"If you can walk, you can dance" Louise Nevelson on making art

Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow by Laurie Wilson

Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow by Laurie Wilson

Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow is a 2016 biography of the artist by Laurie Wilson. It’s a comprehensive, detailed overview of Nevelson’s life and approaches to art and is a great read.

From a young age, Nevelson was always making art but a combination of factors kept her on the margins of the art world until her late 50s, when she began to show in New York City and then, around the world. In her 60s and 70s, Nevelson became one of the most prominent sculptors in the world, working with installations, public art, and making numerous museum and solo gallery shows with her sculptural works.

It’s an inspiring story, and one that probably rings true to most artists in both the joy of art making but also the struggles to forge an artistic life and create your own path.

Below are a few excerpts from the book, with words by Wilson and quotes from Nevelson. The book is available in hardcover or digital editions.

Nevelson on making art:

“I’d rather work twenty-four hours a day in my studio … than do anything I know. Because this is living. It’s like pure water…. The essence of living is in doing, and in doing, I have made my world, and it’s a much better world than I ever saw outside.”

Sculpture is like a person…

One of Nevelson’s observations about this work could describe her aim as an artist: “I tell people who ask, that I don’t use wood; I don’t use black; I don’t make sculpture. If the sum of this wall doesn’t transcend wood and black and making something, then I’ve failed. Sculpture is like a person, who adds up to a lot more than a few cents worth of chemicals. I’m trying to communicate. Not to make something.” For Nevelson, this went beyond a statement about art; she was trying to articulate what she knew about the human condition: We are all alike and we are all different. And she saw her mission as expressing these contradictory truths, not in so many words, but through the formal decisions she made in her art.


On terra cotta clay, and approaches to different mediums.

Nevelson claimed that she worked on stone only when she was “a little exhausted creatively.” When she felt in full power, she preferred terra-cotta because “it gives flight and does not retard or restrict … the quick response of the clay to each idea; it permits a simplicity of approach.

…

It seems Nevelson was repeatedly driven to create new formats and new versions, when she approached a familiar medium, as though the tried-and-true was never quite so satisfying as what had yet to be attempted or seen.

From the book: a 1944 experiment with found wood and a tire.

From the book: a 1944 experiment with found wood and a tire.

On sexism in the arts:

When asked if men treated her as an equal, Nevelson was quick to answer. “Originally, no—at 70 years, yes.”

“When I first started, nobody took me seriously. In the galleries—a woman! I’d look in the mirror and see the gestures they made behind my back. Meshugganah! A woman wanting to be a sculptor. A man sculptor said to me, ‘Louise, you don’t want to be a sculptor. To be a sculptor, you’ve got to have balls.’ ‘I’ve got balls,’ I said. But it hurt inside.”

Ferocious Bull, 1942. Another sculptural experiment that was lost.

Ferocious Bull, 1942. Another sculptural experiment that was lost.

If you can walk…

Jean Lipman, who had written Nevelson’s World a few years earlier, recalled a moment when Charles Kuralt asked Nevelson toward the end of the TV interview how, at age eighty, she could possibly maintain the energy and quality of the work that had made her famous. Nevelson paused for a full minute and said: “Look, Dear, if you can walk, you can dance.”

Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow

512 pages, 2016, by Laurie Wilson.

The "Arena of My Own Spirit." Anne Truitt on Finding Certainty in Her Work

Daybook by Anne Truitt, the 1984 Penguin paperback edition.

Daybook by Anne Truitt, the 1984 Penguin paperback edition.

This text is from Anne Truitt’s journal Daybook. First published in 1982, it’s been in print since and is a wonderful book that should be on every artist’s bookshelf. Truitt was known for her minimalist sculptures and paintings. She also published three journals, including Daybook, Turn, and Prospect, that chronicled her approaches to art making, parenthood, memories, and thoughts on life as an artist.

This journal entry is from 1975, but is reflecting on 1961, about a year after the birth of Truitt’s son. In this passage, she describes how she started making the work that became her signature style.

From Daybook, by Anne Truitt:

27 March, 1975

It was in this familiar context that, one year after Sam’s birth, my work suddenly erupted into certainty. I was taken by surprise and to this day do not know why it happened.

