handmade

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.

For more on Craft in America, visit www.craftinamerica.org.
All Craft in America programs are now viewable on www.craftinamerica.org, the PBS iPhone/iPad app and video.pbs.org/program/craft-in-america.
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Taena Pottery: how to throw & decorate English slipware pots (trailer)

1 Comment / English Slipware /

Ten minute version with commentary here:

Vici and Sean Casserley are the second generation of potters to run Taena Pottery. It was started in 1948 by a group of conscientious objectors and survived their dispersal in the 1960s.

Specialising in traditional English slipware, Vici and Sean make and sell their pots from a studio and shop nestled on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. You can buy ready-made or bespoke pieces.

Contact details:
Whitley Court,
Upton-St-Leonards,
Gloucester,
Gloucestershire,
GL4 8EB
Tel: +44 (0)1452 610908

Chris Gustin – Walter Gropius Master Artist Ceramic Symposium

20 Comments / Chris Gustin /

Chris Gustin is a studio artist and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1975, and his MFA from Alfred University in 1977. Gustin lives and works in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Gustin’s work is published extensively and is represented in numerous public and private collections, including the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the World Ceramic Exposition Foundation in Icheon, Korea, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, the Currier Museum of Art, the Yingge Museum in Taipai, and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. With more than 50 solo exhibitions, he has exhibited, lectured and taught workshops in the United States, Caribbean, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships, and four Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships, the most recent in 2017. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and was elected to the American Craft Council College of Fellows in 2016. He was awarded the Masters of the Medium award from the Renwick Alliance in 2017. Gustin is co-founder of the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine, and currently serves as Honorary Trustee on its board.

Chris is one of six artists who were chosen for similar reasons, and also for ones unique to each of them. All of them share a love of the material of clay, and an appreciation for the function of the particular objects that they create. Each of their experiences in clay is individual, but the common thread of education, from the past, present, and future, with their instructors being working artists in their field, ties them to the foundation of the Bauhaus.

For more information on the Walter Gropius Master Artist Ceramic Symposium, go to www.hmoa.org/education/gropius-ceramic-symposium/. For more information on the Walter Gropius Master Artist Program, go to www.waltergropius.org.

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This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how the National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

This project is presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Department of the Arts, Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

The Walter Gropius Master Artist Series is funded through the generosity of the Estate of Roxanna Y. Booth, who wished to assist in the development of an art education program in accordance with the proposals of Walter Gropius, who designed the Museum’s Gropius Addition, as well as the Gropius Studios. The Museum is indebted to Roxanna Y. Booth’s son, the late Alex Booth, Jr., for his participation in the concept development of the Gropius Master Artists Workshops.

Ayumi Horie Dry Throwing

Leave a Comment / Ayumie Horie /

Dry throwing involves no water and I've used it for the last 15 years to make handmade bowls, dishes, plates- all low forms. At Alfred as an undergrad, I developed this dry throwing process in which I trim to center using a pin tool, scoop out the inside using a loop tool and thin out the walls by pushing them out with a rib. I use no water because I like the surface of moist clay, rather than wet. This method allows me to preserve the inherent textures in clay that I love- the stretching, cracking, and sagging. Fingerprints have a different kind of crispness and I can coax out a delicate edge of a line on a massive wall. Using this method, I can also work more spontaneously and intuitively because I dont have to wait for the clay to dry out quite so long. Many thanks to Lullatone and Joe Lutton for music and production!

Ceramics – Indego Africa

Leave a Comment / African Ceramics /

Indego Africa's ceramic products are handmade by a group of artisans at Gatagara Pottery in Rwanda. Formed in 1977 by a Belgian priest in Rwanda’s southern province, Gatagara is located in a small but picturesque workshop in the district of Nyanza. Often considered the cradle of Rwanda’s heritage, Nyanza is nestled east of a large lake that provides artisans with the natural materials they need to practice traditional craft techniques. After preparing a mixture of sand, gravel, limestone, and water in a large basin and shaping the product by hand, the artisans let the clay dry for 2-3 weeks before applying glaze made from natural dyes and baking them in a hot kiln. From design to finished product, the ceramic-making process takes about one month to complete. The distinctive handmade quality makes each piece of pottery unique and timeless.

Learn more: indegoafrica.org

Highlight on handmade african ceramics

Leave a Comment / African Ceramics /

Steps Involved in making a handmade african ceramics item.

Products are made out of clay from swamps and wetlands with Africa -Uganda.

The pieces are made by hand forming and machine (wheel)

We use WHITE clay for painting white and AUNT-Hill soil for obtaining red colour to decorate the pieces.

After painting we polish the pieces using small ocean stones to make them smooth.

The pieces are left for 5 days to dry and then they are loaded into the oven (kiln) for firing.

The (art pieces) are fired until 940 degrees for 12 hours.
After firing, they are offload when the oven (kiln) cools.

We mix liquid clay, fired clay and sand to cover our decorations on the pieces and then we make the open firing using wood shavings that let the smoke on the pieces to make them black. This process is called smoking. After then, they are washed and the covered parts and the uncovered parts get black smoke.

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Earth and Fire: Anasazi Style Pottery

38 Comments / Anasazi Ceramics /

Watch artist and primitive potter Kelly Magleby learn about and make Anasazi style pottery. Kelly went into the backcountry of Southern Utah with a knife and a buckskin to try to learn about Anasazi Pottery by doing it the way the Anasazi did it. "Earth and Fire" is a documentary poem about a passionate artist. Funded by Primitive Found (.org) Music by Jason Shaw @ audionautix.com Check out Kelly's art at anasazipottery.net This the 1st video of 2016 for The Talking Fly short documentary project by filmmaker Steve Olpin, Enjoy!
Check out a pottery film I did a few years back: