Potter Peter Voulkos Potter Peter Voulkos

During the 1950s, look and style of American pottery underwent several major changes. These changes also influenced the international ceramic community. Potter peter Voulkos was one of the innovators of the changes which took place in this country. Peter Voulkos started teaching at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1954. He stayed at Otis until 1958, during which time he taught some of the most gifted students. In four short years Peter Voulkos changed the concept of pottery from that of purely functional, and sometimes beautiful, pieces to his idea of pottery for art's sake.

Voulkos' unique style involved turning ordinary stoneware pottery into highly unusual pieces. During the 1950s, he employed a variety of techniques: piling volumes and chunks of clay on top of basic pieces, gouging holes into vessels, adding four to seven spouts for decorative purposes, and drawing and scratching on the clay's surface. For the first time in Western ceramic making, Voulkos led the way for potters to use the surfaces of vessels to compete with the form itself (Clark, 12).

Voulkos was influenced by many other arts forms: mus

. . .
as viewed by some as a mere craftsman, with pottery still viewed during this time by many art critics as a craft as opposed to an art. Moreover, during the 1960s, some universities refused to offer ceramics as an art course, and their focus was turned instead to sculpture and painting, as if to remind artists like Voulkos that they were viewed as mere craftsman and the vessel was still not begin taken seriously as an art form. However, by the 1990s, things had changed in the art world. Museums were actively collecting ceramics by living artists and pottery, now considered real art, was being shown at some of the finest art galleries in the United States (Clark, 15). Today, Peter Voulkos could make the same light brown plate with several holes in it (Clark, 52), blackened in some of the openings and people would not wonder about the food falling through the holes in the plate. Voulkos is now viewed by most people in the American and international art world as a serious artist, even when the decorative elements of his artwork interfere with the overall utility of the piece. In general, a craftsman is a person who is highly skilled at a particular job, such as woodworking, but whose main focus is to ensure that the form do
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Peter Voulkos, Leg Pots, Francisco Museum, Glendale California, Jerry Rothman, Shigaraki Bizen, York School, Indeed Voulkos', Hamada Voulkos, Los Angeles, peter voulkos, art world, voulkos viewed, painters sculptors, fine art, potter peter voulkos, potter peter, voulkos viewed mere, artists voulkos, considered real, los angeles, 1950s 1960s, viewed mere craftsman,
Approximate Word count = 1595
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)