Peter Voulkos1924-2002

Abstract Expressionist Ceramic Artist

‘His unlimited capacity for work, his large storehouse of energy and strength, was matched by his unquenchable fascination with the material, the clay, his need to experience it-everything it could do. He worked it, tested it, played Cowboys and Indians with it, learned everything he could about it from books, from people, and then made it up as he went along.’ Peter Voulkos by Rose Slivka, Little, Brown and company ltd, 1978, pg. 6

Left: Large Vase, 1953, made at Black Mountain College, stoneware, 17 x 9 x 9. Black College Museum.Center: Bowl, 1953, made at Black Mountain College, 4.5 x 8.5 x 8.5. Black College Museum.Right: Lidded Jar, 1953, made at Black Mountain College, 9 x 7.5 x 7.5. Black Mountain College Museum

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15154544@N00/1810189182

Voulkos decided to make a living as a production potter. His mother was shocked- ‘What! Make pots and pans! I thought you gonna be an artist.’

‘Craft had been bypassed by the industrial revolution industrial products and procedures had taken over the craft tradition-So here was a period of rediscovery.When it was possible to re-establish craft, those who were in a position to do so did not want to do it as straight craft but take it somewhere else - not one individual this was a common feeling.’ pg 28

Franz Kline

Mark Rothko

Willem de Kooning

Jackson Pollock

L.A 1954

Paul Soldner

Picasso’s ceramics

“I broke almost all of two years work into shards. They lacked the virtue of the classical pot and the spiritual inventiveness of a new form.”

‘Aestheticians have said that one definition of a great work of art is that it changes the viewers in some way’ pg 119

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly learn how far one can go.’ T.S. Elliot. Quoted in: Rupert Spira Bowl, pg. 7