From Wikipedia:
Postmodern art holds that all stances are unstable and insincere, and therefore irony, parody, and humor are the only positions that cannot be overturned by critique or revision. “Pluralism and diversity” are other defining features

From Rascal Ware Website:
Pilcher said we could knock this show out in three weeks. He suggested one clay, two throwers (him and me), three glazes and four shapes; bowls, plates, jars and vases. Yuck! He also noted that wood firing was very hot right now. I’m not sure he got the pun. Sad. I told him “Wood fire’s plenty fine, but not all the fucking time.” It took some doing but I eventually sold them on this: As a first exhibition we should do something out of Genesis…like the story about the ark. So we made all the pots in pairs- two of everything. We included earthenware, bone china, porcelain, lead glaze, salt glaze, overglaze, underglaze, lusters, oxidation, reduction, single fire, multifire, overfire. No raku…I hate raku. Junior said I threw 467 pots in all. He would know.

Which brings me to the “Thrown Thrown” pair. Junior hums constantly; usually the old Gershwin standard, Do It Again. It’s ironic because he has a pretty clear case of obsessive compulsive disorder. I bought him a book on OCD, which he’ll keep forever but probably won’t read. In response to his humming, I thought I’d double throw some pieces, first on the wheel… and then on the table. Since I was hired at RW to provide the creative spark, I thought the idea had some merit. And kind of funny too. Junior didn’t agree and said, to my face, that these pieces had exceeded anything like a creative spark and were now mired in a godless trench where they could be rescued only by the ghost of Peter Voulkos.

I told him these pots were actually in honor of his agreeable ways and the perfect propitiation of the RW motto- “We’ll make anything.” Junior bought it. He sees himself as an intellectual and all you have to do is wrap your argument in a six-dollar word and he’s yours. It’s kind of sad. But he pays on time and his check is always good.

In the end, what we have for you is a potter’s primer, an exhibition for other potters. Our work may be easier to appreciate when illuminated by a remark Shoji Hamada once made when viewing a diverse group of pots, “Yes, they are all the same…all different.” We find his conclusion inscrutable and improbable, but amazingly potent.

Don Pilcher

Since 2002 I have been pursuing a body of work I call Rascal Ware. This project involves a fictional company, the Rascal Ware Pottery, and its several employees. They include Junior Bucks, Georgette Ore , Mosley Bunkham, Hairy Potter (on and off), Shakespeare, the studio dog, and myself. In actuality, all of these characters live in my mind and each presents a talent, point of view or quirk I’m willing to own.

Together, this group discusses, debates and then gives form to their collective imagination. They/we make a wide variety of clay things that relate to a host of ideas which might interest people both inside and outside of the ceramics world. Our motto is: WE’LL MAKE ANYTHING. I have found this approach to be a simple way around the popular notion that a person’s work should look a certain way – a signature style some call it. That popular notion is not appealing to me.

The changes in the work from Rascal Ware are driven by the unfolding narrative. Each period is a chapter; each chapter has its own body of pottery…or something. Junior and Mosley are frequently the makers of the “something” while Georgette and I make the pots. Each chapter appears as an “ad” in Ceramics Monthly. The narrative at Rascal Ware is actually my biography, with some exaggerations, and the prose is an attempt at comment, humor, irony and some half-baked philosophy. I intend this project to be both a ceramic and literary expression. The work is always shown with its text; it’s all one effort.

I can conclude with this: I’ve never enjoyed my work more than I do right now. I hope it shows.

