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The Ceramic practice

Wit and Wonder: the ceramic practice of Bernard Sahm

'despite a seeming confusion regarding a prime direction for mankind other than self-extermination, there exists an unbounded curiosity which is manifest in a probing and questioning of the all and everything. With this can come new visions of what he is and what he might be, and thus man can understand himself and be in harmony with his total environment. Bernard Sahm1

Artist - Bernard Sahm Bernard Sahm's ceramic practice embraces 55 years of great change in Australian society and in the Australian art environment. A retrospective exhibition of this significant ceramic artist, has both a personal and a social dimension. We observe his practice find its direction, as he engages with the social issues around him and currently with his surrounding environment. He leads us through these complex and contentious decades of our history with wit and wonder. The words 'Wit and Wonder' were chosen as the title of Sahm's retrospective for their ambiguity hinting at his ironic observation and intelligent comment, and his open minded curiosity and thoughtful contemplation of the world he lives within.

Sahm's essential curiosity and practical individualism was apparent from the beginning in his search for a career direction from 1949-54. His search was unconventional but through it he amassed a breadth of skills and knowledge that has underpinned his lifelong enthusiasm for the mechanics of construction and for self- expression as a potter, ceramic sculptor, teacher and Head of Ceramics, Sydney College of the Arts.

In the 1950s young people aspired to travel out of Australia, usually to Europe, to 'test' themselves in an external environment. This was, to some, 'a rite of passage' to starting an independent life, and for some artists it was a singular goal. The stable and complacent decades of the 50s and early 60s had changed by the 70s as global mass media provided youth with an ability to engage in international protest and to reject society's traditional value systems and hierarchies. Inevitably, artists began to reflect this in their work. In Australia, formalised support to artists through the establishment of the Australia Council confirmed Australian art making as an important aspect of Australian life, maybe not financially stable for the majority of artists but never-the-less a reasonable career option. With an increasing number of tertiary art schools more artists were able to subsidise their practices through full or part-time teaching. The necessity for artists to travel overseas to train had decreased as art education in Australia was the equal of international art schools and Australian artists received world acclaim.

This was the environment in which Bernard Sahm developed his practice and career.

He introduces himself. "I grew up in a highly political household fuelled by the plight of society during the great depression of 1929. The belief was that some form of Australian socialism was the solution for the ills of the world. This had a lasting effect on my continuing interest in the ways of the world to this day."

Training and working as an engineering draughtsman for seven years in the 1940s, Sahm then worked briefly with the Forestry Commission in country NSW, and in the Gold Medal Wicker manufacturing business gaining design and construction skills. During this time he began studying painting and sculpture, and eventually ceramics, at the National Art School, Sydney (1945-52); worked as a decorator at the Martin Boyd Pottery (1949); and joined the Studio of Realist Art (SORA) painting with teachers such as Hal Missingham. His submitted paintings were hung in the 1948, 1949 and 1950 Sulman Prize and the 1951 Wynne, and Blake Prizes. By now his early resolve to have a career in art had firmed.

In 1953, Bernard Fiegal of 'Terra Ceramics' offered Sahm the opportunity to learn the commercial techniques of domestic pottery. This was to be a stepping-stone to his later work in ceramics. Sahm travelled to Europe in 1956 visiting potteries in Greece and Italy, and working for 6 months at 'Gutenhalde Ceramics' in Stuttgardt with a German/ Czech master model-maker who had undertaken public commissions around the city. Here Sahm gained invaluable training and experience particularly in large-scale work.

From Stuttgardt Sahm travelled to England and joined the Crowan Pottery of Harry and May Davis, internationally recognised potters in the field of domestic pottery, in Cornwall,2 where he worked as a studio production potter for a year.

Returning to Australia in 1958 he established his own pottery at Mosman in 1959, and continued to produce domestic pottery experimenting with stoneware and porcelain clays, and high-fired glazes. While not committed to continuing as a production potter, he was influenced by Davis' questioning of his role and value as an artist and as a human being within the larger community. This was to have an influence on the future direction of Sahm's practice that continues today.

In the 50s and 60s, the fine arts was a broad church and many artists and potters moved easily between disciplines and their practices could include painting, printmaking, sculpture and pottery. Art critics in leading newspapers regularly reviewed painting, sculpture and ceramics exhibitions, but this inclusive environment was to change. In the next decade the inevitable tussle for resources within an expanding domain of tertiary art schools, the maturing of post-modernism and its rejection of many of the traditional art values, including the necessity of skill and technique, led to hierarchies of practice. This was based on a premise, in its simplest terms, of mind over hand, but its effect was to a distance ceramics from contemporary visual arts practice.

