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Ken Price, California Clay Master
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10261 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1993 |
2,046 Words |
| Author
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Karen S. Chambers
Karen S. Chambers is a craft writer, critic, and curator
currently based in New York. |
"I have this schizophrenic career," says Ken Price at sixty. "I'm all over here for a while and then over there for a while. Makes it hard for people."
Yes, schizophrenic might be applied to Price. But contrary may be more apt. Considered a West Coast artist, Price has spent most of the last twenty years away from California. He works in the traditional craft medium of clay but has primarily shown in fine-art galleries. At a time when big was better, he chose to work small.
Looking at his production of the last thirty-plus years, you see that he has zigged and zagged through a number of series, some based on cup forms, others on abstract sculpture. He has made cups that appear to pay homage to Art Deco, stopped them to decorate pottery with a Mexican accent, and then returned to the Deco mode in sculptures. Some of his sculptures are smooth and organic, others rugged and rocklike. He has painted his sculptures with acrylics and enamels to get the desired color and surface, but stuck with traditional glazing techniques for his pottery series. Yet regardless of the physical manifestation, Price's aesthetic concerns have been remarkably consistent. What is most important to Price? "Playing with different forms and colors and surfaces. Making colored objects."
Fixed Medium
The medium has also been consistent: clay.
A native Californian, Price was introduced to clay at Santa Monica City College. "I discovered it when I was in junior college and just liked it. It had a lot of flexibility and a nice kind of character. [Now] when I make sculpture, I use the clay because I've got it and I know how to use it."
After receiving a BFA degree from the University of Southern California in 1956, Price studied at Los Angeles County Art Institute, later known as the Otis Art Institute. His teacher was Peter Voulkos, considered by many to have been most instrumental in bringing clay to the attention of the fine-art world.
Price recalls his student days with Voulkos as intense. Some of his fellow students included Paul Soldner, John Mason, Billy Al Bengston, Michael Frimkess, Jerry Rothman, Henry Takemoto, some of the most important clay artists working today. "Nobody understood why they were so committed and motivated when being an artist was tantamount to being a
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