Ceramics of and by women - pioneers in the field

The joy I found in this pot, was its imperfection that had been turned into a masterpiece...like many of the pots from the hands of the community members in my dear studio here in Black Mountain.

Kate Sears has her pot sitting next to the only one by Adelaide Alsop Robineau at the Mint Museum in Charlotte. I'll talk more about Robineau later.

I love the simplicity of this design. Many of the pots that are decorated so beautifully were apparently "blanks" that women would paint upon, rather than actually throwing the pots themselves. It wasn't clear on most of the ones I saw whether this had happened or not. Perhaps that's why the term "decorator" is used next to Naomi Walch's here.

In Art School in the 1980's I had trouble finding early ceramists who were women in Art History books and periodicals. Most of those I found were considered women hobbyists, who had nothing better to do than learn how to paint ceramics, as an alternative to doing various kinds of sewing. They often were extremely skilled, but the Art Community (those who use a capital letter on the word Art, didn't think much of them. I kept digging, and finally found that there were many talented women creating new glazes, sculpting, carving pottery and experimenting (often alongside their husbands and children) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Fanny Levine, Decorator, "Bowl with Geese" 1914, earthenware. (Saturday Evening Girls)

Saturday Evening Girls Pottery was a part of a settlement house program for young immigrant women in Boston. Decorating pottery was not only a diversion for these young women, but also provided them with a means of support at a time when jobs for women were limited.

Most of the American pottery displayed at the museum was earthenware, but this was one piece that is stoneware, circa 1915-1925, from the Fulper Pottery (1814-1955) in NJ.

This is one of the ceramics periodicals started by women. Edith Harwell is depicted on the cover in her Mint Museum Art Studio in 1936. In 1931 she set up a pottery at her home near Charlotte, NC, named Pinewood Pottery.

Soon after, the museum asked her to demonstrate pottery making, and she moved her studio into the basement of the museum. She remained with the museum until 1938 when she and her husband moved to Fairhope, AL.

Thelma Frazier Winter (1903-1977) studied at Cleveland Institute of Art and later taught there and in the Cleveland public schools. "Dancing Figures" was created around 1945. She was the first prize winner for another sculpture in the Ceramic National, an annual exhibition founded in 1932 in honor of Adelaide Alsop Robineau. This was the first time the prize was awarded to a woman.

This Tulip Form Vase (earthenware) was created (circa 1905-15) by Fernand Moreau, Designer, at TECO, (1887-1930) in Terra Cotta, IL

But since I was also looking for the Goddess in Clay...here are some of the MezoAmerican sculptures, pots and figures the museum exhibited.

This Peruvian figure is actually carved in volcanic stone. To me it looks like any mother of twins, who should be immortalized as a goddess! The museum has some interesting definitions of female figures holding infants...suggesting they are representative of ancestors holding newly chosen leaders.

OK...here is the piece I came to see. Robineau also was known for developing many great glazes, experimenting in her pottery, as well as carving in porcelain. This piece was finished late in her life, and isn't as fine as many I've seen in other museum catalogs. She's best known for her scarab vase, which I think is at the Metropolitan Museum in NY. I was truly inspired by her rich flowing glazes (which even puddled on the kiln shelves) because they made glass look like watercolors.

This is a tiny piece of her work...but exquisite still.

Another thing Robineau did was publish a periodical "Keramic Studio" in Syracuse NY.

She started this magazine to provide advice on china painting. When that medium failed to gain respect in the artistic community, she advised her readers to become potters. She heeded her own advice, becoming the first woman to learn the potter's wheel and launch a career as a studio potter.

This Seated Female Figure is from Costa Rica, from 500-800 AD. It is pottery with brown, black and red slips, manganese dioxide deposits. I love

her pose.

Pre-Classic Mexico gives us this "female figure" from 350 BC to 250 AD, with designs painted on her in brown pigment.

Whether "Female Figure" is truly a goddess is of course something the people who made them knew, but we can only guess. The MezoAmerican figures in clay include many males as well as females, unlike the Pre-historic Mesopotamian figures which were primarily female. But my thought is that there must have been something special in the minds of the artists who created these forms, and it could well have been a concept of how these female figures reminded them of a higher ideal - a goddess.