Carol McNicoll: Breaking the Mould

‘I hate minimalism. There’s nothing worse than pure white space – it’s the last thing on God’s earth I would ever want to live with,’ says Carol McNicoll. I can’t say I’m surprised by this statement, coming as it does from a ceramic artist known for her exuberant eclecticism. Her London home, however, takes this aversion to more unexpected extremes. As we share a homemade raspberry tart at her kitchen table, my eyes don’t know where to focus. Covering every surface, including the ceiling, are objects expressive of the same eccentric, expansive spirit that has animated her work from the 1970s to the present day.

Among these items is a lamp lovingly constructed by an anonymous hobbyist out of hundreds of ice-lolly sticks, found in a Houston charity shop. ‘I’m fascinated by the type of person who would gather all of those sticks – someone who ran an ice-cream shop? It’s a mystery,’ she says. Surrounding this marvel are vintage dolls from her childhood and colourful pots of every description made by herself and her peers, including Janice Tchalenko and Jacqueline Poncelet. Meanwhile, a confection of plaster architectural mouldings salvaged off the street lines the ceiling and fabric posters of Indian independence-era politicians, bought while travelling, conceal a sewing machine. Much like her own work, her home is a vibrant amalgam of pattern and colour, combining histories of the personal, political and artistic.

‘It’s partly that I love recycling – I like the idea of making something wonderful out of rubbish,’ explains McNicoll, who sprung to prominence in the 1970s with her witty, Pop Art inflected pottery, creating tea sets and dinner services sought after by everyone from the painter Peter Blake to the fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. ‘A lot of my own work is a kind of collage, and collage is like recycling: putting different aesthetics together. It’s the same with patchwork. The things I collect for my home are often things I think I might use in my work at some point.’

As we step into the mould-strewn studio next door, from which she creates her modelled, slip-cast and transfer-decorated work, the connection between this Wunderkammer of knick-knacks and her artistic output becomes clearer still. From the famous Three-Spouted Teapot (1972 ), slip-cast from obsolete Royal Staffordshire moulds, right up to her recent series of bowls and vessels (exhibited last year by Marsden Woo), she has never stopped giving a surreal spin to the everyday. Over the decades, McNicoll’s output has criss-crossed ceramic history, drawing inspiration from objects ranging from Japanese oribe ware and 18th-century English asparagus dishes to cheap and cheerful Staffordshire figurines.

McNicoll’s most recent works are patchwork like objects, which draw on her first skill of making clothes – a craft honed while working as a theatrical wardrobe assistant in the 1960s. This led to a stint as a machinist for Zandra Rhodes and then, as glam rock made its glittering appearance in the early 1970s, costume-making for her then-boyfriend Brian Eno and his bandmate Andy Mackay of Roxy Music. McNicoll’s black cockerel-feather collar, an iconic expression of high camp worn by Eno on stage in 1973, is now owned by the V&A – making her the only artist to be collected by both its Ceramics and Theatre & Performance departments.

Today, the septuagenarian artist looks like something of a rock star herself. As we speak, she is clad in a patchwork jacket created from colourful scraps hoarded over the decades. ‘It’s easier just to make stuff than buy it,’ she says with characteristic understatement, when asked about her dressmaking. ‘I looked through my fabric drawers and decided to make this jacket and a top. And then I thought, well, I’ll make a series of ceramics – but like patchwork.’

Another recent work features Donald Trump, his familiar form repeated in multiples alongside casts of weapons, women and soldiers. ‘I’m just making a subtle point about America,’ she comments drily. One such piece, On a Wing and a Prayer (2017), will be shown by Ting-Ying gallery at Collect art fair in London (27 February – 1 March). In the work, three Trump figures trudge truculently around plates decorated with twee transfers of game birds, in an ironic nod to cultural conservatism. ‘I was just horrified by Trump and the fact he seems to get away with doing and saying anything. He behaves so badly but he’s got the backing of American Christians,’ says McNicoll, who was raised as a Catholic, and credits childhood visits to Baroque churches as having helped form her love of lavish decoration.

