Poetry and Pottery
The Writing Life: Centering

Looking through an old book the other night, THE LIVING TREASURES OF JAPAN, reading about the great Japanese folk potter, Shoji Hamada, I was struck by his insights on pottery as a metaphor for a life devoted to art.

Marveling at his work in photographs, the small pottery village of Mashiko, a hundred miles north of Tokyo, which he chose as the site of his kiln in1924. A village of over 150 potters, who never signed their works, yet the pottery was know and admired for being what is was: simple functional, glazed stoneware. The kind of work (art) Hamada called “unconscious creativity”.

I was reminded of so many things, not the least of which, my early, ‘unconscious appreciation’ of Eastern art and thought, nourished in part by my almost daily ramblings down Chicago streets (circa the 1960’s--that other place and life) and my discovery of a small Japanese art store, Aiko's, which I wrote about for the Chicago Sun-Times. (Years later it would appear as a chapter in CHI TOWN).

Discovering Aiko’s was opening the door to the Far East for me. I purchased incredibly beautiful sheets of handmade Japanese paper there (one of the store’s specialties); books on haiku and Zen; my first Japanese print (a young woman holding a yellow cage with a black bird inside); and my first piece of Japanese ceramics: a teapot so round you couldn’t resist holding it in your two hands like a small bird, preciously alive. The vessel seemed to breathe. The handle was made of bamboo.

Reading haiku, drinking tea poured from a beautiful round pot into small, hand-made vessels that nestled in the palm of one’s hand, creating collages out of rice paper that seemed made of snowflakes, wielding a sudden Japanese brush and the blackest of inks (made from ink sticks) to thrust one’s unconscious self into an ancient art called Sumi…(black and white, black and white, yin and yang) all served as an opening to the Eastern mind within us all. All of which coincided at that time with the beat of the Beat Movement-Kerouac, Ginsburg, Gary Snyder: Zen. More Zen. And Zen again. Still a worthy way I pursue.

But just how did this all contribute to one man’s love of pottery? What’s the connection? Earth, air, fire and water. A love going back over forty years by now. Was it the primitive bowls I bought for pennies down in Mexico, the summer I journeyed there for three months--a very young teacher with a secret desire to writer…to study the Spanish language, search for the Indian, the Aztec, the ancient sun…D. H. Lawrence, and the revolutionary painters, Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros-“Nuestra Imagen Actual”

Books on pottery. Another contributing factor. M.C. Richards’ books in particular: CENTERING and THE CROSSING POINT. An extraordinary potter-writer-teacher. No one should toss a first pot without having first read Richards:

“I find the potter’s craft of centering the clay enacted in all realms of life: a bringing into center of all the elements of experience and the creating of forms out of that centered condition.”

And:

“The nonverbal sources of writing, this is the territory. The poet hears the song within things, and brings the song to birth in color and shape and sound.”

I keep looking back to the pathways of pottery and poetry. The life centered. Shaped. Opening to form.

I recall that first piece of pottery I bought in a Santa Fe gallery, the early l970’s, when good friends in the arts who had moved there from the Midwest, introduced me to many of the artists, whom I came to know on intimate terms, visiting their studios year after year, watching them work, purchasing their art when I could afford to. The many varied, vigorous spirit-lives spent shaping clay, sculpting stone, blowing glass, pressing prints, painting, weaving, making jewelry, taking photographs, writing poems and books. Such a history of Native American pottery buried-alive but still well in the Southwest. (A sudden flash of memory: once, on the steps of the Museum of Indian Arts in Santa Fe, shaking the hand with the legendary potter of the San Ildefonso pueblo, Maria, whose unique black pottery was known and admired throughout the world.). I wanted to live there, be part of it, in the worst way. This was where IT was at.

But the Midwest, family, conflicts and complexities too involved to give thought to here, at this time, kept calling me back. Holding me in place.

But I brought Sante Fe back each time. I am surrounded by art, here in the coop, there in the house, that kept me alive then-and now. The spirit of the potter speaks to me each day in the primitive pots of Chris Spanovich, the potter from Chimayo, living a Georgia O’Keefe existence in the foothills. I was never sure if it was her pottery I loved, her lifestyle, or Spanovich herself. Perhaps it was all three. I finally put her, her potter’s life, in a book, a chapter near the end of DOOR TO DOOR. For safekeeping. Where she remains-forever herself.