When Sam was a few months old, fairly launched, I rented a room at 1506 30th Street, across from our house. On the third floor, looking west from a sort of turret that jutted out into the air, it was rather pokey but exceedingly convenient as I could run back and forth easily. I picked up my work where I had left off in San Francisco and continued to make loose drawings with black and brown ink. These were done very fast, on sheets of newsprint paper into which the ink was absorbed in such a way as to make them look more expressionistic than they were in my mind. I was on the track of square and rectangular shapes, articulated back into the depth of the ink, echoing the structures I had seen on archeological sites in Mexico, most particularly those of Mayan temples. I began making these obsessively repetitive shapes in the summer of 1958 after Mary’s birth, not only in drawings but also in three dimensions. I used very dark brown clay, heavily grogged, and built up the sculptures from the inside out, using the classical method taught me by Alexander Giampietro. I still sometimes miss the marvelous feeling of rolling the clay between my fingers and thumb and then pushing the warm, full shape against its fellows to swell the unity of a structure growing slowly under my hand. This satisfaction with the certainty of a familiar and compatible process was one of the pleasures I had to forego when my work changed direction and forced me to go against the grain of my own taste and training.

On a visit to my studio early in 1961, Kenneth Noland pointed out to me the possibility of enlarging the scale of these sculptures. I remember my reluctance to absorb this idea, partly because I was afraid and partly because of my pleasure in using clay in a way that gave me such satisfaction. I think, however, that his suggestion opened up my thinking and combined with my obsessive concern with the weights of squares and rectangles to pave the way for the change that took place some months later.

The change itself was set off by a weekend trip to New York with my friend, Mary Pinchot Meyer, in November 1961, almost one year to the day after Sam’s birth. We went up on Saturday and spent the afternoon looking at art. This was my first concentrated exposure since 1957, when I had moved to San Francico, and I was astonished to note the freedom with which materials of various sorts were being used. More specifically, how they were being put to use. That is, I noticed that the materials were used without particular attention to their intrinsic bent, as if what I had always thought of as their natural characteristics was being disregarded. For the first time, I grasped the fact that art could spring from concept, and medium could be in its service. I had always rooted myself in process, the thrust of my endeavor being to seek patiently and unremittingly how an idea would emerge from a material. My insight into the art I saw that afternoon reversed this emphasis, throwing the balance of meaning from material to idea. And this reversal released me from the limitations of material into the exhilarating arena of my own spirit.

At the Guggenheim Museum, I saw my first Ad Reinhardt. I was baffled by what looked to be an all-black painting and enchanted when Mary pointed out the delicate changes in hue. I remember feeling a wave of gratitude—to her for showing me such an incredibly beautiful fact and to the painter for having made it to be seen. Farther along the museum’s ramp, a painting constructed with wooden sticks and planes also caught my attention, setting off a kind of home feeling; I do not remember the artist’s name but liked his using plain old wood such as I had seen all my life in carpentry. And when we rounded into the lowest semicircular gallery, I saw my first Barnett Newman, a universe of blue paint by which I was immediately ravished. My whole self was lifted into it. “Enough” was my radiant feeling—for once in my life enough space, enough color. It seemed to me that I had never before been free. Even running in a field had not given me the same airy beatitude. I would not have believed it possible had I not seen it with my own eyes. Such openness wiped out with one swoop all of my puny ideas. I staggered out into the street, intoxicated with freedom, lifted into a realm I had not dreamed could be caught into existence. I was completely taken by surprise, the more so as I had only earlier that day been thinking how I felt like a plowed field, my children all born, my life laid out; I saw myself stretched like brown earth in furrows, open to the sky, well planted, my life as a human being complete. My yearning for a family, my husband and my children, had been satisfied. I had looked for no more in the human sense and felt content.

