Warren MacKenzie Quotes

“[Bernard Leach] talked about painting, but we never talked about ceramics in that evening. But at the end of the evening he said to us, "Well," he said, "I've changed my mind, and if you want, you can come back a year from now and apprentice in the workshop."”

Ifs Want Years Mind Wells Said Ends Changed Painting Evening Workshops Apprentice I've Changed Ceramics

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We [me and my wife] went back to St. Paul, worked for a year - again, I guess I would have to admit now, doing a rather shaky job of teaching people - but at the end of that year we returned to England and worked in the [Bernard] Leach Pottery for two and a half years.”

People Years Two Ends Jobs Half Wife Teaching England My Wife Pottery Half A Year

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We were more fortunate than most, because [Bernard] Leach had been in America on a lecture tour in 1950, and we made arrangements to travel from America back to England with him on the same boat. It was a very slow boat. I think it took us about seven days to cross the Atlantic.”

Thinking Made America Crosses England Seven Boat Fortunate Arrangements Lectures Seven Days

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We had a wonderful trip, a seven-day trip, talking and sitting in the sun and so forth [with Bernard Leach]. And as we were approaching England, Leach said, "Do you have a place to live?" And we said, "No, we didn't." We hadn't worried about that. But Bernard had just separated from his second wife, which we had not realized, and Bernard was a person who could not stand to live alone. So he said, "Would you like to share my house with me?" Naturally we said yes.”

Persons Said House Talking Sun Wife Wonderful Share Sitting England Seven Worried Places To Live Seven Days

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“It was a wonderful opportunity. And so for two and a half years we lived with [Bernard] Leach.”

Years Two Opportunity Half Wonderful Half A Year

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“When we worked at the pottery, we did learn to make pots, that is, the physical act of making the pot. We learned to control clay, to put it where you want it and not just wherever it wanted to go, and that was valuable. At the end of about six months, though, I think if that was all we had, we may have been inclined to leave because the workshop did not challenge us so much as living with [Bernard] Leach did.”

Ifs Thinking Want May Has Beens Ends Wanted Challenges Months Six Valuable Pot Six Months Clay Workshops Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Living with [Bernard] Leach, who thought about pottery 24 hours a day, was a fantastic experience, and we really began to get inside his mind and understand what had motivated him to work all his life as a potter.”

Mind Hours Fantastic Motivated Potters Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Eventually we even got to the point where we could disagree with [Bernard Leach]. I mean, when we first went there, gee, I mean, this was a man who had written a book. He was, in a sense, God, and we for the first couple of weeks called him Mr. Leach.”

Men Firsts Mean Book Written Week Couple Disagree

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We became more familiar with [Bernard Leach], and with this familiarity came, I wouldn't say contempt, but certainly an awareness that everything that he said was not necessarily what we were thinking. That doesn't mean it was wrong, but Leach was a person out of a different generation.”

Thinking Mean Persons Said Different Generations Awareness Familiar Contempt Familiarity Different Generations

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“In fact, [Bernard Leach] was several generations removed from us. At that time we were there, I think Alix [MacKenzie] and I were 26 and 28, and Leach was about 63, and we thought he was a very old man. I used to always want to help him up the stairs in the house for fear he'd fall. Actually, he was in excellent condition and lived to be much, much older than we ever expected.”

Thinking Men Want Facts Helping Used Fall House Generations Conditions Expected Excellent Old Man Stairs

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We did respect [Bernard Leach], although we also were willing to challenge ideas and at least put forth our feelings about the way the pottery was run, about things that were done, about the pots we were making, etc. And we would get into sometimes some very fierce arguments. We'd be shouting at one another because of disagreements.”

Way Ideas Sometimes Done Feelings Running Challenges Willing Argument Etc Pot Fierce Disagreement Shouting Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“When Bernard [Leach] wrote his book, he wrote about the fact that even when pots are made in a series, there is a personality to each pot and that the person who made it reflects their personality into the clay.”

Persons Made Book Facts Personality Series Made It Pot Clay

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We were working from very exact models and dimensions and weights of clay to make these pots which had been designed some 10 or 12 years previous to our arriving [at Bernard's Leach studio]. And we, being, I guess you would say young, arrogant Americans, thought that we ought to be able to somehow express ourselves a little bit more in the daily work of the pottery.”

