A QUARTET OF POTTERS. Before me as I write stands a vase. There is nothing remarkable in that, but this is a vase of distinctive, yet unobtrusive grace. It is not necessarily the grace that holds you enthralled at first glance although it has power also. The grace it insinuates wins you awares. Its proportion is so exquisite that it affects the mind like music, like slow, stately music. Or better, like the balance of a large easy flight of the eagle. It compels you to think of such things. Of balanced accomplished things, things which round off as it were, the infinitive in which every man’s thoughts flounder or fret. Yet you are not only delighted by the proportion of my vase for its proportion is wedded into subtle coloring of equal charm. There is strident, something of the brass band, the coloring of so much pottery. Even in Derby and in Delft. But no hints of high sounds spring out of the greens and grays which bewitch the eye on the shell like surface of my vase. All is modulated to a harmony of whispering quiet. To look at my vase after the hurly burly of the modern day, is like going into a retreat. You feel grateful to those dreams fading into gray and the gray fading into green. A little to the westward of Chancery Lane on the opposite side of Holburn, there is one of those lanes of tall and somewhat unkempt houses. About halfway down the lane which is called Brownloaf Street, there is a little shop in whose white framed windows may be seen any time of the day of the year, an assortment of stoneware vases. And there are as well jugs end other articles of the potter’s craft. Pieces of craftsmanship which every now and then hold up the judicious passerby in wonderment. There’s nothing about the little shop at all like the shop of modern Common Street. Business, you imagine, may possibly take place there but you feel that the main object is something different. The pots are not arranged like the crockery in ordinary shops. And there is slight evidence of antagonism towards the dust. When you enter the shop the effect is much the same. You find yourself in a dimly lit passage with crowded shelves of stoneware jugs carved into leering, laughing, grinning and ogling faces. Faces as beautiful as the ones I have described and of innumerable shapes and sizes. Clear little imps join the curious assembly of unique ceramic products, huddled together in a damp and dusty domain with every appearance of self satisfaction and content. Opposite the shelves is a desk with an ink pot of the same ware as the other pottery. You are undecided how far to proceed for you see more light in a small square room beyond. But presently you are set at rest by the appearance of a little man bespectacled with a half carved figure of clay in one hand and a wooden tool like a scalpel in the other. You notice, although the light is dim that his face, suave though it is, and a shaggy beard, and crowned with a tangled mane of brown and gray hair is quick with the intelligence of the artist and if you’re patient you will soon realize that you stand before a master craftsman, Wallace Martin, the eldest of the quartet of brothers who make the stoneware. Or, it may be that you will be received by Edwin Martin a taller man with the sensitive face of a poet. He also comes with his work in his hand, in all probability an untired face. He is etching some quaint device for that is his contribution to the art of creating Martinware. These potters do not approach you as shop men and I dare not think what would happen if you attempted to open up commercial relations. I have seen many pieces of stoneware bought of Wallace and Edwin but I have never seen them sell a piece. The pots were there, they have their prices marked on them. You may examine them and admire and if you wish purchase them. But if you only admire you are just as and I sometimes think more welcome. For the Martin brothers are reluctant to part with the treasures they have made. They are jealous of other ownership even after they are convinced of its worthiness. There is a charming simplicity about these brothers. Their craft is everything and they never tire of discussing in their quiet homely phrases which tell you far more than all the art talk of the drawing room. All about you are pots of superb proportion and exquisite coloring. And there is also a whimsical fancy in clay in their shop to make their fortune of any black and white artist. Yet there is talk about art as such only about the making of these things by men who have a childlike joy and pride in their work, and who love their work, and are happy in telling you about it. William was delighted in these men whose creations are the quintessence of joy and work combined. He would have to hear about Wallace Martin, clay in hand professing problems of life and religion comingled with a deeply informed technical interpretation of his draft. This enthusiasm and practical knowledge is manifested in the simplest piece of Martinware. You have but to look at these creations to recognize that their makers live for them. It is this reverent and joyful craftsmanship, it is with rare imagination which turns the rough clay into beautiful vases and jugs, strange birds and imps and satyrs that have become devils in the medieval vision of Wallace Martin. Martin Brothers are all the all the more remarkable in our age because they are pure Londoners and indeed there is not a little of the color of London in their guide. Their father is Robert Thomas Martin, stationer, coming originally from Norfolk. Their mother is a native of Tenth Street in the city and that is where Wallace was born. They first began as potters in Fullham in 1873 and in 1877 moved to Southhall where their pottery has remained to this day. Rarely have four brothers complimented one another and for forty years their complementary quality worked well together when death took Charles Martin away from them. A remarkable circumstance of this fraternal partnership is the fact that each brother had carried out a certain and definite part of the work. Wallace Martin who is nearing the age of seventy, is the sculptor and modeler. Musical imps and delightful grotesque birds are the result of his genius and handiwork. Walter Martin combines the art of potter and chemist. It is he who mixes the rest of the clay of which the pots are made and stands all say at the ancient potter’s wheel throwing the beautiful shapes which are later etched all over with strange and fascinating devices of Edwin Martin who is the etcher and painter of the combination. Walter is responsible also for pigments used in the coloring of the clay. The late Charles Martin who died in June 1909, in his sixty second year, used to preside over the little shop in Brownloaf Street watching affectionately over the beloved pot and releasing them reluctantly. All the work of firing, mixing clay and chemicals, throwing, modeling, etching and selling is done by the brothers Martin without any outside help and every piece they turn out is unique, no shape or design ever being repeated. With medieval simplicity and sincerity the Martin brothers go to work requiring few aids from modern science and although they seem to be far apart from the scramble and shouting of the modern world, throwing back as it were to the remote middle ages, yet are they modern in a very real way. The modern note is struck in each of their creations. They are out of touch however with all save a few in this age and the rule of ever repeating a single design. The uniformity of today has not reached the Martin pottery which means the craftsmen are not manufacturer and their pottery remote from the pottery of Staffordshire. All the lavishness of genius is to be found in the infinite variety of their products. Each piece of modern Martinware is unique but all Martinware is alike just as you will find variations and personalities expressed in the details of a harmony which goes to the building of a gothic monastery. The two chief variations of Martinware are color and decoration. The colors are generally worked into the clay before firing and sometimes inlaid by the decorator. The bulk of the designs are a specialty of Edwin and are etched in clay. Charm of color and design are always a characteristic of Martinware but besides this quality a charm is derived from the hard shell like surfaces of all the pieces. The surface is a triumph of the ceramic art. In the early days of the pottery experiments were made in design and it was some years before the potters found the real trend of their genius. At first they borrowed from the renaissance but today these early efforts, though excellent in form, were crude in design beside their later work. Today they follow no school but find a basis of design in their own whims and fancies. The Martin brothers’ love for the grotesque is best exemplified in the model figures and birds of Olive Martin. In these there is a mastery beyond praise. Wallace Martin has gone on carving his balls of clay into fancies will live. He has passed the age when praise might have spoiled him. If you enjoy the things he makes, that will be enough.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:48:24 +0000