THAILAND CERAMIC ART DISCOVERY

THE INSTRUCTORS

DENYS JAMES
Denys has conducted over 50 workshops throughout Canada, Mexico,Turkey and U.S.A. and is represented in many collections. He has organized and led 13 ceramics oriented travel excursions to Mexico and Turkey. Over the past several years, he has organized and taught adobe bottle kiln building workshops. This unique type of kiln design is a synthesis of his observation of simple Mexican wood-fired kilns and traditional brick kilns in other locations. An article on these kilns appears in the Canadian ceramics magazine, CONTACT,#102,1995. In his own work, James has combined traditional and innovative techniques of slip and colour application to develop a unique way of 'drawing and painting' on the wet clay surface. CERAMICS, ART and PERCEPTION, VOL.20, 1995

He received his education at the University of British Columbia and the Banff Centre, School of Fine Arts. He has been on the faculty at several art schools and colleges, and is currently a exhibiting studio artist living on Saltspring Island, B.C. Canada. Denys has work on exhibition in Canada; Turkey; the United States; Mexico and London, England.

LOUIS KATZ
The son of a harpsichord-making pharmacist, Louis Katz comes from a family involved in the arts. An uncle is a professional pianist, and according to the Detroit News his great-grandfather played tuba for the Czar. One brother plays Klezmer clarinet, the other is a poet.

While in highschool Louis built a wood burning raku kiln, and started making pots in his basement. As good with numbers as he was with his hands, he enrolled in the University of Michigan Engineering School. In his words, "engineering school was an exercise in conformity, creativity was discouraged." Three weeks into his first year he transferred into the School of Art with the intention of becoming a potter. About this he said "money isn't everything". He received his B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1981 and a M.F.A. from Montana State in 1986.

Although not a potter in a functional sense ( he hasn't sold much ware that he expected people to use) Louis' work serves as an advocate for functional wares. He says that his kilns, line blends, stacks of pots, and installation pieces are his means of "educating the public, explaining the positive attributes of handmade functional ceramics... I want my father to understand why half the pot is burnt brown and the other half red."

In 1988 Louis received a Fulbright Research Grant to Document Thai Folk Pottery. An avid appreciator of the coarse "whole grain" ceramic wares from Thailand available in Chinese food stores, he spent ten months living in a village of potters and traveling to other pottery villages taking slides and video tape. His articles on the subject were published in September 1991 in Ceramics Monthly magazine and the NCECA Journal. He has two videos out on the Thai Pottery and has published a short guide to the potteries of Thailand complete with a small English - Thai Potter's Dictionary. The videos and guide are available from The Archie Bray Foundation, 2915 Country Club, Helena Montana 59601. Phone 1-(800) 443-6434.

Louis Katz now teaches at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

SUWANEE NATEWONG
Suwanee Natewong, the daughter of an important judge in Isaan, the Northeastern portion of Thailand, began University study in law school. Soon she dropped out and began decorating the water jars made by the local potters in Dankwean, Thailand. She would buy wet undecorated pots and pay for them, firing included. After she carved decoration into the pots the potters would fire them. She put up a table by the road and would sit and wait for people to stop and buy them. Often she would wait for days for a sale. She and her sister and future brother in-law would play guitar, sing and entertain any who stopped. Sometimes they would sell a pot. She now has about ten emplyees, and sells containers overseas. Her pots have been sold on all continents except Antartica.

Dankwean, the city Suwanee lives in, boasts over 50 wood fired anagama kilns. In Dankwean, being a potter is a prestigious job. People seek pottery skills to relieve them of the tedium of farming and to improve thier pay scale. Dankwean, meaning "station for oxcarts", is still an important location for long distance commerce.

Suwanee came to Canada in 1987 to sell pots at a trade fair. While there she met American Kurt Weiser who invited her to visit the Archie Bray Foundation, a private arts residency program in Helena, Montana. Suwanee
remembers his descriptions as, "a city for potters". She broke with her tour group and went to visit. Since that time she has come to the U.S. funded by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, a few years later funded by the Asian Cultural Council, and most recently in 1998 as a Fulbright Scholar in Residence.

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