Harlan House

A Harlan House Biography

Many people know of Harlan House through his early, exquisite Iris Vases. But there is so much more to this artist who has been creating since the late 1960s. Harlan House is an artist with something to say, and he often says it quite forcefully. In this article you also notice two threads throughout.

Firstly, House is driven by the need to learn and to explore; not to rest on well-deserved success and laurels. His work is a constant succession of discoveries, messages and re-assessments, followed by new discoveries, new messages, new re-assessments; and the cycle continues. “So what?” you might ask. Look at the differences between then (1976) and now. But these are only the visible signs of constant exploration of subjects, forms, styles, recipes, and techniques. Sometimes the results are serendipity, sometimes deliberate.

Secondly, his art is very much the man himself. Harlan House is closely connected to his environment: whether it be near, of nature and its denizens around him; or further-off, of the broader socio-economic trends that envelop and shape us today. To the former he is respectful; to the latter, well read on.

House is a ceramist whose style many think they easily recognize. They are partly right. In reality his styles over the years have taken many turns and diversions: from stoneware to porcelain, to mixed media; from exquisitely beautiful flowered porcelain vases to deeper social commentary in ships; from wheel thrown functional forms to large, cast and handbuilt sculptures; from workshops to online videos that demonstrate his techniques and list his recipes.

Many writings on his life start with the fact that Harlan House was born in Vancouver, yet the reality is Vancouver was so early in his life it was of little consequence artistically. His early artistic development was fundamentally Albertan. His family moved to and around Alberta in his early years: Lethbridge, Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary.¹

Essentially a lifelong business man and entrepreneur he earned money in high school making and selling engraved and stamped-leather belts and purses, techniques learned from a neighbour. He would later use these skills used in one medium to great effect in his ceramics.

The Alberta College of Art (ACA) in Calgary was the art school closest to him so it made sense to study there. His earliest plans were to study commercial art, which at the time he thought was painting and decorating the sides of trucks.¹ However, art school in 1964 was an eye opener as to what commercial art was really about so he changed directions to art. ¹

His initial focus was on painting, an interest he still continues today. In 1965 House visited fellow student, Bob Bozak, in his Calgary pottery studio, and found he actually liked pottery.¹ This “brought out the hands on thing”. ¹ In his third year during noon hours House would go to the ACA pottery studio. This new interest was something of a bold venture for an art student in those days. At the time there was a clear distinction, a hierarchy, between fine arts and crafts. Crafts were not considered in the top tier.¹ Pottery would be considered a step down. Nonetheless he asked the instructor of the time, Walter Drohan, if he could study pottery. Drohan, also a friend, agreed. In his third year Harlan would switch directions. He would continue studying ceramics for another two years, graduating in 1969 with a Diploma in Fine Art.¹ House confesses as to why he followed the ceramic route, contrary to his normal business savvy:

“I was a romantic. I went with the heart and not the pocketbook.” ¹

He would repeat this theme several times over the years.

Alberta was a strong stoneware domain at the time, courtesy of the influence of Luke Lindoe. Drohan, himself a Lindoe student, was House’s first instructor. He and subsequent instructor Bert Borch introduced House to porcelain. Borch, fresh out of Berkely, California, with something of a craft background, helped instill an attention to detail in House.¹

Also studying at ACA at the time were Anne Marie Esler and Ted Diakow. Leopold Foulem was also there for a year. House remembers him as outrageously original, setting up his own space in the studio, his own territory. Foulem did not like firing so Harlan did much of his firing for him.¹

House’s ceramic talents while in school were increasingly recognized. He received Visual Arts and Crafts grants and awards from the Alberta Government, from the Hill Memorial Trust Fund Scholarship, and from an Anonymous Award for Sculpture, from the Alberta College of Art.³ He was also having one man shows in Vancouver and Calgary. Soon after graduation, by 1970, he was involved in the Canadian Pavilion at the Osaka, Japan, World Fair.

With his two fellow potters, Diakow and Drohan, House immediately started up the business side of his work. In 1969 they set up the Clay Association Studio, in Calgary, subsequently titled The Clay Associated Ltd. With his friends he talked the local Royal Bank — that was used to multimillion oil deals — to lend them each five hundred dollars: ¹

“We told them we had no money but boodles of energy.” ¹

They got their loans.

