Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Warren MacKenzie

Quote by 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.”

Quote by Warren MacKenzie

Create image

Author

Warren MacKenzie

Limited information is available about Warren MacKenzie, who was born on February 16, 1924, and whose profession is unknown. more

You May Also Like

“[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.”

MindLittlesDoneWantedRememberLinesQualityPiecesSticksStudiosDrawingArtisticLandscapeWheelsPotFurnitureClayOne Line
Author:Warren MacKenzie
Create image

“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.”

AbleWantedProcessSawsPiecesHappenedDangerPaperDirectLaysPlanningWheelsExecutingPlanning Things
Author:Warren MacKenzie
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingFirstsLooksPersonsMadeTodayLevelsQualityAchieveProducePercentAwfulPotRichnessElementalsPottery
Author:Warren MacKenzie
Create image

“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.”

IfsYearsImportantPurposeFallTeacherTeachingGoes OnSellsQuittingIncomeAshamedPotPermitPlatesBowlsMediocreSoupSalaryMixingFall Back
Author:Warren MacKenzie
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingWellsI CanArtistNumbersMetsConversationDinnerFascinatingPeterPrivilegedFrostBarbaraNicholson
Author:Warren MacKenzie
Create image