Teaching of every sort is also a learning experience.
The diversity of teaching I have undertaken has emphasized for me that talent, originality and commitment may be found at every “level” of education.
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1. TEACHING in HIGHER EDUCATION
My work in Higher Education can be divided into three phases:
the first phase, 1961-1969 a variety of part time posts.
Towards the end of the spring term of my final year at the Central School, Gilbert Harding Green, “HG”, my head of department, called me to his desk. In those days of minimal administration, in the old building, his desk, situated in a corner of the clean room which was used for crits and for drawing, served as his office. He said an opportunity has arisen and that, if I wanted, and interviewed successfully, he would give me the time off and let me put up a final show to finish my course. The opportunity had occurred because James Tower had been awarded a scholarship for three months study in Greece and an urgent replacement was needed for him, for one term, at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham. In short, I went for the interview, was given the job and in my final year as a student I found myself teaching final year students, many of whom, having done National Service, were older than me, on the Institute of Education course for school teachers. It was daunting. But it went well and, because James Tower increasingly wanted to move into teaching sculpture, I was asked to carry on teaching three days a week, which I did until 1967.
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For one year 1961-2 I worked one afternoon and evening per week at Goldsmiths College, University of London in the pottery department, teaching teachers.
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In 1962 I was asked to join the staff of Central School of Art and Craft to teach throwing one day per week in that year. This grew into two days the next year and continued until 1967 when it increased to three days a week, teaching throwing and having specific responsibility for working with third years. Part of my role was to give a series of 12 slide talks on the history of pottery up to the middle ages. In 1969 I left this job to begin my full-time post at Corsham.
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the second phase, 1969-1986 Full time post.
In 1969 I was offered the post of Head of Ceramics at Bath Academy of Art in Corsham. I determined not to be an office-based head of department and for the 17 years that I ran the department I was fully engaged also in the teaching. The rural situation of the department in Corsham made it a very positive place to have a pottery department. The normal range of pottery processes: hand building, slipcasting and throwing could all happen in the spacious workshops equipped with gas and electric kilns. But, in addition, it was possible to build kilns from raku up to stoneware temperatures, and to do wood and oil firing, and salt and soda glazing, all of which occurred. In 1983 proposals to move and merge the college were made. I opposed these as strongly as I could, as did many others. The college was merged and eventually moved in 1986 and, in that move, the art school lost its unique position, in the national provision of having a rural location, and the pottery department, which it was my job to oversee, lost the important possibility of easily doing a wide spectrum of firing and kiln building, and it seemed time to move on, so I resigned. It was a great privilege to run and build up that department for 17 years.
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the third phase, 1986-2004 a variety of part time posts.
After the move to Bath I continued to work part time at the merged, re-named college, Bath College of Higher Education (later Bath Spa University). Until 1989 I worked between one and three days a week, initially with the students, I had worked with prior to the move to Bath. After this I worked as an occasional visitor to third year students, 4 to 5 days a term. I ceased this work in 1999, as I was living too far away.
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Between 1990 and 1995 I worked at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education, between 2 and 4 days per week, mainly teaching first year and tutoring third year students on the BA(Hons) Ceramics and Glass course.
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From 1989 until 2004 I worked at the University of Brighton on the Wood, Metal, Plastics and Ceramics course. Initially I worked solely with Ceramics students but later, from 1996 until 2004, I was joint Third Year tutor across all four materials. As a 0.3 full-time lecturer, from 2001 to 2004 living in France, I worked one week on, two weeks off.
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2. NON HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING
Harrow School and Save the Children Fund
From 1959 to 1962 I worked Saturdays, Sunday afternoons and Tuesdays at Harrow School, Harrow-on-the-hill teaching optional classes at the weekend and timetabled art lessons on Tuesdays. For the same period I worked at an evening centre run by Save the Children Fund for seriously delinquent teenage boys and girls in Eversholt Street, near Euston, in London.
Because I did not receive a grant as a student my head of department gave me time off to do these two jobs and I continued them for one year after being a student. He said, and he was right, that doing them would be an important part of my education. A bigger social contrast between the young adults I met in these two jobs is difficult to imagine.
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Prema Arts Centre
In 1988 I taught some day and evening classes at Prema Arts Centre in Uley, Gloucestershire.
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La Meridiana International School of Ceramics, (previously Ceramica Ripabello).
In 1984, as a last-minute stand-in for Colin Pearson, who had fallen ill, I ran a glaze course attended by 21 Italian potters, organised at Ceramica Ripabello by Pietro Maddalena. This was the start of a continuing co-operation with Pietro Maddalena. Two years previously he had returned to Italy having completed the BA(Hons) course at West Surrey College of Art and Design (Farnham) and having worked at the Dartington Pottery Training Workshop for eighteen months. He had returned to Italy with a determination both to make stoneware and porcelain and to spread knowledge of it through courses. This was no small task in a country with its’ tradition of decorated majolica. That La Meridiana International School of Ceramics now runs year-round courses, tutored by artists and teachers of international standing, and enrolling students worldwide, is testament both to his, and its’, success. Over the years I have contributed occasional teaching on short courses, often with Franco Rampi, and, with Pietro, planned and ran the first three versions of the continuing 3 month “On Centre” course.
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3. VARIOUS OTHER LECTURES AND COURSES (SELECTED).
Between 1963 and 1967 for the LCC (London County Council) I ran two week summer courses for teachers, some years with Gordon Baldwin, some years with David Garbett, some years at the Central School, some years at Goldsmiths’ College.
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In 1977 for the Craftsman Potters Association at the Friends’ Meeting House in London I gave an illustrated lecture “The nature and relevance of tradition in Pottery”.
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1984 for the D.E.S. (the Department of Education and Science) for F.E. and H.E. teachers of ceramics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic I gave an illustrated lecture called “What is teachable in Ceramics: Content, Form and Decoration.”
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1986 for Werkgallerie Steinemann, Ripperschwand, Switzerland I gave two of five lectures at a three day seminar, titled, as were all the lectures, “Views on Decoration”, the other lecturers were Prof. Rolando Giovannini from Faenza, and Natalie Du Pasquier and George Sowden of the Memphis design group in Milan.
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1987 I ran an 8 day workshop in Neuenkirche, Switzerland with Adrian Knusel, called “Stoneware, Woodfiring and Decoration”.
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1990 at the Schule fur Gestaltung in Bern, Switzerland with Adrian Knusel I ran a two week course called “Form and Decoration”.
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2000 in Lucern, Switzerland, coinciding with the Biennale of ASK, the Swiss Potters Asssociation, I gave a Masterclass on the various processes and firings involved in my work.
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In 2019 I gave two lectures and a 2 day throwing workshop in Toronto, Canada, jointly with Lisa Hammond, for Fusion, the Ontario Clay and Glass Association.