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Qotw: Are There More Male Or Female "well Known" Potters?


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Hi my friends, summer is almost over here in Switzerland. Already cold winds and lots of rain....

 

I was chatting with another potter the other day via email and a great QOTW came up. Here goes what the fellow potter asked:

 

 

QOTW: "Most of the potters on this forum and on similar websites everywhere else seem to be female.  Yet, the majority of "well known" potters seem to be male. Is that true, or just my own interpretation? 

If true, what is the cause"?

 

Something to think about in earnest.... What is your opinion?

 

Happy week to all of you!

 

Evelyne

 

 

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I think more males dedicate 100% of their life to pottery. Or nearly 0%

Women are much smarter and more frequently give a smaller percentage and enjoy it.

 

Everyone who spends 10,000's of hours making pottery will achieve some level of recognition but more men sacrifice everything to do that. (Such fools we are, sigh)

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I read the QQW earlier today, had to chew on it for a bit. Historically speaking, perhaps that observation is true. However, Adelaide Robineau was the Godmother of the American Pottery movement at the turn of the 20th century. She alone worked to bring Taxtile Doat from Limoge, France to St. Louis, Mo. to start the University Pottery in 1907. Doat is considered the godfather of modern crystalline glaze. Maria Longworth Storer founded the Rookwood Pottery. It also was started at the turn of the 20th century, and is still considered one of largest pottery production facility today. (even though it went defunct before WW2). The Rookwood Pottery had a catalog of over 250,000 viable glazes: many of which are being used today. Storer had just as much to do with modern glaze chemistry as any "well known" man.

 

Beyond that, I have never considered intelligence, creativity, or artisan-ship to be gender specific qualities. I have viewed a great number of galleries since coming here in Dec. 2015. I have seen no difference between male or female when it comes to craft, form, or technique. Most recently, Marcia Selsor posted a picture of her Heron tile. In my considered opinion: it is a museum quality piece. I have seen gallery quality pieces from males and females alike in my viewing. Fara Shimbo, Julie Brookes, and Diane Creber are considered in the top of the league in crystalline glaze. Yet, I could also say that Jose (Marsical) in Paris France doing equally stunning work in crystalline glaze. So my perception is, that males dominating the pottery field is only a perception.

 

Nerd < male > sexist pig!!!

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I stopped for a moment to reflect on females that were well known. Without resorting to Google or picking up a book, plenty of names came tumbling to mind. M.C. Richard, Susan Peterson, Janet Mansfield, Monica Young, Lucie Rie, Vivika Heino, Toshiko Takaesu, Karen Karnes, Beatrice Wood, for example. Not to mention scores of more contemporary female artists.

 

While I will agree that the majority of students in my credit classes and in community art centers were female, the individuals that had a great impact on what I call modern ceramics seem to be well represented by women.

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I feel its about an even split historically in simi modern times-meaning 40's to now.

I do not think as far as the new cone 6 craze and art centers replacing the old slip cast shops of yesteryear its anywhere even-women out number men by a long shot.

But for well known potters I think to myself its not a gender thing. Foxden summed it up well I thought. I even met a few she mentioned .I use one of Vivika's glazes every week almost.

The public may have a different mind set on this than us potters.

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I read the QQW earlier today, had to chew on it for a bit. Historically speaking, perhaps that observation is true. However, Adelaide Robineau was the Godmother of the American Pottery movement at the turn of the 20th century. She alone worked to bring Taxtile Doat from Limoge, France to St. Louis, Mo. to start the University Pottery in 1907. Doat is considered the godfather of modern crystalline glaze. Maria Longworth Storer founded the Rookwood Pottery. It also was started at the turn of the 20th century, and is still considered one of largest pottery production facility today. (even though it went defunct before WW2). The Rookwood Pottery had a catalog of over 250,000 viable glazes: many of which are being used today. Storer had just as much to do with modern glaze chemistry as any "well known" man.

