The creativity of students rarely fails to amaze me. Within a prescribed course of one, two, three or even more years, students consistently produce work that pushes at the boundaries of our understanding of clay and its possibilities. In addition to demonstrating skill, much of it is innovative, provocative and witty. As a glance at the objects selected for Ceramic Contemporaries 4 shows, there is ample evidence that the creativity associated with student work continues, with objects that range from seductive hand-thrown tableware; crisp designs for industrial production to figurative and minimalist sculpture, ingenious installation and many points in between.

Yet, however steady the creative trajectory appears, inevitably things appear less assured within art institutions. They, like us all, are affected by the transformations taking place within the wider world as the old certainties about who and what we are, are fast disappearing. Far reaching economic, social, political and scientific change push back or blur boundaries hitherto taken for granted. Within science and medicine our whole sexual identities are questioned as animals are cloned and human cloning looms in the distance, while gender confusion results in men becoming women, and women, men. Even the edge between life and death has become a matter of debate as medical knowledge becomes more sophisticated. Such issues are as much philosophical as practical. The world of art has not remained immune to such dramatic events. A few examples must suffice. Neither Tate Modern nor Tate Britain collects photography per se, but have photographs in their collections under the category of sculpture. Neither does the Tate collect applied art or craft although that too has begun to change. The recent installation ‘Wavelength’ by Martin Smith at Tate St Ives introduced work with a powerful craft element. Within performance, installation and video any relatively clear demarcation is hopelessly lost as one area merges imperceptibly with another.
The crafts, too, have experienced fundamental change. By the early 1990s, the assumptions on which the Crafts Council was set up in 1973 - that there are identifiable distinctions to be made between fine art and fine craft - were beginning to be seriously challenged. To some extent these were reflected in the radical and far-reaching reforms within government provision for the arts. Three years ago, at the instigation of the Minister for the Arts, Chris Smith, the Crafts Council and the Arts Council of England merged. Amazingly there was only muted dissent from within the art and craft worlds at this fundamental reconfiguring of the art/craft map. Ten years earlier a similar suggestion by the then Arts Minister Richard Luce was met with derision and firmly rejected. That Luce’s intention was primarily aimed at saving money did not help; Smith’s proposal was altogether more ambiguous in proposing a merger rather than a take over, and could be seen as a ‘coming of age’ for the crafts in general.

All such change is about opening up rather than narrowing down, and offers potential that will begin to question established hierarchies, impinging for example on such august institutions as the Hayward and Serpentine Galleries, traditionally devoted to fine rather than applied art. The Crafts Council remains as the national body for crafts. It provides a range of public services such as a reference section and information library, issues publications, mounts exhibitions, offers marketing advice and cares for professional development. Yet with the crafts now competing within the wider world of visual art, the work has to stand alongside all other forms of art, and the existence of a separate body for the crafts may appear anachronistic in these more fluid, expansive times.

For artists and students within ceramics, as opposed to other decorative or applied art areas, the issue of what is or is not appropriate, or where the work is placed within the spectrum of the visual arts, is even more challenging. Ceramics has always incorporated a great deal of ambiguity in that it is a material rather than an object based study. No other subject area within art schools is identified to such extent by material, whether it be furniture, fashion, jewellery, painting or sculpture, where the object or area is defined but not the material that is to be used. Only textiles share some of the approaches of ceramics, but by its very nature textile does not have the same broad history as clay, a material which has been/is used for constructing buildings, conducting sewage, fashioning spark pugs and insulators as well as making tableware, raku and sculpture. Textilists may contest this.

At the recent conference Form and Content1, one of the issues that arose in discussion was the position of art schools in regard to contemporary craft practice, and to what extent they play a crucial role in setting an agenda for ceramics as a whole. Do they - or can they - take a lead and set an example, or do they follow and adapt to trends? Art schools have occasionally done this with great success. One has only to think of the far reaching effect of the modernist philosophy of functionalism and ‘truth to materials’ that informed the Bauhaus, the most influential design school of the twentieth century, to see how important and extensive the effects of a philosophy of education can be. With an emphasis on both design and craft skills, the Bauhaus pioneered an understanding of materials and aesthetics that few schools could equal. Study included detailed research into natural form, composition in various materials, analysis of Old Masters and theories of form as well as practical work learning carpentry, metalwork, weaving, ceramics etc. Graduates moved to many parts of the world taking such ideas, and putting them into practice. It is doubtful if such a system would work in our more multi-diverse, pluralistic society, or even be desirable, but the vision and philosophy was one that continues to inform much art school thinking.

