Walter Keeler - Treasures of the Everyday

Walter Keeler Treasures of the Everyday

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Walter Keeler

Walter Keeler Treasures of the Everyday

goldmark 2017

Walter Keeler Function and ornament. Tradition and innovation. Walter Keeler continues a four-decade balancing act, an exploration of clay as a vehicle for – what he has described as – ‘the useful bound up with the intellect and the imagination’.

Function is all around. Mugs, jugs, teapots, dishes, vases, everything is a vessel made for hand and table. It is a family of function, each one related to the next and yet unique. In a gathering of Keeler’s work, look around and you’ll see objects that tilt, nod, bow, shift, scuttle and shimmy. Anthropomorphic in their stance, playful throughout building to moments of civilised madness.

But that performance is shaped by ceramic history. The young Keeler would uncover shards from the sands of the Thames and visit museums to feed his curiosity. Such dialogue between the practice of the past and the present has carried through the decades, growing not only his knowledge of what went before but his continuing connection to it.

Take as one example Keeler’s signature branch-like supports, somehow both organic and mechanical in their aesthetic. ‘The idea initiates with crabstock handles and the 19th century,’ he explains. ‘They looked like gnarly bits of tree branch, as though

112. Medium Extruded Jug with Branched Handle Yellow polychrome 31 x 22 cm

they’d been chopped off. Very odd, a strange thing to do – I enjoyed that. That entire period, the middle to late 18th century – press moulding and extruding alongside throwing and turning.

All these things were being brought together so not only did you have eclecticism in technique but you also had it in terms of ideas. The world was opening up. It appealed to me. That led to some quite restrained little sprigs and then like the 18th century potters, I got a bit carried away.’

That combination of ‘the useful bound up with the intellect and the imagination’ is a heady mix, both now and then. Potters developed the skills and processes to transform clay into anything from bamboo to cauliflowers capitalising on the material’s chameleon qualities. Those inspirations still look playful centuries later and Keeler renews and reinterprets them to create his own distinctive work.

Once you start looking, you see that Keeler is a magpie, collecting historic elements that he reworks and remakes into his own contemporary object language. Take his surfaces, both the pock-marked salt glaze and Whieldon glazes that run and blur are synonymous with ceramics in 18th century Britain. When Keeler was first intrigued by these pottery traditions in the late ’60s it was the road less travelled as the majority of budding potters looked east to Bernard Leach’s Oriental traditions.

To characterise Keeler’s work solely within the frame of historical reference does it an injustice. There is intense innovation

139. Round Thorn Teapot Green polychrome 13 x 22 cm

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to be found in the form and combination of elements: a foot, body, handle, lid and spout, depending on its function. Keeler reshuffles his deck each time, creating endless possibilities, endless contemporary expressions.

Within these elements there are different construction methods, throwing, press-moulding, lathe-turning and extruding.

It is perhaps extrusion that he has made one of his most recognisable processes. Hollow cylindrical handles are generous, tubular, his monumental jugs are the most extreme extrusions, with spouts often part of the body rather than newly added. Their forms sweep strongly, bowing as though characters in the table’s ritual.

Keeler has talked of a childhood memory reading a shard of salt-glazed pottery he found as a boy. ‘I could see exactly how the potter’s thumbnail had created grooves down the handles, determining its shape. I used this technique in some of my early dishes,’ he recalled. Looking at his work now, it is perhaps elusive in this regard, a little unforthcoming. In an age when the handmade has become almost fetishised, an aspect to be demonstrated rather than the founding principle of making things well, Keeler’s dedication to perfection in production – the results of actions repeated over decades in his Penallt studio in Monmouth – is refreshing. The precision of each connection and decorative element, the formal suggestions of tin cans and oil canisters, masking the explicit evidence of a skilled hand.

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Large Extruded Jugs Black stain. Saltglaze 49 x 31 cm

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But spend time with a mug or a dish, move it through your fingers, and it begins to reveal its making. The signs of construction become legible in the tracings of an extrusion or the gathering of glaze in a nook. On inkwash pieces in particular the evenness of the surface reveals these marks left underneath.

Viewed as a balancing act between restraint and exuberance, tradition and innovation, function and ornament, one sees a tantalising range in one body of work; an inkwash mug, all sober, solid and quiet, sits next to a dish exploding with branches, immoderate and sensational. And yet function is always the foundation, the reason for being. These are not props of some performance but tools of the domestic rituals that constitute our daily lives. They are treasures of the everyday.

Teleri Lloyd-Jones is a writer specialising in contemporary craft and design.

82. Flailed Hedge Green polychrome 22 x 44 cm

141. Square Extruded Teapot Blue green glaze 19 x 23 cm

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94. Medium Pedestal Bowl with Extruded Handles Blue green glaze 17 x 21 cm

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147. Deco Teapot Inkwash 24 x 27 cm

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77. Mug with Two Part Handle Black stain. Saltglaze 9 x 13 cm

59. Slab Top Teapot Black stain. Saltglaze 17 x 22 cm

125. Teapot with Extruded Crest Handle Blue green glaze 20 x 20 cm

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12. Large Serpentine Extruded Jar Black stain. Saltglaze 43 x 18 cm

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52. Teapot with Oval Extruded Spout & Handle Black stain. Saltglaze 16 x 21 cm

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118 & 119. Very Small Extruded Jugs with Thorn Handles Grey and green polychrome 18 x 15 & 21 x 15 cm

95. Dish on Branched Legs Blue polychrome 22 x 31 cm

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41. Bowl on Extruded Pedestal Black stain. Saltglaze 37 x 24 cm

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121. Contorted Branch Teapot Yellow polychrome 22 x 23 cm

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47. Medium Bowl with Extruded Handle Black stain. Saltglaze 21 x 37 cm

Pseudo Engine Turned Bowl Inkwash

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Pseudo Engine Turned Jug Inkwash

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127. Teapot with Fruit Lid Cream 18 x 21 cm

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His work has a precision and crispness that owes just as much to the life and beauty of good factory wares as to the spirit of the studio.