I went home early to Mary’s mother’s apartment, where we were staying, thinking I would sleep and absorb in self-forgetfulness the fullness of the day. Instead, I stayed up almost the whole night, sitting wakeful in the middle of my bed like a frog on a lily pad. Even three baths spaced through the night failed to still my mind, and at some time during these long hours I decided, hugging myself with determined delight, to make exactly what I wanted to make. The tip of balance from the physical to the conceptual in art had set me to thinking about my life in a whole new way. What did I know, I asked myself. What did I love? What was it that meant the very most to me inside my very own self? The fields and trees and fences and boards and lattices of my childhood rushed across my inner eye as if borne by a great, strong wind. I saw them all, detail and panorama, and my feeling for them welled up to sweep me into the knowledge that I could make them. I knew that that was exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.

Anne Truitt, First, 1961. Acrylic on wood, 44 1/4 x 17 3/4 x 7 inches. Image via annetruitt.org.

Anne Truitt, First, 1961. Acrylic on wood, 44 1/4 x 17 3/4 x 7 inches. Image via annetruitt.org.

Mary Meyer and I returned to Washington the next day, and early Monday morning I bought some white shelf paper and went to my studio. There I drew to full size three 54” irregularly pointed boards, backed by two rectangular boards, placed on a flat rectangular board. I went straight down 30th Street to a lumber store and ordered the boards cut to the size of my drawing; I bought clamps and glue and some white house paint. When the boards were ready, I glued them together, painted them, and there was my sculpture: First.

I returned immediately to the lumber store with two more drawings. While I was explaining to the man what I wanted and what I intended to do, he said mildly, “You can have them put together across the street if you want to, in our mill.” “Oh, can I?” I said. “Thank you.” And I seized my daughter Mary in her dark blue snowsuit from the counter where she had been perched to watch what was going on. I had to rush off for a carpool and hadn’t time to go to the mill right then, but I remember stopping outside the store and going down on my knees in the snow to hug Mary and tell here that I could make whatever I wanted to now, overcome by the possibilities that surged into my mind. I had seen that size would be a problem and had had no idea how I was going to make what I saw in my mind in that little studio with my meager equipment, time, and strength.

When I got back to the mill, I went in to see the manager. He placidly looked at my roll of drawings and allowed as how he could make them up for me. But, he suggested, I could make scale drawings and that would be easier for us both. So off I went and bought a scale ruler. A young architectural student was buying something at the same time and showed me how to use it. So I set up a system: scale drawings and mill fabrication. I also telephoned the financial advisor who had charge of the money I had inherited and asked him to transfer five thousand dollars into a new, special checking account. I used this account exclusively for my work from then on, replenishing the funds from my capital without giving it too much thought.

Anne Truitt, 1978.

Anne Truitt, 1978.

In 1962, I made thirty seven sculptures, ranging in size from that of the first fence up to around ten feet tall. Most of these I made in Kenneth Noland’s studio in Twining Court, which he generously allowed me to rent for ten dollars a month after his departure for New York. It was a ramshackle old carriage house with a huge hayloft equipped with a large hay door and hooked lift, which I used to hoist the larger sculpture in and out. There were also four other rooms, two crammed with rusted bedsprings; I had these carted off, and then whitewashed one of the rooms so I had a place for finished work. No heat, no water, rats—I used to stamp my feet when I came in—and the place was dismally damp. No matter.

— Excerpt from Daybook by Anne Truitt, 1984 paperback edition, pages 148–153.

Plato on the Role of Potters

Plato%27s+Republic.jpg

In Chapter 5 of Plato’s Republic, ‘The Guardians’ Life and Duties,’ the philosopher outlines the roles of three classes in society: guardians, auxiliaries, and workers. The workers are divided into castes and Plato believes there is little room for change in the castes. The goal, as Plato puts it, was to form “a community which is happy as a whole” without making just a few members of the community happy. Thus, everyone had a role to play but they had to stay in their role and place in society.

Here’s what he had to say about potters, from Robin Waterfield’s 1993 translation (419d-e, 421a). Bold text my own:


‘Suppose we were painting a statue and someone came up and criticized us for not using the most beautiful paint for the creature’s most beautiful features, because the eyes are the most beautiful part and they hadn’t been painted purple but black. It would be perfectly reasonable, in our opinion, for us to reply to this critic by saying, “My dear chap, you can’t expect us to paint beautiful eyes in a way which stops them looking like eyes, or to do that to the other parts of the body either. Don’t you think that if we treat every single part in an appropriate fashion we’re making the creature as a whole beautiful?

