The Australian Ceramics Association has set up a  poll asking potters to define their ceramic practice in terms of how much of their work is production and how much is art. Without getting into the debate about what is art which is sure to follow, the poll reminded me that the distinction potters make between production ware and one-off pieces does need to be reflected in the critical appraisal of a work, its description, and its price on the secondary market.

Potters’ marks can be an important indicator in this regard. Ian Sprague used the Mungeribar Pottery seal for works produced by apprentices and trainees. For production items that he made himself, he added his own seal and allowed qualified apprentices such as Victor Greenaway to do the same. For one-off pieces he used just his own seal. This practice has been widely-adopted in studios employing a team of workers, and individual potters may also use a different mark for production work.

While I’ve been careful to record marks in our online shop, I had been attributing production works directly to the potter.  I spent yesterday updating entries to include the production-line name in the title, where it has a distinct identity. Thus a shallow bowl marked with the Mungeribar Pottery seal, previously attributed directly to Ian Sprague, is now catalogued as ‘Mungeribar Pottery. Shallow bowl ‘. To ensure that the association with the potter is not lost, the description says ‘Impressed on base with the Mungeribar Pottery seal. (Mungeribar Pottery is the name given to Ian Sprague’s production line)’.

This large (23 cm high) spherical stoneware vase with heavily ribbed body, short neck and shino glaze is signed on the base with an impressed ant.  This is the mark of the NSW potter Stephen Fry, who may also sign his works with a painted ‘SF’.

Fry trained at the Salisbury College of Advanced Education in South Australia. He was a resident potter at the Cransley Craft Centre in Campbelltown, NSW, before establishing his own workshop and teaching facilities at Couridjah, NSW. In 1981, approximately 30 people were using the Couridjah Pottery facilities. In 1985, Fry had recently worked in Japan, exchanging a studio and getting a chance to use a Bizen kiln.

This information all comes from Fry’s entries in the 1981 and 1985/1986 potters’ directories. As far as I can see, he has no other presence in the published literature or on the Internet. (It is a little hard to tell, because of the other Stephen Fry.)

When listing items in our online shop, I have been creating entries for each maker. The software I use lets me add a link to more information about the maker. I’ve taken advantage of this feature to link through to my Delicious bookmarks.

For known potters who don’t have much of a web presence, I’ve started to add tag descriptions in delicious, so that I can let users of the online shop know a little bit more about the maker than might be discoverable on the Internet. I can usually find at least one web page which I can tag with the potter’s name, and this then lets me create the tag description.

In the case of Stephen Fry, I must admit to being stumped. I can find no web page or Libraries Australia entry that I can tag with his name.  As a last resort, while it may seem circular, this blog entry can be bookmarked, hence I have created it just for this purpose.

To see how it works, follow this link.

This spherical pourer with lug handle and short cylindrical spout is half-glazed in a silky matt white which enhances the warm-coloured stoneware body. Under the glaze, there is a  band of incised decoration.  The mark on the base is an impressed CM next to an impressed T.  This is Cynthia Mitchell’s mark, with the  T standing for Tasmania, where Mitchell was born in 1930.

Mitchell is mainly a self-taught potter. Her interest in craft was awakened while travelling in Europe after her marriage. On returning home, she met Mylie Peppin and started attending her adult eduction classes. In 1962, she visited Sturt Potteries in Mittagong, and became interested in stoneware, in using local materials and in the philosophies of Bernard Leach and the Anglo-Oriental tradition. In 1963, she set up a studio at her home at Mount Nelson, Hobart, and started making wheel thrown functional stoneware and relief wall plaques, using local dolomite and Coles Bay granite, and exploring the varying effects that could be achieved while only using a small number of glazes.  A visit to China in 1975 with the Australian Potters’ Delegation introduced her to ancient Chinese peasant potteries and forms.

Our pourer is a good example of her work, with its simple form made of local materials, its dolomite glaze and its incised surface treatment.  We have acquired a number of other pieces by Mitchell over the last six years. In fact, we had twenty at the last count.  Prior to that, we had been unaware of her work, which was sold through the Saddlers Court Gallery in Richmond, Tasmania. I assume that, like many potters active in the 1970s and early 1980s, she was able to make a living selling her work locally, and saw no need to exhibit more widely.

Mitchell has entries in the 1974, 1977 and 1981 potters’ directories and is featured in Peta Collins, “Seven Tasmanian potters”, Pottery in Australia, 16/1(1977):10-11.  I haven’t been able to find any more recent information.

This finely ribbed 16 cm high stoneware vase has been wheel-thrown and then altered, with flattened sides and rolled-over neck. The body has been glazed black on the inside and exposed lip and a yellow-brown with oxide inclusions on the outside, then decorated with a paler yellow slip on one side. The mark on the base is an incised ‘CL’ or perhaps ‘CC’ with a flourished dot.

