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Peter Voulkos Working in Clay – PREVIEW

Leave a Comment / Hans Coper, Peter Voulkos /

Peter Voulkos is the undisputed creative force behind the American Clay Revolution that began in the 1950s and continues today. His energy and charisma are legendary. Peter Voulkos Working offers a window into three distinct chapters of his prodigious career. It features newly re-mastered films available digitally for the first tim

WORKING IN CLAY (26 min, 1992, filmed by Ann Voulkos)
Working in Clay intimately observes the artist in his Oakland studio as he creates plates, tea bowls and a large stack. What's captured is an intuitive process. The surface of a plate comes alive with a range of gestures from delicate lines to violent slashes. The quiet handling of a Japanese tea bowl is suddenly interrupted, revealing beauty in the accidental. While creating a large stack (Kings Chamber) Voulkos composes as he works, improvising like a jazz musician who has deep trust in both his instincts and his technical control. In these filmed moments, we see him alive in his work, powerfully present.

Peter Voulkos, A Brief History

6 Comments / Hans Coper, Peter Voulkos /

Peter Voulkos (1924-2002) was a ceramist most known for his abstract expressionist sculptures. He received his BS from the Montana State College, Bozeman and received his MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts).

He taught at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (later renamed the Otis College of Art and Design) and the University of California, Berkeley. His students include Paul Soldner, Kenneth Price, Henry Takemoto, Michael Frimkess, John Mason, and others. His work can be found in the American Museum of Ceramic Art, Arkansas Arts Center, Everson Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and others.

www.craftinamerica.org. SERVICE episode Peter Voulkos segment. PBS premiere: November 2, 2014.

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Pk Alison Britton on Hans Coper

Leave a Comment / Hans Coper /

Pk Because when you look at it first you think it might be a cup sitting on a neck, and it's not. It goes all the way down. If it had been in various people's homes it would have had flowers in it probably, wouldn't it? I mean, Lucie would always have put flowers in his pots.

I like them more when he's playing more severely with the form, when there's more flattening or extension or something. But I own a little thistle, and some of the ones where there's an envelope that's been shut to an extreme with the points at the bottom; that's the spade one, isn't it? That may be my favourite form. But it's very, very evocative of the whole body of things.