Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
Sunday, June 27, 1954
A new and unique teaching venture will be started when Clem Hull, research ceramist and potter, will open an eight-week "school of ceramics," the first of its kind in Colorado Springs, Monday Night.
The classes will be held in the new Artist's Studio in the Van Briggle Pottery. This is a special studio donated by the pottery for the use of regional artists. The first ceramics class will be held at 7:30 p.m., Monday. A sign at the junction of the Fountain Creek bridge and Uintah Street, at the north-east corner of the pottery, will give directions to the studio,
Hull declared that there are many serious and hobby ceramists in the region who have wanted for a long time such a course in the fundamentals of ceramics and that the course is offered because of the long-felt need for such instruction here.
The Van Briggle Pottery, located a few blocks northwest of the Fine Arts Center and Colorado College, has reserved the studio for the local artists so that they may produce their original works there, which Van Briggle will sell for them under co-operative agreement. It is believed to be the first time in the country that a commercial art pottery has worked out a successful co-operative agreement with a group of artists, and the experiment is reported to be watched by other ceramists in the nation.
Hull will present his eight-weeks' course as a special, personal service to the region's artists. The pottery has donated the use of the studio for the ceramics course one night a week.
A number of persons, including several already prominent in the commercial pottery production field, have indicated their plans to attend the course.
Hull said that the course will cover the entire field of basic principles of pottery and ceramics. He pointed out that there have been a number of private ceramics teachers here, and some ceramic work has been done in schools and in other institutions, but his eight weeks course will, for the first time in the history of the Pikes Peak Region, offer a systematic representation of the scientific principles.
Ceramics is an ancient industry, Hull said. It goes back to the dawn of man. But in the last 100 years, he said, ceramics have gone from the art-craft level to the level of a science.
At the same time, he said, it is significant that ceramics has spread among great masses of hobbyists, small studio operators and artists, just as it was in the ancient days. This holds a great promise in a tremendous fiend, because so many people are interested in it, he said.
Hull said that ceramics, at this time, is a crossroads. He declared "the studio potter and ceramist emphasize the art-craft side of pottery without availing himself of the scientific knowledge. But with even a little of the ceramic science, he could go farther than he ever though possible, because science shows him the greater possibilities in what can be developed.
"It will be the function of the course, to give the serious
artist and hobbyist, and those who want to learn the basic principles
of ceramics from the beginning, a foundation in ceramic principles,
and understanding of what clay really is, why it has its unique
propertied, and why certain ingredients give certain results in
the glaze, the conversion of glazes from chemical formula to batch
recipe and what heat does to ceramics, why, and what the possibilities
are."
Prospective students were urged to register and participate in
the first session. Those who wish to register in advance, or obtain
more information, may do so by calling the Hull home at ME 3-9073.
The fee for the entire course may be paid in installments. Special arrangements may be made for the attending of individual lectures sperarately (sp), if it is so desire.