No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Ian Calder McKay was Here: A Legacy of Beauty in Pottery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2016
Extract
Yet in time to come the individual will fade into oblivion, and the work will stand or fall by its abstract power or its lack of it.
— Ian McKay
In 1983, more or less mid-career as it turned out to be in the light of his early death, Ian McKay summarised his intentions as a potter:
I try to make simple pots that people will enjoy using. The traditions I draw on for inspiration are mainly Japanese and what could loosely be called ‘the Cardew’ tradition. In practice for me this amounts to forms that are a clear statement of the pot's function, and very simple glaze recipes using the maximum of hand collected local materials – so that the pots may speak for themselves and give pleasure unspoiled by too much intrusion of the potter's own personality.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press
References
Notes
1 McKay, I., ‘Peter Rushforth – A Portfolio: Ian McKay Speaks’, Pottery in Australia 29.4 (1991): 4.Google Scholar
2 The First North Queensland Ceramics Awards, October 13–29, 1983 [Catalogue] (Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1983), 27.Google Scholar
3 Anderson, B. Hoare, J., Clay Statements (Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1985), 54.Google Scholar
4 Currie, I., ‘Ian Currie Writes’, Pottery in Australia 29.3 (1990): 38.Google Scholar
5 McGregor, C., In the Making (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson), 1969), 182.Google Scholar
6 Grealy, K., ‘Queensland Ceramics Then and Now’, Pottery in Australia 25.1 (1986): 4.Google Scholar
7 Mansfield, J., Contemporary Ceramic Art of Australia and New Zealand (Sydney: Craftsman House, 1994), 12.Google Scholar
8 Cochrane, G., The Crafts Movement in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1992), 209.Google Scholar
9 Dormer, P. Cripps, D., Alison Britton in Studio (London: Bellew, 1985), 9, 10.Google Scholar
10 Cardew, M., Pioneer Potter: An Autobiography (London: Collins, 1988), 31.Google Scholar
11 Conversation with Mary McKay, Sydney, January 2007.Google Scholar
12 The Art of the Potter: A Tribute to Ian McKay, August 30–19 September 1991 [Catalogue], (Sydney: David Jones Art Gallery, 1991).Google Scholar
13 Leach, B., A Potter's Book, 2nd ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1945), 7.Google Scholar
14 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar
15 Harrison, S., ‘Ian McKay: Potter, Writer, Musician, Poet, Intellectual’, Pottery in Australia 29.3 (n.d.): 34.Google Scholar
16 Dormer and Cripps, Alison Britton in Studio, 10.Google Scholar
17 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar
18 The Art of the Potter. Google Scholar
19 The First North Queensland Ceramics Awards, 27.Google Scholar
20 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’.Google Scholar
21 For more detail on the McKay family background, especially the life and career of Rev. Fred McKay and his brothers, see McKenzie, M., Outback Achiever: Fred McKay, Successor to Flynn of the Inland (Brisbane: Boolarong Press, 1997).Google Scholar
22 Conversation with Judith McKay, August 2008.Google Scholar
23 Anderson and Hoare, Clay Statements. Google Scholar
24 Buckridge, P., ‘Plot an Escape from Torpor of English Syllabus’, Australian HES, 18 June 2008: 27.Google Scholar
25 Courier-Mail, 2 July 1963: 15.Google Scholar
26 Personal communication with Jeraldene Just, February 2007.Google Scholar
27 McKenzie, Outback Achiever, 4.Google Scholar
28 McKenzie, Outback Achiever, 21.Google Scholar
29 Hardy, S., The Unusual Life of Edna Walling (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 243.Google Scholar
30 Conversation with Jess and Frank McKay, June 2008.Google Scholar
31 Smart, C., Jubilate Agno (London: W.H. Bond, 1954), 404.Google Scholar
32 Pictured in Moult, A, Craft in Australia (Sydney: Reed, 1984), 21.Google Scholar
33 Personal communications with Ian Currie and Glenn Cooke, 2007–08.Google Scholar
34 Letter, ICM to Ian Currie 25 June 1981: 2.Google Scholar
35 His book-buying experiences provoked him to write to the Sydney Morning Herald (7 October, 1969: 2), comparing the local with the mail-order price and availability of books. It drew a vituperative riposte by Max Harris in his ‘Browsing’ column in The Australian ('Doom Faces Australia's Bookshops’, 18 October 1969: 20), attacking ‘Professor Pinchpenny’, the ‘wiseacre bookbuyer from the greasier groves of Academia’, who, ‘like unpredictable and sporadic bursts of hepatitis … infects the metropolitan dailies.’ He was therefore surprised at a subsequent approach by Harris to write a short piece, ‘Bookbuyer's Lament’, for the Australian Book Review (December 1969–January 1970: 44–45), to which Harris responded with ‘Bookseller's reply’. Harris began, with a change of tone, ‘Mr McKay's civilised and completely reasonable queries on the retail price of books …’Google Scholar
36 Anderson and Hoare,, Clay Statements. Google Scholar
37 Victor Mace Fine Art Gallery, ‘Homage to Ian McKay’ [exhibition invitation] 1991.Google Scholar
38 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’.Google Scholar
39 Moult, Craft in Australia, 20.Google Scholar
40 ICM letter to A. Ransome (AR), 7 January 1970.Google Scholar
