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The McKnight Foundation Minneapolis, Minnesota Warren MacKenzie Warren MacKenzie 1999 Distinguished Artist Award The McKnight Foundation About The McKnight Foundation The McKnight Foundation is a private philanthropic organization founded in 1953 by William L. McKnight and his wife, Maude L. McKnight. Mr. McKnight was an early leader of the 3M Company. The Foundation, however, has no affiliation with 3M. The McKnight Foundation is the largest private funder of the arts in Minnesota, having contributed about $80 million since 1981. In 1998, McKnight gave nearly $8.6 million to the arts, about 11 percent of the Foundation’s total grants of $77.3 million. The Foundation also supports children, families, and communities; the environment; international programs; and scientific research.

Warren MacKenzie

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Page 1: Warren MacKenzie

The McKnight Foundation • Minneapolis, Minnesota

WarrenMacKenzie

Wa

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Ma

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19

99

Distin

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About The McKnight FoundationThe McKnight Foundation is a private philanthropic organization founded in 1953 by William L. McKnight and his wife, Maude L. McKnight. Mr. McKnight was an early leader of the 3M Company. The Foundation, however, has no affiliation with 3M. The McKnight Foundation is the largest private funder of the arts in Minnesota, havingcontributed about $80 million since 1981. In 1998, McKnight gave nearly $8.6 million to the arts, about 11 percent of the Foundation’s total grants of $77.3 million. The Foundation also supports children, families, and communities;the environment; international programs; and scientific research.

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T h e M c K n i g h t F o u n d a t i o n

1999 Distinguished Artist Award

WarrenMacKenzie

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McKnight Distinguished ArtistsWarren MacKenzie 1999Dominick Argento 1998

The McKnight Foundation600 TCF Tower121 South Eighth StreetMinneapolis, MN 55402612-333-4220www.mcknight.org

C R E D I T S

DesignBarbara Koster

PhotographyPeter Lee, Mark Luinenburg, John Szarkowski

Project SupportNancy MacKenzie

EditingSylvia Paine

PrintingMeyers Litho using agribased inks on Cougar Opaque

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W A R R E N M A C K E N Z I E 3

The McKnight Foundation’s arts program seeks to ensureaccess to the arts for all Minnesotans, whatever their

community or income level. No artist has done more to makehis own work accessible than Warren MacKenzie.

His pottery is collected and exhibited all over the world. InJapan, where he is especially beloved as a practitioner of theJapanese folk tradition, his shows routinely sell out withinhours of opening. Yet success has not changed his workingstyle nor elevated his prices. MacKenzie continues to makework every day and to sell it from a small showroom attachedto his pottery studio near Stillwater. Recalling the early days ofhis studio, he once said, “All of our pots were utilitarian andmade to be sold at modest prices so that people could usethem without fear of breaking an expensive pot.” They remainaffordable today, bringing beauty into our daily lives.

As a teacher and a mentor, MacKenzie has had enormousinfluence on the ceramics community. Because of hisgenerosity with his time and counsel, a network of youngerartists shares his philosophy and creates work that is nowfound in households throughout the Midwest and beyond. Hewas a founding member of the Minnesota Crafts Council,which gave him its first Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.In all that he has achieved personally and done for others,MacKenzie attests to one of The McKnight Foundation’s mostdeeply held principles: that artists and their work enrich acommunity’s life.

A belief in the importance of the arts to Minnesota is theprimary reason behind the Foundation’s 18-year-old artsprogram. Since 1981, McKnight has contributed more than$80 million to the arts in Minnesota. We have seen how thearts bring people together; how they embrace tradition andalso encourage innovation; how they give voice to the humanspirit. Warren MacKenzie’s work and the pleasure it gives to somany reflect these values. He is indeed one of Minnesota’smost Distinguished Artists.

Noa StarykChairThe McKnight Foundation

Intro

duct

ion

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MacKenzie’s work photographed by Peter Lee

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Con

tent

s Simply a Potter 6By Rob Silberman

The Potter’s Voice 16A Good Day’s Work 24Photographs by John Szarkowski

MacKenzie and Friends 30A Potter’s Life 36About the Award 38

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arren MacKenzie returned to the Schoolof the Art Institute of Chicago in 1946,after serving in the army during World

War II. He was 22 years old. The painting classes hewanted to take were full, so he enrolled in a ceramicsclass—his first—instead. But he soon becamefrustrated by the purely technical nature of theinstruction and the total lack of any discussion ofaesthetics. Then a fellow student brought in a copyof Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book. The rest, as theysay, is history—that is, ceramics history.

The Art Institute course trained students as artist-designers by having them make prototypes suitablefor mass production. Each piece was constructedthrough a long, deliberate process. In sharp contrast,Leach proposed that pottery be handmade by artist-craftspeople, working quickly, with immediacy andexpressiveness.

His book was a practical “how-to,” an instruction

6 M c K N I G H T D I S T I N G U I S H E D A R T I S T A W A R D

For Warren MacKenzie,

life and work are one.