Col Levy uses an incised ‘CL’ as a mark on some pieces, but his C is a cypher crossing the top of the L. This, and the impressed version of his mark, are both illustrated in Geoff Ford’s Encyclopaedia of Australian Potters’ Marks.

We thought for some time that the mark on this vase was another version of Col Levy’s incised mark, but Levy himself says not.  This raises the interesting question of who the maker really is. I’ve gone through the other potters in my database with the initials ‘CL’  and ‘CC’ without finding any obvious candidates.

I publish this blog and its content under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 2.5 Australia Licence. This means that other people can use the content without permission as long as the source is attributed, the use to which it is put is non-commercial, and any adaptation of the work is released under a similar license.

I  occasionally come across text from my blog quoted without attribution in other blogs, discussion forums or eBay listings. It would be nice to be acknowledged, but I try not to mind.  It is good to see information being shared, and I still get a small thrill of anonymous authorship. (Geoff Ford must feel the same.)

Recently I found a  Wikipedia article that had used my content without attribution. Anyone can edit the Wikipedia, so I took it upon myself to add a reference. While I was checking the guidelines on citing sources, I found that a blog is not a reliable source because it is not subject to independent scrutiny.  I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I felt that I had to do something.

The author had included some of my own (reliable) sources as references.  This compounded the injury. I knew that they hadn’t read them!  The rage of a violated author filled me, and then suddenly I saw it all in a different light. I was already de facto a co-author of the article. I would become one de jure. I signed in and added a reference to a key article in Pottery in Australia that had been omitted, leaving a note to explain the addition.

Visitors to the gallery are fascinated by lidded pots and can’t resist looking inside. David and I pretend not to notice the chink of lids as they move around the displays. We know the pleasure of seeing how well the lid fits, and discovering the finish of interior surfaces.

This lidded bowl is meant to be used as a sugar bowl, but it has all the beauty of a lidded box.  The base is a footed hemisphere with a wide slightly altered rim, in which the domed lid is set. The glaze is a dark celadon over an iron oxide base, with delicate wax resist floral decoration. A narrow pale stoneware shelf is exposed when the lid is removed, its colour echoed in the unglazed foot ring.

The blue lines tracing  transitions in the form and linking decorative elements allude to blue and white china, the muted colours to Victorian furnishings. The style is so distinctive that I feel saddened not to know the maker.  There is a mark inscribed on the base under the glaze, and I can just make out the name ‘Marjo’ or similar. I am half-inclined to think that this is the ACT potter Marjo Jones, although her mark in the 1986 directory is given as  ‘MJ’.

The road from Canberra across the treeless Monaro Plains  and down Brown Mountain opens into a green valley edged with blue mountains and dotted with black and white cows.  This winter has been so dry that the paddocks were as brown as we had seen them until a few weeks ago, when the weather finally broke. Our umbrella, which I placed in this vase as one of my first actions on moving into our new house, had spent the entire winter there, and we were very pleased to have to use it on our weekly shopping trip to Bega.

The vase, at 48 cm high, makes an excellent umbrella stand.  It is glazed in graduated earth and sky colours with deeply scored tree-of-life decoration. The base is incised  ‘J Jackman’ but we knew nothing else about the maker when we acquired it, and could only attribute it to ‘unknown’  (umbrella not included) when we opened the gallery.

A fellow collector has just got in touch to let us know that our umbrella stand was made by the Geelong potter Alfred John Jackman (1911-2006).  He says:

Alfred John Jackman affectionately known as Jack was a Bombadier navigator in world war 2 and a primary school teacher who died in 2006 at the age of 95. He came to Geelong from Melbourne in 1957 and taught at Norlane and Corio South primary schools.  When his son Bill began making pottery in 1962 Jack joined in and according to Bill “took to it like a duck to water”.

He loved to experiment with all types of glazes, once even adding chick peas for that special effect . The peas would explode under the heat (but stink the house out). He enjoyed adding to his hand thrown pieces. He did slab type square pottery late in his career and also produced mozaic sculptures. His work sold at many galleries. The “Salt” gallery in Queenscliff, “Eagles nest” at Airys Inlet and the Ryrie street Gallery in Geelong. His work was popular due its quirkiness and variation of glazes.

He gave pottery away after a 30 year career in 1992 when his back was too sore to carry his work to the kiln. He then concentrated on his painting career where he specialised in oil paints. His pieces are signed “Jackman”, “J.Jackman” or “Jack Jackman” depending on how he felt that particular day. Pieces not considered worthy for the gallery were often donated to charities.

His son Bill has also produced pottery signed “Jackman” or “Bill Jackman”.

It turns out that we also have a number of pieces made by Bill Jackman.  Although both sometimes incised their marks, and sometimes used a paint brush, the two signatures can be  told apart by the way the letter K is written, with Bill using a lower case, and Jack an upper case form.  More good news is that, when we sell our Jack Jackman umbrella stand, we have another large vase made by Bill that we can use instead.