 

Beyond that, I have never considered intelligence, creativity, or artisan-ship to be gender specific qualities. I have viewed a great number of galleries since coming here in Dec. 2015. I have seen no difference between male or female when it comes to craft, form, or technique. Most recently, Marcia Selsor posted a picture of her Heron tile. In my considered opinion: it is a museum quality piece. I have seen gallery quality pieces from males and females alike in my viewing. Fara Shimbo, Julie Brookes, and Diane Creber are considered in the top of the league in crystalline glaze. Yet, I could also say that Jose (Marsical) in Paris France doing equally stunning work in crystalline glaze. So my perception is, that males dominating the pottery field is only a perception.

 

Nerd < male > sexist pig!!!

Mary MacLaughln was way before Adelaide Robineau. She trailblazed firing her own pieces in 1870s and won awards at the Centennial.

Pewabic Pottery and ND School of Mines has women leading their developments. The Saturday Night Girls developed Grueby Pottery.

Adelaide Robineau founded the Keramos Magazine and the Syracuse (NY) national in 20s. when she moved back to NY.

The women contemporaries I can think of are: Mary Frank, Patti Warashino, Tip Toland, Beth Cavener, Ayumie Horie, Karen Karnes , Clary Illy, Tasheko Takeazu, Vivika and Otto Heino, Beatrice Wood, Betty Woodman, Viola Frey, Linda Arbuckle, 

 

I know that in the 80s there was a presentation at NCECA of "on the cover; between the sheets" at NCECA which documented more Men on the cover of CM  and the women were between the sheets.

 

 

Marcia

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Adelaide Robineau founded the Keramos Magazine and the Syracuse (NY) national in 20s. when she moved back to NY.

Marcia:

 

When I first read some early ceramic history in Peter Issley's book of crystalline glazes several years back: I did some research on these early arrivals. If Leach was the godfather of studio pottery, then Storer was the godmother of production pottery in the States. I had forgotten that Robineau started what was probably the first clay arts magazine in the States as well. Their pieces and history are both in museums out on the East Coast: I have visited both. The University Pottery was started to support the Women;s Suffrage movement back in 1907: Robineau was instrumental in that: along with prominent businessmen from St. Louis (my hometown). Auggie Busch (beer) being chief among them. Had the pleasure of touring that pottery, which is now called University Museum: connected to St. Louis Museum of History. Taxtile Doat has several pieces on display there: still look good for being over 100 years old. tried for several years to get the director to do a 100 year anniversy (closed 1915) to display modern versions of Doats crystalline glaze: they would not bite.

I admire these people moreso than modern wizards of clay, because they had no setters, no controllers, and no glaze calculators. I recall reading accounts of when Doat fired a large two story bottle kiln: which took two days to load, two days to fire, and up to three days to cool. Men would man 24 hour shifts for up to two day: just to complete a firing cycle. How did Doat know the minerals and firing cycle to produce the first crystalline pieces? How did Marie Storer know how to formulate her famous "Tigers Eye" glaze? There were no foot pedals to control wheel speed: how did they make such huge vases? Yes, there are many legends of clay living among us now: but the pioneers who plowed the road ahead of us have come and gone. Some appreciate history, some do not.

>Side note: I still think your Heron piece belongs in a museum.

Nerd

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I will add my own learning was 99% from men potters in late 60's 70's and 80's. Pati Warishima did help wreak havoc on my house at a clay party in the 70's but was  not an influence much clay wise. She was a party animal for sure.Some of my ceramic cohorts went to Washington under her.Like my roommate at the time.

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When I think of living well known potters, at least 80% are male. I don't feel this is because men are more gifted potters or the only ones capable of calculating glaze recipes or throwing big pots. I have seen too much truly incredible work done all around to say anything as silly as that. 

 

I agree with MatthewV in many ways. Men are more likely to focus intensely on work while women are more divided between work and personal life, mostly I think when they have children. I was just thinking about this a few minutes ago, ironically. I spend less than 20 hours/week in the studio because the rest of my would-be-working time I'm seeing to the needs of my family. If my son is sick or there is any other family crisis, my working time disappears. This makes sense in many ways since it's what's kept our family going for the past six years. Still, I definitely get frustrated sometimes. 