It was a similar sense of outrage that fuelled her work from 2003 to 2011, at the time of the Iraq War. ‘I was so furious, because the whole invasion was based on lies. We had a massive demonstration but to no effect. Making was a way of trying to get rid of my crossness,’ she says. In pieces such as Expeditionary Coffee Set and Freedom and Democracy (both 2011), hapless looking soldiers seem bound both to one another and to kitsch consumer items. In the latter, ceramic soldiers encircle Coca-Cola bottles with Arabic labels, in a reference to American cultural imperialism. Would she describe these political pieces as satirical? ‘I’ve never seen myself as a satirist, because I’ve never thought of myself as being quite that clever. But it probably is satire.’ Humour is certainly an essential part of her work, even when she tackles difficult subjects: ‘If it doesn’t make me laugh, then there’s no point.’ Asked if the UK’s recent general election will inspire new work, she replies: ‘I can’t see myself making a Boris – but then I never know what will pop into my head.’

Humour is a quality that’s clearly as important in her living environment as it is in her work. Nothing is treated too seriously or with undue deference; nothing is above reworking or repurposing – even her own pieces. All around her home, plants spill from her own ceramic vessels. ‘I like making functional things, partly because there’s something wonderfully absurd about, say, Trump being a cake dish or a fruit bowl,’ she explains. High on a shelf sits Unravelling Jug from the 1980s – one of her best-known designs, in which the earthenware vessel appears to be surreally uncoiling itself like a spool of ribbon. In the bedroom sits the lilac-coloured Cabbage Light, a cast of a brassica made during student days at the Royal College in the 1970s; in the kitchen are examples of her irreverent industrial designs for retailers such as Next Interiors and Axis, including dishes that mimic crumpled paper.

Work by fellow artist-friends also abounds. The flat itself, on the ground floor of a converted piano factory, is one such artefact: the architect Piers Gough designed the conversion in exchange for one of McNicoll’s tea sets. In the corridor hangs a striking collage of painted fans by the artist João Penalva, while a large painting by Andrew Mayfield sits above the bath. Most unusual is a painting on the hallway ceiling by George Ward featuring McNicoll as a Graeco Roman hero, standing by a table peopled by her friends and depicted in a cheerful cod Renaissance style. These characters include drag hero Divine and sculptor and founder of the Alternative Miss World pageant Andrew Logan.

What first strikes you on entering her home, however, are the tiles. Both hallway and staircase are lined with an extraordinary patchwork of olive oil tins, porcelain soup-tureen lids and slipware tiles made by students at Camberwell, where McNicoll taught for many years. Every wall – every doorframe, even – is decorated with joyful, loosely painted designs. The effect recalls Charleston, the bohemian country home of the Bloomsbury Group, but with a distinctly urban dash of Dadaism. A ceramic shelf bracket made by the artist features figures modelled on revellers at Notting Hill Carnival; dozens of mirrors in the garden were found on surrounding streets.

‘Carol has always immersed herself in the aesthetic of her work,’ says Peter Ting of Ting Ying gallery. Nothing escapes her magpie eye. ‘The other day, Brian Kennedy and I gave her a load of cross-stitched items that we were collecting for a project that didn’t happen. A week later she had turned them into a blind.’ This eccentric window covering now graces her bedroom. While I examine a technicolour needlepoint rendering of Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, a line from Susan Sontag’s Notes on ‘Camp’ springs to mind: ‘Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation – not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy.’ There’s no doubt that McNicoll revels in all forms of creativity.

It’s precisely this high-low love of kitsch that has inspired Ting’s display at Collect. The gallery is working with McNicoll to select textiles from her collection to be a background for her pieces, which will be displayed in suitably droll fashion on a lazy Susan. For the fair, Ting is offering a condensed overview of her work. ‘I’ve picked objects from various stages of her practice – a 1970s pleated fan dish, ’80s bowls and ’90s vases, through to the recent social commentary pieces.’

What prompted this shift for the gallery, which over recent years has made a name for itself by focusing on white porcelain? ‘When I was studying at the Royal College of Art, there was a group of women that were really important to contemporary ceramics as we know it,’ Ting explains. ‘Alison Britton, Jacqueline Poncelet, Elizabeth Fritsch, Glenys Barton, Janice Tchalenko – and Carol. They’ve been such an influence. Carol showed us all the possibility of looking at ceramics in a very different way.’