Tonight I took a time out, and went to one of the Archie Bray Foundation’s summer lectures, being given this evening by noted ceramic artist, who lives right here in Helena. His art is scattered around the world, in many admirable collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution, LACMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK, and the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan.
If you have been watching PBS lately, you know that he was a part of the Craft in America project (note Richard’s teapot in the center, for episode 2). I grew up across the street from Sarah Jaeger, and have been familiar with her and her work for many years. Imagine my delight in finding someone who spoke his political thoughts, beliefs and outrage into clay right here in Helena. I jumped at the chance to attend his lecture.
I can’t seem to find an image of it, but I was completely caught off guard by Richard’s (I believe he said) first mold piece. Of course, I can’t remember the title (that would be helpful right now). At first glance, you are looking at a sculpture of a typical American lunch. A sandwich, a pickle, some chips. This stuff is made out of CLAY, but it looks real. Then you realize that something is rising out of the baloney on the open faced sandwich, and squirted with mustard, you begin to comprehend that they are buildings, and upon closer inspection, recognizable DC buildings. Sweet! Turns out that Richard made a cast of tourist items that he bought while in Washington DC in the 60’s and protesting the Vietnam War. Something in common.
Richard is well known for his intricate carving, and spends hours doing it. He makes teapots, that look nothing like a teapot, but are war ravaged ruins, that still function as a teapot. Sometimes they are nuclear reactor stacks, with mushroom clouds as lids and oil drums as spouts. Images of humanity’s humanity. Very powerful.
We have stumbled into the 21st Century with the technologies of ‘Star Wars’ and the emotional maturity of cavemen. If we can’t find more creative solutions to solving worldwide social and political problems than sending young men and women to shred and incinerate one another’s flesh with weapons of ever increasing efficiency, we will not survive to celebrate the passage into the 22nd Century — the problems of human civilization are far too complex to be solved by means of explosive devices. And our country and too many of our world’s nations are now in the hands of right wing thugs and fundamentalist tyrants who are fumbling the planet towards World War III.
I continue to make ceramic sculptures which reflect on the social and political dilemmas of our world. Ultimately, my current works are about lessons heard, but not heeded, during the 20th Century, and how these ignored lessons will affect this new century and the human species ability (or inability) to survive the next 100 years. My work is a visual plea for sanity. Its really quite simple. Richard Notkin, 2006.
From the Ferrin Gallery website.
The pieces that moved me, that caught my eye, and made me think are the ones I saw in the PBS special. Made up of over a thousand individually pressed and handmade tiles, Richard will find an image, map it, and put together a mosaic of these tiles, each with an image he carved himself.
Made of earthenware or terra cotta, each tile is fired in a refractory clay box called a “saggar”, with sawdust packed between each tile. The saggars are then placed in a gas kiln and fired to cone 04, or about 1940 degrees Fahrenheit. During the firing, the sawdust ignites, and the resultant lack of oxygen in the saggar causes an atmospheric condition known as “reduction’, affecting the clay body. This creates the wide range of colors in the tiles, from jet black to near white, with every shade of gray in between. No two tiles are exactly alike.
from the Archie Bray website.
From those fired tiles, he selects one that matches with the colors of the black and white photo, and places it in the final piece. His goal is to make one every five years. Patiently firing, he comes up with images like this:
The Gift and Legacy (1999) or this All Nations Have Their Moment Of Foolishness (2006)
You see, the important thing about our past, present and future, is not how we talk about it, but that we talk about it. In art, in a blog, over the dinner table, protesting, voting, around the water cooler, in countless ways.
We don’t have to all agree, but by goodness, let us not forget.
P.S. Turns out that Richard is a bit of an activist himself. (scroll to the bottom)
