View Larger Image Doug Casebeer, program director of ceramics at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado for the past twenty years, is seen here loading the Good Hope soda kiln in Jamaica.

August 1, 2007

Common Wealth: A Workshop in Jamaica

by D Wood | Read Comments (1)

In the last issue of Ceramic Arts Daily, you learned about the charm and beauty of Jamaica--'the biggest little island in the world.' You also read about the island's influence on Doug Casebeer, who later moved from Jamaica to Anderson Ranch in Colorado to develop ceramics and sculpture programs. Today, you'll read about his efforts to organize workshops, and his reaching out to respected ceramists, indigenous potters, aspiring makers, schools, and the local and global community.

When Casebeer moved on to Anderson Ranch, it was not only the technical skills honed in Trenchtown that were employed immediately. He put the Ranch’s facilities in order, built kilns, and established ceramics and sculpture programs. As it grew during the ’80s and ’90s, his knowledge of building eventually determined that he act as construction manager for renovation of existing structures and the advent of new ones. He was instrumental in Anderson Ranch as it exists today.

But, more than the physical manifestation of his efforts, Casebeer relished the facilitating he’d had a taste of in Jamaica and readily undertook the organization of workshops. He admits that he is not naturally extroverted so the workshops forced him to reach out—to respected ceramists, indigenous potters, aspiring makers, schools, and the local and global community. He says: “If I do my job right, there’s a lot of candor, laughter, honesty and give-and-take in the studio. That’s my intrinsic reward.” His adeptness at engineering symbiotic experiences for all participants is epitomized in the Ranch’s annual excursions to Jamaica.

Scheduled in April and November, to take advantage of off-peak rates, the sessions are held at Good Hope Plantation, twenty minutes inland from Falmouth. The inspiration to bring artists and acolytes to this idyllic location belongs to David Pinto. Pinto was born in Jamaica. His mother traces her ancestry through eight generations. After studying industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design and working in the field, he decided that he didn’t want to just draw objects that someone else made.

He remembers the proverbial lightbulb going on in his office in New York: “We were designing enamel stacking bowls for Dansk International that were going to be made in Portugal. I was in the midst of working on drawings and I thought, wait a second, I want to be making stuff!” Pinto’s love of clay, which began while attending boarding school in England, resurfaced as a means of crafting objects. He sought ways to improve his ceramics skills by first renting space in a studio and then talking himself into the role of studio assistant at the 92nd Street Y. When it came time to make a decision as to whether he should stay in New York doing product design and ceramics or make a commitment to being a full-time ceramics artist, he chose the latter. The physical and financial considerations that were a consequence of this choice precipitated the return to his homeland.

Pinto recognized that although Jamaica would afford him the luxury of space and the ability to establish a more extensive facility, he was a little worried about being on his own in the middle of nowhere. He also recognized the potential of workshops: they would benefit registrants, keep his own work current, and bring employment and vitality to the countryside where they were held. His friends in New York advised that of the organizations in the United States offering workshops, he should consider collaborating with Anderson Ranch. Pinto went to the Ranch and met the ceramics director.

Casebeer’s love of Jamaica made the meeting a synchronistic one and several years later the first joint workshop took place. Casebeer says, “When I found out the name of the place was Good Hope, I thought it was a perfect thing to be involved in. It was the story unfolding as much as the involvement of David and his family. It was like someone saying to me, here is your opportunity to reciprocate the gift given to you as a young adult by the people in the ghettos of Kingston.” In April 1996, Casebeer returned to Jamaica.

Good Hope is a 2000-acre former sugar plantation. The Great House, dating from 1744, looks out on the dawn mists of the Queen of Spain valley. It contains authentic Jamaican period furnishings, with historical maps and paintings hanging alongside work by contemporary Caribbean artists. Gourmet meals, paying homage to traditional recipes, are served in the formal dining room and on the garden patio. Doctor birds, hummingbirds wearing tail coats, sip their sustenance while diners sample smoked marlin salsa on fried plantain, fresh produce, local fish, jerk chicken and the acclaimed coconut flan.

First-class accommodation is provided in a variety of picturesque buildings within walking distance of the studio. The Georgian architecture and the scenic ruins of the sugar enterprise—lime kiln, stone aqueducts, water wheel—are an inspirational setting for a week of creativity. “Being” is the motto of Good Hope and it hearkens back to the word common.

“There is a wonderful primal sense of everyday grounding,” said Jan McKeachie who, with her husband Randy Johnston, was a guest instructor at the session I attended. She was referring not only to the personnel at the plantation but to the folks you pass on their bicycles in the early morning, heading to pick citrus, tend horses or cut sugar cane. She added, “People here hold a certain essence of life from the past. We don’t understand this as Americans.”

In order to facilitate a greater understanding of this essence, the workshops include contact with craftswomen and men who continue to practice traditional skills. Brand New (the name comes from the new clothes he wore as a toddler, which were later handed down to his nine siblings), whose day job is groomer in the Good Hope stables, makes fish traps from bamboo. Tourists buy them as beautiful forms but Brand New uses his when it comes time for his family’s dinner.

Munchi, who traveled to Good Hope on a crowded pick-up-at-every-intersection bus, learned the art of making cooking pots from her mother and grandmother. With the rounded base of a broken pot as her “wheel,” she manipulated a fistful of sticky, granular clay into a perfect symmetrical form called a yabba. Though her products were once standard in Jamaican households, nowadays metal and plastic are preferred. Munchi sighed at the demise of tradition at the same time a cell phone peeked out of her tote bag.

Gathered around Munchi were a current generation of Jamaicans who were as fascinated with a former way of doing things as the visitors. Pinto invites school children to the studio, both during the Anderson Ranch sessions and at other times in the academic schedule. He reasons that if the youngsters become excited by pottery, which was exhibited in their rudimentary wheel lesson and as they begged to take their finished pieces home, the arts in Jamaica, generally, might benefit. Spattered in clay as a consequence of helping the fledgling potters try to center a wet lump of matter on a spinning surface, the workshop participants were equally exhilarated. Working in isolated studios throughout the world, these potters welcomed the reminder of the enthusiasm that got them hooked on ceramics in the first place.

Why come to Jamaica? “There is less distraction by outside things,” observed Randy Johnston. “We are totally immersed and there is more bonding as a group by living and eating together.” Casebeer points out that travel outside your own comfort zone is important. “You need a passport and have to go through customs and immigration,” he said. “There is no TV, no American radio. If you hear a radio, you get the Jamaican view of the world. Things begin to shift in terms of what your reality is. If you bring people together where you have different cultures, people from different directions, you can’t help but notice not just your craft and your art but the other things in life.” Pinto adds: “If you work in the same place, in the same environment, in the same materials, surrounded by the same people, it’s hard not to make the same stuff. If you pick yourself up and go somewhere different, there is more opportunity to fall upon new work in your own way.” Jamaica is that different place and it can be instrumental in artistic and human growth.

There is a small ceramic portrait of Casebeer that sits on the side of the soda kiln built in a week-long marathon by a team recruited through Anderson Ranch. The resemblance is remarkably true. The figure imitates a Buddha with many hands extending from an ample body; the hands hold symbols relevant to Casebeer’s vocation. When the kiln builders were asked why one hand was empty, they replied, “that’s the wisdom.” Another word for wisdom is common sense. That is at the core of being at Good Hope.