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What Has Been The Most Significant Pottery Exhibition That Impressed You Forever?


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Have you ever seen a ceramics show that has stayed vividly in your mind...or special pieces from it the have struck a chord with you?

 

I saw the Recent Discoveries in China at the Smithsonian in 1974 and a small spittoon with a sensuous celedon glaze was my favorite piece from the show.

 

Marcia

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Marsha, perhaps this isn't what you meant, but I had the opportunity to visit Pompeii and the museum at Naples and I was completely gobstruck!  At Pompeii it was the sheer volume of pots.   I realized how important pottery was at that time in history.  I can still see in my minds eye the row after row after row of pots that had been unearthed.....and they could have still been put into use!   Tall elegant shapes, most without decoration, utilitarian, beautiful!

 

Roberta

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I love so much of the ceramics in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I enjoy looking at the various forms which are the same ones we make today. The celadons of the Asian pottery are stunning.

 

What I find most moving is the pottery from the Egyptian tombs. It seems incredible to be that close to ancient pottery, some of it nearly 6000 years old. There is a perky little bowl on two human feet that look ready to walk away. I think about the potter who created it and wonder what her mood was at the time. There is a photo of it here http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/?period=02&region=afe

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The first major exhibition I saw was the collection at the National Museum in Vienna.  I spent an afternoon lost from the group I was supposed to be with in an entire wing of that huge place, filled with the most unbelievable pieces.  The place was nearly empty.

I've seen a lot of other significant collections since, but that day stays in my mind.

 

Another was the Terra Cotta Warriors, a moving experience.

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From the time I entered elementary school until graduating from high school, I lived near the Ocmulgee National Monument.  The Mississippi period pottery from years of archeological excavation is still displayed (and warehoused) there and I visited frequently. The fact well formed and decorated pottery from a thousand years ago was made there left a lasting impression...and the very idea that those same clays the Native Americans used were the ones that I experimented with as a boy, playing along those Middle Georgia creek banks still sticks with me.

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In college i was making a certain form that i just pulled out of my head, it was my signiture shape that when other students saw it they knew it was mine.

 

I went and visited the college in gainsville, florida. They have a museum on campus, i visited, there was a vessel sitting in a case beside the door that was this chinese vessel dated to have been created so so long ago, i could barely comprehend its age. i could have mistaken the vessel for my own in both form and wall thickness and even glaze. That vessel is in my head, i can see it when i close my eyes...i so wanted to hold it, flip it over and look at the foot and see if it was trimmed like mine. It was like finding a long lost relative or kindred spirit. But it just amazed me how timeless clay is because the form would of been at home in any modern decor yet was created forever ago.

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I was on  the Fort Worth Museum tour the last time NCECA was in TX, when I came across a display of Anasai pottery.  I had been part of a research project at school that was trying to duplicate the materials and methods that they used for there black and white pottery.  I had been arguing with the archaeology professor on the coiling method he was teaching everyone.  When I walked into that room I realized that my work looked just like the original pottery, I'll never forget that moment. I had all my work survive about 15 pieces the trench firing, only one had a minor crack, the rest of the group were lucky to have one survive.   Denice

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I have toured museums with pottery exhibitions in Athens, Greece, London, England, Cairo, Egypt, Madrid, Spain, and in the USA.  Thepost-2045-0-47721500-1398268342_thumb.jpg one museum that struck me most was in the National Park at Mesa Verde, and in particular a large storage pot that had an overturned bowl for a lid. Inside that pot was corn harvested an estimate 700 years prior to my visit.  The pot was discovered by ranchers that had once owned the land there.

 

John

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It's interesting that almost all the replies to this question are about archaeological exhibitions. A few years ago I visited the Arizona State Museum, which has a huge collection of Southwest pottery. They have an amazing wall of pots, of which these two are my favourites.

 This is also where I first saw a pot from Mata Ortiz, which started a bit of an obsession. I'm sure who made it; at the time I thought Mata Ortiz was a person.

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