“Alix [MacKenzie] was a looser, more linear painter, dealing with amoebic forms, let's say, close to [Joan] Miró as opposed to my more static exploration of space.” FormSpacePainterExplorationStaticLinear Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I thought I was going to be able to use my painting ideas as decoration on pottery, but my painting did not translate into decoration on pottery. I thought it was going to, and in fact I made, while still in school, a plate with one of my paintings on it, and that's exactly what it was, it was a plate with a painting on it. It was not a decorated plate; it was just a painting superimposed over a three-dimensional ceramic form.” MadeStillsIdeasFactsUseAbleSchoolFormThreePaintingPlatesTranslateDecorationPotteryCeramics Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Alix [MacKenzie], on the other hand, found that her painting would translate much more readily into decoration, and she could play with the spacing and the intensity of imagery on the form in a way which I could not. So that when we established our pottery, I was most unhappy with my decoration.” WayPlayHandsFormFoundPaintingUnhappyIntensityTranslateImageryDecorationPotterySpacing Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Finally if I had a pot that needed decoration, I would hand it to Alix [MacKenzie] and I would say, "Can you do something with this?" And she'd look at it for a while and then proceed with a brush to embellish the form and enhance the form, and it was wonderful. She could bring the pot to life, whereas if I did it, it was a disaster.” IfsLooksHandsFormWonderfulNeededDisasterPotBrushesDecoration Author:Warren MacKenzie
“So I very quickly stopped almost all decoration. I was interested in the three-dimensional form of the pots, but my decoration was nonexistent.” FormThreePotDecoration Author:Warren MacKenzie
“I found out later on that was not true, that life drawing tells you a great deal about rhythm, about the structure of a human being or any animate object, and this could be directly translated into thinking about proportion and accent, rhythm in a pot form.” ThinkingHumansFormFoundHuman BeingsDealsObjectsStructureDrawingRhythmProportionPotAccents 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.” LittlesTwoIdeasEndsWantedBeautifulFormWishHalfPiecesPaperIncrediblesDrawingInstancePocketsExplorationTallBreakfastPotInchesPlatesVolumePencilsStolenExquisiteScrapCeramicsDraftsman Author:Warren MacKenzie
“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.” IfsLittlesDoneWantedFormStuffBitsPiecesFrontsProducePaperLittle BitDrawingPocketsPotPottery 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.” IfsTryingDifferentSchoolMovingFormWonderfulDesignEuropeRelateComing OutWonderful ThingsMoving InDifferent Directions 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.” YearsLooksLittlesMadeDifferentTogetherFormBitsSawsCuttingImagineLittle BitYears AgoDiedJoiningUpside DownExhibitionsShovelsSpadesVasesCatalogues 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.” WayYearsFormMy OwnNumbersEnjoyedConstructs Author:Warren MacKenzie
“In the Leach Pottery we did most of our work on the wheel. [Bernard] Leach did a little work in the studio, which was press-molded forms, plastic clay pressed into plaster forms to make small rectangular boxes and some vase forms, which he liked to make. These were molds which had been made to an original that he had modeled in solid clay, and during our work there, sometimes I would be pressing these forms as a means of production.” MeanLittlesMadeSometimesWould BeFormOriginalsPressesProductionsBoxesStudiosWheelsPlasticClayMoldPotteryVasesPlasters Author:Warren MacKenzie
“Things happen very quickly and they have to happen quickly in order to have vitality, which I think is essentially part of a good pot. But in addition it means that you can explore an idea and change it and then change it and then change it; I don't mean by changing the one pot, but you make one pot then you make another that's related to that; you make another - you can make 50 pots in a day and none of them are going to be carbon copies of any other, but they'll all be related because there's something going through your mind about the form on that particular day.” ThinkingMindMeanIdeasHappensFormOrderParticularThings HappenRelatedCopiesPotCarbonVitality Author:Warren MacKenzie