Likewise, in the present case, please don’t force us to graft the sort of happiness on to the guardians which will make them anything but guardians. You see, we know we could dress our farmers in soft clothes and golden jewelry and tell them to work the land only when they have a mind to, and we know we could have our potters lie basking in their kiln-fire’s warmth on a formal arrangement of couches, drinking and feasting with their wheel beside them as a table, and doing pottery only as much as they feel like, and we know we could make everyone else happy in this sort of way, and so have a community which was happy overall; but please don’t advise us to do so, because if we follow your recommendation, then our farmers won’t be farmers and our potters won’t be potters and no one else will retain that aspect of himself which is a constituent of a community.

Now, this isn’t so important where the rest of the community is concerned. I mean, if cobblers go to the bad and degenerate and pretend to be other than what they are, it’s not catastrophic for a community; but if the people who guard a community and its laws ignore their essence and start to pose, then obviously they’re utterly destroying the community, despite the fact that its good management and happiness are crucially in their hands and their hands alone.”

‘Now, if we’re creating genuine guardians, who can hardly harm their community, and the originator of that other idea is talking about a certain kind of farmer and people who are, as it were, happy to fill their stomachs on holiday, but aren’t members of a community, then he’s not talking about a community, but something else. What we have to consider is whether our intention in putting the guardians in place is to maximize their happiness, or whether we ought to make the happiness of the community as a whole our goal and should, by fair means and foul, convince these auxiliaries and guardians that their task is to ensure that they, and everyone else as well, are the best at their own jobs. Then, when the community as a whole is flourishing and rests on a fine foundation, we can take it for granted that every group within it will find happiness according to its nature.”

Hmmm, I would have to say that lounging on couches by the warmth of the kiln sounds pretty nice! But it doesn’t exactly match up with the role that Plato envisions for potters and other workers.

What do you think?

Republic by Plato, translation by Robin Waterfield, 1993

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Vintage films from the Mingei Film Archive

I love vintage pottery films so it was a pleasure to discover some newly digitized films that have been put online recently. These show famous Mingei potters Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach at work.

The Art of the Potter is a 51 minute film from 1970. It was filmed by Sydney Reichman, produced by David Outerbridge, and was posted by Marty Gross on Vimeo.

A Visit to the Leach Pottery, 1973 is a recently digitized film that was shot by Kim Schuefftan and Toshio Sekiji, and includes John Bedding in Conversation with Marty Gross. It was posted by Marty Gross on Vimeo.

View more videos like this by clicking on Marty Gross’s Vimeo page here. Learn more about the Mingei Film Archive Project by clicking here.

If you’d like to learn more about the Japanese folk art movement known as Mingei , there are quite a few museum and exhibition catalogs, but a great place to start is with The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi with a forward by Bernard Leach. First translated into English in 1972, it is an enduring text on the handmade, the meaning of craft arts, and the power of beauty.

Shop The Unknown Craftsman at Amazon

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Best Ceramic Textbooks and Guidebooks

Updated June 10, 2021

The Workshop Guide to Ceramics by Duncan Hooson and Anthony Quinn, our top pick for a ceramics textbook.

The Workshop Guide to Ceramics by Duncan Hooson and Anthony Quinn, our top pick for a ceramics textbook.

These days, there’s a ton of information, guides, and videos online that will help you learn about ceramics. But it can also be nice to have everything in well thought out and comprehensive book. This is especially the case when you are in the studio with dirty hands and it’s hard to use a device.

There are a lot of speciality books for ceramics, focusing on aspects such as wheel throwing or glazing, with more coming out every year. But the goal of this post is to review a few books that cover the whole spectrum of the ceramic process, not just one specialized area such as wheel throwing or hand building.

Many of these books are more than a decade old and out of print, but they still are good resources for a comprehensive overview of clay, pottery, and ceramics.

