Tom Turnbull: Just the Beginning

Part of what makes Standard Clay an appealing company is the way it mirrors the arts society in its company culture of family and community. Both Ceramic Supply Chicago and Ceramic Supply Inc. in the New York area have dedicated staff members who foster relationships with the artists who purchase their products, building a communal group with a shared purpose. The central Pittsburgh business propagates this spirit, sustained by generations of the Turnbull family. Headed by Jim, who succeeded his father James, Sr., and managed by his son Graham, Standard is synonymous with the Turnbull name. Jim’s vibrant personality makes connections between ceramic artists throughout the world while Graham steadily mans the helm. But the Turnbull story includes another son of James, Sr., a prodigal son of sorts, who completes the triangle as an accomplished and distinguished ceramic artist. A young man who set off to find his own way, Tom built a life that always came back to clay and is now facing a journey that is launching him on a retrospective trip through his life and ideas that is pertinent not only to him but to anyone who has pondered the meaning of a life in the arts.

“I was in ceramics before I was born,” says Tom. “My father came home from a stint in the Merchant Marines in 1947 and got a job as a salesman for the O. Hommel Company, a manufacturer of porcelain enamels (frit). I was born in 1951.”

Tom’s father’s work brought him in contact with pottery companies, who used clay in large quantities. James, Sr. was talking with some art teachers he knew in the Pittsburgh Public School system who were looking for another supplier of clay. He procured the industrial clay and sold it to them in smaller amounts. He eventually developed his own clay bodies, starting what would become Standard Ceramic Supply Company. All the Turnbull children were put to work at the family business. “I spent all of high school stacking boxes of clay,” says Tom. By the time he graduated from Langley High School, he was tired of the work. “I was an impressionable 17-year-old,” he recalls. “I had an uncle who retired about that time who had never nurtured any interests outside of work. He sat down at the kitchen table and never got up. I didn’t want to be him. I wanted a reason to get up in the morning.”

Turning away from the business aspect of clay, Tom asked his father to recommend a good pottery program. “I wanted to learn, and I couldn’t wait to get out,” he says. James, Sr. linked him up with his friend Charles Counts, the author of Common Clay, who had recently returned to Lookout Mountain in Georgia. Tom enrolled in an 8-week course there. “It was sensational,” he says. “I became a potter.” He apprenticed under Counts and folk-art potter Legatha Walston. Tom says he developed his craft under these great teachers but found himself getting bored. “I was a young kid,” he says. Close to the studio, there was a horse farm that drew his attention. He began working there and eventually was driving the horses to racetracks in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. He, his father, and his brother Jim went in together on a horse and began to race it. “There was a point after a couple of years where the horses were going north again and I just decided to stay,” he says. He went south to Fort Lauderdale, hung out at the beach, and did pottery in a storage garage.

At the age of 27, Tom had an unexplainable epiphany. “I woke up one morning and said, ‘This is nuts! I need an education.’” In retrospect, he admits to feeling far behind his peers, who, at this point, had jobs, spouses, homes, and children. He enrolled in the local community college and worked construction jobs part-time. After one year, he applied to New York University’s Industrial Arts program and received a full scholarship. He added Classics to his major, which he says gave him a wider perspective of time and of what it was like to be alive at various times in history.

With his studies complete, Tom returned to Pittsburgh and joined his father and brother at Standard. “I was working in sales,” he recalls, “and once again, I felt that this wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.” He returned to Lookout Mountain to manage a group of singers related to his mentor, Legatha Walston. The work took him to Nashville. “They were good, but it ultimately didn’t work out,” he says. He was offered a job in Nashville as a promoter, where he stayed. “I looked around Nashville,” he says, “and saw that there wasn’t any ceramics presence there, so I founded Mid-South Ceramics.” The business served as a distributor for Standard clays and glazes and put Tom back into the business of ceramics.

Tom noticed that his customers would buy the ingredients to make glazes and most often ended up with unsatisfactory results. He saw a need for a better glaze product. “I found the best glaze chemist,” he says, “and consulted with him.” With industrial coatings expert Dr. Richard Eppler’s help, Tom developed and patented the Opulence Glazes line. “It is an excellent product. All you have to do is add water and you have a state-of-the-art glaze.” Tom began production onsite at Mid-South in Nashville and began a promotion effort to sell the line. His expertise in glazes led him to become the United States agent for an Australian minerals company, RZM Zircon. After 13 years running a business, in 1999 Tom sold Mid-South Ceramics to Esmalglas, a large Spanish ceramic materials company. At age 48, he retired from business and became a full-time potter. “I finally had a reason to get up in the morning,” he says. “– to go look in the kiln”

At Tom’s first outdoor show, he was awarded Second Best. “The judge was the Art Director for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta,” he says. They struck up a friendship and during a lunch visit to Atlanta, they discussed an upcoming installation in the center’s Global Communication Center. Tom asked, “How about me?” and he was granted the permanent display of more than thirty pieces.

Tom’s works are sought after by many collectors. Friends of Chantilly, is a not-for-profit group that preserves paintings, sculptures, books and historic manuscripts at Château de Chantilly. The organization was supported by late iconic fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy. In recognition of Givenchy’s support, Friends of Chantilly selected one of Tom’s pieces, which now resides in Givenchy’s permanent collection.

He says, “I am a craftsman. It is deeply in my DNA.” He works on the wheel, builds with slabs, and does some extrusion work. He says he is not a sculptor. Most recently, he is painting with glazes on 12”x18” tiles. “The possibilities take off in all directions,” he exclaims. He is currently working on a commission for the West End Methodist Church in Nashville to create a large wall installation of The Last Supper. He is creating the work on tiles, painting the images, which, he points out, “will include women at the table.”

Tom’s journey away from the business of clay, through apprenticeship, horseracing, education, and music promotion, to running his own business, developing a proprietary glaze, and finally to finding his place as an artist has taken an unexpected turn this past year. This past October, Tom joined his brother Jim and sister Joanne for a long-overdue sibling reunion in New Mexico. He had recently shared with them some devastating news: He has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and is facing his imminent death.

“The most powerful piece of information you can be given,” says Tom, “is to know when you are going to die.” On the practical level, he says it allows you to get your affairs in order, not to leave a mess. But on another level, he says it brings up a lot of questions – questions about the body and the mind, questions about what lasts. “I don’t have much use for this body anymore,” he says. He speaks of the strong relationships he has with his six grandchildren. “I was born to be a grandfather,” he muses. “When Eliot, the eldest was born, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to be a part-time, regular caregiver for him.” Three of the grandchildren live near, in Nashville, and the others are not too far away, in Charleston, SC. Tom revels in sharing his life with them.

In pondering what comes after death, he talks of the permanence of his work. “Pottery lasts,” he says. “It’s common to find pottery shards that are 10,000 years old. It’s what the archeologists are looking for!” His love of teaching is another consolation – “I teach the passion and the aesthetic of clay.” He says that he used to feel that death was final. Now he says, “I feel that something lasts. I do feel a sort of untangling of the spirit.”

In his reflections, he has turned to the words of the great artist Michealangelo, written as he neared his death:

I regret that I have done so little for my eternal soul, and that I am just beginning to learn the alphabet of my craft.

Moved by these words, Tom says, “God, I’d like to have another lifetime. I’m just beginning to figure things out.” Tom indeed has figured many things out over these short months, and once again, he returns to clay, saying, “I don’t need a tombstone. My tombstone will be my work.” The solidity of the material world, quickened by a creative soul, and transformed into art is something that will last, but the ephemeral spirit of Tom will infuse the hearts of his family and students forever.