CCI-newsletter-1987-61-January-February

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1987

Crafts Council of Ireland Thomas Prior House Merrion Road Dublin 4

Telephone 680764 / 603070

11th NATIONAL CRAFT TRADE FAIR The 11th Craft Trade Fair was opened by the Minister of State at the Department of Industry & Commerce, Mr. Richard Bruton T.D. The number of exhibitors showed an increase on the previous years and the general comment was that in terms of layout and presentation, the show had greatly improved.

The sales figure at IRÂŁ7.1 million was down on last year and this, in fact, reflected the present difficult economic climate at home and abroad.

The Minister of State, Mr Richard Bruton TD, speaking at the opening of the 11th National Crafts Trade Fair in the RDS on 19 January 1987. The Chairman of the Crafts Council, Mr William D Finlay, is to the Minister's left.

The experience at the Trade Fair suggests that for this year, the home market will need a lot of hard selling as there appears to be a lack of confidence among buyers regarding the coming season. The unreliability of the tourist-based home market and the limit of the ethnic market in America points out the need for positive efforts to establish a second outlet for top quality crafts.

In the light of changing buying patterns and the current trading difficulties being experienced by craftworkers it is both appropriate and necessary that the future format of the Trade Fair be revised.

This will be done.

On a lighter note, the Crafts Council awards for the best stands were won by Helena Ruuth and Ray Cornu, while the IDA Trophy for the outstanding product was presented to Wooden Wonders.

"CORK & SAN FRANCISCO POTTERS" COME TO DUBLIN "Cork and San Francisco Potters" opened at the Bank of Ireland, Baggot St., Dublin on 1 9 January.

The Exhibition was well attended: approximately 750 visitors during the nine days of the Exhibition, and sales totalled more than ÂŁ1,000.

Thanks are due to the members of the Craft Potters Society of Ireland who manned the Exhibition.

The Crafts Council of Ireland also wishes to thank members of the Society of Cork Potters for making this Exhibition possible, and to congratulate them on the success of their ambitious plans. It is hoped that the Council can become involved in and initiate many exhibitions of similar value in the future.

PRIMING THE PUMP The second of two articles by Sean McCrum. The first looked at the problems of isolation in the crafts in Ireland, particularly ceramics.

This one looks at how to move from the problem.

Even isolation has a knock-on effect. It makes people inwardlooking and that affects how their work develops. Particularly in the crafts, where the maker is directly responsible for what is made, the results are very obvious. So too are the changes when isolation starts to break down.

Focusing on ceramics, because that is the area at which this and the previous article are looking, the break down of isolation is a little more complex than leaping joyously into creativity. Particularly with utilitarian ware, the objects must be useable and attractive with a balance between their visual appearance and the expectations of feel, weight, body, surface and material which that appearance suggests. Beyond that, it is a question of the individual sensitivities of the potter or the user. Some means need to be found to develop these sensitivities.

There are two elements involved.

One is an individual's responses to ceramics and the second how those responses can coalesce into a body of expectations which will 2

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Peter Barry TD, speaking at the opening of the "Cork and San Francisco Potters" exhibition.

develop into aesthetic and production standards. In contemporary ceramics production standards are less difficult to apply and maintain than in current painting. However, because ceramics and current painting are both in transition, it is as difficult to evolve a coherent pattern of standards. In the case of ceramics, they are emerging here from isolation.

Selling Aesthetics The situation is complicated because people in Ireland have been able to make a financial success of their craft. They have developed the manual skills to do that. However, skills are only the means to making aesthetically satisfying objects. They are not in themselves the end. Because they are also the means to a succesful business, they have been too often used as the sole standard because their effect can be validated on its own by the volume of sales.

Volume of sales is by no means to be abused. Aesthetic satisfaction and sales are far from being incompatible. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for skill, as the vehicle for business success, to become the standard. Skill and finance combine

to simply cater for a market. Ideas and product development fail to occur, and there is no expansion of the buying public's expectations.