41 ICM letter to AR 16 December 1969.Google Scholar
42 Anderson and Hoare, Clay Statements. Google Scholar
43 Queensland Art Gallery, Art Prize Exhibitions in Brisbane, 1950–1975. Google Scholar
44 Under the auspices of the Contemporary Art Society, see G. Cooke, A Time Remembered: Art in Brisbane 1950–1975 (Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 1995), 79–80.Google Scholar
45 McKay, I., in Gallery 1 Eleven [brochure] ‘1972 exhibitions’, n.p.Google Scholar
46 Just, J., An Evening at Rockton, January 1971 (unpublished ms).Google Scholar
47 Personal communication from Jane Greenwood, December 2008.Google Scholar
48 McKay, I., in Moult, Craft in Australia, 20.Google Scholar
49 Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (born 1935) is another potter who began with an Arts degree majoring in Literature. She, though, also majored in Fine Arts, at the University of Melbourne, enabling her to study pottery as an undergraduate: Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: A Survey, 1955–2005 (Melbourne: J Smith/NGV, 2005), 98.Google Scholar
50 Cardew, Pioneer Potter, 21.Google Scholar
51 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’.Google Scholar
52 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’, quoting M. McKay.Google Scholar
53 Ian later wrote a significant appreciation of Levy's approach and work: I. McKay, ‘A Potter's Art’, Craft Arts February/April (1987): 30–35.Google Scholar
54 Letter ICM to Ian Currie, 27 October 1981.Google Scholar
55 Cardew, Pioneer Potter, 237.Google Scholar
56 ICM letter to K. and A. Ransome, 16 November 1975. Christopher Smart's cat, the asylum companion whom he celebrates in Jubilate Agno, was called Jeoffry [sic].Google Scholar
57 Interview with Janine King and Steve Harrison, Mittagong, January 2007.Google Scholar
58 ‘Ceramics practitioners were arguably the first artists or craftspeople to live primarily in regional areas, partly due to the predominance of the woodfiring process in the 70s and 80s. Generally trained in the cities, those opting for rural life on the North Coast included Ian McKay, Tony Nankervis, Malina and Dennis Monks, John Stewart, Bob Connery, Andrew Stewart, Geoff Crispin, Sandra Taylor and Patsy Hely.’ K. Selwood, ‘ConVerge: A Regional Perspective’, ConVerge: Northern Rivers Touring Ceramic Exhibition, 2006–2008, 7–8.Google Scholar
59 In possession of K. Selwood.Google Scholar
60 McKay, I., ‘Artisan or Tradesman’, Border Post, 21 July 1977: 7.Google Scholar
61 ICM letter to K. Ransome, 12 September 1978. From 1974 to 2001, the Queensland College of Art was located in the Brisbane suburb of Seven Hills.Google Scholar
62 ICM letter to Ian Currie, 27 October 1981.Google Scholar
63 The Art of the Potter. Google Scholar
64 Sturt and its history are extensively documented – for example, see Cochrane, The Crafts Movement in Australia, 72–75, 289–90; Ceramics: Art and Perception 13 (1993): 94; and D. Aitken, ‘Sturt Craft Centre: A Rich History and a Renewal’, Ceramics: Art and Perception 25 (1996): 75–79.Google Scholar
65 Ian McKay wrote in the 1987 Crafts Board grant application, in possession of Ian Currie: ‘In May 1986 I visited Taiwan's most accomplished potter in the field of iron and copper glazes, a Mr Tsai, and found him enthralled by the quality of the dark clay bodies and glazes from Mittagong, to the point where he has initiated exchange of information and is interested in long-term cooperation of research in this field. Likewise Mr Soukichi Nagae of Tajimi, Japan, who has spent a lifetime of making and researching dark iron bodies and glazes and whose own work is related to the greatest of Song Period oil-spot and yöhen Temmoku, and has been the subject of NHK Television documentaries. Mr Nagae keeps me informed about recent findings in Japan in the hope that my work with Mittagong area materials may develop as quickly as possible, so interesting are the aesthetic possibilities of these materials when approached in the way I have established. In 1985 I sent fragments of Temmoku-type bodies and glazes I had made to the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics. This led immediately to invitations from the Chinese Ministry of Light Industry and the Academia Sinica to visit China to discuss the technical and aesthetic problems of creating these and other Song-related wares with all of the major researchers working in this field in China. I have subsequently been offered financial assistance from the Dept. of Foreign Affairs through the Aust.–China Council for this purpose.’Google Scholar
66 McKay, I., in Anderson and Hoare, Clay Statements. Google Scholar
67 Allen, C., ‘Harmonious Conjunction of Art and Nature, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1989: 12.Google Scholar
68 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar
69 Conversation with Mary Taguchi, January 2007.Google Scholar
70 Ian Calder McKay, Funeral Service at Mittagong Cemetery Conducted by Rev, Allan McKay, Tuesday 3rd April 1990 [order of service brochure].Google Scholar
71 Examples are ‘The second wave’, Fo Yuan Art Gallery, Melbourne, 2003, and ‘Collector's choice by Victor Mace’, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, 2004–05.Google Scholar
72 McKay, I. in Moult, Craft in Australia. Google Scholar