Thought to depict gods and also dead relatives, the catalogue text shows x-rays revealing these sculptures as whistles.

The show and catalogue are a must see. Just a stunning collection of work.

Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art
Edited by Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, James A. Doyle, and Joanne Pillsbury
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Yale University Press
Hardcover, 244 pages, 2022
Listed at $50, but typically available for less.

Images From Inside the Book

Cover page

Table of Contents

Two stone sculptures

The show includes numerous covered ceramic serving dishes with animal head lids.

The catalog helpfully includes pictures showing the entire image found on round ceramic vessels.

Have you seen the show or read this catalogue? Let us know in the comments.

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Best Ceramic and Pottery Podcasts

There’s a wide variety of podcasts focused on clay, pottery, and ceramic art. Here’s a guide to the top ceramic podcasts. And following that, there’s a list of one-off podcast episodes that touch on ceramics and art.

These can all be found on your favorite way to listen to podcast (Apple, Spotify, etc) so when possible, the link goes to websites dedicated to the shows.

#1: Tales of a Red Clay Rambler

The OG of pottery podcasts, Tales of a Red Clay Rambler is 10 years old and now has more than 400 interviews with potters, curators, and gallerists with the goal of documenting the variety of approaches to pottery and clay. Hosted by Ben Carter, who also wrote Mastering the Potter’s Wheel, the podcast is informative and entertaining. And with such a massive catalog, you’ll be sure to find a starting point that interests you.

Learn more at talesofaredclayrambler.com.

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#2: The Ceramics Podcast

The Ceramics Podcast, hosted by artists Cammi Climaco and Gustav Hamilton (and sometimes with guest hosts) has long-form interviews with ceramic artists along with intros where the hosts discuss life in the studio and answer listeners questions. It’s free form, entertaining, and opinionated. The show archive contains more than 40 episodes, with new podcasts coming out every month or so.

Learn more at cammiclimaco.com/theceramicspodcast.

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#3: Clay in Color

Hosted by curator Angelik Vizcarrondo Laboy and artist Alex Anderson, Clay in Color now has two seasons and more than 20 podcasts that are interviews with artists, with a focus on makers from underrepresented backgrounds. Launched in 2021, Clay in Color is part of the Brickyard Network, which includes 7 podcasts that were developed by Ben Carter (of Tales of a Red Clay Rambler) along with the Archie Bray Foundation.

Learn more at brickyardnetwork.org/clayincolor.

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#4: For Flux Sake

Another podcast from The Brickyard Network, For Flux Sake focuses on glaze formulation, addressing issues with making and firing ceramics, studio safety, and more. Hosted by artist Kathy King and glaze experts Matt and Rose Katz, the episodes are fun, informative and focuses, often clocking in at around 30 minutes. With two seasons and more than 30 episodes, For Flux Sake has tons of info that will help you in the studio.

Learn more at thebrickyardnetwork.org/forfluxsake.

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#5: The Potters Cast

With almost 900 episodes, The Potters Cast is a stalwart show with so, so much content to dig into. Hosted by potter Paul Blais, the show focuses on interviews with potters and sculptors who work with clay. Billed as “Picking up where the art degree ends,” the Potters Cast has a little bit of everything.

Learn more at thepotterscast.com.

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#6: The Slip Cast

Hosted by Clare McGibbon and Aimee McLaughlin, the NYC-based Slip Cast has more than 30 interviews with potters and sculptors, and discussions of studio practices. The Slip Cast seems to have a particular focus on the hot Instagram potters such as Recreation Center, Lolly Lolly Ceramics, and Ceramicism.

Learn more at instagram.com/theslipcast.

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#7: The Mud Peddlers: Ceramic Art Behind the Scenes

Hosted by Lindsay M. Dillon and Donte Earth Nation, this podcast focuses on the nitty-gritty of pottery production, along with interviews with potters. With more than 60 episodes and more being added each month, this is one to put on your podcast list.

Learn more at lindseymdillon.com

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#8: Trade Secret

Trade Secret, another great podcast from the Brickyard Network, is hosted by Adam Charles Chau and features conversations between Chau and a mix of artists, critics, curators, and more people who make the art world run. With one season so far, each episode focuses on a different topic. Here’s hoping there will be more seasons to come!

Learn more at brickyardnetwork.org/tradesecret.

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More podcasts to investigate:

The Shotcallers, another podcast from the Brickyard Network

The website CFile has stopped making updates, but an archive of their podcasts can be found here.

Wheel Talk with Ryan Durbin and Becca Otis.

The Kiln Sitters focuses on the Canadian ceramic scene.

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One-off Podcasts on Ceramics

In addition to podcasts focused exclusively on pottery and ceramics, there are podcasts that occasionally touch on clay.

What Pottery Can Tell Us About Culture, from The Dave Chang Show, 2019. Dave Chang in conversation with potter Adam Field. A great episode about Adam’s experience apprenticing in Korea.

Cooking as an Art, Vol 2, from The Dave Chang Show, 2019. Dave Chang in conversation with New York Times critic Roberta Smith, including a discussion of Korean ceramics.