Ceramic departments operate to large extent independently within their own institution, and devise a curriculum that reflects the wider ethos and philosophy of the college, bearing in mind the facilities they have and the interests of the staff. Within the wider provision of art departments across the country, specialist, dedicated ceramic courses are becoming ewer as some move towards multi-disciplined courses within modular systems that offer greater flexibility to include other areas of study. Whether this results in ‘watering down’ can only be assessed by the outcome, and observers will have differing opinions on this.
Some art school courses are aligned with glass, others within wider three-dimensional concerns or even a broader range of possibilities.

A glimpse of the course descriptions of ceramics, as opposed to mixed media courses, given by art schools and listed in Potters2 makes useful reading in indicating the breadth and diversity of courses currently on offer. Most outline broadly similar ideas. These are to do with providing an understanding of contemporary ceramics, in acquiring craft skills either with hand work or/and industrial production, and in placing art and design along side other cultural, historical and social practices and the ‘creative evolution’ of individual interests.

There are, however, discrete differences, where one becomes aware of a more specialist approach. Traditionally ceramic departments have reflected the personality of the head, or developed a particular tradition, acquiring over the years almost iconic status. Examples that come to mind are The West Surrey College of Art and Design (Farnham), which under Henry Hammond and Paul Barron gained a reputation for Leach-inspired reduction wares. Central St Martins School of Art (Central) led by Gilbert Harding-Green was associated with thrown and hand-built earthenware while in the sixties the University of Westminster (Harrow) acquired renown for its studio pottery course. As lecturers retired and demands altered, so courses changed, generally towards a more homogeneous, generalist approach.3 In the current listing, in addition to offering such basic aspects as acquiring skills, cultural and critical studies, a range of other issues are touched on; these include a concern with the ecological use of raw materials and in firing methods; another specifically addresses the issue of functional ceramic design.

Even these brief listings give an indication of the issues facing ceramic courses in seeking to offer something unique and different while at the same time being comprehensive. This is especially so at a time when most of them are under pressure to maintain or even increase numbers while also retaining high levels of achievement. The two aims - numbers and standards - may appear to be in opposition, particularly in a highly competitive market, where with more places available students seem spoilt for choice. Within departments there are also profound philosophical decisions about direction. Should the courses, for example, retain a hands-on approach, in which thinking through doing may be as acceptable (or even more so) as sketching and planning? Or should they move towards a more design-based approach where students spend as much if not more time at the drawing board as at the wheel or bench? The apparent conflicts, while not new, take on fresh meaning at a time when resources are limited. Should the course remain materials and process led, with ideas flowing from practical experience? Or should ideas be conceived independently and the most suitable method of making found to carry out the idea? Associated with this is the extent to which the history of ceramics or/and ceramic technology are taught, which some would argue, unlike personal development, can be learnt from books.

Perhaps one of the thorniest issues is the emphasis on the relationship between theory and practice. While most undergraduate courses include some form of art, design and craft history, theory, criticism and cultural studies, not all see this as an important or central aspect of the syllabus. Some students find such topics irrelevant to their studies, particularly those working at the craft rather than art end of the spectrum; they may be more inclined towards more intensive business studies. While for others the relation of ceramics to the social, economic, cultural world in which we live is part of a wider debate about the role of art today.

One of the ‘new’ areas within all craft disciplines is the tricky one of ‘theory’, a word that seems dauntingly austere and cerebral in comparison to the haptic nature of craft. Making use of linguistics, semiotics, structuralism and psychoanalytic theory, such study looks beyond mere appearance to link making with some concept of ‘why’ as well as ‘how’. Fine artists adopted such theory, which originated in the study of language, in the 1970’s and 80’s, with texts by modern French writers such as Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault stressing the fragmentation of knowledge and experience.4 The whole question of ‘aesthetic philosophy’, asking questions about definitions of art and craft, the notion of beauty, and the significance of the handmade in an industrial society, is a part of the transformative nature of ceramics and its role within visual art.

Art schools, traditionally seen as at the cutting edge of new developments, informed by an anarchic spirit of exploration and excess, are fruitful training grounds. Within the area of applied art we may need to be clearer about its pluralistic nature and accept difference as part of mapping new territory.

1. Form and Content, Technology and Aesthetics in Contemporary Ceramics, conference organised by Ceramic Review and Crafts Council, SOAS, October 20, 2001
2. Potters: The Illustrated Directory of Fellows and Members of the Craft Potters Association, Twelfth Edition, Edited by Emmanuel Cooper, Ceramic Review Publications, London 2000, pp. 353-372.
3 Interestingly, Martin Lungley, a Royal College of Art graduate, put forward a persuasive argument for more specialist courses inclined towards more practical skills in ‘The Future of Skill’, Ceramic Review, no 191, September/October, 2001. pp. 40-41
4 This issue is well outlined in Peter Bodenham, Ceramics and Aesthetics: Theory and criticism in education, Ceramic Review, no 188, March/April, 2001, pp. 32-35