By Rob Si lberman

SimplyaPotter

Mar

k Lu

ine

nb

urg

W

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guide that included wheel design and kiln-building and advice about usinglocal clays, an appeal to a kind of artistic regionalism MacKenzie liked.

Leach also included a history of ceramics, for he viewed ceramics as acultural form with its own language, an international one, and a long historythat was still alive. Most important for the young artist was that, as MacKenziehas written, “Leach defined the potter’s life in philosophical terms in which lifeand work were inextricably intertwined, and the goal was to make objects ofutility and simple beauty.”

The encounter with Leach’s classic book, only just published in America, setMacKenzie on a path he has followed to this day. It led to his apprenticeship atthe Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall, a lifelong commitment to a utilitarianapproach to pottery, and ultimately his becoming one of the most respectedpotters in the world today. Among many honors, he was named in 1981 byreaders of Ceramics Monthly magazine as one of the 12 greatest potters in theworld, and in 1998 received the American Crafts Council Gold Medal forLifetime Achievement, the most prestigious recognition that can be given anAmerican craftsperson.

f course, the story of MacKenzie’s climb to success is not so simple.Outside of Hollywood, such stories rarely are. In retrospect, theuncertainties, struggles, and disappointments tend to disappear.

And the choice of a career, especially one that seems to have appeared almostby happenstance, does not inevitably lead to the kind of achievement that hasbeen MacKenzie’s.

Yet the story of this potter’s beginnings does have a certain drama,especially since in that ceramics class Warren not only learned about Leach but

also met his first wife, Alix. She toobecame a potter and apprenticedwith Leach, and she collaboratedwith her husband until her deathfrom cancer in 1962.

The MacKenzies were united inadmiring the virtues of traditionalfunctional pots rather than fine artsculptural ceramics or expensiveshowpieces aimed at an exclusive,wealthy clientele. The Art Institutehas a notable collection ofceramics, including pieces from

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O

When MacKenzietalksabout pottery,there is no mistakinghispleasure in thephysicalprocess,thedirectengagementwiththe clay.

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Asia, but MacKenzie says they made “no major impression” on the youngartists. It was in the collection of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural Historythat Warren and Alix found their model, for there pottery was presented not ina fine arts context but in a broadly cultural one. Displays representing life inGreece, Egypt, and other countries included large numbers of pots, not just asingle masterpiece spotlit on a pedestal.

The young potters immediately felt a sympathy for inexpensive potterycreated for everyday use by ordinary people. From that time to this, andthroughout the world in workshops and exhibitions, that vision of pottery’ssocial role has been at the center of MacKenzie’s work.

But MacKenzie’s pottery reflects something else, too, something far simpler:his love of making pots. When MacKenzie talks about pottery, there is nomistaking his pleasure in the physical process, the direct engagement with theclay. In fact, it is the treatment of clay as a physical, sensuous material that hasalways appealed to him so much in the pots of Shoji Hamada, the greatJapanese potter whose work he first saw in Leach’s book. He encounteredHamada’s actual pots at Leach’s home and studio, and finally met him in 1952at a conference in England. Later that same year, Alix MacKenzie arranged forLeach, Hamada, and Soetsu Yanagi, the leader of the Japanese folk craft(mingei ) movement, to tour the United States, stopping in St. Paul for alecture-discussion.

For MacKenzie, pottery, unlike painting, is primarily about touch. That is onereason why the “Don’t touch” attitude of the art museum presentation ofceramics disturbs him so. MacKenzie has a sharp eye, to be sure, but hebelieves the ultimate test of a pot is physical and tactile. When he talks about apot, he likes to take it and handle it, turn it round in his hands, set it down, lookat it, rub a finger along an edge or contour, then look at it some more.

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During a recent trip to Japan MacKenzie was able to hold a famous pot hehad long admired, one featured on a poster on his studio wall. To hold thistreasure was a dream realized, but it was also a learning experience. The potwas bigger than MacKenzie thought it would be, and heavier. So his directexperience with the pot taught him once again about scale, and about therelationship between how heavy a pot looks and how heavy it really is—two ofthe many concerns that fuel his endless fascination with pots.

Beyond MacKenzie’s enjoyment of the physicality of the pottery-makingprocess, there is his love of exploring the inexhaustible forms possible withinthe basic formats: plates and platters, vases and vessels, storage jars andboxes, mugs, cups, and teapots. He rarely makes pieces that are not wheel-thrown; he has no interest in making abstract or sculptural pieces. Functionalpottery is a large enough universe for him, and the one suited to his ideasabout the social role of pottery.

In addition to form, there are all the possibilities for decoration—color,pattern, ornamentation. In this respect, MacKenzie’s pots reveal his warmth,subtlety, and humor, as well as a love of experimentation that has led him to tryall sorts of things, such as using a bottletop to make an ornamental design.