TOP PICK:

The Workshop Guide to Ceramics

By Duncan Hooson and Anthony Quinn, published 2012

The top pick for a complete guide to clay is The Workshop Guide to Ceramics by Duncan Hooson and Anthony Quinn. Published by Barrons in 2012, the hardcover book has 320 pages full of information, technique, and full-color images. Divided into eight parts, the text covers everything from a beginner’s guide, forming techniques, glazing and firing, to thoughts on how to have a professional practice. It’s a remarkable book, both for the breadth of information covered and how it is accessible and useful for beginners and professionals alike. It’s also full of images that illustrate technique and lots of finished work by accomplished artists.

Written by artists and educators (Quinn is a professor at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and Hooson is a teacher in London) the book is the best laid out and comprehensive textbook on ceramics that I have seen. Handbuilding, mold making, wheel throwing, glazing, surface decoration, lathe turning, you name it—this book has info on it. Flip through the images above to see some inside shots of the book, including the table of contents.

As of this writing, the book appears to be out of print (like almost every book covered in this post) but it’s available used. This book is worth it.

Shop Hardcover version:

Note: There is also a newer, paperback option by the same authors from 2017 that appears to be the same book but with a different title called Ceramics: The Indispensable Guide.

Other options:

The following guides and textbooks are all great options for your studio too. Most of these books are out of print, but that means you can often find a great deal used. And the books are often full of great examples of artwork by a wide variety of potters, artists, and ceramic specialists.

The cover of the third edition of Working With Clay by Susan and Jan Peterson.

The cover of the third edition of Working With Clay by Susan and Jan Peterson.

Working With Clay

By Susan and Jan Peterson, most recently published in 2009.

Working With Clay is full of color images throughout the book.

Working With Clay is full of color images throughout the book.

Working With Clay is a concise, illustrated guidebook of everything you need to know to work with clay and ceramic. It includes chapters on hand building, wheel throwing, glazing, firing, ceramic history, and a lot more. Written by ceramics legend Susan Peterson and her daughter Jan, it is illustrated throughout with many color photos. Although it is more than 10 years old, it contains all the main information you will need to get started with clay, and it has a lot more that makes it useful for advanced students and educators. Designed as a textbook, it’s still available used for around $30 at the time of this post. The color pictures in this text are great and the spiral binding makes it easy to leave open to the page you may need for reference.

Working With Clay by Susan and Jan Peterson, most recent edition is 2009 but any editions will be helpful reference books.

Although it’s almost 20 years old, Make It In Clay is still one of the best concise and comprehensive guidebooks to the ceramic process.

Although it’s almost 20 years old, Make It In Clay is still one of the best concise and comprehensive guidebooks to the ceramic process.

Make It In Clay: A Beginner’s Guide to Ceramics

By Charlotte F. Speight and John Toki, most recent edition is 2001

An interior page spread from Make It In Clay.

An interior page spread from Make It In Clay.

Almost 20 years old, this is still one of the best options for a comprehensive but concise overview to all aspects of ceramics. Similar to Working With Clay, it can be found in an easy-to-use spiral binding. This book covers every aspect of clay and ceramics, and includes a lot of suggestions for projects to get started. The book is illustrated with just black and white photos, making it less visually dynamic than our top pick. But it has great info and although it is almost 20 years old, this is still a worthy addition to your ceramic library. The information in the book is clearly presented, easy to follow, and covers all the basics. I’ve seen used copies online for between $20 and $40, which is a great deal for the amount of info packed into this book.

Make it in Clay, by Charlotte F. Speight and John Toki, 2001

The cover of the fourth edition (2003) of The Craft and Art of Clay, a ceramic textbook by Susan and Jan Peterson.

The cover of the fourth edition (2003) of The Craft and Art of Clay, a ceramic textbook by Susan and Jan Peterson.

The Craft and Art of Clay

By Susan and Jan Peterson, multiple editions but most recent is fifth edition, 2012

An interior spread from the 4th edition of The Craft and Art of Clay.

An interior spread from the 4th edition of The Craft and Art of Clay.

