A Ceramic History by Edmund de Waal

1. Clay and Process
2. Pioneering Definitions 1900-1940 The Studio Pot
3. European Influences: Lucie Rie and Hans Coper
4. Art Schools: A New Ceramics?
5. Teachers: Who Taught You Then?
6. Altogether Elsewhere: Cultural Diversity and the Studio Pot
7. Painterly Surfaces?
8. Does it Pour? Function in Studio Pottery
9. Necessary Pots? Unnecessary Pots?

6. Altogether Elsewhere: Cultural Diversity and the Studio Pot

The British Studio Pottery movement is endlessly revivified by the cultural diversity of potters living here and using traditions of making that are radically different from those adopted by pioneer potters. Ways of making do not just imply different techniques to borrow (a good new idea for a handle, a different burnishing technique) but different ways of thinking about why pots are made, what their values are, how they are to be approached. But influences have often been mediated through others: Michael Cardew in Africa, Bernard Leach in Japan give us very English views of Africa or Japan. What has been the impact of makers from other cultural backgrounds?

Even though the movement has been much influenced by Oriental ceramics, few British potters have studied in Japan and few Japanese potters have worked here. That is why the work of Takeshi Yasuda (1943-) has been such an alive force for studio pottery. Takeshi uses clay in a seemingly spontaneous way, manipulating thrown forms in dramatic and sinuous ways. His pots are not Japanese in overt ways (there are plenty more pastiche Japanese-style potters around than him) but in his handling of clay they are very Japanese indeed. He is an interesting example of how the idea of Japan and the reality of Japan diverge. In both his T'ang Dynasty inspired pots and in his more recent creamwares Takeshi synthesises influences in remarkably complex ways.

In the work of Magdalene Odundo (1950-) we see the mediation of particular African traditions of hand-building pots and burnishing them, with a Modernist sensibility. Odundo makes pots that work on many differing levels: both as explorations of African ceramic identity ( they play with the conventions of African vessels) and as abstracted form. Kenyan-born, working in England, exhibiting in America, Odundo is the embodiment of how a significant contemporary maker can bring to life a tradition and completely alter perceptions about its' meaning.