Finally, there is the element of chance introduced by the kiln, for whateverefforts the potter makes to control all the variables, the outcome is nevercertain. And that is a good thing, even if it means unhappy surprises as well ashappy ones.

All pots must survive trial by fire, and all potters must learn to live with that.Being a potter can be heartbreaking as well as backbreaking work. But the lasttime I saw Warren he showed me a pot that had been blessed by the fire. Foronce the carbon trapping had worked just right. The linear pattern incised onthe surface received carbon from the flames and achieved perfect definition, inpart because what was actually intended to have been a salmon color turnedout white. Sometimes the pottery gods do smile.

acKenzie benefited from the companionship and artistic skill of hisfirst wife, Alix, who in the early years when he was not as widelyrecognized was beside him sharing his views of life and art.

Similarly, he has been helped in later years by the companionship, support,and artistic interests of his second wife, Nancy Stevens MacKenzie, a fiberartist. There is no way to overestimate the value of living with another artist,someone whose own artwork and ideas about art stimulate a deeperengagement not only with one’s chosen medium but with all kinds of art.Nancy’s beautiful dyed silk scarves are displayed in the sales shop next to the

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studio along with Warren’s pots and the work of other potters. Her wearable artand wall pieces have been shown along with Warren’s ceramics in a series ofrecent exhibitions that demonstrate a wonderfully complementaryrelationship, in both human and artistic terms.

Born in Kansas City and raised and educated in Chicago, MacKenzie haslived in Minnesota for nearly half a century now. An adopted son of the state,he nevertheless embodies some classic Minnesotan values: He isstraightforward, hard-working, modest, and softspoken—except when pots areat issue. Then his enthusiasm and passion emerge, and it seems as if he wouldjust as soon discuss pots forever, if only talking didn’t get in the way of makingsome more.

Trendiness and fashion mean nothing to MacKenzie. He holds to the Artsand Crafts movement’s philosophy that the beautiful and the useful should beone; and he obviously holds little truck with rarity or price as a guide to value.He prices his pots inexpensively, so that anybody and everybody can affordthem and use them in daily life rather than treat them as precious works of art.The studio shop is run on the honor system.

MacKenzie holds a democratic view of pots. I suspect that, after the right tovote, MacKenzie would next uphold the right of all citizens to have good,affordable, handmade pots, with their most important civic duty being to usethem.

iven MacKenzie’s populist, anti-elitist point of view, it is appropriatethat virtually his entire teaching career was spent at a public landgrant school, the University of Minnesota. If, by the time of his

retirement, he had ascended to a Regent’s Professorship, the most prestigiousposition the University can offer a teacher, that was an appropriately

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democratic recognition by his peers of his outstanding ability andachievement. As a teacher, MacKenzie has played a central role in theflourishing ceramics community in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. Potterssuch as Randy Johnston and Wayne Branum continue to be especially close toWarren and sell their work in the MacKenzie shop. There are many others in thearea who may not have studied with MacKenzie yet have been affected by hisexample and generous support of many kinds.

MacKenzie’s influence extends well beyond the Upper Midwest. Hecontinues to participate directly in the international community of potters bydoing workshops around the world, in South America and Scandinavia andJapan. In Japan, where ceramics are regarded as a major art form, he isparticularly revered. A sellout crowd attended a MacKenzie appearance at theFolk Craft Museum (founded by Soetsu Yanagi), and an exhibition of his workat a Tokyo gallery sold out in an hour.

MacKenzie’s reputation in Japan and his friendship with Tatsuzo Shimaoka,one of the great contemporary Japanese potters and a one-time apprentice ofHamada’s, recalls the friendship between Hamada and Leach, pottery masterslinking the East and the West. Among the many things Warren learned from

these men was a dedication to pottery as acultural expression not bounded by time andspace. Both Leach and Hamada were greatstudents of pottery from many cultures,committed to seeking out great examples fromthe past and from countries around the globe.

MacKenzie, too, regards all of ceramic historyas a world to be explored and a source ofinspiration. In a recent series of teapots heincorporated a formal element borrowed from

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For MacKenziepottery,unlikepainting,isprimarilyabouttouch.

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an American Indian pot given to him by a friend, and he continues regularly toproduce pots that draw upon Asian traditions.

When Alix and Warren viewed the pots in the Field Museum, they admiredthe relationship between the cultures and the ceramics and wondered howthey could do something similar for contemporary America. That has alwaysbeen the challenge. Leach, in a notorious statement, said that America had nogreat tradition in pottery. Warren, who soon developed a clear sense of wherehe and Leach agreed and disagreed, thinks that notion is simply not true. He isa great admirer of what he describes as the “blunt, Puritan, no-nonsense”functionalism of the whisky jugs and pickle crocks and other vessels made inthe days long before M.F.A. ceramic programs.

But MacKenzie, in an age when whisky jugs and pickle crocks are mainlycurios, has tried to create pots “that make sense in the contemporary world”—such as other kinds of storage vessels and vase forms. For him to directlyimitate old-fashioned, unembellished American pottery would be forced andout of character. MacKenzie is a modern man and a complex artist, though onededicated to achieving a special kind of simplicity.