Hyperallergic partnered with The Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Canada for a series of 4 podcasts.

The podcasts:

Shary Boyle’s Exploration of the Fantastic and Political Lives of Clay, released July 23, 2019

The Largely Unknown History of Blackface in Canada, released August 7, 2019

Kent Monkman’s Mission to Decenter the Colonial Museum, released August 9, 2019

The History, Context, and Legacy of an Ancient Maya Plate, released September 3, 2019

Are there any podcast series or episodes that should be included in this list? Let us know in the comments.

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Commeraw's Stoneware book review

A two-page spread from the introduction to Commeraw’s Stoneware.

Commeraw’s Stoneware is an impressive new book by A. Brandt Zipp that tells the story of Thomas W. Commeraw, who was the first African American potter we can identify by name. Living and working in New York City in the late 18th and early 19th century, Commeraw made functional stoneware pots that are now in the collection of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Commeraw was also an abolitionist, political active, and was selected by the U.S. government as an emissary to Liberia. It’s an amazing story that is full of research, historical context and the book is full of images.

A jar by Thomas W. Commeraw, acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1919.

Commeraw’s Stoneware was published fall 2022 by the auction house Crocker Farm, where Zipp is a founding partner, The book is full of extensive research, images, and information on other contemporaneous potters. Commeraw, who as Zipp says “almost slipped through the cracks of history,” has an inspiring story that is fleshed out in this book. I found it a compelling read.

Here’s quote from the introduction to Commeraw’s Stoneware:

Thomas W. Commeraw was a patriotic black American living in the age of slavery. He was a key early American stoneware potter, heavily influencing a craft that was understood to be inextricably linked with the development of the nation as a whole. He was a prominent member of the first generation of black New Yorkers living in the new republic. He was the first African-American potter we can identify by name, and the first to own his own shop. He was one of the first African Americans to become what is widely called the “Back-to-Africa” movement. He was a whistleblower who openly challenged—for the nation to see—the most prominent whites in the United States of American. He was the only American stoneware potter we are aware of who was specifically selected by the federal government to go on a mission, in the capacity of a potter. He was an early American abolitionist, a high-profile political activist who openly opposed slavery. And so as we begin our story, it is my hope that you find the life of Thomas W. Commeraw as fascinating as I have found it; that his slip through the fingers of history is as confounding to you as it has been to me; and that, in the end, Thomas Commeraw may be rightfully recognized as not only one of the great figures in the history of American decorative arts, but in the civil rights struggle of the first generation of black people living in the new United States of America.

Commeraw’s Stoneware
By A. Brandt Zipp
311 pages with 589 images
Published 2022 by Crocker Farm

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Images of the book

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What do you think about Commeraw’s Stoneware? Let us know in the comments.

For more books like this, check out these posts:

14 Best New Ceramic History Books and Artist Monographs

14 New Books on Pottery and Ceramic Technique 2022

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Alice Mackler: "I do what I want to do"

Near the end of her 2021 monograph, the artist Alice Mackler is asked if she ever felt the need to rebel against what she learned in school in order to find her own voice. Mackler’s response: No. Because I do what want to do.”

The first page of the Alice Mackler interview by Joanne Greenbaum.

It may be some of the sagest advice for anyone making their way in a creative field. Do what you want to do. Do what you need to do. Just, uh, do it.

The whole catalog on Mackler is lovely and worth a look if you are interested in ceramics or want to take an inside look at an artist who has been making work in New York City since the 1960s.

The catalog contains a generous selection of paintings, drawings and sculptures by Mackler, along with an introduction by Matthew Higgs, essay by Kellly Taxter, and the concluding interview between Mackler and artist Joanne Greenbaum.

Alice Mackler
by Matthew Higgs and Kelly Taxter
Published 2021 by New York Consolidated, Gregory R. Miller & Co, in association with Kerry Schuss Gallery.
Listed at $45 but usually available for less

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More images from the book

Cover page

Table of contents

A sculpture from 2016.

A sculpture from 2015.

Drawings from 2017.

A sculpture from 2018.

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Review: Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters is a classic book by Robert Beverly Hale. Known for his teaching on artistic anatomy, Hale was also curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and taught at the Arts Student League of New York, Columbia University, and other schools.

Presented as a series of lectures on 100 drawings, Drawing Lessons takes students through different topics including Line, Light and Planes, Mass, Position, Anatomy, and then bringing all the skills together.

Each topic / chapter begins with an introduction and proceeds through example illustrations. Each illustration, presented in black and white, has a full page image and a smaller detail image where various points are highlighted in the text.

Overall, this is a great resource if just for the illustrations. While it’s a product of its time—the focus on all male “great masters” is dated—the book is useful for anyone looking to deepen and expand their understanding of drawing.

Originally published in 1964, the more recent 1989 edition is still available new or used at various online bookstores.

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters: 100 Great Drawings Analyzed / Figure Drawing Fundamentals Defined
By Robert Beverly Hale
Published 1964 (Paperback edition 1989) by Watson-Guptill Publications
Listed at $25 but available for $5-15 used

Keep reading below for more images and info from the book.

