Robert Turner Interview
Conducted by Margaret Carney in Washington, D.C., 2001

DR. CARNEY: So, what was the actual shift that occurred when you went into pottery originally and you were thinking I want to use my hands and make something functional and useful or I'm not probably saying what you were thinking, correct me here, to where you were thinking along the terms of abstract? What happened that caused that change in your work or what you visualized?

MR. TURNER: I think that -- I already mentioned that large bowl.

DR. CARNEY: Right.

MR. TURNER: That to me was a direction. I didn't pursue in the pottery. But it always was part of my feeling about things. So, in the pottery what I did was to fall in love with the Sung Dynasty and particularly somewhat influenced by Marguerite Wildenhain and Bauhaus kind of thing.

But, I remember -- and it was so I did make things that very much were those simple bowls. And I loved making those. I loved all that simplicity and of course that's geometric. You know the circle. And I made some what was then called free-form long dishes, you know, pressed out. And I liked them -- free will, you know, with the large flange and I don't know -- color.

The abstract, I think, came in very simply I guess in the kind of things I made, such as the casserole -- circle, circle, circle, and combined with function, combined with the sense of flange that you could, you know, big circular bowl that you could put your hands under anywhere. In those days I pictured the housewife being able to get something out of the oven, you know, with something over cloth, and pick this out without worrying about handles, whether it was functional or not to do that. But, it did work. And then very low, it had a low cover and repeat of the circle for the handle so that it could be put in an oven very easily -- you know, low enough and yet wide enough. And so those were part of -- simplicity and geometry were important. Those are words I've used to describe how I felt about those things.
play audio clip