Making What’s Within You | George Metropolous McCauley | Episode 758

George Metropolous McCauley | Episode 758

George Metropoulos McCauley, a Greek/American potter, has had 30 solo shows and has been included in 400 exhibitions. He has taught and conducted workshops internationally. The recipient of 4 National Endowment for the Arts grants and the prestigious Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence for the Arts at Austin Peay State University in Clarkesville, TN, his pottery and sculpture are included in international collections in 12 countries. Among the books and periodicals to feature his work are: Teapots, 21st Century Ceramics in the United States and Canada, The Best of Pottery (editions 1 and 2), Contemporary Ceramics, Wheel Thrown Ceramics, Ceramic Sculpture: Inspiring Techniques , Glazes: Materials, Recipes and Techniques, The International Teapot Exhibition in Shanghai, 500 Vases and 500 Platters, 500 Teapots . Ceramics Monthly, The Chinese Potter’s Newsletter, Ceramics Monthly of Korea, Ceramics: Art and Perception. McCauley continues to have a busy workshop and exhibition schedule and still finds time to produce his own local television show,” George’s House of Interesting Things” on HCTV , and “GHOC Wednesday Night Videos on the internet. He has 2 films to his credit, “Archie C. Bray, Life at the Brickyard” 2008 and “Ron Meyers and the Usual Suspects” 2013. Additionally McCauley has been working with the low income and disabled community for 50 years. He maintains a studio at his home in Helena, Montana where he makes colorful earthenware pots, high temperature wood firing, earthenware wood firing and narrative sculpture. Along the way he has worked as a chef in a Greek restaurant, Formula 4 Racecar mechanic and driver, fulltime cowboy/horse trainer, concrete inspector, aluminum siding salesman, western catalog model, lifeguard and carpenter.

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What makes good work?

Work that we made from within ourselves that’s honest, that is from the heart, and I can often look at work and tell where that comes from. To me it’s all from within. That’s philosophical, I can’t give you a picture, it’s philosophical.

How can someone say, This looks like good work but it isn’t?

I am going to tell you completely honestly, I don’t know how to answer that question. I wouldn’t do this publicly but on my own, if I see somebodies work I feel like I can tell where that work comes from. And often for me it’s about the way it’s made, what the emphasis is. For instance, if I see somebody says, When I make this bowl all I am thinking about the whole time is how green beans looks in it, or whatever it is, or the beauty of offering this plate for the beauty of food to be shared…well that work doesn’t look like it says that. So I make that determination based on what the work looks like.

Is it important to have your work critiqued?

By my peers or just by anybody?

Let’s ask both questions. Is it important to have your work critiqued by your peers?

I am in a community where there are a lot of potters. I don’t get together with many potters. For some reason I don’t go hang. I don’t hang. I enjoy somebody, it doesn’t have to be a potter, but somebody coming and talking about my work and hearing what I have to say. If they are not a potter they are looking at it in a different way altogether. I enjoy that. I don’t feel the need to get together with a bunch of people and we bring our teapots and everybody talk about them. I don’t feel the need to do that.

How is being critiqued by your peers different from being critiqued by the marketplace?

I put this show together, me and four other people, and I am trying to find a place for the show, and the five of us are not driven by the marketplace. So to me the marketplace, I mean I want to sell pots, I am in some wonderful galleries, I am treated well, I enjoy it. I want to sell work but it’s never been the impetus for my work. Not even from the beginning. So to me the marketplace is a business platform and they have to critique my work because if they don’t like it or it doesn’t sell then they can’t keep it. But I have to make what I think is the best work, send them the best work, and that’s all I can do. Their critique is going to come after they get the work, they may have a response and say, George, we are not interested anymore. But that is kind of secondary to the reason that I make work.

You said, Mistakes make the magic, which I think is a beautiful thing, Explain what that means.

This is going to sound maybe inconsequential to many people who don’t work in a casual manner, but for instance, Things that I make, that most people would make on a bat, I mean, I don’t make them on a bat. I make them on a wheel head. I pick them up, and maybe they are automatically are getting dinged or scratched or getting marks from brushing my elbow or maybe hitting something. Those become to me part of the work and part of the whole process.

You said you like to work casually but you don’t like the word loose. What’s the difference between those two?

It’s just a personal thing. You know, people, when they say to me after a workshop, Oh boy, now I can get loose. Well, no wait. You can only make the things that are within you. So it is not about being loose, it just having casual as an attitude. To me loose is about a look. Casual is the attitude that we bring to the make process.

You refer to me as your friend. Have you ever met anyone who wasn’t your friend? (laughter)

I know that sounds fake when I say that but it isn’t.

No, it doesn’t.

You know I’m…I said this awhile ago so I am not going to take it back but I am fundamentally a shy person. When I talked to you the first time on the phone I thought, Man, I like this guy. And when I see you and see what you look like and your smile, I mean, we’re friends without a doubt. I am pretty much like that with everybody but you pay the price for that Paul. When you let yourself be vulnerable you pay the price but it’s the only way I know how to be.