In some recent pots, he has surprised himself by returning to elementsrelated to his early artistic interest in hard-edged geometric painting, when hewas trying to become the American Mondrian or a Bauhaus-style artist-designer. When he felt the need to move away from the kind of Japanese-styledecoration that features calligraphic lines or stylized motifs from nature, heturned to what he calls “monoprinting,” working with a straight edge like apiece of cardboard to introduce lines into the surface design that will play offthe curves of the clay form. He has also recently made some large vessels thatexploit a long-term interest in having a large “body” rest on a relatively small“foot,” thus introducing a basic tension into the piece, a quality MacKenzie hasalways liked.

Of course, when he enlarges the scale of the piece it changes everything—the proportions, the sense of weight, the kind of surface coloring and designthat might be appropriate. Variables and variations are unlimited, as is theartist’s fascination with the process. At 75, MacKenzie continues to make pots,explore forms and glazes, and draw out aspects of his own character as hecommunicates with others through his pots.

acKenzie has had a long and productive career. At this stage,it seems fair to speak of his work in terms of a late style,characterized by a mastery and assurance that makes everything

seem at once simple and refined, with a concentrated expressiveness. Inretrospect, it is possible to identify different periods in his work, some marked

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by brief excursions and experiments—an intense interest in porcelain, a set ofpieces inspired by the work of the German-English artist Hans Coper, afascination with a particular family of decorative elements or glazes.

Yet what stands out even more is the essential continuity of MacKenzie’sachievement in ceramics. There is an underlying consistency in approach thatis immediately apparent when one examines a particular kind of piece—teapots or covered jars, for instance. For all the variations, the MacKenziesignature is unmistakable. In looking back, what emerges is a unique blendthat combines not only Asian and Anglo-American ceramic traditions, but alsothe European modernism that influenced MacKenzie when he first set out tobe an artist.

MacKenzie believes that the best pots do not come because someone is anartist trying to make a masterpiece, but because someone is “simply being apotter.” For him, there is no higher praise. Out of a stream of pots made withskill, discipline, and maturity can come forth a pot that displays a “gestural,sensuous treatment of plastic clay, a pot that almost disappears, that is just a pot.”

And with such good pots, communication is established between makerand user, and a community is formed. Know this, then: There is a very largecommunity that extends around the world, and at its center is WarrenMacKenzie at his wheel, doing what he loves, making pots, and “simply beinga potter.”

Rob Silberman teaches art history and film studies at the University of Minnesota.

He is a regular contributor to American Craft magazine, where his article on Warren MacKenzie

appeared in 1989. In 1996 his essay on Minnesota artists Christie Hawkins and Irve Dell won the

Vanessa Lynn Prize, awarded for “an outstanding essay on contemporary American craft.”

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Whatever effortsthe potter makestocontrol allthevariables,theoutcomeisnever certain.

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I suspect that, after the right to vote,MacKenzie would next uphold the rightofall citizens to have good, affordable,handmade pots.

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MacKenzie on his craft.

If I knew howtomake

wonderful pots,Iwouldnever again

makeabadone.Regis Master Series lecture,

St. Paul, 1997

In Chicago the best museum in which to studypots was not the Art Institute but the Field

Museum of Natural History. . . . It was there thatwe discovered that the pots that excited us themost were the pots madefor everyday use inhouseholds. There weremany that were morespectacular and lovely, butthe everyday pots were richwith expression andreflected the domesticculture of their time ratherthan the wealth and powerof patrons and rulers. Itwas at that time that wedecided to concentrate ourown work on similareveryday pots.Regis Master Series lecture, St. Paul, 1997

When Alix and I cameback from England,

we could go anywhere inthe United States to set upour workshop. And wheredid we go? We went backto St. Paul. I think that therewas something about theway our sense of rhythmand form was evolving andour feeling of comfort withthe pace of Midwesternliving. . . . My pots are muchbetter understood in theMidwest than they are onthe East or West coast.Interview with David Lewis in Warren MacKenzie: An American Potter (Kodansha International, 1991)

ThePotter’s Voice

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My favorite potsare those that have allowed me

todiscover their surprises andhidden beauty onlyafter many

years ofdaily use.Regis Master Series lecture,

St. Paul, 1997

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W A R R E N M A C K E N Z I E 19

Every artist must find a formor subject that intrigues him

or her. For some it has beenlandscapes, for others figures,abstract forms, interiors,geometric relationships,expressionistic gesture, orpolitical statement. My optionhas been to work withutilitarian pots and to makepots in quantity to sell atreasonable prices. The choiceof form or subject is relativelyunimportant. What is importantis that the creators mustimmerse themselves in itcompletely.Regis Master Series lecture, St. Paul, 1997

Iwant to reinforce thesense of traditional

values in people. The sensethat in our brief tenureon this earth, in spite ofthe great problems we face,there are larger themes,maybe even timelessthemes which transcend us.At the same time, I wantmy pots to express thosethemes with immediacyand emotional spontaneity.Recorded in the notebooksof Randy Johnston

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The most important thing is communicating with the user.

