Making pottering around into an artform

Friday, May 16, 2008

AN exhibition of work by Ulster ceramicist Peter Meanley has opened at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum — and about time. Entitled Past Gazing Future Glazing, The Ceramic World of Peter Meanley, it's a major exhibition — but most definitely not a retrospective, according to the artist himself.

"I'm not old enough for that yet," he says mischeviously. " They can wait for that until after I'm dead."

Born in Huddersfield, the son of a Church of England rector, Peter is a very modest, gentle man, with a twinkle in his eye, a fairly wicked sense of humour, a long, bushy beard and a signature, striped sweater. Now based in Bangor, Co Down, he has a fairly laid-back manner and confesses, almost shyly: "Actually, I never wanted to be a potter, I wanted to be a painter but wasn't good enough."

Applying to study painting at York College of Art, Peter chose ceramics as his subsidiary subject and realized to his surprise that he was pretty good at it. Following his lecturers' advice he applied to The Royal College to study ceramics. It was very different, however, from his expectations.

For the ceramics department back then existed almost solely to train people for the big commercial potteries and small, studio potters were virtually unheard of. Consequently, clay was never worked with and all the major pottery-making skills were learned using plaster. It was, he admits, a thorough and solid grounding. "In those days we worked hard and were really taught."

Next came teaching on art foundation courses at Bradford, then Southport, then, in 1969 a part-time post in the then Belfast College of Art (now University of Ulster), where he remained until 2002.

During his time at York Street, he found the staff "totally open, free thinking and deeply committed" and it was there "I really began to find myself".

Sadly, he feels — like many others who knew the old order of things — that "we are actively de-skilling this generation and half of the last generation. It is disgraceful for the students."

Throughout the years one constant remained — his love of clay and his unquenchable excitement about what can be done with it and, in particular, the process of glazing, the subject he chose for his doctorate.

Peter is no ordinary 'potter' — he lives and breathes ceramics and finds inspiration in the history of the craft as well as in his own collection of rare, strange and interesting pieces. When he talks about these he is inspirational and his knowledge has, he says, "helped me to make certain decisions and follow certain paths in my own work".

Decisions like creating the Bellarmine series. Although best known for his imaginative and inventive teapots — the particular vessels that have always been his trademark — his more recent work has gone far beyond that, and draw on a rich history.

The first Bellarmine pots appeared in Europe around 1530 when Cardinal Bellarmine was trying to stamp out religious change and, as a protest, potters began to apply his likeness to their round bellied, long necked pots. Bellarmine had a long, bushy beard, which, to Peter, suggested certain parallels with his own. The result is a wonderful series of vessels, all adorned with Peter's face and an enormous variety of beards — short, long and extra-long — but always flowing in an imaginative variety of different ways.

This is a typical example of how "tiny things can have a profound influence" and a whole series can be inspired by something quite simple because once started, "I simply must get it out of my system". Another major series of Peter's was inspired by the Toby Jug — now we have a huge array of Peter Meanley Toby Jugs in all shapes and sizes.

The one thing all Peter's vessels must do, however, is function as well as be aesthetically interesting. They must hold liquid and they must pour, no matter how unconventionally. The jugs are not only adorned with faces or torsos but some encompass the full figure and stand almost two feet tall while others, rather whimsically, hold little teapots in their hands.

One constant passion running parallel to all the pot-making is the art of glazing, and this is where Peter really makes his mark. His specialty, on which he is a world authority, is the salt glaze and for Peter the fascination here is the fact that "the pots and my face will still be here when I'm not, perhaps when none of us, or even the world is not".

He tells me that salt glaze is virtually indestructible. Fired at 1,300 degrees centigrade (that's 200 degrees hotter than the centre of a volcano) it's a challenging and messy process. "Many people have aspirations but don't do it because it's so difficult".

The exhibition itself has seven main themes. There are of course the Toby Jugs and the Bellarmine pots, there are salt glazes, scratch blue teapots and drabware decorated with white and blue sprigs (a process about which Peter says: "I find it incredibly beautiful").

Next up are all the different processes — scratching, sprigging, stamping and some that have been long forgotten — that Peter has recreated in this show. The works show how he loves "to retain certain traditional aspects while making something 21st century that is very personal".

Then there are the drawings — "fairly traditional pen and wash which I do quite simply because I love it". Here we see things that have inspired him, like simple tinware or the handle of a saw, as well as some of the wonderful sketchbooks that show the development of his ideas.

It is without any doubt an exciting, inspiring exhibition, the most important this year in Northern Ireland's museums. Not that Peter has finished yet; he wants to acquire and perfect skills that earlier potters used, like double throwing, and he envisages things like "teapots on struts" and definitely expects to be "salting until I die".

But will he enjoy all the praise and all the publicity that will inevitably come on the back of such a big show? "No, not really. A little bit of acclaim is very nice but then I like to shrink into the background. I'm not interested in all that really." So typically Peter.

Past Gazing Future Glazing: the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum until October, before touring.