Lisa Hammond - Monograph, 2009

LISA HAMMOND

GOLDMARK

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Each Lisa Hammond pot has a life of its own, its own sense of renewal. They all offer their own pleasures, an intimacy that adds another dimension to the way we eat and drink, to the ceremonies of the everyday, to the space we occupy. In short, to the way we live our lives.

David Whiting Price ÂŁ10

LISA HAMMOND

LISA HAMMOND

Unconscious Revelation Essay by David Whiting

GOLDMARK 2009

Unconscious Revelation

The Pots of Lisa Hammond Lisa Hammond is one of the most committed and driven of potters, determined to maintain the traditions of her craft both as maker and teacher. She is one of a small number who have clearly inherited the mantle of studio pioneers like Michael Cardew, someone who had forceful opinions about the true responsibilities of the potter and the necessary and healthy continuance of tradition, of making good functional ceramics for the modern world.

Perhaps now, more than ever, we need the reassurances and stability of vigorous craft, of enriching pots in and around our houses. At a time of such economic and environmental uncertainty, the consolations and constancy offered by ceramics such as Lisa Hammond’s takes on a new relevance. Her own work, from the runs of mugs she has made in their thousands to the individual jars, bowls and lidded pieces, is clear proof of pottery’s humanity, its ability to shape and give added meaning to simpler everyday experience.

These are not tame or overtly decorative objects. They have a visual strength and robustness reflective of their maker – an uncompromising and ambitious potter who takes no shortcuts and has little time for some of the more self-indulgent traits of current studio practice. At a time when core functional values have been increasingly neglected, Hammond is forthright and passionate about good empirical training, about the re-establishment of an

11

effective and comprehensive apprenticeship system for throwers, and has been providing this at Maze Hill, her pottery in Greenwich, for several years. It belongs to an honourable tradition of teaching workshops that has included not only St Ives of course (now reestablished) but Cardew’s successive potteries at Winchcombe and Wenford Bridge. Each has offered both a complement and alternative to the college system – workshops that epitomise Cardew’s memorable words about the passage of skill and creative insight, the continuance of making “depending on the ‘slow bodily transference’ [Leach’s phrase] of ways of making things from one pair of hands to another and from one generation to the next”. This defines a philosophy that genuinely subsumes ‘excessive’ personality and is on what the survival of traditional craft depends.

Lisa Hammond’s pots have resonances of many different traditions. They draw on a range of pre-Industrial European wares, from medieval baluster jugs and vigorous saltglaze to traditional well designed country pots made over several centuries. Then there is her direct experience of working at Mino in Japan, using the Shino glazes that, like her intelligent reinterpretation of Japanese forms and use of Soda firing, has given her work its particular texture and freshness. Hammond’s pots – from the large monumental jars to the most intimate bowls and yunomis – are objects that eloquently register the different dynamics and motion of throwing, the other marks and indents made by the hand and the mysterious elusive geography of the kiln.

The symbiosis here between maker and object is very physical – one that travels down arm and hand and into the clay, one that

12

resists too much pre-thought and pre-drawing. It is really a three way process – between head and hands and the turning wheel, a synergy that returns up the arms from the rising clay. ‘Learning from one’s materials’ is not just about acquired knowledge, but a continuing physical reciprocity between every aspect of making, about how your sense of connection, of empathy, strengthens through repetition, of making forms that become individual and distinct. “Every one you make is different, and every time you make it, you see more deeply into it” Michael Cardew explained in an interview with the painter Patrick Heron in 1981. The process provides what Janet Leach has called “a flow and rhythm, an attunement to the material”, an immersion out of which a sense of self can emerge. But Shoji Hamada would say that such a mechanism cannot be forced. It takes place over time, Hamada believing that he had reached ‘maturity’ at seventy, what he called an “unconscious revelation” that gradually emerged from the movement of his hands over many years of throwing, certainly not through instant injection.

Lisa Hammond’s pots have beautiful surfaces, carefully weighed up in terms of their glazing and the transformations that happen in firing. Her technique of wiping through to an underlying glaze or clay, of enjoying the runs and dribbles of ash, of pouring one Shino over another – all add depth, a sense that Lisa’s surfaces are about layers, to be excavated by our eyes and hands.

