MARVIN BARTEL:
Teacher, Artist, Innovator
By Chad Martin
Ceramics Monthly, September 2004
Kansas farm country, 1960s: A quiet boy eagerly awaits the conclusion of the class period. His excitement escalates and his mind wanders to math problems and hand-drafted blueprints while he closes his books and heads to shop class. The boy learns to work hard, but was born into an era and culture that does not value art as a worthy profession. But metal shop is good – it clearly offers practical learning. At the teacher’s encouragement, the boy is creating a project that solves a personal need. The boy is tired of cutting weeds at the farm by hand, so he is building a power lawn mower. Like all the projects created by students in this class, the mower is being built from designs the boy drafted himself. In coming years, he also will make a grain wagon and manure loader. These are lessons in problem-solving and creativity that he will never forget.
Pittsburgh’s North Side, 2002: A girl with piercings and tight jeans slowly works her way through a presentation on Egyptian culture, and Cone 10 and luster firing. Her presentation concludes a semester-long independent project. This project a 2 foot-tall sculpture cat, marks a significant change in the girl’s life. She often battles with teachers at school, getting in trouble for foolish reasons. But here, at a nonprofit art center, she has found success. She works with a team of instructors in an informal learning environment. She even conducts unsolicited, independent research, wanting to learn more about glaze technology, blemishes from the firing process and construction methods for large-scale ceramics.
The two kids in these stories have much in common. They come from different cultures, places and times, but they share a creative spirit, a quick wit, an ability to solve problems, and a love for crafting things with their hands. And their creative energies were encouraged and guided by the clear influence of adults who took interest in their artistic development.
Many artists find their way due to the guidance of such adults and artistic mentors. Whether it’s a quirky uncle, a compassionate older neighbor, an eccentric friend of the family, or a teacher who puts in extra time on weekends and evenings, mentors fill a need in people’s lives beyond what parents or teachers can provide. Often, these seemingly peripheral figures profoundly shape the direction of young artists’ lives.
Marvin Bartel is professor emeritus of art at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. He is a pioneering engineer, an inventive artist and a relentless advocate for educational methods that truly foster creativity and problem-solving. He is a model mentor for students and colleagues alike.
When I was in high school, my teacher took us on a field trip to visit Bartel’s house. As we approached the driveway, I spotted his handmade mailbox, crafted from wheel-thrown forms and a big cork stopper. We continued through the tour, encountering more clay objects than I could ever have imagined – tile countertops, handmade sinks and toilets, clay swivel chairs, and of course, many pots. My understanding of art and one’s ability to test creativity were blown wide open. Here was a man showing me that one can create nearly any object from nearly anything, using a creative spirit and a full understanding of the material. It was a valuable lesson at an impossible time for me.
Ten years later, I listened to Bartel explain what many see as the tension between the pursuit of creating art and the commitment to teaching. He only finds tension when one fails to do both, explaining, “I really thought I would be a lousy teacher if I was not an artist. As an art teacher, I thought I would not have any integrity.”
As a doctoral candidate in art education, Bartel spent much of his studio time creating jewelry and built a respectable exhibition record in national metalsmith shows. But his first opportunity to teach at the university level landed him in a clay studio, and he was committed to always practicing what he taught.
“When I started teaching ceramics full time, I quit making jewelry and made ceramics my art form. I didn’t want my students to have a teacher who was just a teacher. I wanted them to have a teacher who was actually an artist. I also knew that students don’t have as much respect for what you have to show them if you are not doing it yourself.”
Therefore, he packed up his jewelry tools (to this day he still has unused sheets of metal in storage) and focused all of his attention on making clay work. He has never stopped creating pots, tiles and other clay work. He has never stopped creating pots, tiles and other clay work. While teaching clay at Goshen College for 30 years, he never stopped taking students to tour his house.
You don't show the kid how to draw things, you show them how to make observations, how to use their minds, how to figure things out. Then you have them draw from their own experiences and their own observations.
Bartel’s students never doubt that he is a working artist. He is both driven to teach what he loves and driven to love what he must teach. Goshen is a small college and, during his tenure, the art department has asked him to teach many different courses, including art education, ceramics, photography, and housing design. He has a Ph.D. in art education, has practiced ceramics for over 35 years, is an excellent photographer, and has designed several houses. While he has retired from teaching clay, he continues to model the life of a creative and successful artist for many young students.
Bartel invited ingenuity and creativity into the classroom. He holds strong opinions about how children (and adults) learn to solve problems and be creative. He advises against giving too many examples, demonstrations, or easy answers, which encourage students to simply imitate the teacher. He says, “The imitation you don’t have to work at, because we are genetically predisposed to be imitators.” Rather, he says, the real challenge for teachers is to foster innovation. In response to student questions, Bartel asks them more questions, gently pushing them in new directions that lead them to discover their own answers. For him, art education must always tie into the student’s experience. “You don’t show the kid how to draw things, you show them how to make observations, how to use their minds, how to figure things out. Then you have them draw from their own experiences and their own observations,” he says. But he does not advocate creativity at the loss of technical expertise.
“If we taught reading and writing as casually as we teach art, only about 10% of the population would be literate.” Instead, he says, “We should be practicing observation drawing at the same time we are practicing reading and writing.
“Anybody can learn to draw from observation. Drawing should be something through which everyone can witness the shape of something, the contour line of something, the height of something.” And he would say the same for using a potter’s wheel.
Bartel shares his vast technical knowledge with inquiring students. Therefore, not only are students empowered to create through their own innovation, they gain understanding of the technical undergirding necessary to successfully embody that creativity in clay.
A good ceramics artist pushes creativity beyond simply the process of working with the clay. Bartel encouraged students to look beyond the status quo and always investigate new and better ways to work in the studio. For example, he has been a pioneer in designing fuel-efficient kilns. He estimates that the gas kilns he has designed use as little as half the fuel of conventional kiln designs (see “A Revolutionary Kiln Design: Nearly 100% Fuel Efficiency,” September 1990 CM). In a culture that places minimal value on efficient use of resources, he stands out as a role model for ceramics artists who are intent on pursuing their craft, while maintaining concern for the environment and efficient use of resources.
Bartel, the farm boy who found art by building farm implements in shop class, grew to be part of a long legacy of mentors in ceramics history. He quietly spent the last 30 years teaching some of the most gifted potters in the country and nurturing teachers who would go on to be mentors themselves. I am one of many of Bartel’s students who went on to teach.
The girl from Pittsburgh was a high school student of mine at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild ceramics studio. I don’t yet know how she or my other students will spend their lives, or who they will mentor. They are one strand in a continually widening web of influence from one great teacher.