In Ireland so far, the emphasis has been on hand-made ceramics as basically made in a factory production which happens to use hand, not machine, manufacturing.

Standards emphasise profit results, although not always.

In the UK, this approach tended to decline after the 1960s. It gave way to making unique or very small production runs, which concentrated on aesthetic standards. Takashi Yasamura, Walter Keeler or Richard Batterham are good examples.

They can make a reasonable living.

However, they also brought back into the foreground the concept of a jug or plate as being as valid a personal statement as ceramic sculpture or easel painting.

This situation is different from the Irish because there is an immensely powerful tradition of ceramics mass production in the UK. There was little point in competing with it. In Ireland, there is no such strong factory tradition to which to respond. It may be that manufacturing hand-crafted ceramics here has a validity not possible in the UK. If this is so, then the need for adequate aesthetic standards is all the more important.

Developing Standards Whether the focus is on once-offs or production runs, the problem is how to combine hand-made standards and individual aesthetics.

These objects are all made by individuals. They are brought at least partially because people want to buy into the aura of something "hand-made", not "machinemade". They will not accept that a well-made machine object is better than a crudely hand-made one. Too many potters are happy to be part of this syndrome. Where anything hand-made is considered as valid just because it is hand-made, standards do not exist.

The buying public is willing to accept this. It is largely uninformed and cannot generally evolve standards on its own. It is up to the manufacturer to develop standards and new approaches. Failure to do this kills both the development of an informed public and the product itself. By failing to evolve new ideas and standards, and lead the market in what it can expect, the manufacturers isolate themselves and exploit their purchasers.

Countering this involves rethinking personal creativity in terms of market research and that research in terms of creativity. It involves carrying professionalism beyond production levels and sales and incorporating creativity and aesthetic standards as integral parts of ceramics hand manufacturing.

The market clearly exists. Whatever complaints there may be about standards, that has been proven by the tenacity and hard work of people w h o worked in ceramics w h e n little was done to assist them by government bodies and public and retail ignorance.

Obviously, there is a clear need to educate and inform the public. This cannot be done until the practitioners are certain about what they are doing themselves.

Someone working for six months making utilitarian ware to raise money to spend another six making sculpture will do neither well.

There is insufficient skill developed for either and a total lack of certainty about which is the more valid. The product at either end is as inadequate as incompetently painted pictures. W h e n the problem extends to inadequate and ill-defined standards, the practitioners and the public are in

as serious difficulties as each other.

production the better. Without it, twenty-five years of hard effort will move into a slow but inevitable decline.

Motives and Standards

Sean McCrum is a writer and exhibition organiser on the fine arts.

The circle turns again to people examining their o w n motives and work and treating that as a vital part of the evolution and rigorous maintenance of standards. Doing this involves another problem.

Ideas in ceramics have not originated in Ireland. They bring in concepts w h i c h are important, but which need to be adjusted to the practice of ceramics here.

However, hand-made ceramics have only existed as an observable movement for twenty-five or so years in Ireland and need these influences. They are important to avoid provincialism, but should be r e w o r k e d t o become valid individual and group values. They must be constantly scrutinised redefined and raised in the process.

Where work is hand made, each maker develops personal standards, beyond which work is unacceptable. As the body of individual experience expands, it w i l l combine w i t h the increasing numbers of individual practitioners, all of w h o m should be expanding their standards. As that develops, it becomes a reservoir of attitudes w h i c h coalesce into a tradition. In that situation, the tradition should also avoid becoming moribund because it is constantly being raised.

All of this requires the opening up of discussion, w h i c h has been happening over the last four years.

It must focus on a critical examination of aesthetic standards in hand-craft ceramics production.

There is currently not much centre point for this, because hand-craft ceramics are only just beginning to explore a dimension w h i c h has never been a matter of contention for non-utilitarian ceramicists.

Their work is clearly sculptural, and has benefitted from the critical discussion of it w h i c h any visual " a r t " form will receive.