Hammond’s forms are now instantly recognisable as her own. The instilled tempo of making has revealed groups or families of forms she has been quietly developing, bringing to maturity. Examine the variously sized jugs with broad inventively looped handles that continue the incline, the lean of her rims. They are full of assertive

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personality and life, even humour – shapes she has made her own. The same is true of her bottles and lidded jars, cylindrical, squared or crisply faceted. Her big round pots are given added personality through small lugs, a crawling Shino or a slight ellipse to the lip. These are objects that have moved from a gentler more pastoral Anglo-Orientalism to a bolder more elemental expression.

Hammond’s new black stoneware, augmented by a rich red Shino underlines her sense of clay and flame’s almost primordial power.

The work has strong affinities with Janet Leach’s, another potter who had very direct experience of traditional Japanese kilns, of the drumming heat and theatre of Oriental firing.

Yet there is an informed restraint too – these pots do not drown in flyash or the kiln’s excessive serendipity to provide a kind of sensory overload (one thinks of recent self indulgence in anagama firing). Hammond’s work is about a simple economy of means.

Her controlled experimentation is based, as Hamada would have commended, on many years of osmosis, not wilful efforts at ‘innovation’. This is why Lisa Hammond’s pots have so much to say, why their impact is so lasting. They are the achievement of long hours in the studio, of a true engagement with clay’s complexity and power.

David Whiting, March 2009

16

506

17

511

574

538

20

515

21

505

22

500

23

536

474

442

26

475

27

548

28

501

29

535

30

502

31

448

513

523

35

531

526

38

578

39

443

40

347,434

41

446

478

44

479,445

45

527,528

46

534

47

426,483

48

494

49

579

50

clockwise from back 562, 436, 437, 486, 488, 487, centre 435

51

435

577

53

Education 1974-78

1 year - Art Foundation, 3 year Dip AD Ceramics, Medway College of Art, Kent

Studios and Workshops 1980-85

Set up and established Greenwich Pottery Workshop, Greenwich, London. Designed and produced Salt Glaze Functional and Studio Ware

1984-85

Sydney, Australia, 9 months. Devolving new work, and exhibiting.

Sandy Lockwood's studio

1994-present Set up Maze Hill Pottery, Greenwich, London. Designing and producing a wide range of Soda Glaze Functional Ware and individual studio pots, alongside an education and training centre 2003-04

3 months Mino, Japan. Invited to work and exhibit alongside Riz端 Takahashi

Teaching and Lecturing 1979-present Taught and lectured extensively both in the UK and overseas 1980-94

Part-time lecturer/post graduate, Goldsmiths College, London University, London

1985

9 months lecture post New South Wales, Australia

1999-present Part time lecturer, Camberwell College of Art, London

Associations 1998

Elected professional member of the Crafts Potters Association

2002

Elected Fellow member CPA

2003

Elected Council member CPA

580, 553

55

Selected Exhibitions 2001

Solo show, Gallery St. Ives, Tokyo, Japan

2000/2/3/4

Crafts Council, Chelsea Craft Show

2002

Solo show, The Red Gallery, South West

2003

Museum's Mino Ceramic Park, Misunami Museum, Japan

2003

Nagoya Japan, Gallery St. Ives, Tokyo, Japan

2005

Axis Gallery, Ropongi, Tokyo (Crafts Council)

2005/6

Tokyo Dome Tableware Exhibition

2005/6/7

Ceramic Art, London

2006

Solo show, Oakwood Gallery

2006

Solo show, Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham

2007

Solo show, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Japan

2007

Solo show, Keio Gallery, Tokyo

2007

The Jug Show, Galerie Besson, London

2007

Solo show, Contemporary Ceramics, London

2007

Potfest in the Park, Penrith

2007

Art in Clay, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

Commissioned Work 1999-present 15 ceramic works commissioned by sculptor Roger Hiorns.

