My heart is telling me to get my passport in order and travel over the pond to meet Mike Dodd and shake these hands that have made these wonderful pots. I love his pots. I hope that potters are looking to Mike and his peers like He did to Leach a Hamada. This way must not be lost.
Having my training at Harrow, a lot of the potters who allied themselves with that early 20th century tradition, the Anglo-Japanese school of pottery, were very sniffy about Mike Dodd's work. I have a truly wonderful tea pot by him which is at odds with his functional work, having 3 stubby feet and is enormously heavy for its volume. I love his unassuming manner and the way he has given his life to the craft. I love his instinctual feeling for which are the pieces that sing. You either have that sense of the morphic resonance in ceramics or you don't.
As Mike Goldmark said in the video it's sort of the end of an era. Mike Dodd, Jim Malone, Svend Bayer have all retired; Clive Bowen is 80. Phil Rogers is gone. I wonder who Mike will find to replace them. Obviously Anne-Mette Hjortshoj and Lisa Hammond are much younger and going strong, but I'm not sure I've seen much in the way of younger potters being promoted.
