19 November 2014

PS TO CERAMIC EDUCATION IN BRITAIN

In my last post I said that in the mid-seventies there were 37 full-time courses in ceramics in Britain. Like everyone else I wondered what the closure of courses would mean for studio pottery.  Assume the annual intake of each course was ten, and that half the graduates became professional potters (a very generous assumption) and that 10 per cent stopped making every year. Over thirty years that would produce about 1,700 potters. But in 2004, the Crafts Council estimated there were about 6,700 professional potters in Britain (Making It in the 21st Century). Most must have learned informally outside art schools. The quality of their work was variable; some were very good, many were mediocre and some were no good at all; but in terms of numbers, the training of potters clearly does not depend entirely on art schools.

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