Years Littles Able Young Bits Ought Little Bit Models Weight Studios Dimensions Pot Arrogant Clay Arriving Pottery Daily Work

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Looking back on it now, I understand why that was not possible [to express ourselves], because the pottery employed a dozen people, not all of whom are making pots. And these people had families, children, and they had to have a wage that would allow them to raise their family and they had to get a paycheck every Friday afternoon. So if we had not made pots that would sell it, would not have been possible for these people to be employed.”

People Ifs Children Has Beens Made Raises Sells Pot Afternoon Dozen Looking Back Employed Friday Paychecks Pottery Friday Afternoon

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We could make our own pots on the weekends and in the evenings, and we used to do that, and these would be fired in the big kiln, along with all the standard ware that we were producing, but this wasn't quite what we had expected when we read The Potters Book.”

Book Bigs Would Be Used Standards Expected Evening Pot Weekend Potters

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I do remember that when we left [Bernard Leach] after two and a half years, we went home on a boat again - this was before air travel became really easy - and Alix [MacKenzie] turned to me and she said, "You know, that was a great two years of training, but that's not the way we're going to run our pottery."”

Knows Way Years Said Two Home Running Remember Left Easy Half Air Training Boat Two Years Pottery Half A Year Air Travel

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We never had a catalogue; we never said we were going to duplicate these pots this year and next year and the year after that and so forth. We did make many pots which were repeated, but we allowed them to change and to grow as we changed and grew, and I think that was the big difference. And that's all right; we were working for ourselves. We didn't have anybody we had to pay.”

Thinking Years Said Bigs Next Grows Differences Pay Changed Grew Pot Next Year Catalogues Duplicate

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Alix [ MacKenzie] had stopped teaching because we had a child and she stayed home to take care of the baby, and I taught.”

Children Home Care Teaching Taught Baby Take Care

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Eventually I gave up teaching at the St. Paul Gallery because of disagreements with the philosophy of that museum, and I got a job at the University of Minnesota, which was very fortunate because it was a part-time job and that gave us a great deal of time in our studio to work together and to make the pots we wanted to make.”

Philosophy Wanted Together Jobs Deals Teaching University Studios Fortunate Working Together Museums Pot Disagreement Gallery Gave Up Minnesota Part Time Part Time Jobs

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We were living with Bernard [Leach] in his home. He had a fantastic collection of early English and Japanese and Chinese and Korean pots and German pots, contemporary English work as well. And we had access to this collection.”

Wells Home Access Contemporary Fantastic Chinese Collections Pot Korean

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“In fact, when Bernard [Leach] would be called away to go up to London for something and we'd be living alone for a couple of days, we would dig into the storage areas in the house and we'd get out all the pots that we might not see in the course of our daily life, because we weren't using them in the house on a steady basis. But we found some fantastic pots in there tucked away, and we could look at them and examine them and handle them.”

Looks Facts Might Would Be Courses Found House Couple Areas Bases London Handle Fantastic Daily Life Pot Steady Storage Living Alone

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“It was there that we really first came in contact with the work of Shoji Hamada, who was Bernard's best friend from Japan, who had come from Japan back to England with [Bernard] Leach when Leach was establishing his pottery.”

Firsts England Contact Japan Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Bernard [Leach] had acquired many [Shoji] Hamada works. Some of them, it was interesting - first of all, Hamada worked in St. Ives for about four years before returning to Japan to start his own pottery. He had exhibitions in London, and if these exhibitions didn't sell out, the galleries were instructed to send the remaining work down to the Leach Pottery, where they would go into the showroom for sale. If Bernard saw one that hadn't sold that he really admired, then he would take it (he would buy it), and it would go into the house.”

Ifs Years Firsts House Interesting Saws Four Sells London Japan Four Years Gallery Exhibitions Pottery Showroom

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Bernard [Leach] was, as I said , trained as a painter and an etcher.”

