Ceallach

Michael Cardew, Simon and David Leach, Shoji Hamada, someone mentioned Hans Coper but did not mention Lucie Rie. There are artists that did ceramics which are interesting, including Picasso, Klee, Chagall, Miro, Gauguin. They aren't potters but their work is interesting in use of color and surface design. Lady Kwali from Nigeria was an Abuja potter while Cardew was there. She was unusual in that she came to the studio as an established female potter in the Nigerian tradition but overcame the (colonial) gender biases of the time. (This whole thing is interesting because of the British intent to create a Nigerian pottery tradition; Cardew's training of local men as potters in a continent where women are overwhelmingly the potters and do amazing work--imperialism at its finest really). We recently found some of the African pots that we had in storage....one in particular, probably from Congo, was beautifully round, thin and consistent to be mistaken for thrown, not coiled work, and beautifully reduced in a pit-fire. Sometimes, it's less of a potter, but a tradition. Every region in the US has solid pottery traditions that are very different.