Hand-crafted utilitarian wares are just as sculptural, although their context may be a different one. The same critical confrontation of ideas, aesthetics and widening thinking is just as vital for them. The sooner that it takes its rightful place in

LETTER TO T H E EDITOR Sir, The November/December issue of your Newsletter contains an article

by Mr Sean McCrum in w h i c h he makes the bald statement in regard to the studio pottery movement, 'financial success, for example has been accepted as the measure of aesthetic standards'. This is grossly unfair to Irish potters and to the Crafts Council. Few potters of my acquaintance confuse the value in exchange of an article and its aesthetic value and I believe that the generality of work which is shown supports this view.

Many of Mr McCrum's other comments are questionable. The absence of a living tradition is arguably one of the great strengths of Irish ceramics. Young potters do not have to drag around the bag and baggage of the past and can work out their own ideas and relate these to other acts and technologies. Mr McCrum is also concerned about isolation; I would have thought that Irish potters are the least isolated in Europe. A very high proportion of them have worked in other countries, including Japan. Their work may be criticised for eclecticism but not parochialism.

For people like myself, w h o recall the very first studio pottery exhibition at Victor Waddington's gallery and visits to the three potteries w h i c h were operating in 1960, the development has been miraculous.

By all means let us have criticism, but let it be informed.

Yours etc.

Paul P Hogan FSIAD, FRSA, MSDI 44 Claremont Road, Sandymount, Dublin 4.

THE BARNSLEY TRADITION At the Edward Barnsley Educational Trust (EBET) Workshops in Froxfield, furnituremaking continues in the GimsonBarnsley tradition. Born in 1900, Edward Barnsley's philosophy of life and dedication to excellence in design and craftsmanship were shaped largely by his father Sidney Barnsley, his uncle Ernst Barnsley, and their friend Ernst Gimson.

Edward Barnsley made his first piece, a small table, with the help of his father in 1905. When in his teens, he asked his father why dovetails were being sawn off the top of a tall solid ebony writing desk, he was told that a mistake had been made and that it was important that everything be 'top quality' and that nothing be 'let by'.

The effect of this lesson is apparent in the Froxfield workshops where nothing but the best craftsmanship is allowed.

Edward Barnsley was trained in furniture-making later by Geoffrey Lupton, who had himself been a pupil at Gimson's Workshops.

Edward occupied Lupton's Workshop as a tenant from 1923 until 1925 when Sidney Barnsley bought the property and Edward took it over. In 1923 he accepted his first apprentice, Herbert Upton, who became foreman in 1938.

Upton spent his whole working life in the Workshop, making furniture to the highest standard and training pupils and apprentices until his retirement in 1979.

Hand-built coil pots by Geraldine Mangan of Kilworth Craft Workshops on display at the Kilworth 5 exhibition in the Wexford Arts Centre.

KILWORTH 5 EXHIBITION The Kilworth 5 Exhibition at the Wexford Arts Centre was opened

by Ms. Avril Doyle TD, Minister of State for Finance and Environment and once again showed that Kilworth graduates are amongst the best young designer/craftsmen in the country. A splendid array of work, ranging from ceramics to wallhangings, to wooden sculptures and a violin, to papermaking, all beautifully hand-crafted with dedication and superb skill.

The exhibition shows work of thirty of the past five years' participants of Kilworth Craft Workshops.

The current Kilworth 5 exhibition, which has toured the country, will now go to promote Irish craftsmanship in London, Brussels and Brittany - a possible showing at San Francisco, Cork's twin town, is also under discussion.

In the early days Design at the Gimson Barnsley Workshops meant making furniture to fulfil a need.

Edward Barnsley now sums up his own feelings about design in the phrase, 'fitness for purpose and pleasure in use', and quotes from Owen Jones' "The Grammar of Ornament". 'All works of the decorative arts must possess fitness, proportion and harmony, the result of all of which is repose....True beauty results from the repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect and the affections are satisfied by the absence of want.'