Back in Door, where good potters of all types and personalities abound, I settled in, once again, took a look at the wealth of good art on our own home turf. We too have a master in our midst. The potter Abe Cohn, who, along with his devoted wife, Ginka, moved to Door in 1965 and will be celebrating his 50th anniversary amongst us.

I first met Abe in his Fish Creek studio the late 1960’s, (avidly bought his “Cohn’s catastrophes”, which was all I could afford). He was and remains both an artist of the first rank and a generous mentor (Takashi Yamada and John Dietrich among them) who single-handedly helped create and shape the art scene in this county. Put it on the map. A visit to his gallery, The Potter’s Wheel, a chance to observe Abe throw a pot---something like a mystical experience.

Unbeknownst to Abe, he was a mentor to me too. Because it was through Abe that I discovered his student Takashi Yamada (“Kash”), and it was Kash’s pottery which brought it all `home again’ for me: the Far East in Door. I was back in Aiko’s. The East was here, right in my own back yard. Every pot Kash threw at that time was suffused with Eastern spirit. I was working on my first book about the county at the time, DOOR WAY, The People in the Landscape. And the subtext of much of what I felt and saw in this landscape had a Far Eastern connection. And it was Kash, through Abe, who completed the circle…

Kash left the county many years ago; the absence of his work is keenly felt among many. Occasionally, if you visit the homes of the old-timers, especially the artists, you might see one of Kash’s pots lighting up the mantle, filling up the room.

In the same spirit, a house in Door without a Cohn pot to bless the premises,
is an empty house indeed.

All of our fine potters speak to us. Sometimes save us. And should be acknowledged. All pottery is good for the soul. No matter the source. As long as it speaks to us.

This morning, in reaching for a coffee mug, I unconsciously set in my hand an
extraordinary, large mug the color of…a New Mexican sunset. Filling it with fresh coffee. Holding it in both hands, feeling the warmth…I returned again, for the moment. to Santa Fe. This is a cup I treasure, made by a potter I once knew, Jenny Lind of Rainbow Gate.

And after all my years in this Door landscape is it good to see new and young potters settling in, making pottery their lives. Among them, Brian Fitzgerald, continually amazes me. His small shop in Sister Bay. His designs, glazes, materials, diversity…his work ethic, and affordability, his honest love for clay and sense of self. There is always something new upon his plain wooden shelves.

Reading Hamada the other night, I thought of Fitzgerald…the future of pottery in this place…hoping in some way to pass `it’ on:

“Many people come to my Mashiko not by eye but by ear,” Hamada said, “but It is very important that people choose pottery by eye not by name or price,” Judge a piece with your heart, not your brain. For young potters to develop, good critics are needed…Young potters today often sell rather well very early in their careers; this can be dangerous if they continue to make pots just to sell them. They do not grow as potters…A young potter must work. work, work. Less talk and more work. He must use his hands, his head, and his heart, but heart is the most important. As he develops, his strength will come through in his work, but it is important for him to dig deep down beneath his own feet to find spring water. This is better than finding a section of the river of tradition that has already become unclear and weak. True tradition never comes from water flowing above the ground; it comes from underneath the ground, from a man’s own experience. Individualism is important, and without it we cannot do any good work in this age. To find real individualism does not mean we must follow the new fashion but rather the old way, the classic way. The classic way is much, much better. What is classic is always new; fashions are always old. A man must study beauty with his own eyes. Today there is too much dependence on knowledge, and knowledge is not good enough. We must know from the heart and from the neck down. The head is not necessary for this kind of knowing. When we study something, we must digest everything slowly and carefully and then produce results. Some potters take a safe path to sell, and so they fail or become too ambitious or too proud.

“I think potters must not study only pots. They should look at sculpture, at woodwork, clay figures, and tapestries. I get inspiration from furniture, textiles, drawings, and other things.”

Everything Hamada says about pottery is applicable to all the arts, including writing.

I think writers must not study only writing. They should look at pottery, sculpture, woodwork, clay figures, tapestries, furniture, textiles, drawings…paintings, small towns, villages, cities…other countries, other cultures.

“And now it is time to get back to work,” said Hamada.