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Alan Wallwork
Below are the
autobiographical notes supplied by Alan for the Harlequin Gallery exhibition
in March 2009. These are shown here in full in an attempt to put the record
straight about his life and career.
With an
early interest in film design, I was put on the waiting list for a training
scheme launched by J. Arthur Rank studios. Two years of National Service
intervened and now with other ambitions I began the NDD course at Watford
School of Art. A severe illness and hospitalization cut this short. As a form
of recuperation it was suggested I took a two-year residential course at Newlands Park Teachers Training College, Buckinghamshire. Here I had unlimited access to
well-equipped pottery and painting studios. A lengthy delay in the
appointment of a lecturer left me to find my own way in pottery techniques,
guided only by Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book. High grades on graduation won me
eligibility for a special one-year course at Goldsmiths’ College, South London, with access to any Art School classes of choice. I chose pottery, painting,
etching and fabric printing. Kenneth Clark and Gordon Baldwin ran the pottery
classes. Their broad approach to pottery techniques and an open-minded view
of original uses for craft pottery made a strong and lasting impression on
me.
On leaving Goldsmiths’ in 1956 I took
a series of posts at local secondary schools, reducing teaching time as in
1957 I converted shop premises in Forest Hill, South London, for use as a
gallery with the upper floors as studios and accommodation for myself and a
partnership of other ex-Goldsmiths’ students.
Opening in 1958 and named the Alan Gallery, paintings by the partners were to be shown with
bought in ceramics by London potters: Lucie Rie, Kenneth Clark, Ann Wynn Reeves
and David Eeles among them. It was soon clear that pottery sold better than
paintings and I fitted out rooms at the back of the gallery and began making
my own pots. At first thrown domestic ware, moulded brush decorated dishes
and hand built pieces, including lamp bases and “pinched” bowls. All were
fired at earthenware temperature. Domestic ware was tin glazed and brush or
sgraffito decorated. Later matt glazes in black, brown or yellow-green were
introduced. Much use was made of rubbed on oxides to give a warm, “toasted”
look to unglazed areas of hand built work. Incised textures often inlaid with
white slip and impressed decoration using clay stamps and “roulettes” were favoured. While experimenting with dripped and trailed glaze
pools, I hit on effects, which I developed into a range of tiles that rapidly
found an avid market. This success paved the way to phasing out domestic
earthenware and the purchase of a better kiln for high temperature stoneware,
in alternation with the flourishing earthenware tiles. The weight of pottery
sales against paintings led to the amicable withdrawal of my original
partners and the dropping of bought in work as my own took over the gallery
space. Advertising my possible need for an assistant led to the appearance of
Bernard Rooke, also ex-Goldsmiths’, whose kindred views on techniques and
aspirations prompted an offer to him of a share of the workshop and living
space. We both soon found rapidly growing demand for our work but I became
aware that I was blatantly infringing the approved use of the gallery for
retail only.
I found much larger premises in Greenwich comprising of a large shop with three floors above
and a basement below, all with existing use for light industry having formed
part of a hacksaw blade factory, now divided off. Bernard Rooke agreed to rent the basement;
Robert and Sheila Fournier took a large upper room, as did the painter Cyril
Reason. The shop area was fitted out as a showroom, with me working in the
rear and other rooms above. The aim was to offer show space for all the
occupants, hopefully attracting the custom of architects, interior designers
and craft retailers.
Sales rose rapidly,
especially for Bernard Rooke and me. I had designs accepted by the Design Centre and my work was included
in their touring exhibitions abroad. My tiles were also on the Design Index.
I formed a rewarding and friendly relationship with Heals of Tottenham Court
Road through their amicable buyer, Mark Ransome. Heals and the flourishing
Craftsmen Potters Association, of which I was elected a Council Member,
became major outlets, then easily accessible from Greenwich before the days of traffic congestion. Demand
developed so rapidly that I began taking on assistants. These were employed
partly to help decorate the tile ranges and partly to help with a growing
repertoire of small and medium hand built pieces, made in quantity, with me
completing the final shaping and decorating. These more modest pieces were
marked either with an impressed or incised W. Large pieces were coiled or thrown
or a combination of both. Some assistants with exceptional aptitude in hand
building alternated with me in the building up of large pieces so that
several forms could be under construction at the same time under my
supervision. A large electric kiln was installed. The clay body now used
incorporated a coarse fireclay with many impurities. At stoneware temperature
the burning off of the impurities created a reduced atmosphere in the kiln
chamber giving the work the “toasted” look normally achieved in a flame kiln
and added subtleties to glaze colour and surface. The kiln elements suffered as a result of the reduction
but the results were judged worth the cost.