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Images from the Book

Group of Figures by Luca Cambiaso

Standing Figure of a Nude Woman by Annibale Carraci

The two-page spread on Head of a Man by Albrecht Dürer

Tabulae Sceleti Et Musculorum Corporis Humani, 1747, by Bernard Siegfried Albinus

De Humani Corporis Fabrica, 1543, by Andreas Vesalius

Male Nude from Sistine Ceiling by Baccio Bandinelli

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Robert Beverly Hale on Drawing

From the introduction:

Drawing, like so many other skills, is a matter of being able to think of several things at once. Since the conscious mind seems to be able to think about only one thing at a time, the subconscious mind must take care of a good deal when we draw. So the process of learning to draw demands that we acquaint the subconscious mind with a certain amount of material, so that the subconscious can largely take over the control of our hand.

Actually, I am inclined to think that no artist can be called an accomplished craftsman until all matters of technique are so well learnt that they are part of his subconscious equipment. I know it is very difficult for an artist to express himself adequately unless this has been done.

Students and laymen, of course, are apt to confuse that technique is but na means to an end, and should never be confused with the end itself.

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Table of Contents

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Georgia O'Keeffe on Making "Ordinary" Paintings

Full Bloom:The Art and LIfe of Georgia O’Keeffe is a comprehensive 2004 biography of the artist by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Chronicling O’Keeffe’s entire life and career, the book traces the artist’s roots, relationships, and rise to becoming one of the most prominent and successful American artists of the 20th century. Known for her desert landscapes inspired by New Mexico and West Texas, O’Keeffe also spent many years in New York City and summers in upstate New York near Lake George.

The book is a fascinating insight into O’Keeffe, her art, and much of the 20th century American art scene. With around 550 pages of text, it’s a thorough, detailed biography and also includes numerous photographs and reproductions of paintings and drawings by O’Keeffe. Below are a few excerpts from the book.

Georgia O’Keeffe in 1974 on making ‘ordinary’ paintings

“The truth is I’ve been very lucky. Stieglitz was the most interesting center of energy in the art world just when I was trying to find my way. To have him get interested in me was a very good thing. My going to Texas was lucky, and, of course, my finding [Abiquiu]. And then, somehow, what I’ve painted happened to fit into the emotional life of my time… Often, I’ve had the feeling that I could have been a much better painter and had far less recognition. It’s just that what I do seems to move people today, in a way that I don’t understand at all. Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not go for a walk instead. But then I realize that to someone else it may not seem ordinary.”

— from page 518

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O’Keeffe on the 1931 painting Cow’s Skull, Red, White and Blue

Painting is pictured above at left.

“As I was working I thought of the city men I had been seeing in the East. They talked so often of writing the Great American Novel—the Great American Play—the Great American Poetry.

People wanted to “do” the American scene. I had gone back and forth across the country several times by then, and some of the current ideas about the American scene struck me as pretty ridiculous. To them, the American scene was a dilapidated house with a broken-down buckboard out front and a horse that looked like a skeleton. I knew American was very rich, very lush. Well, I started painting my skulls around this time…I had lived in cattle country—Amarillo was the crossroads of cattle shipping, and you could see the cattle coming in across the range for days at a time. For goodness’ sake, I thought, the people who talk about the American scene don’t know anything about it. So, in a way, that cow’s skull was my joke on the American scene, and it gave me pleasure to make it in red, white, and blue.

—from page 332

O’Keeffe on her reluctance to have a retrospective at MoMA in 1946:

“I must say to you again that I am very pleased and flattered that you wish to do the show for me. It makes me feel rather inadequate and wish that I were better. Stieglitz’s efforts for me have often made me feel that way too—The annoying thing about it is that I can not honestly say to myself that I could not have been better.

However—we need not go into that. But I do wish to say that if for any reason you wish to change your mind feel assured that it will be alright with me—For myself I feel no need of showing. As I sit out here in my dry lonely country I feel even less need for all those things that go with the city… When I say that for myself I do not need what showing at the Museum means—I should add that I think that what I have done is something rather unique in my time and that I am one of the few who gives our country any voice of its own—I claim no credit—it is only that I have seen with my own eye and that I couldn’t help seeing with my own eye—It may not be painting but it is something—and even if it is not something I do not feel bothered—I do not know why I am so indifferent.

— from page 413-414

O’Keeffe on flying in 1941

O’Keeffe’s massive painting Sky Above Clouds IV, from 1965, is depicted at the bottom right of the image above.

“It is breathtaking as one rises up over the world one has been living in—It is very handsome…like marvelous rug patterns of maybe “Abstract Paintings.” The world all simplified and beautiful and clear-cut in patterns like time and history will simplify and straighten out these times of ours. 

What one sees from the air is so simple and beautiful I cannot help feeling that it would do something wonderful for the human race—rid it of much smallness and pettiness if more people flew.”

—from page 396

Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe
By Hunter Drohojowsk-Philp
633 pages, 2004, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc

The book is available new and used.

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You might also enjoy:

Centering by M.C. Richards

Ben Okri: A Time for New Dreams

Amy Sillman on Painting

See all Inspiration posts by clicking here.

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