It isonly when the user feelsthepresence of the hand

of the potter thatcommunication truly exists.

Warren MacKenzie: An American Potter,video by Saint Michel Co.

and Kuroda Productions, 1994

Each time you fire the kiln, you get results out thatindicate a minor directional change. Something

is suggested by a form or a color or a glaze experiment.My pots are different thanthey were even two yearsago, not because I’vetried to change them butjust because I’ve changed.Interview with Minnesota Monthly, September 1997

Idon’t really like picking out mybest work and sending it to some

foreign area and shorting the localpeople who deserve something forbeing faithful customers. My workis not really meant for exhibitionsanyway. It’s meant for the home.Interview with the Star Tribune, May 1999

Ifeel craft works—fiber, glass, clay, metal—that surrender their love of form, rhythm,

color, to social statements are weaker for thatdeviation. The social opinions and statementsare important, but they have nothing to dowith a soup bowl, pitcher, chair, or coverlet.Regis Master Series lecture, St. Paul, 1997

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One of the things which distinguisheshandmade pots from mass-

produced pots is the communicationbetween the potter and the user. So I useother people’s pots. The only time I use

my own is when I havea new shape or a newglaze. Then I mightdecide to have it in thekitchen or on the table fora while, just to see how itperforms. Or sometimesI like to have one or twoof my own pots mixed

randomly in with the pots of other peoplethat Nancy and I use every day about thehouse. Then the pots by the other peoplecan tell me about my own—and maybemine can take me by surprise.Interview with David Lewis inWarren MacKenzie: An American Potter, 1991

Nearly all functional potsare containers, but someenclose and protect the

contents whileothersmustopen and offer the

contents tothe user.Regis Master Series lecture,

St. Paul, 1997

Idon’t find sticking to theutilitarian work limiting

in any way.Interview with Mpls. St. Paul magazineAugust 1999

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W A R R E N M A C K E N Z I E 23

There is a wonderful anecdote that it takes two people tomake a work of art—the first to create the work, and the

second to stand behind and hit the artist over the head whenit is done. Since I married again, my wife, Nancy, who is nota potter but a fiber artist, has often shown me elements in myown work that I have not been aware of when working alone.I am eternally grateful to her, and even though I may rejecther ideas at first, I often come to believe in them later on.Regis Master Series lecture,St. Paul, 1997

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A G

oodD

ay’ s Work

few years after Warren MacKenzie establishedhimself in Minnesota, John Szarkowski spenta day photographing MacKenzie’s farm and

pottery studio near Stillwater for America Illustratedmagazine, published by the U.S. Information Agencyto promote American culture abroad. Although neither canrecall the date with certainty, it was probably in 1958 or 1959.

At the time, Szarkowski was a freelance photographerworking out of Ashland, Wisconsin. He had traveledthroughout Minnesota for The Face of Minnesota, a bookof photographs commemorating Minnesota’s centennial in 1958 that became a New York Times bestseller. Warren MacKenzie was teaching at the Universityof Minnesota.

Their paths crossed as each was on the way toachievement and renown. MacKenzie’s pottery began tobe widely exhibited and recognized in the 1960s and wasincluded in USIA traveling exhibitions to Asia, SouthAmerica, and Africa. Szarkowski received a GuggenheimFellowship, his second, in 1961, and in 1962 became

director of the Department ofPhotography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York,from which he is now retired. His 1956book, The Idea of Louis Sullivan,is scheduled to be reissued in 2000.

The pictures, shown here courtesyof John Szarkowski, have not beenpublished for 30 years.

Opposite page:Warren and AlixMacKenzie, hisfirst wife, whodied in 1962; daughters Tamsyn(left) and Shawn,and Gigi the poodle.Below, Warren andAlix, Tamsyn, andtheir mixed-breeddog Mechi.

A

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After returningfrom England,where they hadstudied with potter BernardLeach, Warrenand Alix builta kiln similarto Leach’s. Here,Warren placespots in saggersthat protect themfrom the directeffects of the fire(right); watchesover the kiln asthe fire heats up(opposite); andunloads the kiln(above).

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W A R R E N M A C K E N Z I E 29

In a section on artistsin The Face of Minnesota,John Szarkowski quotesWarren and Alix MacKenzie(above): “We learned toproduce in a natural andeasy manner, a way ofworking which now permitsus to make from 50 to200 pots a day. This levelof production is generallyrejected by Americanpotters who hold that. . .that amount of workwill automatically leadto ‘dead pots.’ But ourexperience has been that. . .with the relaxation and easeof making comes a fluidityof expression which permitsthe pots to come closerto being ‘born, not made.’”Left: Warren anda customer.