 

I know that if I had found pottery before I was a mom I would have thrown myself into it in a completely different way. 

 

I think more males dedicate 100% of their life to pottery. Or nearly 0%

Women are much smarter and more frequently give a smaller percentage and enjoy it.

 

Everyone who spends 10,000's of hours making pottery will achieve some level of recognition but more men sacrifice everything to do that. (Such fools we are, sigh)

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Adelaide Robineau founded the Keramos Magazine and the Syracuse (NY) national in 20s. when she moved back to NY.

Marcia:

 

When I first read some early ceramic history in Peter Issley's book of crystalline glazes several years back: I did some research on these early arrivals. If Leach was the godfather of studio pottery, then Storer was the godmother of production pottery in the States. I had forgotten that Robineau started what was probably the first clay arts magazine in the States as well. Their pieces and history are both in museums out on the East Coast: I have visited both. The University Pottery was started to support the Women;s Suffrage movement back in 1907: Robineau was instrumental in that: along with prominent businessmen from St. Louis (my hometown). Auggie Busch (beer) being chief among them. Had the pleasure of touring that pottery, which is now called University Museum: connected to St. Louis Museum of History. Taxtile Doat has several pieces on display there: still look good for being over 100 years old. tried for several years to get the director to do a 100 year anniversy (closed 1915) to display modern versions of Doats crystalline glaze: they would not bite.

I admire these people moreso than modern wizards of clay, because they had no setters, no controllers, and no glaze calculators. I recall reading accounts of when Doat fired a large two story bottle kiln: which took two days to load, two days to fire, and up to three days to cool. Men would man 24 hour shifts for up to two day: just to complete a firing cycle. How did Doat know the minerals and firing cycle to produce the first crystalline pieces? How did Marie Storer know how to formulate her famous "Tigers Eye" glaze? There were no foot pedals to control wheel speed: how did they make such huge vases? Yes, there are many legends of clay living among us now: but the pioneers who plowed the road ahead of us have come and gone. Some appreciate history, some do not.

>Side note: I still think your Heron piece belongs in a museum.

Nerd

 

Mary McLaughlin was Mary Storer's biggest competitor. She was much more of a character and one of the first "ladies" to fire her own work.

 

http://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Mary%20Louise%20McLaughlin/105223/Mary%20Louise%20McLaughlin.aspx

I admire those historical figures as well. I attended a great lecture by two art historians on these early women pioneers either at NCECA or at the Smithsonian/Renwick.. These women  were more of the era about 40 years prior to the suffragettes and Robineau.

 

 

Marcia

 

 

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Marcia:

 

 

In 1877 she figured out how to paint the porcelain under the glaze, and consequently became the first artist in the United States to implement the underglaze technique.

So those employing this technique, now know who created the process: Mary McLaughlin...... a girl!!

 

Marcia, it was also noted that Storer gave a presentation at the art school she was attending. She was inspired by a Haviland design?  wow.. lofty goals.

 

Nerd

 

"McLaughin Underglaze Technique".....give honor to whom honor is due.

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When we got sorted into our majors in our second year of college in 1996, my class consisted of 18 women and one man. My class was the most extreme ratio, but there were only ever a handful of guys in an overwhelmingly female student base.

 

My college's faculty offers year teaching position to a new clay artist every year that was meant to expose students to as much as possible. They alternated at the time between a potter one year, and a sculptor the next. That year's teacher was a wood-firing potter, and the first class we had with him that year was slip casting, a technique he used in his own work. The plaster room was the size of a closet, and all of us were jammed in there like sardines. This man looked around the room, confused, once we were all assembled, and asked "Is this...all of you?" He very clearly meant, "where are the rest of the boys?" It was an awkward moment, until someone cracked a joke about how many more people we could jam into this ridiculous room, and we all got on with the class. This teacher then proceeded over the year to focus all of his extensive mentorship efforts onto the one male student (much to this student's eventual discomfort), while the rest of us got interactions during class time only. This instructor seemed frustrated with us as a group, but never *quite* did anything, or said anything outright wrong. But he had a VERY clear bias.

