Mother, Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos’s Oakland, California, studio was in a large building located in the city’s gritty industrial district. It was the creative arena from which emerged the remarkable works by one of the most innovative sculptors of his generation. (It was also site of the most raucous studio party I’ve ever attended. Museum folk get invited to fascinating places!) From that industrial space emerged his large and heavy clay sculptures, works that challenged and
redefined “craft” and “art” in the mid 20th century. As one admirer put it, “His art begins where pottery finishes.”
Voulkos did not work exclusively in that Oakland space. He was an ardent advocate for the clay medium and was often called on to demonstrate his innovative technique for eager audiences on campuses nationwide. Combining physical strength with assured spontaneity, Voulkos handled his heavy clay with well-practiced skill, liked a jazz artist creating music while playing before an audience. In 1964 he did so here at KU, producing Mother, one of his signature cylindrical forms.
Voulkos thought of clay as, “an intimate material and fast moving.” He explained that, “The quicker I work, the better I work. If I start thinking and planning, I start contriving and designing.” Instead he worked “mostly by gut feeling,” like his contemporaries, the Abstract Expressionists. His feelings might lead him to slash the wet medium leaving jagged wounds he called “zits,” or to puncture the walls of his jar-like forms with inserted slabs, or stack several cylinders, or gently caress the clay leaving imprints of his hands, or otherwise play with his material. When asked about the basis for this improvisational technique, he responded simply: “Bad toilet training.” CCE