Exhibited in many galleries both in the UK and overseas 1999-present UK exhibitions include The Jerwood Gallery, London; Covie Moria, London; The Tate, Liverpool, The Secret Life of Clay 2005

Caravaggio exhibition, The National Gallery, London

Awards and Grants 2000/1/5

Mission grants Crafts Council to Japan

2005

CPA Charitable Trust for Research in Japan

2005

Awarded solo grant for Trade Exhibition in Japan

409,461,459

462,470,405

454,403.455

57

458

558,450,568,569

410,564,414,411

415,412,457,413

59

451

60

Illustrated Pots

sizes in cm

347.

403.

405.

409.

410.

411.

412.

413.

414.

415.

421.

426.

434.

435.

436.

437.

438.

440.

442.

443.

445.

446.

448.

450.

451.

454.

455.

457.

458.

459.

461.

462.

465.

466.

467.

11.5 x 12.0 8.5 x 9.0 9.5 x 11.0 9.0 x 10.5 9.5 x 7.5 9.5 x 8.0 10.0 x 8.0 10.5 x 7.5 9.5 x 7.5 10.0 x 7.5 14.5 x 9.5 25.0 x 16.0 12.5 x 8.0 10.0 x 21.0 8.0 x 17.5 7.5 x 17.5 13.0 x 12.0 13.0 x 12.5 14.5 x 19.0 30.0 x 16.0 24.0 x 15.0 31.5 x 17.5 6.0 x 40.0 9.0 x 7.0 8.0 x 7.0 9.0 x 10.0 8.0 x 10.0 9.5 x 8.0 8.5 x 10.0 9.0 x 11.0 9.0 x 10.0 9.5 x 10.5 13.9 x 8.0 13.5 x 8.5 13.5 x 8.0

Faceted Lidded Pot. Black clay, orange shino flash and silver lid Chawan. Black clay, wood fired, red shino Chawan. Pink hakame shino Chawan. Faceted. Peach shino Yunomi. Faceted. Red & white shino Yunomi. Faceted. Black clay, cream and pink hakame Yunomi. Black clay, green soda hakame Yunomi. Black clay, poured white shino Yunomi. Faceted. Black clay, poured red & white shino Yunomi. Faceted. Red shino Sake Bottle & Cup. Black clay, red shino pour Jug. Tan soda glaze, hakame Lidded Tea Jar. Black clay with poured red shino & silver lid Large Summer Teabowl. Black clay, red shino Summer Teabowl. Black clay, white shino Summer Teabowl. Black clay, red shino Faceted Lidded Pot. Black clay, cream & peach shino with scar Faceted Lidded Pot. Black clay, white & pink shino Mizu Sashi (Water Carrier). Faceted. Black clay, poured white & pink shino Tsubo Flower Jar. Black clay, poured white shino with Akebi handle Jug. Black clay, grey soda shino with finger wipes Lidded Tsubo Jar. Black clay, red hakame brush mark, silver handle Large Platter. Tan soda glaze with scallop shell marks Yunomi. Faceted. Brushed bark slip Yunomi. Black & brick clay with brushed white shino Chawan. Black clay with brushed white slip Chawan. Black & brick clay with brushed white shino Yunomi. Faceted. Black with brushed red shino Chawan. Woodfired, black clay Chawan. Woodfired. Black clay with soft peach shino Chawan. Brushed bark slip Chawan. Faceted. Poured light red shino Tea Jar. Black clay with thick smooth poured white shino & silver lid Tea Jar. Black & brick clay dipped in slip, with iron spots Tea Jar. Black clay with poured white shino

467,552,468,551

526,466,541,540

421

468.

470.

474.

475.

478 479.

483.

486.

487.

488.

494.

500.

501.

502.

505.

506.

511.

Tea Jar. Black clay with poured white shino Large Chawan. Brushed bark slip Faceted Vase. Black clay with poured grey shino Mizu Sashi (Water Carrier). Faceted. Poured red shino Iga Style Vase. Red shino with brushed iron stripes Jug. Black clay, grey shino with finger wipes Jug. Tan soda glaze Summer Teabowl. Black clay with poured white shino Summer Teabowl. Black clay with poured white shino Summer Teabowl. Black clay with red shino inside Teapot. Green hakame with split willow handle Large Faceted Bottle. Black clay with poured white shino and shell marks Set of 6 Plates. Black clay, white shino & shell detail Large Platter. Dark blue soda glaze with shell marks Large Blossom Jar. Red shino topped with willow ash Large Blossom Jar. Dark red shino topped with willow ash Large Tsubo Jar. Soda glaze with soda flame marks

12.5 x 8.0 9.5 x 10.5 23.5 x 10.0 16.0 x 18.0 19.0 x 12.0 26.0 x 16.0 26.0 x 17.0 8.5 x 17.0 8.5 x 17.5 8.5 x 17.0 20.0 x 17.0 26.0 x 16.0 2.5 x 18.5 5.0 x 39.5 37.0 x 36.5 38.0 x 36.5 40.0 x 35.0

63

512.