The trio then had to convince the Calgary City Land Rental Office to let them rent an old downtown building with 3,400 square feet of space, and a leaky roof. On a rainy day, with the “roof leaks as the main water source”,¹ city inspectors granted them the licence to set up their studio, with fifty dollars down and three months free rent, The inspectors thought the three of them somewhat crazy. The three friends started business in 1968 and had the studio functioning by spring of 1969. It all worked well for a few years.¹

“Ted had the advanced knowledge as he had worked for Ed Drahanchuck and knew a lot more about the aesthetics and business than I did. I was more of the technician at that time.” ²

The situation in Calgary, as in much of Canada, in those late ‘60s early ‘70s days was much different from today. House remembers his group as being the only studio in downtown Calgary. There were other potters, of course, but no studios. Ed Drahanchuk had moved to Bragg Creek; Luke Lindoe had set up Ceramic Arts, which became a Luke Lindoe-John Porter production place, and was considered “outside of Calgary”, three to four miles away.¹

Also, Calgary galleries would not touch ceramics at the time. Since there was no retail opportunity House had to export his works to stores across the country: Edmonton, Banff, Vancouver, Victoria, and later on to Toronto and Montreal.²

In this stoneware environment he started to use porcelain:

“I started porcelain in art school. Around 1967/68. With Bert and Walter. I couldn’t give it away. I got a taste for it in art school but kept it up on my own when I set up the studio in Calgary. … but the problem was there was no market for it. We would clean up the studio, and work on porcelain until we ran out of money and then go back to stoneware. … I virtually made it on the side, while making stoneware.” ²

“I used to re-slake the porcelain. It didn’t work well for me [using] the recipe from Bert and Walt … so I had to develop my own. My present formula came to me about 25 years ago It taught me a lot. I learned the hard way. It was a quite non-plastic porcelain and very high temp. We didn’t have much knowledge of porcelain those times. No one was making it or selling it. The floor scraps made me interested in porcelain and in developing a better porcelain.²

The floor scraps he refers to were supplied by Luke Lindoe who used to bring him the trimmings from the floor of an electrical insulator factory in Medicine Hat.¹ As he developed from student to professional House came to know Lindoe more professionally:

“I met Luke while in the ceramics program at ACA, however it was just a passing meet. We really met later when we formed the Clay Association. Luke was just getting the clay business going, and was eager to sell his clay to us. He visited the studio several times, and used us as a testing ground from time to time. It was at this time that he noticed my work in porcelain, and so he brought me the floor bits from the insulator factory in Medicine Hat. Nice guy.” ²

Harlan struggled with the new clay. So why stay with porcelain, a difficult and unsaleable medium? In short, Chinese porcelain. House laughingly complains he was “born eight hundred years too late.” ¹ But while visiting his mother-in-law’s house in Vancouver around 1965 he experienced a revelation² :

”The Chinese were a major influence in all of my work right from the get-go. … The school (ACA) didn’t really do much in terms of Art History. There were literally only two books on ceramics in the library. I tripped upon, in an antique store, a 16th century carved celadon plaque, carved in bas relief. As a kid I had made my money carving leather, a little tiny business from the age of 12 until I went to art school, making belts and wallets out of carved leather in bas relief, low relief. When I saw the ceramic I knew immediately what I was looking at and connected with it instantly but it was on porcelain. I realised I knew nothing about Chinese anything and got very busy looking at Chinese history and ceramics from the very early period to about the 1600s, especially the Sung times, their forms, their shapes and especially their reasons for working as hard as they did.” ²

“I was carving porcelain from day one after seeing that Chinese piece.” ²

Further encouragement to work in porcelain came from an unexpected source:

”I had a mentor in Virginia Watt in the Canadian Guild of Crafts, in Montreal. And she actually came out to Calgary in ‘70/’71. I had porcelain sitting in the studio. She wrote a cheque for the whole lot shipped it to Montreal and sold it. Then asked for more. This was exactly what I wanted. I then started to mount exhibitions of it. Then things took off from there. She was a very important, critical person in my life. She was very patient and understanding, a potter herself. It meant for me that I didn’t have to rely on making stoneware jardinières and lamp bases for a living. She would sell, for all intents and purposes, my research. I could now do research and work away.” ²

