Teaching craft for revival of stoneware pottery

Top stoneware potters Jon Pettyjohn and his wife, Tessie, have been teaching their craft for the past 13 years, hoping there will be a renaissance of stoneware pottery in the country soon.

Now they are teaching this art to many others to preserve the rich tradition of stoneware pottery.

For 25 years, they have been making stoneware pottery to the delight of collectors in Manila and in other Asian countries. They have been their country's national treasure as far as creating exemplary and artistic stoneware pottery is concerned.

They have received recognition not only in south-east Asia but also in Japan, where stoneware pottery is considered a high art form shaped by sensitive craftsmen.

Thirteen years ago, they experienced "a turning point" in their lives, a new phase in their lives, when they felt they had the right mixture of "soul and the maturity" to help in the metamorphosis of other would-be potters in the Philippines.

In 1991, they held an informal workshop for aspiring potters in their 2,500 square metre hilly hub in southern suburban Laguna. "They were enthusiastic but very few turned out to be full time potters then," recalled Tessie.

In 1994, they established a school of pottery in the elite southern suburban Alabang, in order to reach out to many enthusiasts and artists who live in the area. They closed shop in 1999.

Soon, due to the growing clamour of a younger generation of artists and students, they established a school of pottery at Greenbelt, Makati's posh commercial centre, where many enrolled to become students of these famous master potters.

Even art students from the premiere University of the Philippines in northern suburban Quezon City have been trekking to Makati to study pottery, learning glazing and firing from the gifted husband and wife team.

They still remember being irresolute teachers 13 years ago.

"At first, we were guided only by a strong conviction to teach to make potters out of enthusiasts in the country," said Tessie.

"In the beginning, teaching was very exhausting," explained Jon.

"The rewards of teaching started to come when we began to mellow. By that time, I could already see the look on the faces of our students, the appreciation they feel for every small thing we teach them." He said: "I have learned a lot from teaching. I have learned a lot from our students."

"Many of our students started to give up after finishing their course. Only 20 per cent or 15 people seriously pursued their art," noted d Tessie. But for Jon, that in itself is an achievement.

In the late 1980s, there were only about five major potters in the country. These were Pettyjohn and his wife, Jaime de Guzman and his wife, Anne, who is also a potter and who had left for the U.S. at that time, Lanelle Abueva, and Nelfa Querubin who also left for the U.S. where she is now recognised as a potter.

Pottery was a traditional art form in the country even before the arrival of the Spanish colonials. The prehistoric pottery collection in Manila's National Museum attests to a rich culture of pottery making among ancient Filipinos. The pottery of that time was not just useful but also ornamental.

The Pettyjons believe they have a mission to reignite the passion for pottery making among contemporary Filipino potters, to make them real craftsmen if not full time potters.

What fired them with this enthusiasm for stoneware pottery was their plan to build the so-called anagama wood-fired kiln in the tradition of the ancient practice in China and Japan 2,000 years ago.

They said it was a challenge to work on something as "mysterious and unpredictable such as a wood-fired kiln" after working on gas and electric fired-kilns for 25 years.

"There's a worldwide craze for wood firing among potters now," said Jon, adding that the building of his two by three metre wide kiln in suburban Laguna was fired by the enthusiasm to adopt something from past traditions of pottery-making.

The wood-fired kiln developed from the common open-fired pottery making of the past. In the country, open-fired pottery was carried out more than 2,000 years ago.

Surprisingly, Jon says, this kind of kiln is very popular today among new stoneware potters in the country.

Famous Japanese potter, Syozu Michikawa, played a key role in the building of the new kiln. At that time the Toyota Foundation, which was tapped to fund the project, disapproved of the plan due to Japan's recession.

Unfazed, Michikawa and his friends, with the help of the potters' organisation in Seto, northern Japan, went on TV to raise funds. They succeeded in raising 75 per cent of the P 1 million ($18,867) needed for the new kiln.

Several Filipino students who paid P 5,000 ($ 94.33), for a lifetime of free firing in the kiln, raised 25 per cent of the project cost.