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Contents Gwyn Hanssen Talking 4 Potters - Robi Dart Book Review 6 Rosemary D Wren Letter from Nigeria Peter M Crotty 12 lan Auld 7 Stoneware Glazes Part 11 Keeping Lead Insoluble Frank Hamer 13 Kenneth Shaw 8 Exhibition Reviews 14 Report from South Wales Art School Diploma Frank Hamer 9 Shows 17 Figures and Bowls Letters 18 Hylton Nel and Value Added Tax 19 John Nowers 10 Classified Advertisements 19 Health Notes Forthcoming Doctor L. Bowcock 11 Exhibitions 19 Scottish Craft Symposium Cover Gwyn Hanssen Peter Crotty krepari ng the saggars for the Rosemary D Wren 11 iln. Article page 4

Contributors Gwyn Hanssen was born in Australia where she worked for Ivan McMeekin. She came to England in 1958 and worked at Winchcombe Pottery and St. lves Pottery. She established her first pottery in London with her husband Louis Hanssen in 1960. lan Auld trained at the Central School of Art. Makes mainly slab built pots fired to stoneware temperatures. Taught first at Bath Academy of Art and then at Bristol Polytechnic from which he has leave of absence in order to take up a Research Scholarship in Nigeria. Hylton Nel works in Kent and makes earthenware bowls and figures with movable joints. His work is on show at the Crafts Centre, London. Peter M. Crotty has recently started making pottery after studying Indian languages. Works at Oxhott Pottery and makes raku figures and sculptures. Kenneth Shaw is a science writer specialising in ceramics having spent ten years as technologist in the pottery industries. Translates and abstracts Russian science journals. Books on ceramics include Ceramic Colours and Pottery Decoration, Ceramic Glazes, Technology and Enamelling. All published by Elsevier. Just completed 'Simple Science for Potters and Enamellers' (David and Charles of Newton Abbot). Walter Lipton is Senior Marketing Officer of the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas. He was closely involved with the founding of the Craftsmen Potters Association .

Reviewers Geoffrey Godden is author of many books on pottery and porcelain. lan Canning is lecturer in Ceramics at Battersea College of Education . Tony Birks is a potter and author of 'The Art of the Modern Potter'. Hugo Morley-Fletcher is one of the Directors of porcelain at Christies and is the author of a book on Meissen porcelain. W.A. Ismay has one of the largest private collections of studio pottery in this country. J.D.H. Catleugh is an architect and collector of studio pottery.

Published by the Craftsmen Potters Association of Great Britain Ltd. William Blake House, Marshall Street, London W.1.

TERMS Annual Subscription (six issues) £1 .50. Overseas rate £2 surface mail by International Money Order only. Air mail rates on application. Single copy 25p. By post 30p. Full and Associate Members of the Craftsmen Potters Association receive the magazine as part of their subscription. Classified advertising 30 words £1, extra words 5p. Display advertising 1/8 page £5, 1/4 page £9, 1/2 page £17 , full page £30. Full details on request. Opinions expressed are those of contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Craftsmen Potters Association . © Ceramic Review 1971 . No articles may be reproduced without the Editors' permission.

Diploma Shows Biographical details of potters often reveal unexpected backgrounds and there are few potters who have not at some point in their lives practised some other job, and then come only obliquely, to pottery . It is therefore with hopeful anticipation that one goes to see the work of students who have, from the beginning, chosen to work with clay. In the hothouse conditions and rarified atmosphere of an art school, with its enormous technical resources, expert advice and instruction to hand and with the promise -or threat- of a diploma show at the end of the course, students are both free and fettered at one and the same time . With this background, it is amazing how variable in both quality and interest the work on show appears . ·

Different art schools, establish for themselves over the years a reputation for a particular standard and type of work and it is against this often imaginary image, that the most recent work is judged . What has to be taken into account is the fact that each year's students react differently to the prevailing influences and nowadays do not seem so ready to fall into preconceived moulds . Not only do students come and go but so also do individual lecturers and these changes can alter the whole emphasis of the course. Ideally one must try to look at Diploma shows without prejudice but acknowledge openly the prejudices one has .

Looking at the work on show in and around London, it is impossible to draw any major conclusions, apart from the fact that more and more students are 'doing their own thing' and this rarely involves making repetition wares. A state of affairs which may or may not hold great promise for the future.

Among the many objects which were on show, were spaceage machines, electrical conductors and a Noah's Ark; there were bowls, cups and saucers and occasionally, fantastic coil and slab built Alice-in-Wonderland teapots . Students are moving more and more away from making pots and into the field of objects and the study of clay as a means of expression. Courses for the Diploma in Art and Design have, with rare exceptions moved away from the conception of the potter as a maker of useful domestic articles to that of a maker of decorative objects.

Some Vocational and College Diploma courses, however continue to combine training in craftsmanship and skill with an awareness of design related to function . Notable among such courses is the studio pottery course at Harrow School of Art.

One learns from talking to individual students their plans for the future, and is often impressed with their enterprise and initiative . Some plan a working visit to Japan. Others a small communal studio in Willesden or a workshop in Peckham Rye. It is interesting to find such varied plans and we hope to report on these in future editions of Ceramic Review .

In the face of so much obvious dedication and hard work ones first impression of the shows is that of admiration . There is however some work which seems to have failed either in its content or execution. Nevertheless at their best, Diploma shows are refreshing because of the new ideas and the different ways of approaching the working of clay. They also provide an opportunity for us to re-assess our own ideas and to become aware once again that we are concerned with a craft which is living and growing and that we can benefit by responding and reacting to the work and ideas of others .

Crafts Advisory Committee The Government is setting up an Advisory Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Paul Sinker to advise them on policy for the artist craftsman . The Committee will be serviced by a central office for the crafts, for which Sir Paul Reilly, Director of the Council of Industrial Desi gn , will be responsible. Sir Pau l Sinker was Director General of the British Council from 1954 t o 1968, an d since then has been Chairman of the Council of Sma ll Industries in Rural Areas .

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