You have been living with ceramics for over 30 years - Michael Sälzer

Michael Sälzer
Profession and vocation –
a very personal
ceramic biography
Monika Gass
interviews
Michael Sälzer
You have been living with ceramics for over 30 years – how did it all start?
The idea of making ceramics started with the need to leave the big
city – divided Berlin – behind - to make a living in the countryside, to pursue
a profession that could relate to, and to face my own roots in the Westerwald
region. I remember that when I was at primary school at about the
age of seven, I saw a potter who was doing a throwing demonstration on a
kickwheel. But years later, I could suddenly see every detail in my mind's eye
again, like a film. I was sure that I could do that too, packed my bags and set
off at the age of 29 for Höhr-Grenzhausen to start a potter's apprenticeship.
Exchanging the intellectual world of a university course with learning a craft
was a move I never regretted. That was the beginning.
During your apprenticeship, you learned to throw large pots in series, you
refer to a sense of form, speed and good fingering as master skills – that is to
say craft and tradition – what drove you on after you had reached this stage?
My training at the Werner Pottery in Hilgert, where business was based on
selling serially produced large-scale pots, had a formative influence on me.
Surface treatment or artistic considerations tended to stay in the background.
They trained their apprentices in the tradition of Bunzlau (Boleslawiec) in
Silesia, although the forms that were customary there were only recognisable
in vestigial form. But every training course is the basis of your own development.
My desire to develop an aesthetic of my own forms in serial production
emerged through contacts with Japanese ceramics, largely through my friendship
with a German-Japanese couple, the Stuckenschmidts. Conversations in
their gallery for Japanese ceramics and the Japanese Mingei movement, which
idealised the natural beauty of simple, traditional functional wares, made me
return to the German pottery tradition. At first, this was not the Westerwald
tradition that interested me: my own home was to close, and the decline of
"blue-and-grey ware" in the 1970s too stark. I needed to get away from it
in order to be able to study it. So I focused on the Silesian tradition of slip
glazes. But here, like later on, the attraction for me lay in finding solutions
for technical problems: searching out, finding, testing a usable clay, developing
a body resistant to thermal shock, etc. The motivation for doing this research
was different from today's. The emphasis was far rather on developing
contemporary, marketable tableware.
But then you had a number of exhibitions with Beate Thiesmeyer, you went
to the Frankfurt trade fair for many years, initially at the Rhineland-Palatinate
stand, then your own stand together with Beate, you won prizes; what brought
about this change?
When I was invited to the Diessen Pottery Market with this slip glazed
ware, I met potters like Jörg von Mans, Stefan Emmelmann and Hans Fischer.
There were encounters with galleries and collectors a confrontation with their
expectations of a traditional potter, which did not match my image of myself.
This meant a total reorientation, which ended up with me handing over all
of my knowledge and experience to a pottery near the Polish border. Twelve
years later, I became involved with tradition again – initially via the technique
of saltglazing, then via the forms. The basic difference was that from
now on, it was a question of finding my own formal vocabulary, that the vessel
forms from my home in the Westerwald began to play a part that has to
be deciphered. Again, it was serially thrown vessels that were the basis of my
research. A masterly command of craft skills is for me the basis for breaking
the rules. Mistakes don't happen because you do not know any better, they
are a conscious expression of your own aesthetic.
One traditional craft influence made way for another – are there any other
influences you could name that have had an effect on you?
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The first important encounter was with Wendelin Stahl. The master
of form and glaze became a friend and a constructive critic. Stahl gave
me the impetus for my identity as a ceramist. We fired together in his
woodfired kiln. Then he built a gas kiln. My friendship with Helmut
Rohde, which has long included his son Benjamin, has existed since I
started kiln-building. It has always been important for me at a human
level and goes far beyond exchanging views on technical matters.
Meeting the Americans Fred Olsen and Don Reitz was also important.