Edward Barnsley's workshops continue to thrive after sixty years during which our living conditions have changed out of all recognition. Approximately 7,000 pieces of furniture have been produced since 1923 of which at

least 1,500 were individual designs. His work is in innumerable private houses, cathedrals and churches, embassies and ministries, colleges, city companies and large boardrooms.

However, the present day sees a period of flux and change in the Barnsley Workshop. The intense pressure brought to bear by Edward Barnsley's personal interest in efficient production is now gone. The Workshop now looks in the greater measure to the EBET for its inspiration. The tendency now with as many students as full-time craftsmen in the Workshop is towards a more academic approach to furniture making. This costs 'efficient production' dear, but is accepted

reluctantly as a fact of life. More funding for the promoting of a healthy balance between the theoretical and practical elements in the training programme is the order of the day. The commercial side of the business is still, however, regarded as a vitally important ingredient of the student experience in the Workshop and will remain the core of the training.

The predominating theme in the Workshop is a commitment to the highest quality workmanshop, and this will continue to motivate the craftsman in the Workshop, the EBET and those who buy the Workshop's products.

Richard Elderton is now the Foreman/Instructor at the EBET and Workshop in Froxfield. An engineer (he designed and made his own unique lathe), a woodworker and furniture maker, he is known as an absolute perfectionist.

Richard studied engineering and metal work while in the Army, and the knowledge gathered then is now used in his tool making. As a woodworker and furniture maker he is self-taught which he considers enables him to learn new things and add to the perfection of his skills continuously. Since he joined the Barnsley Workshop in 1983, Richard's favourite commission was the making of book boards for the Doomsday Book. This commission was given to the Workshop by Roger Powell, who had previously renovated the Book of Kells, for which the Barnsley Workshop had built the book box.

Glazed display cabinet in rosewood.

Made by George Taylor in 230 hours in 1982, at the Barnsley Workshop.

3.

4.

5.

Richard Elderton has also designed a computer programme for the identification of timbers, his special interest, and is at the moment working on a timber stress analyser which will tell the breaking stress of glued points.

At his nearby home in Hawkley, where he has his own small workshops, Richard intends to run courses in woodturning and small scale metal-working jobs.

1. Basic jobbing woodturnery; making furniture and joinery parts, trophy bases, etc.

2. Domestic articles; bowls, plates,

6.

lamp bases and standards, candlesticks, etc.

Miniature work: game pieces, pens, etc.

Design and the production of working drawings.

Toolmaking: simple blacksmithing, welding and hand metal-working techniques.

Cabinet making and joinery; the workshop is equipped with hand tools for small scale work in these categories.

He will give private lessons of one week or two-day duration to one or two people per course.

Those interested should write to: Richard Elderton, Lr. Green Cottage, Hawkley, Nr. Liss, Hampshire, GU33 6NW.

FIRED WITH CULTURE

EXCHANGE PROGRAMME

North and South Wales Potters Association present their first International Potters Camp on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10, 11 and 12 July 1987.

The EEC-sponsored Young Worker Exchange Programme has the following vacancies available in the coming months:

The weekend's emphasis will be to discover the contrasting approaches to ceramics engineered by different cultural, geographical and political backgrounds. There will be demonstrations, lectures, film and slide shows and a programme of kiln building and firing.

At the same time there will be exhibitions of international ceramics and a major exhibition of work by North and South Wales Potters.

Guests are: Arne Ase (Norway); Cormac Boydell (Ireland); John Chalke (Canada); Greg Daly (Australia); Siddig El'Nigoumi (Sudan/UK); Ollie Kent (UK); Steen Kepp (Denmark); Anne Lightwood (Scotland); Jim Robison (USA/UK); Barbara Tipton (USA); Ulla Viotti (Sweden); Rimas T. Visgiroa (Lithuania/USA).

Details can be obtained from the Crafts Council of Ireland.

Mortar and pestle in elm, made by Richard Elderton. See story "The Barnsley Tradition" previous pages.