Said Painter

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[Bernard Leach] was an incredible draftsman, and at the end of breakfast time, for instance, he would push his plate back, and he'd pull an old scrap of paper out of his pocket and a little stub of a pencil, and he'd begin to make small drawings, about an inch and a half, two inches tall, of pots that he wanted to make. And they were beautiful drawings. I really wish I'd stolen some of those scraps of paper, because those drawings were exquisite explorations of his ideas of form and volume in a ceramic piece.”

“If [Bernard Leach] didn't like the drawing, he'd X it out and do another one and change the form a little bit. And when he was all done, he would stuff these pieces of paper in his pocket and go off to the pottery, and when he wanted to make pots, he would then take these out and he'd begin to produce the pot that he had designed on paper in front of us.”

Ifs Littles Done Wanted Form Stuff Bits Pieces Fronts Produce Paper Little Bit Drawing Pockets Pot Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[Shoji] Hamada seldom drew an exact drawing of a pot that he was going to make.”

Drawing Pot

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I used to think [Shoji] Hamada never drew, until there was a book by Bernard [Leach] published about his work [Hamada: Potter, Tokyo; New York: Harper & Row, 1975] and at the rear of the book were a number of wonderful little sketches, but they were not drawings like Bernard made.”

Thinking Littles Made Book Used Numbers Wonderful New York Drawing Potters Tokyo Harper

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Bernard's [Leach] drawings delineated every little accent on the pot, every subtle curve and change of angle and proportion and all.”

Littles Drawing Proportion Subtle Pot Accents Angle Curves

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[Shoji] Hamada's [drawings] were little one-line notations of something he wanted to remember about a pot or a piece of furniture or a landscape or something like that, and they were just done very quickly and they had, he thought, no artistic quality. They're not great drawings, but they served to remind him of something he had in his mind, so that when he then went to the studio, that would stick in his mind and he could explore the making of the pot with the clay on the wheel.”

Mind Littles Done Wanted Remember Lines Quality Pieces Sticks Studios Drawing Artistic Landscape Wheels Pot Furniture Clay One Line

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Bernard [Leach] was making pots which were duplicates of his drawing, and that was a difference of approach, which I think is quite critical to these two men [Leach and Shoji Hamada].”

Thinking Men Two Differences Approach Critical Drawing Pot Duplicate

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I followed [Shoji] Hamada, because I guess Alix [MacKenzie] and I, we both saw the danger that lay in planning things out on paper and then simply executing them. And with Hamada there was a much more direct sense that the piece had happened in the process of making on the wheel, and that was what we wanted to do with our work. We weren't always able to do it, though.”

Able Wanted Process Saws Pieces Happened Danger Paper Direct Lays Planning Wheels Executing Planning Things

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I think back to some of the pots we made when we first started our pottery, and they were pretty awful pots. We thought at the time they were good; they were the best we could make, but our thinking was so elemental that the pots had that quality also, and so they don't have a richness about them which I look for in my work today. Whether I achieve it all the time, that's another question, because I don't think a person can produce at top level 100 percent of the time.”

Thinking Firsts Looks Persons Made Today Levels Quality Achieve Produce Percent Awful Pot Richness Elementals Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I make a lot of pots in a year's time and some of them are good and some of them are mediocre and some of them are bad. If they're really bad and I'd be ashamed of them, I throw them out, but if they're mediocre and they'll serve the purpose for which they're designed, that is, a mixing bowl or a soup bowl or a plate or whatever, I sell them. And this income from the sale of these pots permits me to go on and make other pots. It's even more important now that I've quit teaching, because I do not have a teacher's salary to fall back on.”

Ifs Years Important Purpose Fall Teacher Teaching Goes On Sells Quitting Income Ashamed Pot Permit Plates Bowls Mediocre Soup Salary Mixing Fall Back

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We benefited from living with [Bernard] Leach, because suddenly all of his friends became our acquaintances.”

Acquaintance

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Bernard [Leach] knew Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon, Johnny Wells. I can think of a number of people that we met there just because we were living with Bernard. Some of them became our friends, particularly the younger artists, but we were privileged to at least meet and talk with the older artists also. And they would come to dinner, and we would simply be included in the conversation, which was quite fascinating.”

