Autumn 2009 - Crafts Council of Ireland

AUTUMN 2009Craft Community News26Through the ‘Craft Community’ section of Stopress, the Crafts Council of Ireland is happy to facilitatea FORUM AREA for constructive debate amongst craft enthusiasts. The views in this forum are therefore the viewsof individuals and are not necessarily the views of the Crafts Council of Ireland.Craft & Criticism: Critical Writing on CraftsA Review of Jack Dohertyat the National Craft Gallery 2009by: Michael Moore, Reader in Fine and Applied Art, Ceramics, University of Ulster‘I saw the hand of the potter mark the surface. It was a ribbed tool that left a streaking comb-liketear into the clay. A signature mark I felt, both of the maker and of the soda firing process …..’chawan, stonewareYellow Bowl, PorcelainJack Doherty’s Ceramics returned to theCourtyard of the Crafts Council of Irelandfor his solo exhibition, which began inAugust 2009. They returned in the sensethat in 1971 Doherty joined the then namedKilkenny Design Workshops and madeCeramics within sight of the building that isnow the National Craft Gallery of Ireland. Soin moving forward through nearly forty yearsof Doherty’s career as a potter and educator,one cannot but remark on his achievements.Chair of the Craft Potters Association,Lecturer of Ceramics at Royal Forest of DeanCollege, Committee Chair of ‘Ceramic ArtLondon’, to mention just three.This exhibition is a focus on his practice asa potter. So to step into the National CraftGallery is to step into the world of a StudioPotter laying bear his new work, developedover many years to the point where oneencounters the object, refined, resolvedand intimate. Three tall collared vessels inStoneware flanked by two large round Bowlsin porcelain were what came into sight. Iwas immediately taken by the robust qualityof the round Bowls, with hues of yellow,green and orange, perhaps not what onepresumes to expect from the often contrarymaterial of porcelain. Yet their robustnessdid not deny them elegance, and the fingerprint that the process of soda firing impartson clay surface as it terrorizes that surfaceduring a firing. These works to me seemedto be survivors. But not in a defeated sense,more that they had emerged from theferocity which fire and soda can impartcombined, with dignity, to create absolutelybespoke forms and surfaces.However I recalled I had seen this before.Not these exact warrior vessels but the sightof Jack Doherty’s making process while hepresented at the Aberyswyth Clay festival inWales earlier that summer. Again it was justthrough a gap in another crowd throngedaround his work, I saw the hand of thepotter mark the surface. It was a ribbed toolthat left a streaking comb-like tear into theclay. A signature mark I felt, both of the