Rob Barnard

November 11th - 28th, 2003
Opening Reception with artist: Nov. 11th, 5:00 pm -7:30 pm


In looking at Rob Barnard's work, one immediately thinks "sincerity," quickly followed by "grace" and "courage." And, "kindness," as in Michael Cardew's phrase "the kindness of a well-made pot." To hold a Rob Barnard pot is to experience - compressed in time and space - the artist's own journey and biography. From his Kentucky boyhood to seminary school and thence to the Marines and Vietnam and back to the University of Kentucky . . . none of this would have seemed a foundation for a pottery career, but fate had surprises in store for Rob. A chance encounter with a book illustration of a Japanese tea bowl stuck in his mind. He was incredulous. "That's important? Give me a break." But, it stuck with him and was followed by a behind-the scenes tour of the Freer Gallery of Art and a chance to handle some tea bowls, where he found himself "completely thunderstruck" and deeply affected by these honest and imperfect objects "as raw and real and different as real human beings." From there, he went to Kyoto University of Fine Arts (where his teacher was the avant-garde ceramic artist Kazuo Yagi) and founded his own anagama kiln in Domura, mid-way between Kyoto and Shigaraki. And then, in 1979 back to the US to found his studio and kiln in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 

Yagi taught Rob to beware of false sentiment, bravado and affectation as the enemies of art. Yagi was skeptical of the Japanese reverence for the asymmetrical and unintentional. He felt that too often immaturity was praised as simplicity, unskillfulness as conscious strategy, and failure as brilliance. He argued for working in the space between the predictably beautiful and the unaesthetic or ugly. It was here, in the space between polar opposites, that Yagi believed the artist could create the kind of ceramic art that makes us reflect on the very nature of our existence. 

Rob Barnard works in this space, but departs from his teacher in a greater interest in utilitarian wares, which adds another layer of intention and complexity. For Barnard, the tactile experience of using the object is an important part of appreciating it. He wants us, ultimately, to relive his formative experiences. Look at a Rob Barnard teapot or plate, so austere and unadorned as to be unremarkable. "That's important? Give me a break." Touch it… and be completely thunderstruck. Use it. And be in touch with your very humanity… perfect in its imperfection.