[Note: A version of this column first appeared at The Woodshed.] America's first true Art Potter. By Jean Rivard 
I FIRST READ ABOUT George Ohr a few years ago in a Smithsonian Magazine article. And now there is a newly published book about him by Robert A. Ellison entitled George Ohr, Art Potter: The Apostle of Individuality. Working from the early 1880s to 1908 and referred to as the Mad Potter of Biloxi, Ohr was the real deal, a genius who, at a time when most "art pottery" consisted of variations in surface decoration, explored shape, color, and technique in ways that were at least 50 years ahead of his time. Ohr was also wildly eccentric, fully aware of his own genius and lacked an ounce of restraint in proclaiming it: "Unequalled! Unrivalled! Undisputed! Greatest Art Potter on Earth!" Of course Ohr was not truly mad, and in the beginning, his self-promotional theatrics drew tourists to his shop in Biloxi. As he himself winkingly said some years later, "I learned early on that it paid for me to act this way." However, Ohr also knew he was a "duck among chickens," and in photos his eyes radiate a vivid vitality and humor that could only have startled many of the solid citizens he lived among. But in the end, as he delved deeper into his Art, his reputation as a flamboyant character came to overshadow the response of critics and the general public to his work. Most considered Ohr's altered shapes the artist's ongoing attempts to draw attention to his self, and thus were never taken seriously during the course of his life.
It should be noted that Ohr was not entirely unrecognized in his day. By 1900 he had achieved some national prominence among potters, won a silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, and William King, one of the premier art critics of his day, referred to Ohr, as "... a genius who has no counterpart in the pottery world at home or abroad." But for the most part he was dismissed and because he refused to sell his "mud babies" for less than their weight in gold, or to those who failed to fully appreciate them, the mass bulk of his work — literally thousands of pieces — came to rest in crates in the attic of his house until they were rediscovered in the 1970s. Ohr himself said, "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come." How right he was. Today in Biloxi there is a Frank Gehry designed museum dedicated to his life and work, his pieces sell for 1000 times their weight in gold, and his work rests in institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institute. There is little of Ohr's work to be seen on the internet, but for some pictures go here and here (click on photos). It is interesting to understand Ohr as a utilitarian trained folk potter who became a Master Craftsman who became a Master Artist — a man who, working in near solitude, versed himself in the history of ceramics and then punched a hole well into the next century of Art. Ohr learned the basics of the craft from a friend in New Orleans. Finding the potter's wheel was, as Ohr described it, like that wild duck he knew himself to be finding water. Having learned to make basic functional ware and souveneir items, for the most part Ohr would earn his entire income for the rest of his career from such wares. But Ohr the artist wasn't content with that. Early in his career he spent two years traveling throughout the United States and attended every show and every museum he could, as well as read every book he could in order to gain some knowledge on the history of ceramics. And so, in some of Ohr's pieces one will find echoes of ancient Greek, or Chinese porcelain shapes, not to mention contemporary forms, all, of course, which Ohr ultimately made unique. As a Craftsman, Ohr, working on his handmade wheel, using mud he dug up himself on riverbanks, and firing in his hand built kiln, learned to throw walls so thin that they could elsewhere only be found in industrial molds. It has been said that Ohr the technician might be the greatest thrower in the history of the craft. He created all his own glazes and coatings from his own formulas (all lost now,) and during his own time his work was noted mainly for its stunning colors. Whether muted or bold, the glazes are extraordinary, although Ohr became so frustrated with the attention given to the colors in lieu of his shapes that later in his career he ceased coloring many of his pieces at all. Because for Ohr it was always all about the shapes. It has been speculated that Ohr's ability to throw such thin walls may have provided the technical breakthrough that allowed him to delicately bend, punch, twist, fold, and otherwise alter the forms until, when combined with his creative philosophy, each became a piece of abstract expression, based on, but transcending traditional forms. Artistically this breakthrough would not occur again until the late 1950s, when a group of ceramicists working in Los Angeles explored such altered expressionistic shapes. Ohr, working alone, outside of any artistic movements or schools, had no artists to compare notes with, none to validate his explorations, except King, the art critic, who entitled his article about Ohr, "High Art, in Biloxi, Miss." But it seems that even among artists Ohr was still a duck amongst chickens. And while it breaks my heart to know under his lively demeanor Ohr sometimes howlingly despaired of anyone ever seeing and acknowledging his work, I have to laugh when I read of Ohr's bawdy nature - how he likely lost one teaching job for behavior, if not unbecoming a potter, certainly unbecoming a teacher of decorous young women in New Orleans - and then draw in a breath upon seeing how his earlier crude sensibilities, with literal depictions of feces and vaginas and other pieces since labeled "bawdyware," transformed into an aching sensuality — those lines, those curves, those shapes those shapes those shapes! I don't know if Ohr loved women, but there can be no doubt he loved the female form. "Shapes come to a potter as verses to the poet," Ohr would say. "Clay follows the fingers and the fingers follow the mind." Upon viewing his "babies" one can quite literally image Ohr at his wheel, lovingly working those shapes into unique being. Ohr was keenly attuned to the analogy of God creating man out of clay and Ohr creating his babies from mud. So I find myself in a deep kinship with Ohr upon reading of his creative philosophy: "I am the apostle of individuality, the brother of the human race, but I must be myself, and I want every vase of mine to be itself." Mostly though, like all great Art, Ohr's work speaks for itself and upon viewing pictures of his work in two books published about him I am brought to the same overwhelming sense of awe I feel upon viewing a Van Gogh or reading Yeats. And I whisper Amen Brother George. —Jean Rivard is the creator of Valentine Hearts, a collection of graphically edited lampworked beads inspired by literature. NOT YET A SUBSCRIBER TO POLYSEMY? Make the choice to become one today — click here for POLYSEMY Print, or here for POLYSEMY Digital. ©2006 Polysemy. All rights reserved. |
