VIDEOCERÁMICA # BEATRICE WOOD was born in San Francisco in 1893 and passed away in Ojai, California nine days after her 105th birthday on March 12, 1998. She attributed her longevity to "young men and chocolates."
Wood sspent time in Paris during her late teens. Studying art briefly at the Academie Julian, she was soon attracted to the stage and moved to the Comedie Francaise. She returned to the United States in 1914 and joined the French Repertory Theater in New York. While visiting the French composer Edgar Varese in a New York hospital in 1916, she was introduced to Marcel Duchamp. She soon became an intimate friend of the painter and a member of his recherche culturelle clique, which included Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Albert Gleizes, Walt Kuhn, and others. As a contributor to Duchamp's avant-garde magazines, Rogue and the Blindman, she produced drawings and shared editorial space with such luminaries of the day as Gertrude Stein. In 1933, after she purchased a set of six luster plates in Europe, she returned to America and wanted to produce a matching teapot. It was suggested that she make one at the pottery classes of the Hollywood High School. Of course, she would later laugh about that weekend and reminisce about how foolish she was in thinking she could produce a lustre teapot in one weekend. But she was hooked. She began to read everything she could get her hands on concerning ceramics. Around 1938 she studied with Glen Lukens at the USC, and in 1940 with the Austrian potters Gertrud and Otto Natzler. She remembers being "the most interested student in [Lukens's] class and certainly the least gifted…." "I was not a born craftsman. Many with natural talent do not have to struggle, they ride on easy talent and never soar. But I worked and worked, obsessed with learning." From that time on, Wood developed a personal and uniquely expressive art form with her lusterwares. Her sense of theater is still vividly alive in these works, with their exotic palette of colors and unconventional form. In 1983 the Art Galleries of California State University at Fullerton organized a large retrospective of the artist's sixty-six years of activity as an artist. Remarkably, it was during the artist's nineties that Wood produced some of her finest work including her now signature works, tall complex, multi-volumed chalices in glittering golds, greens, pinks and bronzes. Until shortly before her death she was producing at least two one-woman exhibitions a year and the older she became, the more daring and experimental her work was.
Wood received numerous honors. She was given the Ceramics Symposium Award of the Institute for Ceramic History in 1983 and the outstanding-achievement award of the Women's Caucus for Art in 1987, the year she was made a fellow of both the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the American Craft Council which also gave her the gold medal on her 100th birthday. She also received the Governor's Award for Art in 1994, and was made a "living treasure of California" by the state in 1984. Wood took part in hundreds of exhibitions both solo and group since the 1930's ranging from small craft shows, to showing on the Venice Biennale. From 1981 until her death, she was represented by the Garth Clark Gallery. In 1990, her close friend and art historian Francis Naumann organized a major retrospective of her figurative work which appeared at the Oakland Museum and The Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. In 1997 the American Craft Museum organized "Beatrice Wood: A Centennial Tribute," a touring exhibition. In 1985 Wood published her autobiography, I Shock Myself . She continued to write, publishing many books. In 1993 she was the subject of an award winning film Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada by Lone Wolf Productions.
Beatrice Wood continued to throw on the wheel until June, 1997. She achieved some of her best lustre works in the 90s. Her last figurative work, "Men With Their Wives" was completed in December 1996 and is currently in a private collection in California.
Such an awesome woman. I love this video. Thanks.
What a wonderful wonderful woman and artisan, Thanks so much for sharing, Best part of my day!
Beautiful artist with heart and soul.
Beatrice!!! Thank you for posting this. She was amazing. I never had the fortune to meet her and am so jealous of one of the previous poster who did. She is such an inspiration.
I was touch by one of her students 🙂
at the time i didn’t pay much attention but now i know how privileged i was
what a great artist and inspiration
She changed my life. Over 25 years ago, I left my professional as a film maker, to become a painter. I read one article on Beatrice and I was hooked. She has been my inspiration for many many years
Her work has been personally helpful to me. I don’t envy any artists, but I envy her a little. It’s hard to watch wealthier people getting to do what they want and be accepted, but if all wealthy people endeavored to open kilns instead of collect diamonds, I think the world might be a much better place.
at the end, as she laughs, you can see she is blushing! Exquisite .. now SHE is the kind of role model I wish I’d known YEARS ago!
incredible thanks for showing us her…
an inspiring woman of great talent
What an amazingly wonderful way to grow old!!!! I love her joie de vivre!
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this video … #VivaDada
What a woman. Marvellous!
Wonderful, magnificent, intelligent…I could go on about how I feel about her. Thanks so much for sharing this. 😀
Susan Bishop 漁會
What a beautiful spirit and woman! I love everything about her and her style and her approach to her art and her alchemy and life and what others had to say about her. I adored this film. Thanks for making it and sharing Beatrice Wood with us.
What an amazing woman, an amazing artist, and an love for beauty and her art. I am inspired. Thank you for sharing.
So amazing artist. Needs to be celebrated
Oh my, I’m so glad that I happened upon this video. It’s so inspiring that she continued to throw on her potter’s wheel every day until she was 103! I love the description of her in the video as an alchemist – that is indeed exactly what she was. I know that by the time of her death at 105, she had become a well-recognized figure in the world of ceramic art, renowned as much for her luster glazes as for her longevity, vitality, and charm and that definitely comes through here.
I don’t know what it is about working in clay, but there have been quite a few ceramicist who have continued to work well into their 90’s and beyond. I hope I will be one of them!
Just a beautiful woman! I met her several times years ago ad I was in a writers/poetry critique group in Ojai California lead by Joan Raymund. After a collection was put out from our group, we did a reading at the Ojai Center for the Arts and Beatrice Woods was there. I read my poem about Marilyn Monroe and Beatrice came up to me after the reading and told me how much she loved my writing. At the time, I didn’t know much about her, but she would sometimes come to our weekly critique sessions and always had wonderful comments on my poetry. She was a wonderful hippie sort of woman, which was maybe one reason she was attracted to my writing as I am from that era and still have a hippie soul. Her aura, essence, was incredible to be around, and all these years later, I can still feel it when recalling those interactions with her. Marvelous woman!
❤️ I want to be like her when I grow up!