SPAIN: 10 places available, three months duration, starting in May, one month's Spanish language training, two months work experience.

DENMARK: 10 places available, 1 months duration, starting in July.

One week induction programme, three weeks work experience.

Places are available for qualified persons in the following areas: CRAFTS POTTERY CERAMIC DESIGN TEXTILES

Applicants must have: * Completed their professional training * Have at least one year's work experience subsequent to completion of professional traning * Be aged 18-28 years For the Spanish programme, a basic knowledge of the Spanish language would be an advantage.

Accommodation and pocket money will be provided during the programme. Seventy-five per cent of travel costs to and from the host country will also be provided.

As interviews will begin in March please make application to: EEC Affairs Departments, AnCO, P.O. Box 456, 27-33 Upper Baggot St., Dublin 4. Tel: 685777

FOR S A L E Glimakra Floor loom 120cms 4 shaft, counter balance, warping mill, shuttles, electric bobbin winder and good quality mixed wool

FOR S A L E Glimakra loom 1.5m wide double back beam, bench and all accessories also Haldane spinning wheel Contact Angela Fewes Telephone (021) 8 2 1 6 8 9

Contact Mary MacNeill Telephone 8 6 8 3 3 1

FOR S A L E Lover spinning wheel and accessories. Natural dye stuffs and wool fleeces.

Supplied by Mary O'Rourke Glenasmole Dublin 24

IRISH S P I N N E R S L I M I T E D Kiltimagh, C o . Mayo Pure n e w wool bainin and coloured hand knitting yarns Telephone (094) 8 1 1 5 6

At this instant somewhere overseas there may be an individual who seeks to import the very product you manufacture. What is his name? Where is he from? Is he a reliable trading partner? More importantly how do you contact him?

Obviously, travel overseas is one sure way of securing new con­ tracts. However, many Irish Exporters are now too busy keeping their operation ticking over on the home front to engage themselves in such frequent globe-trotting ventures to locate potential markets.

Fortunately, Bank of Ireland International Banking Division have a unique means of further assisting you with your export promo­ tion. The Trade Services section of this division is operated by highly skilled and efficient professionals who are in a position to locate new markets for those contemplating entering the export field. They can also expand existing markets for those already actively involved in trading overseas.

Bank of Ireland International Banking Division has many agents in many countries. Taking their branch networks into account, this gives us vast outlets through which the Trade Services section can seek out untapped markets to promote an Irish product. It is through the medium of these correspondent banks that we endeavour to locate your new prospective trading partners.

This service is devised to boost Irish Exports and is provided at absolutely no cost to you. If interested, please complete and return the coupon below. We shall then be in a position to initiate a TRADE ENQUIRY on your behalf.

K-

B a r i K c r l r e i a n t t Trade Services Marketing Section International Banking Division Your Company Name: Address:

Tel./Telex No Export Manager: Full Details of Product: Please indicate desired outlet:

Agent

Q

Distributor

Retailer |

|

Other Name and Address of your Banker:

Q

Wholesaler

CRAFT COURSES The AnCo Training Centre Shannon Industrial Estate, Co. Clare is offering a range of Craft Courses and Craft Project Development Courses.

For further information send for an application form or telephone 0 6 1 - 6 1 1 3 3

WEAVING EQUIPMENT Looms and accessories, books, dyes, yarns for weaving and knitting, spinning wheels Available from A n n O'Kelly 4 Eglington Park, Donnybrook, Dublin 4. Telephone 6 9 3 5 6 5

Bank cflreiantt INTERNATIONAL BANKING DIVISION r n r r OVERSEAS TRADE r K f c t PROMOTION SERVICE

When trading internationally it is of paramount importance to assess the creditworthiness of the foreign parties. When we locate a prospective trading partner for one of our clients, we always ensure that an accompanying favourable status report on the foreign concern is provided.

Confidential status reports on companies or individuals at home and abroad are provided by us regardless of whether you have availed of our TRADE ENQUIRY service already mentioned. Any request for a status report of this nature must be directed through your bankers.