This is one of the most comprehensive guidebook / textbook covering ceramics. One Amazon reviewer describes it as the “end all, be all” of ceramic books. It has plenty of information for beginners, including step-by-step instructions. But it goes so much deeper than Working With Clay, which is by the same mother-daughter team, including a serious amount of ceramic history, profiles of contemporary artists, chart after chart of technical information. Written as a textbook for college classes, this is the book you’ll want if you are super serious about ceramics. I have owned the 3rd edition since I started working with clay, and after all these years I’ll flip it open and find new information or a deeper understanding of something I’m researching, such as glaze materials or firing info.

The book is illustrated with a combination of color and black and white photographs. The book is out of print and though any edition is probably fine, I would look for a used copy of either the fourth (2003) or fifth (2012) edition. At the time of this post, used prices for these editions were around $20 to $80 depending the the edition and condition of these books. The 3rd edition (1999) is often under $10 used and is great too, it’s just missing a bit of the updated information.

The Craft and Art of Clay, by Susan and Jan Peterson, various editions.

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Hands in Clay

by Charlotte F. Speight and John Toki, multiple editions, most recent is 2003

Hands in Clay is the other option if you are looking for a big, comprehensive ceramics textbook. Continuously updated since the 1970s, this book has everything you need to get started in clay or if you are looking for one big book that is a ceramic reference. Full of how-tos, project ideas, and information on ceramic history, it’s a great option. The book is illustrated with a combination of color and black and white images. Of particular interest is the images and info detailing how to make large scale ceramic sculptures.

At the time of this post, used copies of the fifth edition ranged from $25 to $50, and the fourth edition was available for under $10. It’s a good deal for a large book!

Hands in Clay by Charlotte F. Speight and John Toki

An interior spread from the fifth edition of Hands in Clay, 2003

An interior spread from the fifth edition of Hands in Clay, 2003

The Potter’s Dictionary of Material and Techniques

By Frank and Janet Hamer, sixth edition, 2015

Continuously updated for more than 20 years, this Ceramics Dictionary is a great resource for intermediate to advanced students and ceramic professionals. Arranged alphabetically, this is a well-researched and comprehensive resource. But the drawback of a dictionary versus a textbook, is that you need to know where to start, so if you are a beginner it’s best to start with one of the books listed above. But, this can be a fun book to just flip through and read an entry or two that catch your eye. Many potters and ceramists swear by this book and it’s a great addition to any ceramic studio or library.

The Potter’s Dictionary of Materials and Techniques, by Frank and Janet Hamer

The Potter’s Dictionary, sixth edition

The Potter’s Dictionary, sixth edition

The Ceramic’s Process: a Manual and Source of Inspiration for Ceramic Art and Design

By Anton Reijnders and the European Ceramic Work Centre

This 2005 book is an impressive overview of techniques, recipes, and working processes used at the European Ceramic Workcentre in the Netherlands. The EKWC is an international center where ceramic specialists help artists, designers, and architects realize their projects in clay and ceramics. Reijnders worked there for many years, and the book contains recipes, how-to guides, and lots of pictures. The recipes use European ingredients, which makes it a bit hard for someone working in the United States, but if you read it carefully you can translate the materials into something available at your local clay supplier in any country. The recipes are also on the more general side, so expect to do some testing to get things to work in your studio.

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The Ceramic Process by Anton Reijnders

The best part of this book is the color photographs throughout. The EKWC has been a place where countless artists and designers have realized their projects, and this book documents much of that work from 1990 to 2005. There is probably no better guide to this period of large-scale ceramic sculpture in Europe, and for that alone, the book is worth it. There is also information on paper clay, large-scale plaster sculptures, and other adventurous approaches to clay, making this a useful resource for ceramic sculptors and designers.

Out of print, this hardcover book is often listed at $200 to $500 used. If you see a copy available for $150 or less, it’s probably worth it. Or see if you can find a copy at your local library. The book was around $60-80 when it was in print. But it is a unique book that does cover every part of working with clay.

The Ceramic Process by Anton Reijnders, 2005

Summary

This post has covered a variety of ceramic guidebooks and textbooks. Although so much information is available online, it can still be useful to have a book where the information is laid out thematically or by alphabetically order. Due to changes in publishing, many of these books are out of print. However, the information is still good and a reference book can be a vital resource in the studio.

For more posts on books and ideas, click here.

Do you have any favorite ceramic guidebooks? Let us know in the comments.