0:00:29 > 0:00:33Everything begins, always begins, with a lump of clay,
0:00:33 > 0:00:34with me sitting by myself.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40That's my complete alpha moment of...
0:00:40 > 0:00:42That's what it's about for me.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50The exhibition is full of vessels...
0:01:52 > 0:01:54..and it's full of repeated vessels.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01That's an expression of time, of spending time
0:02:01 > 0:02:03repeating, making things.
0:02:46 > 0:02:51By repeating them, it's not industrial at all, actually.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56It's not... It hasn't got that kind of severity about it,
0:02:56 > 0:02:58but what it has got is the sense of...
0:02:58 > 0:03:02Of spending time. You know, one person spending time.
0:03:20 > 0:03:25Since the last show two and a half years ago, I've really been...
0:03:25 > 0:03:27concentrating on what vitrines mean.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31Vitrine is a glass case, but in this case it means...
0:03:31 > 0:03:34A vitrine means any frame,
0:03:34 > 0:03:38any sculptural frame, which holds my objects.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Erm...
0:03:40 > 0:03:43And so there are all kinds of different
0:03:43 > 0:03:47interpretations of vitrines within the show.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Erm... But one of things that I m trying to do
0:03:50 > 0:03:54with the vitrines is to find more and more space within them
0:04:02 > 0:04:04Hello? Hello?
0:04:04 > 0:04:07I'm sorry I didn't get round to you yesterday. I was...
0:04:07 > 0:04:10If that's convenient with you, it's convenient with me.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12Fantastic. Thank you, Ian.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
0:04:17 > 0:04:20It's set in stone. Fine. In that case, I'll do it
0:04:20 > 0:04:22SHE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY Fine.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26So, it's like the insert into the... Oh. OK.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32What she wants to know is, did you need to...?
0:04:32 > 0:04:34Yes. Yes.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46It has to be these proportions
0:04:48 > 0:04:54The balance between sort of family life and time by myself
0:04:54 > 0:04:59in the studio, and writing and the sort of, the press stuff,
0:04:59 > 0:05:04and the talking stuff is... It's always difficult to kind of ..
0:05:04 > 0:05:07to achieve balance.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09But the...
0:05:11 > 0:05:14..the reality is that there's a complete imperative for me,
0:05:14 > 0:05:16a complete straightforward thing,
0:05:16 > 0:05:18which says, "Go to the studio and make things."
0:05:19 > 0:05:23And that... I...
0:05:49 > 0:05:53This is our little...electric kiln.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58Kind of fantastically and bizarrely, it seems to be yellow on...
0:05:58 > 0:06:00That's a test.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08There's a particular Chinese poem,
0:06:08 > 0:06:11which talks about the sound of porcelain...
0:06:11 > 0:06:13which is...
0:06:15 > 0:06:16..fantastic.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18It's...like birdsong.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21It's kind of tenth century...
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Tenth-century poem about drinking.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28And...
0:06:28 > 0:06:31as you drink, you listen to the porcelain cups.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34I just thought that was a particularly...
0:06:35 > 0:06:36..beautiful...
0:06:39 > 0:06:43So this is... You can see how..
0:06:43 > 0:06:46How subtle this is. This is...
0:06:46 > 0:06:49So, this is, if you look at it again against a hard white,
0:06:49 > 0:06:54you can see that it's almost something like sort of clotted cream,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57but it's going to be absolutely beautiful in a vitrine.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02So, that is a successful...
0:07:02 > 0:07:03unpacking of a kiln.
0:07:05 > 0:07:06It's not always like that.
0:07:06 > 0:07:07Just happens...
0:07:07 > 0:07:09Happens to be on film, this one
0:07:10 > 0:07:12That's good.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
0:07:59 > 0:08:02It's wonderful to work to music It's absolutely...
0:08:02 > 0:08:08It's a very great privilege to be able to sit and work to - with music.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15It liberates you cos you're not concentrating in that
0:08:15 > 0:08:19kind of slightly over-focussed way on what your hands are doing.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27There are, kind of, very special bits of music, which really,
0:08:27 > 0:08:28really matter to me.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32I listen to lots and lots and lots of classical music.
0:08:32 > 0:08:37I spent the summer listening to Mozart's Piano Sonatas.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41And then there's really quite a lot of American minimalist music
0:08:41 > 0:08:45where there's repetition and there's surreality being explored,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48and that of course is absolutely present in my work.
