The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-25
IS CERAMIC
 ART MAL|GNED?

In the biggest in the world" contest Kansas City may step up and take an- other prize Artists say that In no place in the United States are there as many women who paint china. But wait a
 minute-there seems to be a string to the honor. This prolifcness in that line of painting has put art lon the bum'' in Kansas City. Or so the teachers of ceram- ios says, and they will tell you how the china decorator has fallen into disre- pute.
 Now you, who would spend your idle hours iH putting vermillion poppes and fiamingo pink roses on otherwise inno- cent plates, consider: Could you not be better employed If tending the baby, or + you must make pin money, In raising chickens. The professionals believe SO, and the professionals have almost been forced to give up the bushes on ac-
 count of the deluge of amateur wares. T don't know how to account for it., a woman who teaches painting said. 'I don't want to believe that Kansas City's taste is lowering. I would rather ascribe it to the bungalow building-the plate
 rail evil. you know. Those houses seem to be built for plate rail. and given plate rail- the dweler feels a respon- sibility until it is loaded with painted china-emphasis on the painted, please And the buyers are buyers of quantity and not quality. Perhaps they are not judges of good design. Let's hope so The high cost of living and the desire for a little extra spending money has fostered the immature crop of artists an- other teacher believes.
 'The incongruity of 1t never strikes them,' she went on. "I have spent six years and twice as many thousand dol lars in learning to decorate. Most of my pupils take six lessons, then begin to paint And they find a market for their stuff, while most of mine goes begging Of course, there is difference In price But this seems to be an age of cost
 value has been lost sight off
 The women who run kilns and fire the vivid fauna and flora of the overtrained imagination and undertrained feminine hand of Kansas City have become in ured to the traffic. Making living by firing the stuff the glaze on their ar tistic eye is as substantial as the glaze on the fired china, as one woman who has a kiln put it.
 ,"Yess once, in a while we see work Of
 merit.r said she, but the average Is awful Really atrocious, some of it. At first I wanted to refuse to burn in this or that impossible flower, but I saw that I would have no business if I entered
 the uplift closed my eyes and put it in the kiln. Before painted the plate Is
 usually worth more than 1t Is after Il has been daubed. The maker of, china puts a certain grace of contour into the
 piece, and plain white is always pretty
 Unless the painter is skilled in design she will put on a decoration of such
 shape and in such position that the nat ural contour is lost.
 'I remember a little girl who brought stein here to be fired. A name was scrawled out in conspicuous letters around the piece and above this a sprie of azure violets. Shaving mug, said trying to be pleasant, and this is youl friends name? That was the last piece
 I fired for her. The name was only hel signature under the highly original dec l oration. Artists always sign their work | I thought the young girl said. l used tc call myself an artist. but that was be- 1 fore art was maligned.'