Australian society was also changing and there was increasing social and political dissent - artists were both activists and participants of this change. The apparently stable and economically comfortable decades following World War II were becoming increasingly, politically unstable internationally. By the 70s young people in many western countries were rejecting existing values and the omnipotence of governments. Vietnam War protests became the international focus and vehicle for their dissent and disenchantment.

This was the social environment in which Sahm's practice was maturing.

Sahm began teaching at the National Art School in 1961, joining the full-time staff in 1964. In 1963 he had his first one-man exhibition at Barry Sterns Gallery in Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria purchased his work from a group exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney. He was included in Four Arts (1962), an exhibition of painting, sculpture, prints and pottery touring to South East Asia.3 Already notable art critics such as Daniel Thomas (The Sunday Telegraph), and John Henshaw (The Bulletin) were commenting on his departure from the current aesthetic of ceramic practices in Sydney. In 1963, James Gleeson wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald 'his work is both strong and elegant. He is a traditionalist, but he is never dull or conventional'.

Sahm continued to experiment with form during the 60s and increasingly he drew on the skills learned overseas and surprised viewers with elongated flanged forms. Sahm's broad technical expertise began to assert itself. He was an excellent thrower, as demonstrated through his years of domestic production, but he now began to draw on his drafting, drawing and design skills to experiment with form and to extend the scale of his work. The dominant, ceramic aesthetic of his colleagues at the National Art School at that time was the Anglo-Oriental philosophy of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada with its associated preference for stoneware and respect for materials and process.4 Unlike his colleagues, he was not committed absolutely to working with clay and he readily stated that to achieve greater scale in some of his work he would turn to metal or wood. He wrote "The fact that I work with clay then is due primarily to an ease of working with a material that gives a desired result. If at any time a function is not possible with clay then another medium must be sought."5 His approach to his work also differed - he unselfconsciously resolved his ideas on paper - in this sense his approach was that of a designer. In the extensive body of his lifetime's work there are many of his early paintings but also many folios of designs and sketches for his ceramic sculptures.

Exhibitions in Canberra and Sydney in 1967 attracted the attention of Donald Brooks,6 and Daniel Thomas.7 Thomas wrote "Sahm is eroding the distinction between pottery and sculpture, ... not only with his semi-figures but also with heavy, dark-rimmed dishes and sagging bowls". While 'sagging' is not a word most potters would welcome in a description of their work, in this instance Thomas succinctly captured Sahm's fearless and successful experiments with vessel form. Before long his work became significantly different from that of his contempories being 'increasingly characterised by comment on social and political attitudes and issues.8

By the early 70s Sahm's work had taken the direction in which it continued.

It was now developing into a critique of society, using parody and wit to portray what Sahm saw as its absurdities. But he went further - through his work he demanded that each person take responsibility for these absurdities. However, Sahm was, and is, essentially a realist not a revolutionary. He can be ironic, acerbic and witty but never sanctimonious. Anthropomorphic elements, the eye, phallus and finger had begun to feature in Sahm's work in the late 60s. His Helmet series of the early 70s succinctly portrays his scrutinising eye focussing intently on the social and political environment of the time. One of the Helmet series, I want to see them, was included in the 1973 Mildura Sculpture Triennial and was purchased by the Victorian Art Centre. Also, in this period, he produced a series of mechanical people, characterising robotic men and women prepared to conform, to accept market manipulation. Kenneth Hood wrote 'some have been amused ... others see them as caustic comment on aspects of society; whimsical or cruel'.9

By this time Sahm was well known in the Sydney art world as a lecturer in ceramics at the National Art School, through exhibitions in prominent Sydney art galleries, and exhibitions overseas. He won the Bathurst City Festival Carillon Art Prize (1972) judged by Tony Tuckson 10 and was awarded titular membership of the International Academy of Ceramics in Switzerland.

Gradually the general public became more familiar with the work of leading Australia artists as art gained greater prominence in the 70s. There were new publications widely reviewed in leading newspapers, featuring individual artists including potters and ceramic artists; books such as Australian Pottery by Kenneth Hood and Wanda Garnsey, Aspects of Sensibility: the Artist Craftsman by Fay Bottrell and Nine Artist Potters by Alison Littlemore released in 1972-3. These all included biographies and work by Bernard Sahm. There was an emphasis on art as a vehicle for expressing what was unique about Australia and the Foreign Affairs Department expanded its cultural exchange programme to include a greater number of exhibitions by Australian artists and craftspeople. Prime Minister John Gorton supported a range of art programs in the 60s; these were continued into the 70s and became the basis for the programs of the Australia Council established by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. This was an exciting decade and visual art was changing direction.

