Nic Green, 28.
I was lucky enough to be able to interview Elspeth for a research project I was doing on art and ecology, and how the connections between creative practice and an ecological sensitivity manifest themselves. I went to Elspeths beautiful Studio in Grantchester, Cambridge where she works making ceramics, performance, and installation. I wanted to include this on the MYOH site as I feel her femininity and the strength of her beliefs as an empowered woman are present in both the form and the approach in her work. I found the egolessness of it inspirational and affirming. There are some clear connections between femininity, nature, freedom and subtlety, which are exciting and really meaningful for me. You can find out more about Elspeth here: http://www.elspethowen.netElspeth Owens being interviewed by Nic Green.Nic: I suppose it would be good to start Elspeth if its OK, by telling me a little bit about what it is that you do?EO: Yes, well um I make ceramics and Ive been making them in this same buidling for 35 years, so that probably, well that means that the environment, the immediate environment is very much part of my work, its the sort of source and its the container for it, and its something thats gradually gradually growing all around me. Obviously over that time or period of time, all these tree, except for those huge evergreens, that walnut tree is seeded by a squirrel in here, you know its younger than the time Ive been here. And the oak treee, and the silver birch, Ive got twenty different trees in this little plot of land, and I suppose I tend to take it for granted as well, and then someone coming and asking about it is quite use for sort of thinking well, you know, Im not just anywhere, or Im not just sitting in a studio which is in a block of garages or whatever you know that often a studio might be there, this is very significantly part of it. I guess theres a relation to between the way the land is, the way that the sort of slightly shambolic, sort of free growing is similar to the way I make the ceramics really. I dont think of myself as a designer, Im not a designer at all- I dont know how to draw. I very much work from the material and in a organic sort of way I suppose. I can change in the middle of making something and make it into something else and the way they're decorated as well is with organic materials burning in the kiln you know, so its not completely controlled but there is some control, some invention I suppose but theres also, these are the forces that have their own say in it as well. I suppose as well the other thing thats very significant really, athough its unconscious al lot of the time is the fact that Im working with clay which is clearly, you know you cant get more earthy than that, as it were. Infact it useas all the elements really cos theres clay and theres water in it and theres fire in the kiln and ideas I suppose, or a bit of airy fairy in the air. One very distubning thing in the environment thats just happened is that in that big walnut tree which is actually in the field but its very close to me theres been a little owl living for five years, a pair of them, theyve been nesting there anyway. And suddenly a sparrowhawk has got the owls.Nic: Really?Elspeth: An I never thought, they may even have laid their eggs I dont know, but theres no sign, theyve gone now. Somebody in the village, I dont think he saw the sparrow hawk but I think he saw, he found the owls feathers.Nic: My god!Elspeth: And, that was a very interesting, well it was very, its very funny how you sort of interpret these things. Oh this is, this is you know, this is a catastrope for me was well was my reaction. Cos Id felt very very close to this owl and that it was sort of mine in some funny way, and I didnt tell people that it was there for a long time, well other people obviously knew but I didnt know they knew and I thought it was mine, you know.And I was sort of shocked that it was -it made me realise that owls have predators, as well, cos I thought of them as immune.Nic: Yes I think I did!Elspeth:Sort of the top the tree, you know, and there was nothing going to get an owl, so as a sort of ecological fable it was rather powerful. Anything can happen if that can can happen. I felt the owl was a sort of protector of me in a funny way, and also a companion cos I could hear it, from where I was working I could hear it. And, this is the shack that I spent the winter in, the month of December and I heard it a lot then. In the morning I heard it sort of doing a dawn call which was interesting as Im not usually up here at that time. And then suddenly it wasnt there, and there wasnt anything I could do about that really, so it was a powerful message. NG: Do you remember Elspeth when, or if there was a time when your work began to be very connected ecologically or has it always been like that for you?EO: I think its probably always been, forms I think are natural forms, and the fact I dont do any drawing. Theres no sort of, to me theres no sense of two dimensions about it, it doesnt exsist ever at any point in two dimensions its always in three dimensions, taking shape. I suppose I think of that as being form the natural world, that those, the shape and the three dimensions, the real world as it were as opposed to any vitual or screen world or any paper world its ...