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 What I like about what I do is that
despite the frustrations and risks of self-employment I
am engaged on a daily basis in activities and concerns that
matter to me. I have, I tell myself, control over my own
working life and if I feel like it's getting out of control
I'm in a position to change that. It's not always easy answering
to oneself but at least there is no question about whom
I answer to ... at least as far as my work is concerned.
I've made my living for twenty-five years as a … What?
Object maker? Certainly as a potter but also making sculpture,
architectural commissions from tables to fireplaces in a
wide range of materials but chiefly in clay, cast and slumped
glass and cast bronze. I thrive on experimentation, transformation
by fire (raku, bronze and glass casting, saunas!) and the
pursuit of creative ideas. I like challenges. I also seem
to need the balance periodically that throwing and trimming
provides to the chaos of my other creative pursuits.
My working life is always in flux. I used to think that
once I'd found the formula for a successful career, found
the groove, it would be easy sailing. Fat chance. I now
realize this whole business is about flux and change and
one's ability to adapt and be flexible with changing times
and changing interests, not to mention ageing body parts.
I've learned from some mistakes, sold others and seem to
find some impossible to resist repeating frequently. I feel
that if I'm not screwing up every now and then I'm not trying
hard enough, not exposing myself to enough risk.
Seeking balance between all the disparate parts of work
and life keeps me thoroughly engaged and forms a central
theme for much of my work in recent years. Life as an object
maker, vessel smith, balance seeker, mud-slinger, silica
slumper... is great; I wouldn't have it any other way .
. . most days.
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Artist's Statement from Peter
Powning: Elemental Clay and Glass
How does one find some kind of balance and clarity amidst
the demands and clutter of daily life?
I have a knack for being so busy that I lose track of the
point of my busy-ness. All the activity of producing work
and its attendant infrastructure can be a terrible distraction
from the core purposes of this activity. In fact, that core
is somewhat elusive. Am I simply making a living? Seeking
fulfilment, meaning and expression through acts of creativity?
Fulfilling other people's expectations? All or none of the
above?
Keeping it all in perspective and finding balance is a
daily struggle. Keeping the creative spark alive is much
like tending a wood fire. Ignore it - it dies. Throw on
too much fuel - it goes out, billows smoke or becomes an
uncontrollable conflagration. Get too caught up in elaborate
fixtures and equipment and you can lose track of the fire
and its centrality.
The biggest challenge of making a living as an artist is
balancing the need for expression and experimentation with
the need for income. Most of what I make has to pass the
test of the marketplace. While I haven't let this dictate
what I make, it does mean that much of what I do must not
only have appeal to me but also be accessible to others.
This forces a certain practicality over my working life.
Frequently I chafe at this; it offers an imposed discipline
that perhaps, in the long run, has been beneficial, but
it can also lull me into a false sense of accomplishment.
$ = artistic success; quantity = achievement. There is something
in me that rebels against the practical.
While the process of producing an almost unconscious stream
of work can permit occasional gems to arise from the mulch
of experience, ideas, universal forms and themes, the habit
of production can also become a crutch or distraction from
the practice of developing more individual work. The two
ways of working can co-exist, but it makes the balancing
act even more difficult.
I have a bi-polar creative life. I need the mindless and
the mindful; repetition and singularity. By "mindless"
I mean what Gary Snyder calls "relaxed inattention",
"an intuitive capacity to open the mind and not cling
to too rigid a sense of the conscious...". (*Gary Snyder.,
The Real Work: Interviews and Talks, 1964 - 1979. New Directions
Books, p.35, (1980).) This process or state is difficult
to attain and transitory, but at its best is transcendant
and, for me, it can apply to both production and the creation
of singular objects, although much more frequently with
the latter. It isn't achieved by sticking with the safe
and previously successful; it requires an openness to new
avenues of exploration, sometimes new materials, and a willingness
to take risks and deal with failures.
So far, my best solution to the quest for balance and clarity
is to keep trying - not give up even though the requisite
conditions seem to be constantly evolving and shifting.
Mistakes mean growth, at least I dearly hope so.
I've become increasingly aware that time I spend in the
woods, along brooks and in the fields is an important source
of stability and perspective in my life. My wife Beth and
I have lived in the same house, in rural New Brunswick for
twenty-six years. Our intimacy with place is an important
element of our lives. Seeking balance between disparate
demands can be maddening, but being in the grip of the creative
act is what I love most and makes the struggle worthwhile.
I also thrive on the sense of this shared experience with
other artists. The compulsions and obsessions that drive
artist's creativity may vary, but at the core of all our
striving is an intense connection with some elemental condition.
Once, when travelling in England, two other potters and
I spent a wonderful afternoon with David Leach. We were
having a terrific talk about work and life, when David Leach
in his shy way, laughed in delight and said how much he
loved "...the community of potters." I have since
come to feel that the same notion extends beyond potters
to include the community of artists; that the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts. As artists, we may live and work
in relative isolation from each other but we still form
a community within society that is critical to the health
of society; cultural and otherwise. Despite all our differences
we have much in common.
I am lucky in my life to live with a talented and dedicated
artist, and to have a son who has plans for a similar life.
I am lucky in my work to gain a livelihood, but also through
it, to be engaged in a wide range of pursuits, from the
aesthetic and philosophical, to the material and technical.
I am defined within my community by what I do, and it provides
me with a base from which I can view and react to the world.
It is both a challenging and rewarding existence.
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