513.

515.

523.

525.

526.

527.

528.

531.

534.

535.

536.

538.

540.

Tsubo Flower Jar. Black clay, poured white shino with silver handle Tsubo Flower Jar. Black clay, poured white shino with Akebi handle Tsubo Jar. Hakame soda glaze Sake Bottle & Open Bowl. Soft - squared. Brick clay, creamy orange slip Sake Bottle & Cup. Red shino with iron spots & shell marks Tea Jar. Red shino with iron spots Small Leaning Jug. Red shino with finger wipes Leaning Jug. Red shino with finger wipes Medium Tsubo Jar. Red shino with ash Jug. Blue hakame soda glaze Large Platter. Poured blue shino Large Faceted Bottle. Red shino with ash Large Moon Jar. Poured white shino Tea Jar. Brick clay, hakame slip, soda glaze

33.0 x 19.0 31.0 x 18.0 26.0 x 23.0 14.5 x 9.0 13.5 x 9.5 12.5 x 8.5 18.5 x 13.5 25.5 x 17.0 26.0 x 26.5 27.0 x 18.0 4.5 x 38.0 29.5 x 18.5 42.0 x 41.0 14.0 x 8.5

525

512

440,546,438

541.

546.

548.

551.

552.

553.

558.

562.

564.

568.

569.

574.

577.

578.

579.

580.

Tea Jar. Red shino Faceted Lidded Pot. Black clay, thick white sugar shino Large Mizu Sashi (Water Carrier). Black clay, white shino Tea Jar. Black clay, white shino, soda fired Taller Tea Jar. Black clay with white shino & silver lid Sake Bottle & 2 Open Bowls. Black clay with white shino Yunomi. Faceted. Black clay, white shino with brown vertical hakame brush marks Summer Teabowl. Black clay, red shino Yunomi. Black clay, very thick white sugar shino, hakame brushed Yunomi. Black clay, spiral hakame brushed white shino, sea foam look Yunomi. Faceted. Black clay, hakame slip & celadon glaze. Glazed foot ring Large Blossom Jar. Black clay, poured cherry blossom shino Medium Blossom Jar. Black clay with cherry blossom shino Tall Faceted Vase. Tsunami swirling white shino Teapot. Tan soda glaze with finger wipes & Akebi handle Tsubo Flower Jar. Black clay, white shino with Akebi handle

13.0 x 8.0 16.0 x 12.0 17.5 x 21.5 12.0 x 8.5 13.0 x 9.0 16.0 x 8.5 10.0 x 8.0 7.5 x 17.0 9.0 x 7.5 9.0 x 8.0 10.0 x 8.0 26.5 x 26.5 23.5 x 22.0 30.0 x 12.0 20.0 x 12.5 34.0 x 20.0

Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland 01572 821424 www.modernpots.com Text © David Whiting Photographs © Jay Goldmark Design © Porter / Goldmark ISBN 978-1-870507-57-8 2009

Lisa Hammond pots may be purchased, and sets commissioned, from Goldmark Gallery

1 Phil Rogers New Pots 2005 2 Clive Bowen New Pots 2006 3 Lisa Hammond New Pots 2006 4 Mike Dodd Recent Pots 2007 5 Ken Matsuzaki (2007) Thirty Years of a Living Tradition 6 Svend Bayer (2007) New Pots 7 Jim Malone (2008) The Pursuit of Beauty 8 Phil Rogers (2008) A Potter of our Time 9 Lisa Hammond (2009) Unconscious Revelation

www.modernpots.com Goldmark Gallery Uppingham Rutland LE15 9SQ England