Potting with puckish humour

Press, 23 November 1988, Page 24

Potting with puckish humour

By

GARRY ARTHUR

peter Lange, whose amusing slipcast sculptures were the highlights of the recent Canterbury Potters show, is a realist who makes wide use of pottery technology developed by industry, and responds quickly to the vagaries of the marketplace. At the same time, his work gives him a lot of fun.

Life experiences of all kinds have contributed to his approach to pottery, although the influence of the time when he polished silver for the Queen in the servants’ quarters at Buckingham Palace is a bit obscure.

Two that he singles out are the Westfield freezing works, where he learned the value of hard work, and Crown Lynn commercial pottery where he learned the sensible practical techniques, methods and materials that he has not scorned to apply in his own work.

His , cryptic ceramic sculptures — which look like assemblages from everyday, found objects but in fact are skilfully slipcast clay models of the objects themselves — were inspired by one of the 1981 Fletcher Brownbuilt pottery award judges, Richard Shaw of San Francisco. “His approach to clay and life attracted me,” Peter Lange says. “He’s been a big influence.” “Slipcasting is an area that studio potters tend to look down their noses on,” he says. “It’s an industrial process. It used to worry me too, but not now. Industry offers an extraordinary range of technology. Crown Lynn is an example; with only a little bit of effort that factory could produce extraordinary stuff that could be exported.” Peter Lange is not above trying any technique or material that suits his purpose. Even the range of hobby ceramics materials produced

“for women who didn’t want to get their hands dirty” he has turned to advantage, because it opened up a whole new palette of colours especially for that market. “It’s literally glaze out of a jar. The studio potters don’t approve of it very much — it’s not ‘elemental’ enough. But I’m. not much of an elemental potter really.” Two months ago Peter Lange received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant which will enable him to take time to experiment and to work towards an exhibition, probably next year. He plans similar work to the sculptures and teapots shown at the Canterbury Potters Association anniversary exhibition, but says it will not be the same “superrealistic trickery-fakery stuff — I’ve enjoyed it, but I’ve done that.” His description of his latest work stretchtes the imagination — “a figure with legs and feet of sponges, the body’s a hotwater bottle, the arms are half a mullet, and the head’s a brick with a calculator sticking out of it.”

He says some parts, of the figure are realistic; others are surfaces for him to paint with onglazes which come in a wide range and can be fired at lower temperatures. These glazes, which he uses to fire on gold and silver decals, are the same as those used by

Crown Lynn to fire patterns on plates — another example of the use of industrial technology. Peter Lange has a puckish sense of humour, and enjoys introducing an element of the absurd into his sculptural work — hence the teapots that look like broken bricks. “I really like faking up a brick,” he says. “A brick is a brick, and it’s absurd to make it hollow and to paint it. Now I’m thinking of doing a floating brick series, a fish made out of bricks for example.” The public enjoy Peter Lange’s whimsical sculptures, but they do not pay the rent. “The economics for it are fairly dodgy,” he says. “I can sit down and throw 40 plates and get a lot more money. I’m a fast thrower. The other stuff is more fun, but/j it’s also more stressful. I’m better at it than I was.” Peter Lange, who has been giving a school here for the Canterbury Potters Association, feels that pottery in New Zealand is battling today. “They’re like the sheep farmers,” he says.

“Imported pots have knocked a big wedge of the market right out. I think the position of pottery in New Zealand years ago was quite anomalous. There was a real bonanza. Now we are approaching sustainable normality. The market is tighter — it’s reached a realistic level now.”