 

Our faculty head at the time was female, but she retired at the end of that year to spend more time with her young son, amidst quiet eye rolling, and thoughts of "well, there goes her career." The core faculty and the tech (3 members) were all male after that. There was one female instructor that taught first year clay elective, and some extensions classes. Over the next 4 years the sessional artist position was evenly split between the genders. None of the other teachers were ever so overt in their biases, and they all varied in their levels of support (as individuals do), but the subtle message was, "don't expect to have kids and be a "real" artist. You can only do one of those jobs well."

 

Jumping out of academia and into the Real World 20 years later, things seem to play out a bit differently. A quick scan this morning of a couple of the major galleries in Canada that deal with ceramic artists does indeed show a roughly 2:1 split in gallery representation, favouring the ladies. Canadians in general tend not to get the critical acclaim that Americans do, unless they have some kind of ties to the US, but I do notice that the girls are heavily represented in the up-and-coming, doing neat and interesting things on the workshop/residency circuit. They even manage to get onto magazine covers sometimes. But looking at the female to male student ratio, and comparing that to the male to female ratio amongst established and well known artists, there should be hardly any guys in that latter group at all, ASSUMING A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD.

 

People in mentorship roles tend to give mentorship and recommendations to people they identify with, or have some kind of shared experience with. Someone they don't have to stretch too hard to understand. When the mentors are white and male, that means the guys get picked for the team first, and subsequently have statistically better chances at success.

 

Our field is still awfully damn white, too.

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That is a really great analysis, Diesel. When I first started teaching in Montana, all the make ceramics students refused to enroll in my classes the first semester . Two female students and myself re-built two gas kilns before the semester even started. The 2 students just dropped in to meet me. We had a great Christmas sale. Spring Semester, the male. students were back. I was mentored by Francis Senska, a retired ceramics teacher from Bozeman who happened to be the theater of Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos. Good thing Rudy and Pete didn't refuse to take classes from a woman. It is good that we get over our biases.

 

Marcia

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In the field of academia the trends on gender may be changing

But on the art show circuit of those making a living selling pots its been a male dominated area and is just starting to shift some ,with more women entering the field the past decade.

I saw some new faces in ceramics at my large art show last week and they where mostly women.

more and more us old timers are fading out and no new blood is entering the field to replace us but seeing a few newbies in clay is a great thing.

 

There is a tend afoot that kids of today do not hike or backpack or scuba dive as much as other past generations-the internet connection is slow or non existent out there.

REI is starting a campaign to get younger folks back outdoors and I'm not talking about Pokiman to get them out.

I spoke to a dive shop owner on Widbey Island who said kids are just not in the classes anymore

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I will add my own learning was 99% from men potters in late 60's 70's and 80's. Pati Warishima did help wreak havoc on my house at a clay party in the 70's but was  not an influence much clay wise. She was a party animal for sure.Some of my ceramic cohorts went to Washington under her.Like my roommate at the time.

I think she still is a party animal. Had her out to Montana as part of a visiting artists series in the early 90s. Had a nice chat with her at one of the Bray's annual Brick Bashes a couple of years ago. We had a good times. Always loved her. She was the final speaker at NCECA Supermud at Penn State in 78 or 79. There were 2300 in the audience. She was hilarious when she talked about her life's experiences. Great sense of humor.

Marcia

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Generally speaking, and of course there is a full bell curve of types, men are more hard wired to be providers,  while women tend to be caregivers.  I do think men are more likely to approach ceramics as a career for this reason.  More men than women are renowned chefs, for example, and more examples can be cited in a variety of fields.

 

Just as an aside, back in the 70's when I was in the military I recall that a supervisor apologized to me that he couldn't send me to an advanced training course because there were no female acommodations...and I just accepted that decision.  We have come a long way since then...and so have I.

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Guest JBaymore

Difficult question to answer with any absolute certainty as phrased.  How exactly do you define and measure that?