But in Calgary change happened. Diakow left around 1971-72. Also, the city wanted to tear down the building to build condos and to put the artists on a month to month rental business This was an unworkable situation. Clay Association eventually ended when the business was sold. House sold the business to Neil Patterson, a former House student, in 1973 for $1200 ¹ and looked for other locations. As a businessman he knew the more he could keep his business overhead costs low the more he could create and sell:

“I needed a very low overhead situation. … I had some land near-Edmonton land but couldn’t afford to build on it; and was not interested in the ‘cup and saucer’ trade. I had earlier checked out a ‘nice place’ in Sechelt, looked at Vancouver Island, and the BC interior.” ¹

But a friend, Jack McMaster, was constantly encouraging him to move to Ontario, sending him classified ads for properties in Eastern Ontario.¹

“I went down to have a peek. We had two kids by that time.” ¹

House also wanted to meet the people who were selling his work. ¹ He was further impressed with the landscape as they drove down east in a rented Volkswagen, ‘loaded down with wine.’ He even looked as far as Ottawa for the cheapest real estate.¹

“It was a matter of my coming, just where. I had $3500” ¹

A chance observation in downtown Toronto sealed the move to Ontario: stained glass and a house number:¹

” The ‘Calgary mask’ was removed when while strolling down Prince Arthur I saw a stained glass window [containing the street number.] I had a glass collection myself. I was impressed with a city that could display and preserve that level of art.” ¹

Low overhead was a must. He and his wife Maureen found their new location in 1972, an old hotel in the village of Lonsdale in eastern Ontario:

”It had a barn. Being a romantic idiot I kept it. The mortgage was $100/month. My idea of wiring was putting in a light bulb. … I bought something that was in really decrepit shape; in hindsight I learned how to do things for myself, [though] raised a city boy.” ¹

Of that decision he said, laughing, it could be considered:

“Business wise probably the stupidest move of my life.” ¹

Sound familiar?

Yet there was now a reboot in his work as he more purposefully

“started to change from stoneware to porcelain, so a restart.” ¹

Just prior to the final physical move to Ontario House met Lindoe. Their parting words are classic Lindoe and House:

“I stopped in to say good bye to Luke on the way to Ontario in March of 1973. It was then that he told me that by the time I got to fifty I might know something about throwing a pot. I was totally offended, because I thought I already pretty much knew how to throw a pot. Of course I said nothing at the time…and in the course of time realized that he was pretty much on the money, except he could have extended the number to 60 and been more accurate!” ²

The legal Clay Association books, and name came to Ontario for a while and he functioned under the Foreign Business Act for about a year as an Alberta company. However, the Ontario powers-that-be told him he couldn’t use the Clay Association name any longer so he changed the business to his personal name Harlan House Inc.¹ He has used this name since.

Harlan House. Lonsdale Gallery.

Harlan House. Lonsdale Gallery.

House has been in Lonsdale since, creating, researching, exploring, and selling porcelain. Now gallery exhibition sales of porcelain are no longer a problem.

Although he was never really a ‘joiner’ in the ceramic world he is most certainly a ‘sharer’:

“I’ve always felt my time should be spent in the studio and working there rather than hanging out with crowds and organizing. I wasn’t good at that. Meeting, meetings, meetings. I was always better as a potter than socializing.” ²

And

“I’m not very good at building a reputation. The idea of doing one thing and doing it very well … would drive me crazy. I would rather change and keep researching.” ²

Now via the internet he is in the process, over past two to three years, of basically sharing everything on the technical side in his studio: documenting his work, his clay and glaze recipes; and creating short, technical videos, with Oscar Peterson, playing in the background, on vinyl LPs, on an old turntable, and “enjoying it like crazy.” ²

Conversations with House are sprinkled with a sense of his business savvy in keeping his overhead costs low but these are soon countered by artistic decisions he made that he jokes ‘were stupid decisions.’ Yet these latter decisions worked and he moved into new styles and forms. What drives him is his attitude:

“I like to work; I don’t consider going out to the studio going to work It’s fun. … I am freed by my craft, not bound by it.“ ¹