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Joan Adams MondaleMinneapolis

Warren MacKenzie is widely regarded as one of themost important potters of our time. Not only is he the

best in his field but he has conducted himself with honestyand integrity. His adherence to those high standards hasbrought him admirers from around the world, especiallyJapan, where his shows routinely sell out within hours afteropening. Wherever I go, people say, “You’re fromMinnesota; you must know Warren MacKenzie!”

andFriendsMacKenzie

Reminiscences about a master potter and his world.

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W A R R E N M A C K E N Z I E 31

Linda ChristiansonLindstrom, MinnesotaPotter

As a young potter struggling in the 1970s, I was invited to be a part ofMacKenzie’s annual fall sale at his studio. The sale included work by

pottery students of MacKenzie’s as well as handmade paper, rugs, baskets,and cloth made by others.Never having been a studentof his, I was surprised to findmyself welcomed into a groupof potters who have come tobe known as the “Mingei-sota”group. [Mingei is the Japanesefolk pottery tradition that hasinspired MacKenzie’s work.]For years we would gatherevery few months at someone’shome, eat fantastic food, andthen argue for hours on endabout pots. While theconversations often got outof hand, it was tremendouslyimportant to have a forumto critique pots with passionand conviction. Warren beganorganizing exhibitions of potsmade by those of us workingin this mingei manner. Hissupport and encouragementlaid the foundation for ourown careers. While manyrecognized artists form a wallof privacy around themselves,Warren always has an opendoor and an extra placeat the kitchen table.

Ken FergusonShawnee, KansasPotter and former chair of the Ceramics Departmentat Kansas City Art Institute

Warren MacKenzie makes about7,000 pots a year. He does this alone.

He is 75 years old and has been going at thispace for most of his working life. Warren istotally committed to his life’s work. It’s asimple thing: He loves his work, he workshard, and from this come very good pots.MacKenzie has inspired many to follow.The area where he works has been enrichedby this bounty. There will be others whowill keep this flame burning. But itwill never burn as bright as it does now.There are few like him—damn few!

Marcia G. AndersonSt. Paul Head of Museum Collections and Chief CuratorMinnesota Historical Society

When I began an intensive effortto fully document MacKenzie’s

oeuvre for the collections of theMinnesota Historical Society, I had thepleasure of spending concentrated timewith Warren over a period of three years.Time spent in conversation with Warrenabout his favorite topic is as valuable anacquisition as an example of his work.Warren is the international emissaryfor the merger of the provocativequalities of clay with a functional pot.

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Lyndel KingMinneapolisDirector, Frederick R. Weisman Art MuseumUniversity of Minnesota

When one writes about artistsas renowned as Warren

MacKenzie, superlatives first cometo mind, and I can think of many todescribe my friend and colleague.But Warren, like his pottery, prefersto be admired in a different way.The MacKenzie house is anexquisite place to savor the calmingeffects of the green Minnesotacountryside. It is filled with pottery,textiles, Warren, Nancy, and theirfriends. Together they createperfect harmony. It is not that thepottery, the textiles, or the peopleare not strong individuals. Eachspeaks with a steady, forceful voice,but without competition.MacKenzie’s pots, like Warrenhimself, function by attraction, notadvertisement. Warren’s handmadepottery, functional and beautiful, isin the collection of art museums allover the world, including mine. It isalso used every day at theMacKenzie house and at houses allover the world, including mine.

Stewart TurnquistMinneapolisProgram Coordinator, Minnesota Artists Exhibition ProgramMinneapolis Institute of Arts

The effects of Warren MacKenzie’stalent as an artist and teacher

reverberate throughout Minnesota, theMidwest, and the nation. There are fewwho have had such a significant impacton the art community of this region. Ifthe United States were to assign the statusof Living Treasure to its most significantcontemporary artists, Warren MacKenziewould surely be among the first to receivesuch recognition.

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Jim MelchertOakland, CaliforniaCeramic artist and former Director of Visual Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts

In the spring of 1973 I was at theUniversity of Minnesota to conduct

a two-day workshop in the ArtDepartment. I engaged the groupin improvisational exercises that weren’tthat different from things you mighthave done as a kid. I didn’t expect any ofthe instructors to join the group, but, ofall people, Warren MacKenzie came. Itmade me uneasy, because he was alreadya legendary figure in American ceramics.Our first exercise was outdoors, where we imagined we were scatteredon various floors of a building waiting for the elevator. When we got toWarren’s floor, he pretended to be holding a caged parrot, stepping intoour cage with a smaller cage of his own. From the way he stood holdingit, you could tell that he knew exactly how heavy the bird was and howmuch room he needed to fit into our crowded elevator. I realized thenthat I didn’t have to worry that this man had forgotten how to play.

