Saly Noémi (szerk.): Gorka Lívia keramikusművész (Budapest, 2010)
Kollin András: Bibliográfia
Something of Myself Lívia Gorka The art of clay is truly a divine one. Those who practise it must abide by its laws, but not by every letter of them. I never went to a college. 1 was born into a way of life that was always in flux, a mental approach of seeking links, which was also a profession, but above all a frame of mind. My father would let me go around the garden and down to the Danube with a telescope and a microscope, finding out about everything that belonged in the spatial plane. From the age of nine, 1 had a chance to listen to discussions and arguments that left me baffled initially but which, as I slowly fitted things together, brought me delight and 1 feel, in the long-term, protection. I often heard my father say he would only give an art degree to those who could produce work they had made themselves, alone in a studio, with no outside help. So it dawned on me that solitude has a bearing on successful activity. Without my father's knowledge, as a surprise for him, i took the master potter’s certificate in 1947. But I never dared to work in front of him. The evidence came out under odd circumstances, when we went with a large group of friends to see a handicrafts display, where there was a potter who was airily encouraging the onlookers, saying, „Come on, it’s simple/' and „All you have to do is sit down and try". He turned to me: „Well, little miss? Won't you give it a go?" I was provoked. Kicking off my sandals, I reckon that there and then was when I first dared to do it. My father's laugh of complicity compensated me for the anger of the deeply offended potter. I have felt 1 belong to the profession ever since, not as an outsider, but as an autonomous person. The years after 1945 when we „lived under a stone", working side by side at Verőce, have become blurred. We clung instinctively to this craft, where there was no need to make great „confessions" about the life around us in words or depictions. Apart from the daily manual work in that quiet house in Verőce, we did an enormous amount of reading and discussion. And we built things. Perpendicular to the axis of space, we built the axis of time. After 1945, the axis of time was our line of expansion, when the country was being provided with so-called small flats. These needed vases, ashtrays and wall plates. 1 do not know how I dared to submit to a 1954 exhibition something quite different from everyone else's wheel-thrown vessels - some deformed containers that were even put before jury. Then the Artex foreign trade organization dared to export them to Sweden, which helped us to put our finances on a solid footing. I loved to work. I have never made an object that 1 would not willingly accept as being an offspring of mine today. After that I took part in almost every show and competition, including the Young Applied Artists exhibition held at the Ernst Museum in Budapest. In 1959 came my first chance to exhibit abroad, at the First International Ceramics Exhibition at Gmunden, in Austria, where I made personal acquaintance of Kylliki Salmenhaara, professor at the Finnish Art College and designer at the Arabia factory in Helsinki. My father by this time took me for an adult, and realized 1 was continuing his profession. Since my childhood, he had often set me tasks I had only been able to complete with great determination and effort. Afterwards 1 was always delighted it had been so hard and I still look back thankfully on his method of upbringing. But the time came when there was a danger of me turning into his epigone. We often went through great sorrow in these earnest discussions about period, style and ethics, for we lived at a time when our lives could have been blown away like dust. Our concern and respect for the past built up within us. So did our doubts. We argued, of course. We would both have been ashamed to live in a tepid contentment. We had to realize that even in parting, we were still inseparable. Our 30