0:08:54 > 0:08:55So...
0:08:56 > 0:09:01I was working last night, making a frame for this series of pots
0:09:01 > 0:09:06and I left them out last night to get drier.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Erm... But then I started to work again on these.
0:09:10 > 0:09:14These took till about 6.30 this morning.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17And they are...what's called leather-hard.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22So, they are hard enough to trim ..
0:09:22 > 0:09:25which I do using these different turning tools.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29Some of them are wooden. Some of them are metal.
0:09:32 > 0:09:34Some of them are very, very old
0:09:36 > 0:09:40I got them from the guys I apprenticed to.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44And what I was trying to do was to really...
0:09:44 > 0:09:46sort of rearticulate their face
0:09:48 > 0:09:51That I wanted when...
0:09:51 > 0:09:55I'm taking off excess clay, but I'm also redefining the profiles.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58Sharper edges.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02Erm...inscribing lines, sometimes, on the pots.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04Just generally...
0:10:06 > 0:10:09..revealing the shape that I want...
0:10:09 > 0:10:11That I wanted to...
0:10:13 > 0:10:14..create.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16I'm...
0:10:16 > 0:10:17This is...
0:10:18 > 0:10:22For me, is absolutely as much pleasure as the throwing.
0:10:22 > 0:10:29It's a deeply, deeply pleasurable bit to hold...
0:10:29 > 0:10:31a whole one.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05When I was working on this VNA project, I had this way
0:11:05 > 0:11:09of working where I'd go and look at something that I really cared about,
0:11:09 > 0:11:14and look at it for a long, long time until it was burned in my retina.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17I'd go away. I wouldn't have a photograph of it.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20I'd just use that kind of after image...
0:11:20 > 0:11:23and strangely enough, it was a very powerful image,
0:11:23 > 0:11:26but it was a blurred image at the same time.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30And so what I wanted to do was to make objects, which had that power
0:11:30 > 0:11:37of... That powerful sense of being looked at for a very, very long time
0:11:37 > 0:11:39and being out of focus.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42Being so powerful that you couldn't quite concentrate on them.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44And in this show...
0:11:44 > 0:11:46A Thousand Hours, there are several pieces
0:11:46 > 0:11:49where there are objects, which are...
0:11:49 > 0:11:53Are sort of kept at a distance They're blurred.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57You can't get your hands on them. You can't...get your eyes on them.
0:11:57 > 0:11:58They come and go.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04And it's not me being annoying and tricksy and postmodern at all.
0:12:04 > 0:12:10It's about thinking through very, very
0:12:10 > 0:12:13hard about the presence of objects, why objects can matter so much
0:12:13 > 0:12:15and that sometimes objects...
0:12:16 > 0:12:17..can be blurred.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21They can be more powerful because they're not absolutely in focus
0:13:01 > 0:13:06It's very, very intuitive and so I kind of place it very quickly.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11And almost always it's wrong.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14Almost always it's almost right but almost right is...
0:13:14 > 0:13:18The difference between almost right and right is enormous,
0:13:18 > 0:13:21so you then sort of have to spend time...
0:13:21 > 0:13:25coming back, looking, looking, looking.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27And sometimes you just have to walk away and say,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30"Do you know what? It doesn't work. It just..."
0:13:30 > 0:13:34The... The scale of it, the mood of it.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37the atmosphere, it's just not there.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58I think yesterday was a very long day.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01It's a bit... What time did you finish?
0:14:02 > 0:14:04About ten.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53In the middle of the night on a boat, there's...
0:14:53 > 0:14:57the middle watch, which is right in the middle of the night,
0:14:57 > 0:14:59and it's the most crucial watch in some ways
0:14:59 > 0:15:01cos everyone else is asleep.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03And there's that kind of quality in the middle of the night,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06as well, of attentiveness,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09of...when the whole world is sort of stilled
0:15:09 > 0:15:14and all kinds of ideas and images occur to you.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16It's a very ambivalent moment.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Things can be very creative in the middle of the night
0:15:19 > 0:15:22and can be also terribly negative in the night.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27So it's that idea of, really, of paying attention...