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John DriscollNew York CityDirector, Babcock Galleries

MacKenzie’s functional forms, whether vegetable dish, teapot,colander, storage jar, or plate, reveal an articulate

expression deeply rooted in the technologies, culture, art, and lifeof everyday activity. Yet there is nothing everyday about thetechnical facility, tactile cultures, or intuitive art and life whichinform MacKenzie’s intimacy with the “terra firma” of dailyactivity. The earth with which he works, the forms and purposeswhich define a rich and diverse artistic heredity, and the symbolicmeanings which flourish in the minds of maker, user, and admirer,all endow MacKenzie’s work with avital life in the eye, the hand, andthe imagination. A MacKenzie potmay be venerable, but it is thebaptism of use that makes itvenerated.

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Teiko UtsumiTokyoTrustee, Nihon Mingeikan

In 1952, Warren MacKenzie, then 27, met Soetsu Yanagi when Warren wasapprenticing with Bernard Leach in St. Ives, England. Yanagi was founder

of the Nihon Mingeikan (Japan Folk Crafts Museum), philosopher, artist, andadvocate for the mingei movement. In 1996, Warren, 72, lectured at theNihon Mingeikan, where the leaders of the mingei movement—Yanagi, Leach,Kanjiro Kawai, Shoji Hamada, Keisuke Serizawa, Shiko Munakata—had talked,discussed, laughed, and shared the spirit of the anonymous craftsman.Although these artists have long gone, Warren told me that there are morethan 200 kilns in Minnesota alonetoday—proof that the tradition hasbeen inherited.

Emily GalushaMinneapolisExecutive Director Northern Clay Center

Over the course of a long career,Warren MacKenzie

has developed a thoughtful andcomplete aesthetic, from which hisown teaching and his instruction ofothers flowed naturally. His cogentphilosophy formed the basis for theteaching, both formal and informal,

which has influenced40 years of Americanpotters. His distinctiveblend of eastern andwestern attitudes, alongwith an extraordinarymastery of the medium,has produced workthat is bothsophisticated andaccessible—inthis instance, notan oxymoron.

Gerry WilliamsGoffstown, New HampshireEditor, The Studio Potter Journal

In the 1990 issue of The Studio Potter Journal there isa long interview with Warren MacKenzie. On the cover

is a picture I took while he was teaching at HaystackSchool in Maine. Warren leans forward, peeringquizzically through glasses at the camera with a smallhalf-smile that seems to say, “This is much ado aboutnothing.” Warren’s famous modesty has dominated hislife, especially in the professional integrity with which hemakes and sells his pots. He told me once, “Thechallenge is to do the thing you have to do becauseyou’re in love with it and can’t do anything else. Notbecause you want to become rich or famous butbecause you will be unhappy if you can’t do it.” Warrencontinues to be a role model for all of us, young or old,who aspire to make good pots. There is no one who hasdone them better and whom we would rather seehonored in this way than Warren MacKenzie.

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Randy JohnstonRiver Falls, Wisconsin Potter and Professor University of Wisconsin-River Falls

A s MacKenzie’s student in the Mingei-sota group, I felt strongly,and still do, that pots should be of use while still embodying a

strong sense of aestheticism. Warren’s pots have never pandered tonovelty. They have never been outspoken, as he often is, and theyare certainly not stylish. They are, however, comfortableand necessary additions to the homes and kitchens of us all. They arespiritual and often transcendental and always quite simple in theircomplexities. Warren is fun, laughs easily, loves gestures, and istotally obsessed with making pots—constantly. After our last woodfiring, lasting 60 hours, at whichWarren was present the wholetime, we went to bed, and he wenthome. We later heard that he hadgone straight to the studio towork on pots. His momentumhas been the inspiration I haveneeded occasionally to get backto the studio. His messageto us way back then was thatif you want to make pots,“Just go do it.” It soundedso direct, so simple. It wasn’t.

Lois MoranNew York CityEditor, American Craft

Imet Warren MacKenzie for the first time in the 1970s in the idyllicMaine setting of Haystack, where, as I remember, there was a

kind of throwing contest taking place on the deck in the sun. I haveforgotten the other contenders, but I still recall the image ofWarren commanding the clay, the wheel, the audience with adazzling performance. After that introduction I paid him attentionand still do. Just a year ago I had the chance to visit his studio inStillwater. I was very happy to be there, rounding out my firstimpression of nearly 30 years ago. And wandering about, I thoughtof the fine pots he has sent out into the world in that interim, andof Warren the person, and I was dazzled once again.

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1924Born February 16in Kansas City,Missouri.

1941Enters the Schoolof the Art Instituteof Chicago,intending tobecome a painter.

1943-46Serves in U.S. Armyas a silk-screentechnician workingon training chartsand maps.

1946Returns to ArtInstitute and,finding thepainting classesfull, takes ceramicsinstead.

1947Graduates from ArtInstitute; marriesAlix Kolesky, whoshares his passionfor pottery andwith whom he willcollaborate untilher death in 1962.

1948Moves to St. Paulto teach ceramics,sculpture, anddesign at theSt. Paul Galleryand School of Art.

1950-52Warren and Alixapprentice withrenowned potterBernard Leach atSt. Ives, England.In 1952, they meetShoji Hamada andother influentialpotters at aninternationalconference inEngland.