(gestures) Youll have to have a sound of me making a gesture on the sound track!For instance one of the writers thats influenced me is John Berger and I remember reading just a little review he'd written about somebodys work, a women sculptour, in France probably, and she wasn;t terribly famous or well known or anything and she had just got her sculptures in the ground or on the ground and they were sort of not making great statements and were almost hidden and merging back again where they'd come from. And I remember thinking 'I wish hes written that about my work,' you know I remember thinking 'oh yes thats what Im doing.' And that was a long long time ago, I mean when I was just beginning so I think Ive always had a feeling that um, the pots and the other forms as well, they are only just there. Theyre only just, not part of, not the ground, not what theyve come from. Theyre not making a loud noise. Um, and I did actually make a big sort or technical shift maybe about 25 years ago where I stopped, where I started firing at a much much lower temperature and part of that was a different aspect of ecology, was kind of not using so much fuel, and , and labour but also creating soemthing which was also less hard and less permanent, if you like and easier to break in fact, and also permeable. Therre fired to a thousand degrees which means theyre sort of like flower pot permeability so theyre not, the water will sort of-not run out of them but the outside gets damp if you put water in them, theyre not intended to have water in them. Nic: YesElspeth: Theyre a sort of borderline in a way, the way I see them. Some of them are in museums and things I Suppose and I did feel very excited when that happened first, I thought that was pretty amaxing but maybe, maybe its partly just passage of time. They can be, they can all disappear really.Nic: yes, and is that- youll have to forgive me for the simplicity of my questions- Why is it important to you that the work that you make is really connected and isnt many steps removed from the natural world around you and that it doesnt for instance, make a big-you know, you talk about theyre quite quiet in a way, you know they dont try to make a bold, loud noiseElspeth: Or a claim, they dont make a claim to importantce, really, but theyre very precious, theyre very precious to me and probably other people that have them.Its quite strange ina way, but really I think its because of feminism that I have of the ideas that Ive got, so part of this, part of the, um, doing it and saying it's importnat to be doing it but not doing it in a sort of, shouting way, is to do with honouring that way of working, you know, which I think is honouring something thats saying, we dont have to make a great big racket, its still very important to whatever we're doing as it were and what we're doing and if we're saying someehting. If I say its importnat then its important. So, I suppose what Im saying really is that it comes, the ecology that Its coming out of is sort of political um, engagement. I didnt start making pots until after I was in the womens movement so I think it isnt the form, it isnt the fact that I'm making ceramics that comes out of the feminism so much as Im doing something important to me. I, you know, its through the ideas of the womens movement that Ive found out what was impoartnat to me and them did it, and whether thats not directly connected to what youre interested in.Nic: No no its absolutely connectedElspeth :Im not claiming that Im amking feminist pots cos I dont think, you know, youd have to have a slogan on them or somethingNic: or vagina shaped or somethingElspeth: Yes but the fact that Im doing it, and the fact that I had the confidence to do it, comes out of, um, comes out of things like greeham common and being part of that.Nic: And is there any connection for you Elspeth between understandings of feminism and femininity in your own life and your own journey and a sensitity with the natural world, is there a relationship between those things for you?Elspeth: Its a very difficult one. I mean in a very sort of, crude eay theres a realtionship because theres a relationship. Because Ive made a connection, that theres a connection for me. There was a fantastic American writer Women and Nature, and that book was very very, its a very poetical, political book but theres a tremendous forcefulness in it but its also very, its also quite gentle really I think. Its got this fantastic subtitle 'The Roaring Inside Her' is the subtitle. But its a very very poetical book, and its about the dangers of things like measuring, and training. She makes an analogy between training horses and training women. Its sort of into subjection even though theyre incredibly powerful, both of them, but theyve been sort of subdued by this training and I remember the police horses at Greenham, and I remember feeling this moment of sort of, sympathy for them, you know, even though they were scaring me because theyre incredibly big and powerful, but they were completely, being made to do, they didnt have any choice about being there and they were being made to do this very disciplined prancing. Just staying where they were meant to be and they were like soldiers in a way.Nic: I suppose I ask because I wondered about the idea that your work doesnt have to make a particlar claim, and that it can be very connected to the place youre in in a very clear way but in a very subtle way, and that those sensitivities emerged in you when you found your empowerment as a women. It makes a lots of sense to listen to, only because the other part of what Im interested in is trying to understand how this work can