This handbuilt earthenware  vessel with triangular profile is actually a ten-sided prism. It is 27 cm high (34 with the  flat four-sided stopper, which echoes the irregular shape and angles in reverse).  The form is that of a decanter but I am calling it a vessel as it would not lend itself easily to functional use.

The stained and brushwork decoration, in shades of pale brown, orange and turquoise travels up the body and has an organic feel – we thought snakeskin at first, but this morning the colours suggest mangroves in a river flood plain to me.  This may be right, as the seller said that it had been bought from a gallery in Buderim, Queensland, in 1987.

The incised mark on the base is a V inside an open circle – ‘CV’ or ‘VC’. When researching the mark, I thought that I had an immediate hit with Cheryl Vidulich, a Queensland potter who features in the Pottery in Australia special Queensland edition (February 1986, volume 25, no. 1, p. 69). In 1986, she was based at Lushan Pottery, Proserpine in North Queensland. However, at that time, she was interested in chattering on thrown vessels, and in exploring shino glazes. I haven’t found any evidence yet that she was also making handbuilt pieces in the style of this vessel.

A number of potters have the initials ‘VC’ but I could not find any with a Queeensland connection.

Postscript

Johanna DeMaine suggests that this may be the work of the Sunshine Coast potter Val Charles.

We have been gallery owners for three weeks now, and the tenor of our lives has changed in subtle ways. On the days we are open, we both still take a leisurely breakfast together, sipping coffee and doing crosswords. At about 9.30 am, David washes up and tidies things away, while I drive up to the highway with the sandwich board to let visitors know where we are. Then we settle down to our various interests, with half an ear cocked to the sound of a car turning into the driveway.

It is early in the season and, so far, we have been receiving only a few visitors each day, but our lives are being enriched by new acquaintances. We are getting to know our neighbours and their weekend visitors. Friends have driven down from Canberra. Several potters have already called in, and we hope to see more as word-of-mouth spreads.

I am happy to report that the gallery seems to be a hit as a destination. The house itself is an attraction, with its large, light-filled spaces, and its views of the mountains and the trees lining the river. For those not really interested in pottery, there is still pleasure to be had in admiring our ‘grand design’, touring the displays and talking about things in general. Those really interested in the collection linger to explore our back rooms, share knowledge and reminisce.

We have made a few sales from the gallery but it is probably a good thing that we are not wholly dependent on visitors to the gallery to build up our capital for new purchases.  There are now over 200 pieces listed in our online shop, and we are starting to sell online, and to make trips to the Post Office with carefully packaged items.

In both the gallery and the online shop, we aim to be very clear about the condition of items.  After a few false starts, we have learned not to trust our database records, and to inspect each item very carefully before listing it. This handsome Eric Juckert jug, described as in good condition when we bought it on eBay in 2005, turned out to have a repair under the rim near the handle, and had to be described and priced accordingly.

One might think that undeclared damage is one of the risks of buying online, but in practice, there are protections on eBay if an item arrives ‘not as described’. By contrast, auction houses generally sell on an ‘as is’ basis, leaving the onus on buyers to inspect lots at presale viewings. This can mean some unexpected surprises for absentee bidders.

As things change hands, just as the memory of the maker may be lost, so too may be the memory of a repair, and I don’t think the seller of the Juckert jug was aware that it had been damaged. It is human nature to fix things, and to do as good a job as possible.  We bought the Garry Bish vase at the head of this entry at an exhibition at Narek Galleries in the late 1980s. It hadn’t been long in our collection before one of us knocked it over and broke the side-piece off at the neck. Of course we glued it back on, with no intention to deceive. While it stays in our collection we will continue to value it as if it were whole, but it will have to be remaindered if it is ever put up for sale.

This large vessel of flattened spherical shape with copper red glaze made by David Oswald has been in our collection since we bought it at Beaver Galleries in the early 1990s. The curved bamboo handle, the unglazed, carved panel on the front in its gilded frame, and the gilded and carved decoration of the handle supports and central opening lend it a ceremonial, oriental feel.  At 19 cm high (26 with the handle) and 33 cm in diameter, it holds sway in any room in which it is displayed.

David Oswald is a Brisbane-based potter from Cairns, Northern Queensland, who has been working as a ceramist for many years. In the 1990s, he and Ted Secombe formed a company to market their works to corporations, hotel chains and resorts. This venture is described in Pottery in Australia, 36/1:13-15. The highly finished base with its classy ‘OZ’ seal and impressed number reflect this marketing approach.

In spite of this, the quality of his work, and the number of pieces that must now grace boardrooms and hotel foyers in Australia and overseas, he has a surprisingly low profile in the print media and on the Internet. He maintained a website from 1999-2003 but it has been taken down now.   Toward the end of that time,  he was working eight months of the year as a ceramic artist and had become involved in property development projects and architectural glass making ( Gold Coast Bulletin (1 March 2003 and 24 April 2004).