Speaking to Kenneth Hood in 1972 Sahm said "Techniques are the language of pottery. Without technique you cannot speak - you are not eloquent". 11 Thus, while many in the art environment around him decried the essential value of skill and technique valued so highly by Sahm, he began to make his most eloquent works. In his multiple installation 'Fingers' Sahm plays with the word - finger - as noun and verb. The 'finger' features strongly in our psyche, as we point to accuse, to direct or admire; as we focus on creativity through the hand; fear of disability; betrayal of age, as we caress or control, and the fingerprint betrays or identifies self. Each ceramic finger stands alone - maybe a symbol of ultimate self-responsibility. This work has never been publicly exhibited before this exhibition at Mosman in 2006, yet it is very well known through its published image in the publication Nine Artist Potters. 12

Receiving a grant from the newly established Australia Council in 1974 Sahm was able to take 6 months leave from the National Art School to work on a massive body of work which was shown at the Watters Gallery, Sydney in 1976. This exhibition had multiple themes; one of these was Art Machines Nos. I, II, and III. Art Machine No.II won Sahm the internationally prestigious Gold Medal at Faenza Italy. The invitation for the exhibition announces an exhibition of life size: Pillars of Society, Art Machines, Mind Modifying Machines, Concept Dispensers, Helpful Hints, and Funerary Urns. This was most certainly a daunting range of work and ideas; human scale because he wanted people to relate to them. Writing about this work in The National Times Stuart Littlemore said '(This) is the logical culmination of his personal development. Always fiercely independent - he has retained everything of his superb technique and gone even further from the ground covered by his peers'. 13

Sahm explained to Janine King, one of his assistants in completing this body of work,

    In the development of any new art process, what art experience is left - other than through the gut of a human being?.... So that is how Art Machine came about. We've mechanised everything ... In this case I decided that the ceramic pieces were not even to be in themselves works of art, but simply dispensers of works of art, so that they were, in a true sense, functional objects - not to be taken into serious account for themselves. 14

Sahm is now taking the audience beyond the 'robotic men and women' and their docility in accepting a world in which they have little creative input. He challenges the apparently 'sanctified' position of art and considers its role as commodity.

Speaking to April Hersey 15about the exhibition Sahm said

    I was surprised at some reactions. I wasn't trying to offend. I was accused of being political. I can't see that ... What I really was doing was centring the exhibition on holy cows of our society. If anything I was trying to be a bit of an evangelist. I think everyone should try to understand what life on this planet is all about. What's it all for? Continuing, Sahm said, there is no "they" or "them", there is only us. ..each of us has the power to influence government of the day and in selecting a leader. 16

There is no doubt that this body of work caused consternation and shocked many sensitivities. But Sahm was not attacking institutions but our attitude and acceptance of the role and function of these institutions. As with previous work he is saying - face up to reality, even if this reality is death, accept responsibility for the shape of our society, including consumerism, media banality and the workings of the law. And in his inimitable way he is also saying - have a good laugh at whom and what we are and what we think. Nancy Borlase in her review in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote of Sahm's 'surprising' work and his 'radical departure into social comment art', describing it as a 'good-humoured send-up of the mortuary business and art for art's sake.' Viewed retrospectively, Sahm's wit is more perceptive and demanding of its audience than mere 'good humour', and he understands the potency of wit in exposing absurdity.

These large scale works are a technical virtuosi performance. Sahm would have taken great pleasure in realising them but would have gone through hell in achieving them. All the elements of his practice - throwing, casting, extruding, moulding and hand-building were used to realise each piece. There are all manner of pitfalls in working with clay at this scale through the stresses and shrinkages of the assembly and drying process and then the firing. Australian ceramic artists were not attempting anything as challenging as this work in the early 70s, and it is not surprising that they took over two years to be realised.