exsist within the climate of art, which is not like that!Elspeth: Yes thats very interesting. Maybe, just the other thing, before we go into that, the other thing that quite intrigues me, especially when I was first involved in feminism, I was quite anti family, and hostile to the institution and everything and I was divorced, and in the last, probably, I dont know if it started before my mother died or not but I started making-she died about 15 years ago-I started making a lot of work which is connected to her death and my fathers death, theres a piece in there which is aout Dunquerke where my father wrote to my mother a lot, all through the war, that;s the most recent thing Ive done really, and theres pregnancy calendars, all sorts of things which are baisically about generation I suppose, and death. Im quite surprised to find myself doing those things because I thought Id sort of, you know, gone past that or something, or that wasnt importnat. I thought, I thought, I wasnt interested in giving my attention to that, but it turns out that I am, and I think tht that is also something to do with the physical exsistence and the cycles of life and all those things that are going on immediately round me and in my family, you know, affecting me and Ive just very luckily had a grandchild so Ive also done a piece about that and one of the walks was about that. I suppose the walking work, that is more obviously related to the environment, but its the reverse of being in an environment, but more about exploring an environment, going into the unknown, it isnt just about the natural envirnment, its about survival really, and includes urban environments.Nic:And would you be ab;le to talk a bit about the walks?Elspeth: Um, I think the thing that connects them all is that theyre all about delivering messages, theyre about making connections, which you could say they are creating an environment with those links. The first one, I suppose it really started in the txi gallery really, because I had a persona, I called myself the material women and thats who I am when Im doing the walking as well. Theres just that little bit of a distance I suppose from myself that makes me, give me courage I think. I think its about enabling me, cos most of these are quite long expeditions and they involve sleeping out, and findfin my way and baisically I get, I set up a way of being sent around to unknown people and delivering messages from the previous person with different themes. So Im a sort of post man really, in the era of emailing. I use, I have a mobile phone and I use that, I send a message back to a website, a haiku or something, so I quite like that link between the very new and the very old sort of thing.Nic: So I suppose, your practice straddles a few worlds. Im most familiar with what you might call Live Art or new performance more than I am with working in ceramics for instance, however it would be interesting to hear what would be the difference between those worlds. Im interested as to how you feel this work exsists for your in that-we could call it an industry or a culture or whatever you want to call it, but how it sits in there for you.Elspeth: Well in the ceramics, I was incredibly lucky really in terms of the industry or the establishment of cermics, because in caimbridge there was a man called Henry Rothchild who ran a gallery who was a sort of leader of establishing cermics as something that people collected and valued and he promoted museums buying it. And he included me in a exhibition when Id only just started, Id only been making work a couple of years, I cant believe now really, what he saw in it or-well he must have seen something, which wasnt already in the other work I think, cos othersie there was no reason to include it I think, and he sold it in his shop and the fact that I had been in one of his exhibitions was a great thing on my CV and it opened way and museums bought the work and so on, and this was the very end of the 70s and through the 80's there was quite a sort of boom in ceramics and it got itself in great arguments about art and craft and tried to elevate itslf as arts-very boring arguments. But it meant but there were lots of outlets for selling the work and you could probably charge more than you might have if that hadnt happened, if that hadnt been going on, and that meant that I could make a living, so that was very exciting. Interestingly, I suppose whats really prevented me from being more successful or whatever youd call it, is probably my own psychological problems in dealing with the people who are running the galleries, because I have shown in some of the biggest places really and I have fallen out, perhaps, I dont even know if they think weve fallen out as it were, but I havent found it, Im quite sort of touchy I suppose, I dont know what youd call it really, and actually there's a bit of me that doesnt want to sell my things to the kind of people that are buying them, which is a huge contradiction really and I guess most of the people that are in those galleries don't feel that, and thats what they want to do, they want to get the best price and they want peole to be collecting their work. You know its great that individuals want more as it were and like it and want to come again, but I feel quite uncomfortable, I suppose I dont want to be part of that world myself so something like open studio, to me is a much happier way of selling. I suppose there;s a bit of me that has a conflict with the middle man really, a sort