Clay Times Back Issues Vol. 3 Issue 12 • Sep/Oct 1997 | Page 20

Vally Possony
V

ally Possony’s pots
are masterful, her way of
life inspiring. She influenced
so many people and received
so many accolades in her
career as a potter. Why isn’t
her work better known now?

CYNTHIA BRUMBECK PHOTO

BY ROBERTA WAGNER

I asked that question of
Alex Giampietro, a ceramics
professor at Catholic University and a long-time, great
friend of Vally’s and he said,
“Because she led an integrated life, full of cooking
and gardening and pottery.
That’s what mattered to her.
You must read the recent
issue of Studio Potter on the
Ethics of Pottery. That’s
how she lived.”
When I asked the same question of
Ming Wang, an artist and long-time
collector of Vally’s teapots, he said,
“Because she was a true artist. She
wasn’t thinking of fame.”
That is undoubtedly true but when
I look at Vally’s pots and think of the
profound influence she had on the lives
of so many of her students, I want more
people to know of her and her work.

“Tea Set” by Vally Possony.

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importance of the integrated
life that Vally led, because as
Alex Giampietro said, it is
the whole of Vally that
makes her so important. It’s
her gardens, her cooking, her
philosophy of life, her generosity of spirit that influenced so many.

Vally Possony

So on the third anniversary of her
death, I started to write this article.
When I first conceived of writing it, I
thought I would focus almost exclusively on the beauty of her pottery
itself. Her pots, though, really speak for
themselves. The strength and
stability of the pots, the seemingly
effortless blend of form and glaze
are evident.
In the small sampling of photographs that accompany this article,
we can’t capture the
breadth of her work.
Because she never
copied herself, her
pottery continued to
grow and change
over the course of
her career. She
worked for almost
50 years as a professional potter and
teacher and in each
decade her
work changed,
became stronger,
rougher, and ultimately more
complete. Notwithstanding the beauty
of her work, however, I find myself
BRUCE BUGBEE PHOTO
going back to the

The ability to teach people to see more fully and to
appreciate beauty takes time.
Capturing this subtle process
without an example is not
easily done. So I have used
my experience, only as one
example, by including
excerpts of a memorial I
wrote shortly after her death.
But first a few notes to
put her life and work in context. She
first met Bernard Leach in 1950 at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts. They
remained friends for years and I think
his influence can be seen in her work.
But her style is distinctive, incorporating the simplicity of the Mexican peasant pottery that she loved and bringing
the graceful curves of nature to her
pots.
***
At the time of our first meeting,
Vally was 77 years old and vibrant in
her life. She was barely five feet tall,
with Einstein-like white hair, her eyes
deep brown wells, her flair for style
showing in her red lipstick. She was
Viennese and from Vienna at the turn
of the century when it flourished as
never before or since. Gustav Klimt,
Kokoscka, Arthur Koestler, Honeggar,
Egon Schiele, Sigmund Freud, and
Gustav Mahler and many more were
all part of her milieu. I think she forever carried that flourish with her; an
ability to make things grow—vegetables, flowers, people and herself. Her
accent always reminded me of that heritage.
We sat and talked across her slab
of crafted walnut that served as table
and conversation center. A sensuous
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