David Whiting, 2017

55. Extruded Teapot with Crest Handle Black stain. Saltglaze 19.5 x 19 cm

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131. Teapot with Telescope Spout Green polychrome 18 x 22.5 cm

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54. Teapot with Drop in Lid Black stain. Saltglaze 17.5 x 20.5 cm

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Biography 1942 Born London 1958-63 NDD Pottery, Harrow School of Art 1994-2002 Professor of Ceramics UWE Bristol

Selected Exhibitions 1989 Contemporary Applied Arts, London, solo 1991 Colours of Earth, The British Council, Touring India 1993 Leeds City Art Gallery, solo 1995 Rufford Craft Centre, solo with retrospective 1998 Galerie Marianne Heller, Heidelberg, solo 1999 Contemporary Applied Arts, London, solo 2000 Candover Gallery, Hampshire, solo 2001 Jerwood Shortlist Exhibition, Crafts Council Gallery, London 2002 Contemporary Ceramics, London, solo 2004-06 Solo exhibition, with retrospective and book, touring UK, Leicester City Gallery & The Gallery Ruthin Craft Centre collaboration 2004 National Eisteddfod, exhibition and Gold Medal winner, Newport 2005 Functional Form Now, Galerie Besson, London 2005-07 Table Manners, Crafts Council touring exhibition 2006 To Hold, Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin (catalogue) 2006 Pots for Flowers, solo, Gallery Nine, Bath 2007 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, solo 2007 Welsh Artist of the Year, presentation St David’s Hall, Cardiff 2007 Candover Gallery, Alresford, Hants. Solo 2008 Arts Council of Wales, Creative Wales Major Award, to enable time for creative development 2008 Walter Keeler, An Artist’s Selection, Glyn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea 2008 Gallery at Bevere, Worcester, Walter Keeler & Takashi Yasuda 2009 Age of Experience, The Ruthin Craft Centre Galleries (catalogue) 2009 Welsh Table, The Ruthin Craft Centre Galleries (catalogue)

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2009 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2011 2011 2011 2012 2012

2012 2012 2012 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013

Tablewares – An International Collection, Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney, Australia Permanent installation of working processes display, Ceramics Study Galleries, Victoria & Albert Museum, London Studio, The Rithin Craft Centre Galleries (catalogue) Ceramics Ireland International Festival, exhibition and workshop Kilkenny/Thomastown Masterclass with Ryoji Koie, Ceramics department Victoria & Albert Museum, London Demonstration and lecture, Tredeger House, Newport Through Fifty, Contemporary Ceramics Centre, London Functional Ceramics, mixed exhibition, Oxford Ceramics at Oxford Town Hall Collect, with Ruthin Craft Centre Gallery at Saatchi Gallery, London Exhibition (February till March) Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana Workshops and lectures (March into April) at: Utah State University, Salt Lake City; Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana State University, Boseman; The Archie Bray Foundation, Montana, Pottery North West, Seattle, Washington State, NCECA conference Seattle, WA; Lecture and demonstration, Saltspring Potters, Saltspring Island BC. Workshop & lecture at Vancouver Museum of Anthropology SOFA, New York, with Rithin Craft Centre and Gallery Collect, with Ruthin Craft Centre Gallery at Saatchi Gallery, London Solo exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Group exhibition, Corvi Mora Gallery, London Group exhibition, Galerie Helene Aziza, Paris Workshop, Anglian Potter’s Association, Norfolk Workshops, Cork College of Art, Ceramic Skill Centre, Thomastown, Irish Republic Solo exhibition Oxford Ceramics Gallery, lecture and demonstration at Ashmolean Museum Lifetime Achievement Award, International Ceramics Festival, Aberystwyth

Vase with Tentacles Inkwash

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130. Teapot with Telescope Spout Inkwash 16 x 20.5 cm

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2014 2014 2015 2015 2015 2015 2016 2016 2017 2017

Group exhibition, Corvi-Mora Gallery, London Solo exhibition and demonstration, Ruthin Craft Centre, Denbighshire Solo exhibition Contemporary Ceramics Gallery, London Demonstration to coincide with CPA show above, Morley College, London Talk, Innovations in Ceramic Art, Cambridge Lecture, Centre of Ceramic Art, York Solo exhibition, Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool (review Crafts magazine) Demonstration, Made by Hand event, City Hall Cardiff Collect, with Ruthin Craft Centre Gallery at Saatchi Gallery, London Solo Exhibition, Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland (catalogue & video)

Public Collections Victoria & Albert Museum, London The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge The Crafts Council Collection The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff Stoke-on-Trent City Museum MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) American Craft Museum, New York Los Angeles Museum of Art Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo National Museum of Sweden Sèvres Museum of Ceramics, France Musée Ariana, Geneva The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

99. Pseudo Engine Turned Vase Inkwash 19 x 9.5 cm

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Extruded Jugs with Branched Handles Green polychrome

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Text: © Teleri Lloyd-Jones, 2017 Photographs: © Jay Goldmark & Vicki Uttley Design: Goldmark / Porter / Uttley ISBN 978-1-909167-48-3 Goldmark, Uppingham Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com

Walter Keeler continues a four-decade balancing act, an exploration of clay as a vehicle for – what he has described as – ‘the useful bound up with the intellect and the imagination’.

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