Olsen's books on kiln building were a treasure house for me…
an early source of information. Olsen also had a dual identity as a
ceramist and a kiln builder. I met him for the first time when he was
building an anagama for the Institute of Ceramic and Glass Arts in
Höhr-Grenzhausen. I finally met Don Reitz at a workshop in Bandol,
France, in 2004. This motivated me to start searching myself, to stop
trying to achieve perfection and to make new discoveries. Reitz, who
only started to live his passion for ceramics at the age of fifty, creates
pieces of impressive size and power. He works with the uninhibitedness
and spontaneity of a child. Inspiration through Japanese ceramics
came about through Kurôuemon Kumano. He is known at home in
Japan as the Bear because of his size, and he is an experienced thrower
who develops his rhythmic forms on the wheel. His rules for a "good"
vessel match those of my master when I was in training. Although
his work enjoys international recognition, Kumano sees himself as a
learner, he is still "on the road". His unconventional application of
glaze , especially his wonderful shinos, inspired my latest glaze experiments.
Pictures by the American abstract expressionist Franz Kline were
also a crucial experience for me. His pictures look like gigantic pieces of
calligraphy, the result of spontaneous actions that release his internal
pictorial world like an explosion. After studying Kline's pictures, the
way I applied glaze changed: thick brushes, loud music and working
with my whole body help to switch off control by the intellect. Surprising
results are created that provoke new things.
Nevertheless, a some point you devoted yourself entirely to stoneware
and saltglaze – what does it mean to you to stick with a medium which
has so much historical baggage, almost a little bit rustic?
Since 1980, I have used almost exclusively Westerwald stoneware
clay. But I have also experimented with a lot of other clay and porcelain
bodies. That reached its climax at the first Kahla porcelain symposium
in 1992. But I have always come back to Westewald stoneware
clay. I am currently using a coarsely grogged clay, which offers me the
kind of resistance I need when I am throwing, it is easy to join pieces
and makes good surface structures. It takes salt well and it can stand
high temperatures. It fires to 1350°C, cone 13. I can express myself
best with this clay, and it is almost like an umbilical cord connecting
me to my roots.
ILLUSTRATIONS
opposite page - detail of a glaze, fired to cone 13, 1350°C
above -
vase - stoneware - 2006 - h 21 cm
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ILLUSTRATIONS -
top -
box - stoneware - 2007 - h 25 cm
bottom - spindle-shaped vase - stoneware -
2007 - h 46 cm
You often speak of research, precision,
technology – in the context of kiln building
of course, but in art, this tendency
towards precision is restricitve. Can you
find a satisfactory balance for yourself?
Mastering the use of technology intelligently
and skillfully is one of the
basics and it is seen as a part of creative
potential. This is true not only for ceramic
technology, but also for (almost)
every other area of life. An interest in
perfecting firing led me to building my
own kilns, from the frame they stand on
to the electronic controller. Technology
should never be an end in itself, just
playing around, but it has to be subjected
to purpose and function. Finding
simple and economical solutions helps
to make a living, of course. But the kilnbuilding
company, which was founded
in 1985 because of the demand among
fellow potters for the newly developed
"Zephyr" gas kiln, is still a one-man enterprise.
It is my aim to pass on to others technical solutions that I have
discovered for my own use.
How do you make what and what with? And what does saltglaze mean to
you?
To exaggerate slightly, I take up and analyse forms from the early Rhineland
stoneware, with their pronounced throwing rings and visible evidence
of the production process, as well as the ornamental Baroque forms with the
clearly divided body of the vessel forms. I throw, assemble either fresh or
leatherhard, and I throw off the hump. The rhythm of the movement should
be visible when you throw. To achieve this, I break the symmetry, the pots no
longer run evenly on the wheel, they begin to dance. I assemble from slabs
that are rolled up and stretched from the inside. Expansion cracks and cracked
edges are intentional. The softer aura of freshly thrown clay contrasts with
the rough edges of the drying clay. Saltglaze, which coats all the structures
without hiding them, smooths the contrasts. I work with glazes, slips, powdered
rock, ash, I apply these things with large brushes and with my hands…
I leave space for random events and for my mood. Fire and salt overlap and
create new colours and surface structures. Crawling, pinholing and bubbling
are not avoided but are accepted as a visible sign of the individual characteristics
of the raw materials and the way they react with each other. I look
for extremes.