0:15:28 > 0:15:31..to the seen and the unseen.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34It's obviously hundreds of pots
0:15:34 > 0:15:37Hundreds and hundreds of pots in it.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Over 600.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42And the idea of them is that you sort of
0:15:42 > 0:15:45see something and you pay attention to that
0:15:45 > 0:15:48and then you lose that pot
0:15:48 > 0:15:51amongst the next 50 or 60 or 100 of them
0:15:51 > 0:15:54and then you catch sight of another pot, which has an echo
0:15:54 > 0:16:00So it's that thing about focusing and not focusing.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49'I had a very severe plan,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52'which I knew wasn't right.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56'So everything was put out in this severe way and then
0:16:56 > 0:16:58'I could just find the spaces
0:16:58 > 0:17:00'by moving those pots around.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02'It's all about moving between them.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06'That space between them, you're drawn between them and round them.
0:17:06 > 0:17:07'And as you're drawn round them
0:17:07 > 0:17:11'you realise that some things are held clearly.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13'You can see them.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15'And some things are in shadows
0:17:15 > 0:17:17'and some things behind opaque glass,
0:17:17 > 0:17:22'so that they are completely blurred, completely shadowy.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25'And all these objects are held in different places within
0:17:25 > 0:17:29'this small building, this space '
0:17:35 > 0:17:37WOMAN CHEERS
0:17:39 > 0:17:42So, what's it about?
0:17:42 > 0:17:47What it is is just a way of slowing you down.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52It's a way of slowing you down and making you...
0:17:52 > 0:17:56It's a way of slowing you down and making you look and think
0:17:56 > 0:17:59and walk around objects.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02That's all it is. But that's enough.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06That's not a bad thing to want to do with objects.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09And it's called A Thousand Hours.
0:18:09 > 0:18:11I mean, it's a thousand objects
0:18:11 > 0:18:14It's taken up way over a thousand hours to make,
0:18:14 > 0:18:16actually, in reality.
0:18:16 > 0:18:17Way, way, way over.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21SHOUTING IN BACKGROUND
0:18:22 > 0:18:26What do they do out there, these shouty men?
0:18:26 > 0:18:28They're full-time shouty men.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32Their maleness allows them to occupy as much space as they want,
0:18:32 > 0:18:34mostly through shouting.
0:18:34 > 0:18:35INTERVIEWER LAUGHS
0:19:22 > 0:19:25'I'd seen his kind of individual pots in various places
0:19:25 > 0:19:29'and then it was shortly after he started to install them
0:19:29 > 0:19:32'all together, that I took more notice.'
0:19:32 > 0:19:35And he put a very long one, which I thought was particularly beautiful.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38And I was talking to one of my colleagues who had actually worked
0:19:38 > 0:19:40with him a bit before and she'd written
0:19:40 > 0:19:42an introduction for a catalogue
0:19:42 > 0:19:43And I said, "Let's go and see him."
0:19:43 > 0:19:46And so, she gave him a call and she said,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49"Well, his studio's just up in Tulse Hill.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51"We can go one morning."
0:19:51 > 0:19:55It was really strange, because normally it doesn't happen this way.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57We were sitting there in his studio and,
0:19:57 > 0:20:00after we had been talking for about 20 minutes...
0:20:00 > 0:20:02I mean, Edmund didn't know I was going to do this
0:20:02 > 0:20:05and my colleague didn't know I was going to do this.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Suddenly I opened my mouth and said,
0:20:07 > 0:20:09"Would you like to do an exhibition with me?"
0:20:09 > 0:20:10It's really quite unusual.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14But it just felt right. The whole thing felt right.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17And the funny thing was that as I was leaving that initial
0:20:17 > 0:20:19meeting with him in the studio
0:20:19 > 0:20:25he just mentioned in his usual humble way,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28"I've written this book. It shouldn't get in the way of the exhibition,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31"because I think only a few of my friends are going to buy it
0:20:31 > 0:20:34"So, you know, I mean it's fine
0:20:34 > 0:20:37"In fact, I don't even know why I mentioned it."
0:20:37 > 0:20:39I'm standing here with Edmund de Waal.
0:20:39 > 0:20:40'Edmund de Waal.'
0:20:40 > 0:20:42WOMAN: 'The author Edmund de Waal.'
0:20:44 > 0:20:46His book The Hare With Amber Eyes
0:20:46 > 0:20:48took the world by storm last year.
0:20:49 > 0:20:50APPLAUSE
0:20:50 > 0:20:52I'm Edmund de Waal...