People Thinking Wells I Can Artist Numbers Mets Conversation Dinner Fascinating Peter Privileged Frost Barbara Nicholson

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“There were a lot of artists in St. Ives. In fact, since the time of Whistler, St. Ives has been noted as an artist colony.”

Has Beens Facts Artist Colony Whistler

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[St. Ives] is a wonderful place to live. It's a small fishing town and one can live there inexpensively. There's a sympathetic population of other artists, where you can exchange ideas, and it's quite rich in artistic thought.”

Ideas Artist Rich Wonderful Towns Population Artistic Fishing Sympathetic Places To Live Wonderful Places

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Friends of Bernard's [Leach] came to visit, and when we went to London, we were given introductions to people like Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Richard Batram. All these people were, let's say, made available to us by a friendship with Leach. In addition there was a potter's group - what was it called? I think it was called the Cornish Potters Society, but I'm not sure of that. Anyway, they had meetings and we would go with Leach to these meetings and meet other potters, and they would have programs where they would discuss pottery and people would interchange ideas.”

People Thinking Made Ideas Given Groups Program Meetings Available London Not Sure Introduction Potters Pottery Interchange

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“We got a great benefit from our contact with those people [Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Richard Batram] and met people that we wouldn't have probably met if we had simply worked at the pottery.”

People Ifs Mets Benefits Contact Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I don't know, it's very difficult if you're in a strange country to just barge in and say, "Hello, I'm Warren MacKenzie, and aren't you happy to have me as a guest," you know? But artists did accept us and we remained friends for many, many years, many of them as long as they lived; like Lucie Rie and Hans Coper were very good friends, and it was wonderful.”

Ifs Knows Years Long Country Artist Difficult Accepting Wonderful Strange Very Good Guests Good Friend Hello Very Good Friends Barges

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“If you take Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, their work didn't even relate to what we were trying to do, because they were moving in a different direction, both of them coming out of Europe and the Viennese school of design, which Lucie came from, and Coper learning from Lucie and then springing off on his own when she encouraged him to explore more widely. So he created his own work instead of just working for her and doing her forms. So that was a wonderful thing.”

Ifs Trying Different School Moving Form Wonderful Design Europe Relate Coming Out Wonderful Things Moving In Different Directions

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“I've been influenced by someone or [English artists] work. I mentioned Hans Coper as an example.”

Artist Example

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Some years ago I was working on some forms which were vase forms with a fairly narrow base, and it was after [Hans] Coper had died that I saw an exhibition of his, a catalogue from an exhibition, and he was showing some forms which were made by cutting and joining a lot of different parts together to create what he called a spade form, which you can imagine looks a little bit like a shovel upside down.”

Years Looks Littles Made Different Together Form Bits Saws Cutting Imagine Little Bit Years Ago Died Joining Upside Down Exhibitions Shovels Spades Vases Catalogues

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“These narrow-footed forms I was making, I thought, gosh, I could push those further, not to construct them the way [Hans] Coper did but to work in my own manner but push it more toward that form. And I learned to do that and enjoyed it for a number of years.”

Way Years Form My Own Numbers Enjoyed Constructs

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[My pots ] are not like [Hans] Coper's at all, but the idea came from seeing catalogue of his work, although at the time we knew Hans, his work was nothing like that.”

Ideas Seeing Pot Catalogues

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“When I was in school in the Art Institute, we had several problems during the course of the time we were taking ceramic classes where we had to do a sculptural piece. And when I say a sculptural piece, it's nothing like what we conceive of now as a sculptural piece.”

Art Problem School Courses Class Pieces Institute Ceramics

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“Remember, this is back in the 1940s, and it was sculpture which probably - in my instance probably came out of the European influence, [Alexander] Archipenko and things of that sort, [Jacques] Lipchitz to a certain extent, and I was influenced by those things and attempted to do work that emulated their style.”

Remember Certain Influence Style Instance Sculpture

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“[Sculpturing] didn't stick with me. I never felt I wanted to go on with that.”

Wanted Felt Goes On Sticks

Author:Warren MacKenzie

“And as far as I know about Alix's [MacKenzie] work, I don't believe she ever did any sculptural work at all. It was always pottery.”

Knows Believe Don't Believe Pottery

Author:Warren MacKenzie

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