Personally, I think it is important for craft to be taught at the college level just as I think it is important for it to be practiced by potters who go through traditional apprenticeships with potters like Jeff Shapiro, Mark Shapiro, Mark Hewitt, Silvie Granatelli, Simon Levin, Ruggles and Rankin etc. One can also be a core student at Penland, resident at Penland, Arrowmont, Archie Bray, etc. Are you familiar with Sequoia Miller’s work? I had this breakdown in 2003-2005 and looked into internships in the field of product design, furniture design, architecture, etc. Ironically, the person I was referred to as a contact from the local Portland Ad Firm who had been the creative director was himself switching fields into ceramics! Check out Adam Silverman and the LA store for Heath Ceramics. That’s pretty exciting too! Mark Digeros of LA works as a Model Shop Manager for Frank Gehry and makes pots too. Wayne Branum is an Architect and Potter. Akar Gallery in Iowa city is run by Architect/Designers. I think Garth Clarks ideas are interesting but we have to test the strength of theory against the empirical evidence gathered in each of our studio practices. As Clary Illian points out, every young potter has to confront old debates and issues and find a personal resolution in their own work. One can’t help but be a product of the time where they are living. As the folk singer Greg Brown puts it via the “Great Swami Prisnadigerapi” “This world a’int what you think it is it’s just WHAT IT IS”.

I think you misunderstand me. THAT WAS THE POINT OF REFERENCING WARREN! I happen to see the disappearance of pottery from mainstream academia as an important issue, and maybe that makes me a little unusual. I can accept that. But the truth is not JUST in the making is it? Do you think anything that the other people in this conversation has said counts as truth? I do, and I’m glad they and YOU have given me food for thought. Thanks! :)

I’ll stop now, and perhaps I am embarrassing myself, but as surprising as it may seem I actually DO CARE about these issues. Call me crazy! But Garth Clark seems to care about these issues, right? If you and I are the only people reading this the worst thing to come out of it would be that we wasted a little time. Right? So no real harm done, I think….

Anyway, thanks for the advice Ryan:) I promise to stay locked in the studio for a while:)

Get a hold of yourself man! I think you’ve had too much blogging:) Go read Simon Says on Sawdust and Dirt if you must and then get to the studio and make some pots. In the making is the truth. Thinking about and writing about is always a step or two removed! It’s funny you reference Warren MacKensie who I believe was the teacher of Linda Christianson and Michael Simon who you mention next as great people to have studied with. Maybe they learned some things from Warren? Anyway, truth is in the making. I need to hear this as much as anyone. Listen to the Elvis song Little Less Conversation while in the studio; that helps me:)

Ryan

Raise your hand if you feel that what you do is legitimate art and deserves to be taken seriously as such. Raise your hand if you feel that talented potters such as Ayumi and Kristen deserve the opportunity to teach in a Fine Arts department in a university if they so choose. Raise your hand if you encountered pottery as part of an undergraduate education and are grateful for the exposure you got. Raise your hand if you feel that it would be a mistake to eliminate the teaching of pottery from academic universities. Does anyone feel it was a mistake for Warren McKenzie to have taught for so long in the Fine Arts department at the University of Minnesota?

I had the great fortune to arrive at clay just before Ron Meyers retired and was able to take several semesters of courses with him. The transition to a new hire was filled by Linda Christianson one semester and by Michael Simon another. Can there be any doubt that I was inspired to become a potter through the examples of those great artists? Would I have found pottery without them? Ayumi and Kristen went to Alfred, studied ceramics, and went on to get MFAs elsewhere. Would they have ended up as potters without this great education? What will become of our field when these opportunities dry up? How many of you reading this regret Garth Clark’s assessment that craft’s “institutions have failed and/or are failing”? Do we need to do something about it? Can we?

Ryan’s quote of Sam Mallof is, perhaps, telling. “I don’t care so much what you call it so long as I get to make what I want to make”. Will potters “get to make” pots when the Fine Arts world fully excises us from their embrace? If no one is teaching pottery in colleges anymore how many future potters will there be? Should we care? I think Ayumi’s point is vital. We ARE perceived differently by outsiders. Realizing what those perceptions are and confronting them would seem to be a step in the right direction. I think that being clear about issues like signature style is a way that others will take us more seriously. Am I overreacting? Am I boring people? Do we even need pottery to be taught in schools?