I had the great misfortune to waste a lot of time at art school having to battle against one of the great 20th century myths about creativity. This was the idea that creativity could somehow shape the material world and could manifest itself without the mediation of any discernible skills at all. Creativity was thought to be an epiphenomenon of being, and being was definitely the thing. If you could get enough being on board you were set up as an artist. Later on I encountered much the same mindset in some of the more gimlet eyed evangelicals who had an unshakeable belief in the inerrancy of their obscure beliefs. Nowadays it’s conspiracy theorists, climate deniers, brexiters and anti vaxxers but it’s all rooted in the same problem; the refusal to examine, to question, to test and to modify your own practices and beliefs in the light of the evidence. Put simply; how can you possibly get better at what you’re trying to do – whether it’s running a country, making a pot or identifying a flower if you start with the assumption that anything you do is beyond critical reach because it just is!
I’ve heard apparently sensible writers say that they won’t read other peoples’ writing in case it influences them. They’re often the ones who make Vogon sonnets look like literature. I’ve spent most of this rainy week in North Wales grappling with computer programmes associated with the identification mainly of plants and it’s been a revelation to discover some of the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). You might think it would have been a better use of my time crawling around in the pouring rain with water running down my neck, looking for Wilson’s Filmy Fern – (I know where it’s supposed to be but it’s up a mountain wreathed in rain and mist) – but there’s nothing virtuous about unnecessary suffering and a bit of study pays better in the end.
Yesterday we went to see an exhibition at the Oriel, Glyn y Weddw in Llanbedrog involving the gathering, dying, spinning and weaving of wool – this is Wales after all. Here there was an abundance of art, technique and skill on show. Of course, all works of art begin with an idea – often very vague – but the real creative work is preserving and developing the initial vision through the processes that render it visible and never sacrificing the initial idea to showy skills. Great creative art is self-effacing about its means whilst being utterly dependent upon them. It’s not just musicians who have to spend so much time doing their scales. I couldn’t stop myself from getting down to nose-to-nose contact with one blanket just to see how the warp and weft was so skilfully woven that bright colours of the wools blended into the colours of autumn on the hills and mountains.
Upstairs in the same gallery is a permanent exhibition of porcelain, some of which was made at Nantgarw. My first degree was in Ceramics and I became fascinated by porcelain, and got to know and love the work of Thomas Pardoe – a decorator (I’d rather call him artist) of genius and William Billingsley a potter and decorator himself who ran huge legal risks by leaving Royal Worcester having signed the equivalent of a non-disclosure agreement by successfully arguing that the agreement didn’t cover the activity of making and decorating porcelain himself because he wasn’t disclosing any secrets. The technical expertise these and other working class potters displayed is awe inspiring. The process of manufacturing what was known as soft paste porcelain was wasteful, expensive and heartbreaking and neither man was a stranger to hardship and bankruptcy. The different styles of the two artists, though different, were so lovely I instinctively connected with them, and if they were alive today they would stand equal with the best natural history painters around. Pardoe produced some amazing botanical series, and Billingsley was so good at roses that Royal Worcester begged him to stay for fear of any competitor getting hold of him.
The 1800’s was an era when Wales was being stripped of the mineral wealth which was mined, forged and cast by men and women of real moral stature and turned into grand estates by their employers who often had none; or otherwise offshored the loot in English banks.
At art school, once again, we had a technician called Jack Pearce; a retired plasterer who could make plaster sing – he could speed the set or retard it and could feel the state of things in the bucket with his bare hands. Later on we moved to Stoke on Trent for a few months and saw the skills which were being discarded as the work was moved increasingly to China. Our mould maker Stuart, when he wasn’t recovering from a wild weekend, could cast anything – no matter how complex – and he helped to unload the last functioning bottle kiln in Stoke for the very last time as the industry died. As a child our next door neighbour Jim French was a glaze dipper at Pountney’s the Bristol Pottery where Pardoe worked for a while, and below our house was a marvellous allotment kept by Mr King – a fully Edwardian coal miner whose daily work involved walking to Parkfield Colliery in Pucklechurch and then walking back home hundreds of feet underground; only to repeat the walk in reverse at the end of his shift. I’d like to think that the Bristol Pottery kilns, pots glazed by Jim French, were fired with coal dug by Mr King’s forebears. My Dad was a GWR railwayman; I’m proud of my working class background
But what I’m doing here is not to promote hard work as a freestanding virtue, but to link it to the astounding creative achievements of these people; often poorly educated but who worked tirelessly to develop the skills which released and realized their creative abilities. At art school I was heavily penalized for spending too much time investigating glazes, clays and working techniques; but he who laughs last etc. If you want to be creative – I mean really creative – you’ll only ever be as good as your technique allows.