We are fortunate that so many of the pieces of the original collection are in the artist's possession or in accessible public and private collections. We are able to consider the pieces in the art and social context of the 70s certainly, but also as relevant and pertinent comments today. By the time this exhibition was staged at the Watters Gallery, Sydney, Sahm had been appointed Inaugural Head of Ceramics at the newly developed Sydney College of the Arts. He joined others in making proposals for a new structure in the college that would take it in a different direction to other art schools of the period. Sahm, and others, envisaged a structure that could cater for the more diversified and yet specialised demands of society in the mid 70s which would include cross-disciplinary access as well as access to a wide variety of technical construction skills. He wrote

    The new college should be an integrated whole, having the appropriate theoretical and practical subjects, not formed into tight groups (traditional art disciplines) but existing each as an entity serving any student, and further, that differences between full and part-time students should be eliminated so that there is greater flexibility for students to attend in the day or evening depending on personal employment needs.

Sydney College has instituted much of this vision. Sahm continued his own work during his tenure at the college with Reconstituted Mineral Essence, a 3-part work, being purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1979. In 1980 he produced a series of vessel forms on extruded legs that resolved into a series called Display Cases. His major energies in this period, however, were directed toward establishing the new ceramics department at the college that differed from many existing art schools, thus providing an alternative, quality art school for Sydney. The success of many ceramic artists who have graduated from the Sydney College of the Arts stands as a testament to his vision.

Ten years after retiring from the college in 1984, Sahm and his wife Pam moved to a property in the Wollombi region of NSW that they had purchased some years previously.

They had built their home and studio over a number of years and knew and loved the environment very well. All of his life Sahm had looked outward to the world and people around him and this is what his work reflected. It was inevitable that his work would continue to be centered on the world around him and outside his windows was the wonderful natural environment of a relatively undeveloped area of the Wollombi, called Will-o-Wyn on Murray's Run. His enthusiasm for the social architecture of the world around him now turned to the organic structure of the plant world.

Sahm has retained the columnar base in his new work, but this now supports wondrous organic fern-like form in saturated colour - a startling departure from his previous muted tones and white works. In 1990, Jill Stowell, art critic for the Newcastle Herald, wrote of his new work 'Sahm has created a delicious constellation of inventive organic forms'. Casting a Wide Net (1990), an exhibition of six ceramic artists including Sahm, Michael Keighrey and Diogenes Farri, and initiated by Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, toured extensively through NSW exposing Sahm's work to new audiences. Over the next 10 years this work continued to evolve as he experimented with form, proportion and colour. We now find rococo exuberance developing in Sahm's work realised with his superb control of the medium. He had solo exhibitions in Sydney (1996) and Wollombi (1997) and participated in a number of group shows in Sydney and his region.

In 1998, Sahm had a solo exhibition Bushland Influence at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery. It was reviewed in the gallery's publication Artemis by Alf Scott. 'Sahm takes us into a fantasy world where objects glow, shimmer and pulsate ... The unique fungi, fern pods and pools collectively form a mysterious bushland'. Sahm's words of 1972 may have been prescient as he discussed with Fay Bottrell the need for 'ego (in pursuit of a vocation) in the face of immediate human needs for survival in this outraged planet.' He expressed the hope that art, science and technology might be used to aid a greater understanding of 'self, the environment and purpose in life'. These words become clear in his most recent work. In 2006, he brings together his figurative work, his fascination at the delicacy and precariousness of the natural world and his adherence to the vessel in its variety of forms and functions. Botanical Lady is an expression of Sahm's desire that as humans we see ourselves as one part only of a greater organic scheme of interdependence of flora, fauna and natural resources.

Ceramic sculpture had not found a critical place for itself in the 70s, yet in 1976 Sahm was envisioning a multi-disciplinary art school environment, not constrained by traditional media labels and histories. By the 1990s the changes in art school structures, their consolidation into Universities, and a new funding environment had cast the major changes achieved in the 1970s into history.

Janine King wrote of Sahm in 1976 'Bernard tries not to predict the future directions of his work or life, trying to keep it as adventurous as possible. "If the direction is known too far in advance then the wonder and adventure is lost. 19"

The adventure will continue and Sahm will continue to experiment with minimalist or exuberant form realised with his noted refinement of line, surface and glowing colour and a piquant awareness of the world around him. He will continue to produce intelligent and thought-provoking art realised with immaculate craft skills. In 2006, art practices are less rigidly defined; however ceramic sculpture is yet to be fully embraced as a contemporary visual art. Bernard Sahm's art practice can now be viewed with contemporary eyes and its significance re-evaluated. He will continue to be entranced by the world and its absurdities, to be curious about new scientific discoveries, and to envisage possibilities for developing new work that pleases himself.

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