In Bandol, you recently displayed your kilns, your own and the ones made
professionally for others – how do you fire yourself, and have you got any hints
for colleagues?
Everything I make is fired with wood to 1350°C. When I am stacking
the kiln, I place small bowls filled with salt around the pots. When the final
temperature is reached, salt is thrown in through the firebox. My kiln works
on the "Phoenix principle", named after a kiln project at the University of
Phoenix, Arizona in 1978. An old Japanese kiln type was reconstructed and
adapted. The firing chamber is situated above the firebox, and the chimney is
integrated in the kiln. The construction principle and lightweight insulating
bricks make a rapid, economical firing with a high end temperature possible.
This type of kiln is simple, unspectacular, easy to modify and mobile. I made
32 NEW CERAMICS november / deCember 2007

Illustrations -
top to bottom
jug form - 2006
tea bowl - 2007
tea bowl - 2007
a thorough study of historical kilns and their uses. Kilns were always
used to earn a living, and potters were always concerned to save energy
and make work easier during the firing. This is why I didn't simply reconstruct
an ancient kiln type like a "Kasseler" kiln or an anagama, but
I developed a kiln that delivered very good results using modern materials
and technologies, as well as conserving energy and labour. The
kiln has been used in many seminars and workshops. Young ceramists
have been able to learn how to work with a wood-fuelled kiln, and then
often make their dream of owning one come true. In aid projects run
by my friends, Ute and Arno Hastenteufel, in Ruanda, Cambodia and
Sierra Leone for example, efficient potteries have been set up and run
using this kiln type.
Lots of people know you, your name, Sälzer, has made you even better
known at the saltglaze specialist – what do you think as a professional
– what will be important in ceramics over the next few years – how will
things develop?
Learning and passing that knowledge on is an important aspect of
ceramic tradition. I don't see myself as an introverted, egotistical artist.
The image of the chain with many links fits quite well, more of which
have to be forged in the ceramic tradition in future. Helping colleagues
and sharing knowledge are a part of this, being open-minded, taking part
in symposia and using workshops to actively stay in touch with others,
so that we can all go forward. Partnership is important, it has been the
key to my work for thirty years. We used to work almost symbiotically in
our studio, almost hand in hand on the same piece. Now we have developed
our own personal styles, but we are pursuing common goals and we
both profit through the experience of the other.
Monika Gass is ceramist and art historian. She is the director of the
Keramikmuseum Westerwald, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany
Michael Sälzer was born in Altenkirchen
in the Westerwald region in
1947. After graduating from school,
he studied law in Kiel and Berlin
until 1975. From 1976, he trained
as a potter in Höhr-Grenzhausen,
qualifying in 1978. He then set up
a pottery together with Beate Thiesmeyer.
1980 relocation to Kaub.
From 1981, traditional slip-glazed
stoneware reconstructed in theory
and practice. 1982 qualification
as a master craftsman in Höhr-
Grenzhausen. Exhibitions with slip
glazed stoneware ("brown ware").
From 1985, worked with porcelain,
further exhibitions with brown ware
and porcelain. From 1986, developed
his own gas kiln, the ZEPHYR
gas-kiln building kit. 1987, the
ZEPHYR®-Brennöfen company set
up. 1996 lectureship at the Institute
of Ceramic and Glass Arts in
Höhr-Grenzhausen. His work is represented
in many public and private
collections.
Michael Sälzer
Blücherstr. 69
D-56349 Kaub-Viktoriastollen
Germany
Tel. 0049 (0) 6774 - 1452
Fax 0049 (0) 6774 - 8111
mail@keramix.de
november / deCember 2007 NEW CERAMICS 33