 

The NHIA ceramics faculty for a LONG while used to be 2 females (Maureen Mills - department chair, and Karen Orsillo) and two males (Chris Archer and John Baymore).  A couple of years ago Chris left the BFA program to take over the Director of Community Education position that opened up (he still teaches in the CE program a bit).  That leaves 2 females and one male now as the core faculty.... plus we occasionally bring in someone to teach one class when the need arises every other semester....... usually a section or two of Intro to Ceramics.  100% of the time that person has been a female ...either Sarah Burns or Theresa Taylor. 

 

Over the years I've been there (long time) our degree student makeup has probably been about 80% female on the average.  (I don't have the stats to look at here.)  I'd say there is a shift happening of late,......... and it is toward more females.  In the CE (Community Education) portion of the ceramics program, there are a larger percentage of males..... but probably no more than 25-30% or so.  Faculty there in that program is also mostly female (about 6 out of 8).

 

Sexism is alive and well in America....so one would expect that it would carry over a bit into all facets of American society.  That being said... it is hard to identify who is considered "famous" to really look at this question objectively.  It is a nebulous term and subject to just about any individual's personal interpretation.  Overall... I'd say that yes, men get more "recognition" in the ceramic art field than women......... simply because they are men. 

 

One pairing I find interesting to potentially look at in this kind of regard is Tom and Elaine Coleman.  Elaine is at least as good a potter as Tom is, (I think she's better)..... but just about all you ever hear about is Tom. 

 

Over my many years being in Japan working... I've seen a definite improvement in the very overt sexism that female Japanese potters have been subject to.  They are getting way more opportunities and recognition now.  BUT... it is still awful.  At least it is improving. 

 

best,

 

................john

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I love Elaine's carving. I have for years. I read Tom's book early on...The Mud Pie Dilemma. His glazing is fantastic. Where I taught in Billings, we had 60% nontraditional female students. My last semester I had one get-ed class with 19 women and 1 man- Mark Anthony. I think he liked it. They would show up to the Annex at 7:30 for an 8:00 class when -20.. Since I opened the building I told them I could be there as early as they wanted and have the coffee ready. I started coming in at 7 and they'd be there.

One of my favorite memories from teaching. 

The best student I ever had was a Japanese young woman who came to Rocky Mountain College in Billings and then transferred to Montana State Univ. Billings. Still friends.

Marcia

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Guest JBaymore

The best student I ever had was a Japanese young woman who came to Rocky Mountain College in Billings and then transferred to Montana State Univ. Billings. Still friends.

 

One of our best NHIA under-grad grads ever was a Japanese woman, Chifumi Oi.  She came speaking almost no English (how she passed the TOEFL is anyone's guess).  Good thing I spoke some Japanese.  Amazing student and artist.  Incredible work ethic.  She had an undergrad degree in textiles in Japan before joining us.  Brought that influence to her hand-built claywork.  Went on to get her Masters in clay at RISD.  She's back in Okinawa now.  Still friends.  We've met up when I've been in Japan a couple of times.

 

best,

 

...............john

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My answer has nothing to do with famous potters, but with the balance of male and female... Just a few observations over the past say 4 years:

 

  • workshop at La Meridiana = 9 women, no men
  • 2 On Centre courses, also La Meridiana = majority women, only 1-2 men
  • presentation of the Rancho School at NCECA = all girls, no boys
  • workshop with Antoinette Badenhorst in Switzerland = 8 women, 1 man
  • dito around Europe = majority women, only 1-2, or no men
  • applications for a swissceramics contest (exhibition in Paris!) = 16 women, 1 man

etc.

 

How, if only women better themselves and take classes, workshops etc. can it be, that more men win contests and are in general more famous as ceramists? Does that mean workshops, classes etc are for socializing, but not exactly for learning? Hmmmm... (Teachers on the forum: it's just a question! Don't hit the messenger....)

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  • 4 weeks later...

"I know that if I had found pottery before I was a mom I would have thrown myself into it in a completely different way."

 

Haha - thrown.

 

In my classes there is an equal mix of guys and girls, the girls tend to make less things and spend more time on each one, the guys tend to make several things with less time on each.

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