of ideological..I remember right at the beginning with Henry Rothchild he didnt pay me immediately and I asked him for the money and I said, I can remember saying to him: 'you know all the time your not paying you're borrowing money from me', and I thought it was so smart, it was so clever to say that, which it was of course as it was absolutely true, and thats the whole fundamental way it works, basicially, its baisically a part of the luxury industries of capitalism. And he was very very angry with me for saying that, but he was-I didnt fall out with him. Somebody yesterday was talking about one of the women who runs a gallery and I said I just find her a bit difficult to work with and she said that she liked contradiction and she thrived on it and I thought oh I should be more able...Its partly not being able to deal with the contradiction, the conflict, I think in myself Im not very good at getting angry face to face with people.Nic: And do you feel its part of your work to have an angry face?Elspeth: No, perhaps not, perhaps thats the shouting aspect of it, I dont know. I think its more to do with the social envinment that the work is going to go into if I go down that route, if I work with these particular people, theyre the people really at the sort of, richest end. And of course, always within that there are very sensitive people who are very appreciative and so on and so forth. You could call it either a prejucduce or an accurate observation.Nic: And do you feel that the work is very separate to this?Elspeth: Yes I suppose what that makes me think is that they should be tough enough to go into these other worlds if theyre invited but its a bit like maybe sometimes that attitude is too over protective of myself.. I mean I was thinking of the parallel of when Im doing the walking, you know if I get into a world that is uncomfortable I have to deal with it, and its not usually the same world of course its more to do with a world that might be violent and dangerous in someway. Its not to do with money, the on the road context, its to do with dogs biting me or men attacking in me or something.Nic: So the people in the establishement, do you feel like, do they get what you on about? Elspth: Well they do you see, some of them definitely so I think. Theres a gallery in London and I have an exhibition with them every two years , but they told me they have got one of my pots next to a painting but a guy called Tapies, who I think is absolutely fantastic, so then Im quite happy you see, then I think 'Oh well!' So its all a bit hypocritical perhaps to be going on about not liking that world and so on, and Im sure there are people whose lifestyle, is completely foreign to me but who are appreaicteing the work.Nic:Do you feel supported as an artist?Elspeth: I do yes, I feel supported by the people who come to my open studio, some of whom are regulars I suppose, some of whom are collectors, some of them are jst friends who occasionally buy something. I feel supported by the gallery in London for instance. Its interesting, because Ive thought: 'Well why havnt I fallen out with them?' sort of thing. Well they are quite, theyre quite doen to earth I think, theyre not very pretentious, He was a doctor for many years and I think they must have been left some money by one of his parents or something and he, but he went on being a doctor as well as running the gallery for a long time, but I think hes stopped being a doctor. But for some reason they don't feel to me to be completely...they go of into the mountains for long walks themselves and they dont live in London they live in Nottingahmshre, and theyre quite direct, the way they deal with me is quite direct, with money and you know, the business side of it.Nic:What would you need to feel part of the industry/establishment? Or are you happy with the distance?Elspeth: I am yes, I think perhaps when I was younger I was more ambivalent about what it was I wanted, I suppose, or what was going to feel right. You know, what I am making these things for? What are the, where are they going and how am I going to survive financially, so at that times there was more of a need to sell or to keep looking for new places because they always were closing you know. Some of that was good actually, some of that pressure and need to have an income from it. And now since my father died, I have had some money for him and in someways unfortunately... Otherways I think its good Im much more relaxed about, I dont go looking nearly so much to find places to sell them, I just respond to what happens, I have the open studio and in some ways it means Im probably working less and its probably to do with getting older as well so in that way I think its quite good that Im not sort of frantically, I feel happy that Im contented with..and I mean Ive been incredibly lucky in terms of selling and the amount Im know, because I am quite well known as a potter, so that seems amaxing to me actually absolutely incredible really, partly because you know I didnt go to art school, and I had no training, you know, except evening classes and so I was never part of... noone else ever set out a path of what I should or shouldnt do with the ceramics, I just, I have been incredibly lucky, starting with the Henry Rothchild thing and I think Ive probably been, sort of saved just in time, form pushing, I mean I did push, at the beginning, and go round and get rejected, and did some more touting of the work and all that, but now I dont, I suppose I