1953PurchasesStillwater farm toestablish a potterystudio and beginsteaching ceramicsat the University ofMinnesota.

1954First exhibitionof pottery fromthe new studio atWalker Art Centerin Minneapolis.

1966Promoted tofull professorat the Universityof Minnesota.

1973Includedin AmericanCraftsman’sCouncil TravelingShow for the U.S.InformationAgency, whichtours for threeyears in Europe,Asia, SouthAmerica, andAfrica.

1979Invited to showin “100 Yearsof AmericanCeramics” at theSmithsonianMuseum,Washington, D.C.,and EversonMuseum, Syracuse,New York.

Warren MacKenzie

A Potter’s Life

Decoration byAlix MacKenzie

36 M C K N I G H T D I S T I N G U I S H E D A R T I S T A W A R D

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Brooklyn Museum,Brooklyn

MetropolitanMuseum of Art,New York

Carnegie Museum of Art,Pittsburgh

Museum of Applied Art, Helsinki, Finland

Victoria and Albert Museum,London, England

SmithsonianMuseum,Washington, D.C.

Everson Museum,Syracuse, New York

Minnesota Museum of Art,St. Paul

Joslyn Museum,Omaha, Nebraska

Tokyo Folk ArtMuseum, Tokyo, Japan

Chunichi ShimbunCollection, Nagoya, Japan

WeismanArt Museum,Minneapolis

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Sele

cted

Col

lect

ions

1981Chosen one ofworld’s 12 bestpotters in a surveyby CeramicMonthly magazine.

1981-85Chairs Departmentof Studio Artsat the university.

1982Selected ashonorary fellowby the NationalCouncil onEducation in theCeramic Arts.

1984Named a Regent’sProfessor anda fellow of theInternationalAcademy ofCeramic Arts;marries NancyStevens, a fiberartist.

1986First to receivethe MinnesotaGovernor’s Awardin the Crafts.

1990Retires from theuniversity.

1991Book WarrenMacKenzie:An AmericanPotter, by DavidLewis, publishedby KodanshaPublishing, Tokyo,Japan. Soloexhibitions inSeattle; St. Louis;Chicago; Arvada,Colorado; andPittsburgh; groupexhibitions inDenver andNew York.

1995Anothermajor year forexhibitions,showing inNew York; Tokyo;Cleveland;Pittsburgh;Minneapolis,St. Paul, andNorthfield,Minnesota;and LaCrosse,Wisconsin.

1997 Receives LifetimeAchievementAward fromMinnesotaCrafts Council.

1998Receives GoldMedal fromAmerican CraftsCouncil.

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Minnesota is often cited as a special place to live becauseits citizens have access to such a wealth of cultural

activities. Theaters, museums and galleries, dance programs,music, and films enliven our stages and concert halls, ourstorefronts and street corners. But we often forget who set allthis activity in motion.

The Distinguished Artist Award, now in its second year,recognizes those who, individually and collectively, laid thefoundation for what we enjoy today. Although they hadopportunities to pursue their work elsewhere, they choseto stay, and by staying made a difference. These artists havefounded and/or strengthened Minnesota’s vibrant artsorganizations, mentored and inspired younger artists, andattracted audiences and patrons who enable art to thrive.Most of all, they are working artists who have made the mostof their formidable talents.

Many of these artists have received national orinternational honors. But, despite the state’s rich culturalhistory, there was no appropriate tribute for them at home.The Distinguished Artist Award—a Minnesota award forMinnesota artists—seeks to fill that gap.

This year’s Distinguished Artist, Warren MacKenzie, has hadenormous influence on the arts in general, and on ceramic

arts in particular, in Minnesota and beyond. Because of hiswork in his own studio and with students at the University ofMinnesota, a large community of potters carries on thetradition of making functional, affordable pieces for peopleto enjoy in their homes every day. Although MacKenzie drewhis primary inspirations from Japanese and Korean folk crafts,the tradition itself is as old as civilization. As more than oneperson said in nominating MacKenzie for the award, if theUnited States honored Living Treasures, as Japan does,he would surely be among them.

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One artist each year receives the award, which includesa $40,000 stipend. Anyone is welcome to nominate an artist.Nominations received by March 31 will be considered thesame year. A panel of people appointed for their knowledgeof Minnesota’s cultural history reviews the nominations, maysuggest others, and selects the Distinguished Artist.

The 1999 panelists considered more than 100 artists fromall over the state before reaching a unanimous decision. Ourthanks to Linda Hoeschler, executive director of the AmericanComposers Forum, St. Paul; Linda Myers, executive directorof The Loft, Minneapolis; Thomas O’Sullivan, curator,Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul; and Mike Steele, staffwriter, Star Tribune, Minneapolis. They have set a highstandard that makes the award all the more meaningfulin documenting Minnesota’s cultural history.

Neal CuthbertProgram Officer/ArtsThe McKnight Foundation

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