(Tom Turner, an internationally celebrated potter who creates marvelous ceramics has recently established a permanent exhibition in our local gallery in Morris, IL The following is a tribute to his genius.)
In the beginning, the book of Genesis says, the earth was a dry, empty land without water. “But, there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. Then, the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and man became a living being.” (Gn 2:6-7 KJV)
And, in Jeremiah 18: 6-7, we read: “Can I not deal with you, O Israel, as the potter with his clay? You are clay in my hands….”
Tom Turner drives around and sees a stretch of likely clay at an excavation site. He stops, scoops up the clay, brings it home, treats it, throws it on his whirling wheel, forms it and bakes it. The clay becomes something that he incises and then bathes to a glaze: a plate, a cup, or maybe a vase, each with wholeness, proportion, and clarity. He makes a thing of beauty.
The poet understands the wonder of this process well: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It will never pass into nothingness.” (John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”).
Thomas Aquinas wrote that where integritas, claritas, and consonantia exist, there is beauty. By integritas, he means wholeness; it expresses an essence. Consonantia is when all elements of a thing create harmony and proportion. Claritas lights up the thing and colors seem to move and saturate the piece. Aquinas simply defines beauty as that which pleases.
Tom, you have given us your clay creations, among them ceramics of great beauty and now have displayed these beauties for us and those who come after us. The proportions are always right. The colors blend as you planned. Each piece has integrity, wholeness. And, like every good artist, you say to us: “Look! Right here! Do you see ?”
You make us take note of something new, each time that you form clay into a work of art. That is the gift of the artist to the rest of us –and, that notice is beautiful. It pleases us.
Thank you, Tom Turner.