dont need to, and I dont want to and I dont have to, so thats what I mean about being lucky. And to me, theres a cerain amount of unhealthiness in the pushing, you know, if you think of it in ecological terms or in survival terms, taking what you need but not any more than that form the resources available, then Ive got enough, Ive had enough, these amazing exhibitions and good fortunes and people writing about me and I dont need any more than that, and that feels appropriate. I suppose it feels appropriate to my age, it feels appropriate to my energy and my skill, I feel as if Im where I should be, Im should be somehow.Nic: I was thinking that theres also a contradiction in making this beautiful wiork that doesnt exclaim or claim loudly but then if you yourself have to push it, then thats hard isnt it?Elsepth: Well thats what the John Berger article was about, it was about this women not pushing her work, just doing it and that was enough, and maybe one or two people would see it and that was great cos they responded to it as he was doing presumably, when he met her.Nic: Theres a difficulty in trying to make something which isnt egotistical, and then not just dropping those ethics or ethos when you suddenly have to try and get your work seen or whatever, its confusing.Elspeth: Thats a very interesting point, and of course the walking, which I sort of think of as performing is it doesnt make any money at all. I Havn;t traied to get funding for it actually, I dont know whether I would be able to now that I've you know got records of some of the work and so on, I dont know of anyone, I dont know who I would ask for funding or, so Im funding that myself, basically Im funsing it by renting my house when Im, cos Im away long enough to rent it, but thats probably not covering the whole cost, infact, so Im, my dads funding it basically. Its a wonderful freedom that hes given me, which is very intriguing because you know I thought of him as a really mean bastard, I thought of him as mean. He was saving all this money he was saving all the time! And he wasn;t the sort of person who enjoyed things very much, but to him, what he was doing, he was doing it for us I think, what I discovered when I found this money, that;s what he believed he should do with his money, that he should pass it on basically and he worked very very hard, and he sort of rose higher than where he came from, he was a lawyer and none of his family, they were farmers, where he came from and sort of accepting and enjoying this money of his has actually been fantastic shift and very wonderful, another sort of piece of good fortune really, but again contradictory, especially as a feminist!Nic: Earlier when you talked about honouring something, if its not about getting knwon and seen and career success, what is it about? Why do why you do? EO: One of the things that I said, when I was doing this huts business, this month in the shack, I was interviewd by radio four, called open country, and they were asking me why I was doing what I was doing, and in relation to what I was actually doing in that project, I said it was about the importnace of taking care of things. What I was doing there was hiding these necklaces, I was burying them, and then going round and finding them again in relation to the moons cycle, and when I, I can remember the sensation, when I said this to her about, I said it was about taking care of things and that I wanted to say that other people, not just do it as it were, I felt very emotional when I said it, sort of as if Id hit on something and also as if I couldnt quite believe it. Is that true? I think it might be very very true, or it might be what I need to feel about what Im doing and it sort of fits with the quietness and it fits with the ceramics as well as the walking or the messgse and its so near to life, you know its not something separate from life or from taking care of other people or from taking are of myself, which is obviously what I have to do on the walking a lot. Sometimes when Im sort of stuck about working and this is thinking about a long way back, and Im thinking why have you got this place? You know, and why are you going up there all by yourself all the time, and sometimes Ive had this answer to that which is well at least Im not causing any trouble, which is a sort of version of this taking care. At least Im out of, Im not doing anything worse, as it were than just sitting there by myselfy, which is not a very high ambition, but I think, theres something very important I think about trying to be able to look after yourself, and by extension look after these, make these things and look after them and make them look as if theyre something thats been looked afer while its been made. And I m suddenly realising that one of the things I nearly did before being a potter was be a psychotherapist, and I started training and worked as a student councellor, but it suddenly occurred to me that that might be a very similar aim that a therapist might say they had. Nic: The final think I would love to ask is: 'Im a young women, beginning her journey, and am someone who has dedicated her life to living as an artist. Do you have any advice you would would like to pass on?EO:Yes.... Well... First of all, I think you should recognise your good fortune in choosing that way. And then, you should keep down your overheads. And then I think... you should remember that you going in a circle, not a straightline.
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