Material Culture Theory........

And Ian Hodders




A Christmas present! Archaeology Rocks!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Christmas!! A List of blogs and websites.

I have added a list of links. Notable for me in these are bibliographies which are contained in
Museum of London Ceramics and Glass Collections. http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/ceramics/pages/publications.asp

Michael Shanks ever changing blog
http://documents.stanford.edu/MichaelShanks/229

Edmund de Waals Website
http://www.edmunddewaal.com/
He lead the way for making pots out of porcelain in the late 20th century.

Knitting

I have been a knitter all my life , my mother taught me at 8 years old. I kniitted my first jumper at 10 years old 'a sloppy joe' of green acrylic. Lord knows where it went. I knitted my first aran cardigan at 13 years. There were loads of obvious mistakes in the panels but I still managed a whole garment. I continued knitting through my teens and twenties.I had a lull when my children were small, knitting the odd garment for them and the odd Kaffe Fassett inspired piece. I still have these.

Besides Pottery

I have been making knitted and felted jewellery exploring the use of materials other than metals for making jewellery.. It was something new in Plymouth. What this exploration has done is open up possibilities of the small sculptural objects, for using materials and processes not traditionally associated with the object. They are objects that contradict themselves I have knitted strawberries, made pendants for christmas presents, earings,brooches. If anyone should want a pattern I can write one out.

The Excavations in the Donyatt Pottery

Coleman-Smith,R. and Pearson, T.(1988) Excavations in The Donyatt Pottery. Oxford, Philimoore.

This book is one of Phil Hardings, from Time Team, favourite books. Also one of mine - as it highlights, with the artefacts themselves, the emergence of modern forms of pottery and the transition from medieval to modern.

Three thrown and altered cups

Tableware, the Studio Pottery Movement and modernism.

The studio pottery movement is a loose term for what was essentially a movement for, (what was condisidered at the time)my parenthesis, a traditional, non-industrial revival of handmade pottery, made in small studio by a small number or a lone potter(this definition is Edmund De Waals- On-line Rufford Essays). It was started in the 1920's by Bernard Leach who was a committed, focused activist. Since then attempts have been made to define the studio pottery movement within the terms of modernism and it has been difficult to locate this movement within the modernist canon. However, the research that I am doing into the origins of the ceramics that we use now, shows that the beginnings of the modern period,
c1650, the early industrial revolution, is when our everyday ceramics begin to emerge. Given that the early studio potters were making tableware within western styles, notably Michael Cardew,(Picture with some of his early pots from Winchcombe pottery, earthenware, slipware) even though they loooked to the past for inspiration they were making a 'modern' product.



imgurl=http://www.artsandcraftsmuseum.org.uk/uploads/artyfacts_archives/pattern_archives/sm_cardew.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.artsandcraftsmuseum.org.uk/artyfacts/archive_images2.asp%3Fpage%3D2%26type%3D1%26name%3DPattern&usg=__IE4g0L80pcKyI5_M4-h_Uauc_0w=&h=111&w=148&sz=5&hl=en&start=38&um=1&tbnid=LX8tJBNQBZEXmM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmichael%2Bcardew%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBR_enGB226GB235%26sa%3DN



They made teacups and saucers, plates. These had only been in common usage at the time from c1750 when mass production became established. Indeed, these forms , by 1920 had only been around for 170 years. Not long when thinking about history. This is the paradox of the early studio potters. the forms that they reproduced only became commonwith industrialisation. Despite, the different meanings and roots of the modern, modernism, these potters can begin to be seen as working within a 'modern tradition'. If such a notion is at all possible.