View Larger Image Vase, 20 cm (8 in.) in height, thrown and altered stoneware, with crackle and orange tan slips, salt fired on its side on shells to 1300°C (2372°F), 2005, E110 (US$139).

May 15, 2007

Marcus O’Mahony: No Longer Ireland's Secret

by by Michael Moore | Read Comments (0)

Marcus O’Mahony was once described as Ireland’s best-kept secret. Jim Dennison, head of design at the Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD) in Ireland made these comments at the opening of O’Mahony’s pottery in County Waterford in 1998. Born in London in 1952, O’Mahony studied Ceramics at LSAD during the 1970s, a period for Irish ceramics described by Michael Robinson, retired curator of the Ulster Museum in Belfast, as “The Age of the Pot.”

Throughout his career O’Mahony has not sought to mass produce pottery. Working on the wheel, bottles, jars, bowls and teapots are produced for wood and salt-glaze firings. Often raw fired, local ashes coat these pots, and Coillte, the Irish Forestry Board, supplies fuel in the form of kiln-dried local oak. Indeed, much of O’Mahony’s practice has a distinct feel of the elemental, the local and indigenous.

Even the grog brings its own unique and local character, supplied by a friend from the riverbanks of County Wicklow. The Wicklow granite adds a coarse and blistering quality to the surface of O’Mahony pots. Recently, he has been considering the work of Canadian Les Manning and, like Manning, has begun to blend his stoneware and porcelain within the one form.

With that sense of closeness to nature, brought by the use of local and idiosyncratic materials, combined with the Jeckyll-and-Hyde practice of switching from one material—fine porcelain—to a distinctly and characteristically different one—coarsely grogged stoneware—one must consider the location of O’Mahony’s studio. Immediately to the north are the rolling foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains. Indeed the most direct route from Dublin to the studio is over the Knockmealdown Mountains pass known as the Vee with its remote and stunning landscape. Immediately to the south lies the Atlantic Ocean, not ten miles away.

He found the studio by traveling the lanes of County Waterford, spied a derelict house and barn, found the nearest house and asked if the site was for sale. Within two months, Glencairn Pottery was born. The barn became the studio and the house was renovated for living quarters. More recently, O’Mahony built a second house and now runs wood-fire and salt-glaze courses during the summers where participants have full accommodation onsite.

So what does O’Mahony make? “A lot of the things I make are humble objects,” he explains. True, there are obvious associations of function, as these pots pour perfectly, but O’Mahony cites polar influences of both the British Leach tradition and the Otis group in the United States. Marveling at the can-do attitude of the Americans, such as Voulkos, Soldner and Shapiro, perhaps it is no surprise then that he can switch so readily from one clay so fine, to another so brutal, during a day in the studio.

Faithfully traveling at least once a year to charge his creative juices, O’Mahony cites contemporary and historical pots as a major influence on his work. Architecture is also an influence and referencing the magnificent Gothic Cathedral of Bourges, he says, “Form is huge, paramount, in terms of inspiration.”

The range of objects O’Mahony makes is diverse, not only in material but also in scale and form. From small cups, teabowls, teapots, platters and flasks, to large collared bottles. Here again is a very positive contradiction, as these large bottles measuring up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) in height, when lifted, feel exceptionally light. It seems O’Mahony has the ability to truly challenge the plasticity of his clays to the limit in what appears to be effortlessly calm throwing. Indeed he can spend as much time standing on top of his potter’s wheel as he does sitting at it, limited only by his own physiology in terms of the scale of his wheel-based work. Standing like this also allows him to see the form as it evolves on the wheel.

O’Mahony is equally passionate and physical about one small bowl or one large vessel, again reflecting the polarity one finds both in his choice of materials and the location of his studio. These objects spend time on and off the wheel before they are set aside for decoration and firing. Therefore, these pieces evolve in batches, with very little turning involved. Many of O’Mahony’s pots receive no turning at all and are completely finished after one sitting at the wheel. This may be the key to what instills his pots with an individual distinction, perhaps like the uniqueness of handwriting. The fluid calligraphic quality of O’Mahony’s throwing is thoroughly connected to his decorative methods.

A simple crackle slip adorns the interior of his open vessels, with only a random and minimal speckle of one or two dots of black stain on the exterior. Pots are dampened, dipped with a smooth slip and then sometimes sprinkled with local ash. All of these decisions are made with the immediacy and confidence of a mature potter reveling in the play of abstraction and function. Everything about O’Mahony’s practice exudes deceptively simple spontaneous fluidity that only comes from years of expertise. It all appears so effortless until one of O’Mahony’s students tries to do the same thing. The simple flick of a brush loaded with slip or a tiny speckle of stain reveals a minimalist level of control and that rare understanding of knowing when to stop.

Perhaps from an impression that O’Mahony is constantly thinking ahead, his decoration comes from years of experience of knowing what happens inside kilns. For him, the kiln is not where the creative process ends. “I love how the creative act continues into the firing,” he explains.

Using the firewall as a location for some pots, stacking both his gas- and wood-fired kiln is entwined in his creative thinking. As all potters come to realize, O’Mahony believes when to reduce, when to introduce salt and when to cool his kiln are all key creative decisions. Certain pots will go in certain places, depending on scale and the flow of the flame.

With local fuel and Wicklow granite all imposing their personalities, perhaps O’Mahony is simply the conduit through which all these individual qualities flow and materialize into functional and distinctive objects. When one meets Marcus O’Mahony it is impossible not to remark on his passion for ceramics and his talent as a potter. Ireland’s best kept secret? Perhaps. He certainly is one of Ireland’s most innovative makers.

To see more works by Marcus O’Mahony, and to find out more about the workshops he offers at Glencairn Pottery in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland, see www.marcusomahony.com.