0:20:52 > 0:20:56APPLAUSE
0:20:56 > 0:21:00The years I spent travelling and researching
0:21:00 > 0:21:03and writing The Hare,
0:21:03 > 0:21:06of course, it changed what I make,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09just as what I make changes the way I write.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12They are absolutely...
0:21:12 > 0:21:15They are completely connected.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19And, at the heart of my book,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21the heart of The Hare,
0:21:21 > 0:21:26is a story about what collecting means.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29What collecting means, what it is to hold a collection together
0:21:29 > 0:21:36and what it is to contemplate objects,
0:21:36 > 0:21:38the dispersal of objects.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41The diaspora of objects, the falling away of their meaning.
0:21:44 > 0:21:50The more I think about those themes,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54the kind of... I think the more nuanced
0:21:54 > 0:21:57these installations become.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13Although they're separate activities,
0:22:13 > 0:22:16the writing and the making of the pot,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19the two things in Edmund's mind are connected.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23You know? And there are a lot of literary allusions in the titles
0:22:23 > 0:22:27of the works, bringing people's attention to the correspondence
0:22:27 > 0:22:31between the pots and literature, between...
0:22:31 > 0:22:35And particularly poetry, I think. You know?
0:22:35 > 0:22:39And some of the installations he's made for this exhibition echo
0:22:39 > 0:22:44the shape of the lines of text in poems.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49So you get these works where the shelves are of uneven lengths,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53just as the lines of poetry would be uneven lengths.
0:22:59 > 0:23:00In the book, you know,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04which all centres on this collection of netsuke figures that were hidden
0:23:04 > 0:23:11during the war in Vienna and so a lot of the installations,
0:23:11 > 0:23:15he places high up on the walls or round the corners
0:23:15 > 0:23:18as if they're hidden, like the netsuke were hidden,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21and so his installations are also hidden.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30I mean The Hare With Amber Eyes is absolutely a love affair with
0:23:30 > 0:23:33tactility and what touch means
0:23:33 > 0:23:39and its essential nature of being human and its relationship to touch,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41I mean that's absolutely what a large
0:23:41 > 0:23:45part of what The Hare With Amber Eyes deals with.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Um, and my installations aren't touched.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51But every object within them has been touched
0:23:51 > 0:23:56and actually holds touch within it so you look at them
0:23:56 > 0:23:59and you see touch.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03You might not be picking them up and feeling the weight of them
0:24:03 > 0:24:07and feeling the edges and whatever as much as I did
0:24:07 > 0:24:09when I was making them but it's still there.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11It's just different.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52There was a sort of polemic argument early on in the 20th century
0:24:52 > 0:24:53about the status of pottery,
0:24:53 > 0:24:58that pottery was this link between sculpture and painting
0:25:00 > 0:25:02I don't think that's relevant any more.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05I mean, for me, it is sculpture
0:25:05 > 0:25:09It is sculpture made up of ceramics.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12Sometimes, that's very painterly.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16Sometimes, they're objects, which recede into the wall,
0:25:16 > 0:25:22you know, to become compositions but mostly,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25they are attempts to think
0:25:25 > 0:25:30about how you capture a bit of space
0:25:30 > 0:25:34and bring an object into focus or out of focus in that bit of space.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44I kind of do come to this place
0:25:44 > 0:25:48sit over there behind me at my wheel and make things and I love it
0:25:48 > 0:25:51and everything else drops away at that point.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54You know, I do manage to keep all those things at bay.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58'So, you don't ever miss a simpler...life?' No.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02No, I mean I had a simpler life
0:26:02 > 0:26:05I had a much, much simpler life
0:26:05 > 0:26:09when I was making things that no one liked and I didn't like myself
0:26:09 > 0:26:12you know, a long, long way away in bits of
0:26:12 > 0:26:15the Welsh borders 30 years ago and I don't miss that at all.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18I'm now very, very...
0:26:20 > 0:26:28..happy trying to bring the things I want to make into existence.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47I'm learning, you know, and what I'm learning is that the kinds
0:26:47 > 0:26:53of things I want to do take lots of people and time and resources.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55You know, that's the reality.
0:26:57 > 0:27:04And so, it's being very careful about the fact that everything
0:27:04 > 0:27:05begins with...
0:27:07 > 0:27:09..always begins with a lump of clay
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and me sitting by myself making a pot.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd