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Film s
View s o f the
Potter’s L ife
A
Year in the Life: Clary Illian
Directed by Atom Burke
Atom Burke Productions
24 min., DVD $30
atomburke.com
The Leach Pottery, 1952
Restored and re-released by
Marty Gross Film Productions
32 min., DVD $30
martygrossfilms.com
A TEAR IN THE LIFE
BEGINS W ITH
a quotation from Clary Illian’s
A Potter’s Workbook-.
“It is a
wondrous thing that.
.. people
still want to make pots on a pot-
ter’s wheel.”
The Leach Pottery,
1952
ends with a voice-over by
Warren MacKenzie saying that
he learned from Bernard Leach
not only “how to make pots,”
but “why anyone made pots in
this day and age.” Illian, like
MacKenzie, apprenticed at the
Leach Pottery. But as the state-
ments suggest, beyond that im-
mediate link these films share a
deeper concern with pottery
and the potter’s life.
The 1952 film apparently
was made at Leach’s request by
local camera club members in
Cornwall, England, with a few
shots by MacKenzie from the
same period. In this restoration,
MacKenzie’s excellent voice-
over commentary helps explain
the workings - artistic, person-
al, economic - of the pottery,
and helps make the film a happy
discovery. It turns basic footage
shot without sound into an en-
gaging guide to one of the most
important sites in modern
ceramics.
Above: Leach Pottery
built the first Japanese-
style climbing kiln in
Europe. This blueprint
is from 1923.
Right: A page from the
1952 catalog shows the
pottery’s offerings in its
standard ware.
A Ttar in the Life
is less
happy, if only because it cap-
tures the dramatic after-effects
of a badly broken wrist and
shows Illian moving from a
main-street building in Ely,
Iowa, where she lived and
worked for more than two
decades. Re-established in a
nearby house with a new garage
studio, she starts up again mak-
ing smaller, more manageable
- and colorful - electric-fired
work. The narrative is a bit un-
even, but the interview footage
and many images of Illian’s
work succeed in revealing her
skill and imagination as a potter
and her forthright, resilient
character during a difficult
period.
-R O BE R T SILBERMAN
Robert Silberman is a member of
the department of art history at the
University of Minnesota.
LEACH POTTERY
iAINT IVES
“
03
018 american craft fcb/m arn
Photos: Courtesy of Bernard Leach (St. Ives) Trust
