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For Love or Money:

Motivation of women ceramic artists in Wales

Moira Vincentelli and Liz McDermott of Aberystwyth University are collaborating with Jill Venus of the University of Wales, Lampeter on this interdisciplinary project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2004-8). It brings together the research fields of Art, Personal and Professional Development, and Women’s Entrepreneurship and explores the motivations and experience of women ceramic artists and craft potters in Wales.

Wales offers a rich background to the research that includes diverse areas - industrial and rural, metropolitan and provincial, remote and accessible, with some vibrant arts and cultural centres and a number of institutions of art education, some with ceramics as a specialisation. Although difficult to assess precisely, there is good evidence that the majority of people working with clay in Wales are female, and this is supported by the gender balance of students graduating in Wales in recent years.

The main themes, explored in the research are:

Kate Derbyshire at ClayArt, 2007 • how the process of or the rewards associated with business activity affect motivation
• the effect of gender on women’s experience of working with clay
• the dominance of in-migrants in the ceramic community and their experience of living and working in Wales
• issues of Welsh identity and the subjective perception of Wales
• the relationship between making with clay and other areas of women’s lives
• the definition of success for women working with clay

As a qualitative research project, following an extensive literature review, the main methods, have been focus groups and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. We have also been able to use data from oral history interviews carried out in the 1990s and held in the Ceramic Archive. This is in addition to travel and visits across Wales to craft fairs, exhibitions, galleries and individual potteries and workshops. There has also been an extensive literature review. The sample consisted of women who were well-established and have made some or all of their living through clay, teachers and lecturers who also make work, as well as students, recent graduates and those just beginning to sell work and even some who have no desire to sell their work. A qualitative data analysis software (NVivo7) is being used to analyse the interviews in order to ensure that findings and conclusions emerge during the analytical process of the data, in accordance with Grounded Theory.

Jacqui Atkin at ClayArt, 2007 During the course of the last three years we have presented papers at Gender/in(g) the Subject: A University of Wales Colloquium at Gregynog Hall, Powys, 2004; The International Ceramics Festival, Aberystwyth, 2005; in 2006 at the AHRC conference in Cardiff, at SOFA in Chicago and at the Northern Clay Centre, Minneapolis and in 2007 at Neocraft, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Publications so far include an initial report after the pilot study and an article on “The Use of Piloting in an Application for Funding” Social Research Update Issue 45, Spring 2005.

With funding from the Arts Council of Wales we held Making Good, Women Artists in Wales, a 3 day conference at Gregynog in mid Wales. The event was an innovative opportunity to provide feedback on our progress and meet and discuss with makers about their work and aspirations.

At the current stage of analysis we expect to find that creativity and motivation are very closely linked with some common features, such as an experience of “flow” or a similar peak experience. The intrinsic nature of the motivation of women working in clay indicates that materialistic ambitions are less significant and other, more ‘alternative’, even spiritual values are of importance. The satisfaction of these values appears to be a major motivator. Once analysis is complete, we will be in a position to assess the effect of this kind of motivation on the business side of making with clay, which, in turn will have implications for policy makers.