Individual pieces were marked
with an incised, linked A W. Heals
were instrumental in my work being included in a major exhibition at Illums Bolighus, Copenhagen at a time when several
important department stores were co-operating internationally. Another major
development was a substantial order for tiles from an advertising agency, J.
Walter Thompson for a promotional campaign. The scale of this order prompted
the purchase of a large ex-chapel in Marnhull, Dorset to provide more
workshop space and the installation of more kilns and the taking on of more
assistants.
Commuting between the two workshops became irksome and I wound down
the Greenwich studios, subletting to other potters, Sally Vinson
and Henna Thomas amongst others. In the mid 1960s I moved down to live and
work full time in Dorset. In addition to the electric kilns for tile firing,
a large propane kiln was installed for reduction fired stoneware and local
women taken on, mainly as tile decorators, the most skilled also assisting
with pottery processes. A high volume of work was produced for a number of
years, the tiles finding an eager market in the USA, Australia and Europe, as well as the UK. Pottery sales were channeled through Heals,
Briglin Pottery and the Craftsmen Potters Shop. I contributed less and less
to formal exhibitions because of the forward commitment and transportation.
By the mid 1970s however I
became increasingly concerned with the environment and my own profligate use
of energy and felt an urge to downsize. I cut down more and more on my
contacts with London as the traffic problem grew. I built and fired a
wood-burning kiln but was unconvinced that this was enough of a solution.
Events decided matters for me when inflation and national instability took
precedence in 1979. With time my team of assistants had shrunk in number
without being replaced and I began to sell off equipment preparatory to
looking for more modest premises. One last venture was with a
range of broken textured plain coloured tiles commissioned by a kitchen furniture firm. These proved
alarmingly popular but tedious to produce and when I was asked to increase
production twenty fold I called a halt to it all and put the Marnhull studios
up for sale and began to look for new premises on the Dorset coast. A house and workshop was found in woodland high above Lyme
Regis in a spectacular but somewhat impractical setting. I produced a volume
of organically inspired hand built forms with an emphasis on dramatic surface
textures, cracked and pitted. Illness and hospitalization interrupted and an
opportunity arose to buy in a more accessible and sunnier position on an
opposite hilltop across the valley. A
substantial workshop was built next to the house, the big gas kiln lifted in
by crane and after a difficult year work began again at Whitty Down Farm,
Higher Rocombe. “Pebble” forms,
“seedpod” forms - made from a basic
sphere - two “pinch” bowls joined rim to rim then grooved, segmented, altered
in various ways. Experiments were made with contrasting clay bodies:
porcelain blending into stoneware, porcelain forms encrusted in craggy
stoneware. “Crescent” forms with intricate piercing, the piercing inlaid with colour and translucent glazes. “Cleft spheres” - rounded
forms deeply cut into allowing a glimpse of translucent glaze deep in the
core, the crust heavily textured and pierced. Thrown and coiled oval forms
half split open, the split edges fretted and pierced in manifold ways. Tall
“female” forms, torso like, waisted and modeled with simple matt glazes and
deep “navel” piercing.
A slight stroke in the late
1990s impaired for a time the use of my right arm and prevented throwing for
some time but I was still able to make my small “pinched” forms with my one
good hand and the activity probably aided the restoration of almost full use
of both once more. The experience
seemed a signal that the time was nigh for a change of pace. Whitty Down Farm was sold, the kiln
demolished and I set off to fulfill a long held desire to spend time in France.
An old stone building with workshop
space was bought in Missegre, a
delightful, fairly high and remote village in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Limoux in the Aude. There I built a top loader propane fired
kiln and began once more to make pottery. My original intention was to make
leisurely trips back to England, exploring new routes each time with a vanload of
finished work for sale through favourite outlets back home. Two of these trips were enough to show me that
long distance driving in a large vehicle was no longer a pleasure for me and
my partner and longtime friend, Barbara Huxley. Reg Moon, also a longtime
friend, drove down to Missegre and took back the first batch of work for
exhibition in his gallery in Henley in Arden.
Since then several consignments have gone
back by carrier to John Rastall at the Harlequin Gallery, some to the Devon
Guild and for a major exhibition at Walford Mill Craft Centre in conjunction
with my daughter Amanda’s paintings and my grandson, Rowan Stickland’s
sculptures. With declining health and physical capabilities the Walford Mill
show was my last attempt to make large forms. I have settled for small and
medium pieces, variations on my favourite “crescent” forms made partly by slab, part by coil
building take precedence being less physically demanding. The simple,
sweeping outer curvatures, contrasting with the plane surfaces, allowing
scope for tactile permutations - an outer “crust” protecting a complex inner
core, pierced and glaze inlaid -
continue to stimulate my interest.
Copyright: Alan Wallwork - not to be reproduced as a whole or in
part without permission.
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