Trade Services also assist by providing advice, guidance and information on many regulations which influence international bus­ iness. For example, what are the exchange control regulations that effect the speed and ease of payments? What are the import regula­ tions, customs tariffs, correct shipping documentation etc. required?

An exporter knows that a superior product, excellent marketing skills and advanced technology are not the only factors which ensure him of a high success rate in a competitive world. Even iden­ tification of the right trading partner is not sufficient. A basic know­ ledge of the economic intricacies and business climate prevailing in each national market to which he intends exporting to is also a vital factor in assuring his overall success.

The Trade Services team take pride in being able to help expor­ ters identify possible new outlets for their products, checking out the creditworthiness of potential foreign clients and supplying gen­ eral, financial and economic information on the countries where the market is located.

ARTS COUNCIL BURSARIES, SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS 1987

CLARE CRAFTWORKERS ASSOCIATION EXHIBITION CALENDAR

The Arts Council makes various bursaries available in visual arts which may very well apply to you.

These awards are intended primarily to assist development and growth in the work of artists.

Priority is given to proposals which will have significant effect on the work of the applicant, whether through the provision of equipment or the undertaking of new artistic projects.

February 28 — End of March New Directions March 27-28 New Directions Seminar led by June Tiley Landscape April 4-29 Landscape May 2-27 Black & White Magic May 30-June 24 June Jubilee

Some of these are: Apprenticeships for Young Artists, a bursary offered to artists of not more than thirty years of age to enable them to work as apprentices to established artists for a period of six months; Co-Operative Studies providing facilities for a number of artists and applications for their assistance are also processed through the Arts Council, as is the Dublin Corporation Arts Scholarship; Travel awards which include: The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the Duais Bhonn De hide, and the George Campbell Memorial Travel Award.

Many of these awards have a closing date for application of 15 April so do request details and applications forms immediately from: The Arts Council, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

Telephone 611840

INFORMATION 1. These exhibitions are open to all craftspeople 2. Submissions are juried by a representative of the Crafts Council of Ireland 3. Entry fee is 50p per exhibitor 4. Commission on sales is 10% 5. The gallery insurance does not cover the exhibits 6. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10 am — 5 pm 7. Work is due at the gallery during the week prior to the exhibition or at Crafts Council of Ireland, Dublin, allowing at least seven days for transit to Ballycasey to be arranged.

Kilkenny Design OVERSEAS CONSULTANCY

Kilkenny Design is expanding its index of designer craftsmen willing to work in third-world projects for up to three months.

Applicants should have at least eight years of practical experience; sound technical knowledge; ability to assess the potential of producers; knowledge of European and/or North American markets; sympathy for different local skills, habits and work practices; report writing skills, and residence in Europe or North America.

They should have both design and craft skills in either furniture, woodware, ceramics, ceramics modelling, woven textiles, printed textiles, clothing, leatherwork, basketry, jewellery or metalwork.

Further information from Gerald Tyler, Kilkenny Design, Kilkenny, Ireland.

TEAPOT EXHIBITION Some of the teapots on display in Helena and Peter Br en nan's "Teapot" exhibition in Dun Laoghaire.

Peter and Helena Brennan opened their exhibition of teapots, very appropriately with afternoon tea, at their Glenageary Lodge Gallery, Upper Glenageary Road, Dun Laoghaire, on 25 January.

For this exhibition Helena made teapots to suit any occasion from collector's miniatures to large thirty-two cup family teapots, with a variety of shapes and surface and glaze decoration. This exhibition is still open from 2.00 to 5.00 pm except Sundays.

The exhibition is the first of a series to establish their permanent gallery at Glenageary Lodge.

Helena and Peter hope to show work ranging from domestic stoneware and porcelain to decorative sculptural work. It is their hope that their talented children will help to fill the gallery in the future.

Helena and Peter also run classes in ceramics for adults and children.