A Potter's Companion: Imagination, Originality, and Craft

Excerpts & Samples

By Ronald Larsen

Publisher : Inner Traditions/Bear & Company

ABOUT Ronald Larsen

Ronald Larsen
A former professor of mathematics at Yale University who holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, Ronald Larsen established Crary Mills Pottery in New York State in 1978. Since then, he has been a full-time studio potter who makes functional stoneware pottery using traditional hand methods. More...

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Description

 
In a celebration of the functional and the handmade, potter Ronald Larsen has gathered an engaging collection of essays, stories, poems, and observations by a wide range of potters, writers, philosophers, and other artisans, exploring the history, aesthetics, and philosophy behind making pots--or anything else--by hand. 
   
Includes, among others, the writings of:
  Marguerite Wildenhain--A Potter's Philosophy
  Octavio Paz--Use and Contemplation
  Lafcadio Hearn--The Tale of the Porcelain-God
  John Updike--From the Journal of a Leper
  Jamake Highwater--Illusions of Originality
  Wallace Stevens--Anecdote of the Jar
  Bernard Leach--The Potter's Challenge
"This is not a book to be read from front to back but rather a book to dip into at random for refreshment of the spirit, for a laugh, for reflection, or in some cases for a challenge to ideas held dear. Each time I have opened it there has been a surprise and something to engage my interest."
From the foreword by Warren MacKenzie, master potter