Bonnie Staffel on wed 5 jan 11
I thought I would recount my own memories of Paul Soldner from his early
days. It is important that the newbies remember on whose shoulders they =3D
are
standing.=3D20
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My memory of Paul Soldner was when I was a member of the Toledo Potters
Guild and in our early days we would bring the outstanding potters of =3D
the
times, back in the 50s, to have them give a weekend workshop with
demonstrations. The Toledo Museum always offered space for these events. =
=3D
We
invited Paul to come to Toledo. I got to meet him personally and also
purchased one of his early pots, which was not the abstract ones he is =3D
known
for. Mine was a raku bowl about 8" in diameter, but it was not smoked, =3D
but
doused in the water style. So it is very early in his career. He was
charming however and a very good demonstrator.=3D20
=3D20
It is so sad that one by one these early great potters are passing on, =3D
but
they left a tremendous legacy to those following in their footsteps. =3D
Those
early days were very exciting times as studio pottery was relatively new =
=3D
in
the US, with schools starting to teach. Early pots were quite classic in
shapes until Peter Voulkos opened the doors to being freer in concepts.
There was a huge brouhaha when Pete's students entered a national show =3D
in
Florida with their new pots even having paint on them. Somewhere I must =3D
have
slides of those early pots as I believe they were shown at the Toledo =3D
Museum
as well. I remember those days very well as Ceramics Monthly magazine
reported the activities of the west coast potters. It was said at that =3D
time
that the Midwest was behind the times. The ACC was formed in the New =3D
York
area and was instrumental in bringing the potters together. My teacher =3D
at
the Toledo Museum was Harvey Littleton, now of glass fame. He was
instrumental in getting the Midwest up to speed. I attended a Midwest
Designer Craftsman convention in Milwaukee where potters' works from all
sections of the country were exhibited. An Ohio Designer Craftsman group =
=3D
was
formed and I was a trustee in the late 50s and attended many exhibits of
Ohio potters.=3D20
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If one is interested in these early potters' works, visit the VaseFinder
Website where Charlie Blim has listed the names of those potters working
before 1965. Charlie and I talked many hours by phone while I told him =3D
the
names of exhibitors from my cache of early catalogs of the national,
regional and area competitions I had entered. I believe that Charlie has
extended the time span beyond 1965 now. He and his wife are doing a
tremendous job archiving the history of the early potters in the US.
Membership supports his efforts.
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thanks for listening
=3D20
Bonnie Staffel
http://webpages.charter.net/bstaffel/
http://vasefinder.com/bstaffelgallery1.html
DVD Throwing with Coils and Slabs
DVD Introduction to Wheel Work
Charter Member Potters Council
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Bonnie Staffel on wed 5 jan 11
I received the following article recently published from the Los Angeles
Times FYI.
=3D20
Bonnie Staffel
=3D20
From the Los Angeles Times
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Paul Soldner, a ceramicist and longtime
Scripps College teacher who introduced a pottery technique called =3D
American
raku, died Monday at his home in Claremont after a period of declining
health. He was 89.
"He was one of the greats in California ceramics - part of the West =3D
Coast
scene that came on in the '60s with Peter Voulkos,
John
Mason and Ken Price," said Doug Casebeer, an artistic director at the
Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass
Village, Colo., which Soldner helped to found. "It was a generation
influenced by jazz - the idea of spontaneity and responding to your
materials."
Born in 1921 in Summerfield, Ill., Soldner moved several times in the
Midwest for his father's work as a Mennonite minister. The family landed =
=3D
in
the small town of Bluffton, Ohio, where he attended Bluffton College. He
didn't by all accounts have a strong interest in art until he enlisted =3D
in
=3D
V00
00126141142.topic> the Army medical corps during
=3D
ld-
war-ii-%281939-1945%29-EVHST00000110.topic> World War II.
As he later told his family, his desire to become an artist was ignited =3D
by
the war, or, more specifically, by seeing beauty emerge from terror in =3D
the
form of charcoal drawings made by Holocaust victims on the barracks =3D
walls of
the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
"He was really struck by the fact that people in such dire circumstances
tried to make beauty out of their lives," said his daughter, Stephanie
Soldner Sullivan. As for his Mennonite upbringing, she said that her =3D
father
and her mother, Ginny, left the church and at one point explored =3D
Buddhism,
but her father's work ethic and his "idea that you made the most of =3D
whatever
you had" persisted.
This resourcefulness came in handy in 1954, when Soldner moved to Los
Angeles to became Voulkos' first graduate student in the new ceramics
program at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis College of =
=3D
Art
and Design). Because the department was so new and the ceramics studio
nearly empty, the two had to build their own potter's wheels from =3D
scratch.
As Times art critic Christopher Knight once wrote, "Soldner's welded =3D
X-frame
kick-wheel became the California classroom standard, while Voulkos' =3D
ceramics
changed the direction of the art." (Today, Soldner wheels and Soldner =3D
tubs,
used for mixing clay, are still sold at supply stores.)
After his experience with Voulkos, Soldner began teaching at
Scripps College and the Claremont Graduate School, where he was a =3D
visiting
professor until 1966, returning as a full professor from 1970 to 1991. =3D
Early
on, one of his undergraduate students was David Armstrong, who went on =3D
to
become a close friend, an in-depth collector of his work (he owns more =3D
than
100 works by the artist) and the founder of the
American Museum of Ceramic Art in =3D
Pomona.
"I was going to be a veterinarian, but Paul changed my life. My whole
vocation, avocation, centers on ceramics," Armstrong, who inaugurated =3D
his
museum in 2004 with a sweeping Soldner retrospective, said Monday. "He =3D
was a
phenomenal teacher and an inspiration to countless ceramists."
Armstrong was with Soldner in 1960 when he developed the technique known =
=3D
as
American raku. Long used for tea ceremony ware in
Japan, raku
traditionally involves firing a pot in a kiln at lower-than-usual
temperatures, only to remove it and plunge it in water (or green tea, as =
=3D
the
origin story goes) while still red-hot. American raku involves "smoking" =
=3D
the
piece instead, by plunging it into combustible materials like sawdust or
newspapers instead of water.
According to Armstrong, Soldner discovered this technique while =3D
preparing
for a demonstration at a local crafts fair. "Paul was a showman and =3D
wanted
to make the event entertaining. But if you've ever been to a ceramics
studio, you know it takes a long time to fire a piece on a kiln," =3D
Armstrong
said.
So Soldner tried his hand at raku: making an ad-hoc kiln out of a =3D
50-gallon
oil drum lined with concrete, formulating the right clay and glazes for =3D
it,
and choosing a fish pond nearby for plunging the ceramics into cold =3D
water.
But one bowl didn't make it to the water. Rushing from the kiln to the =3D
pond
with tongs in hand, Soldner accidentally dropped the bowl in a bed of
pepper-tree leaves, where it started a small fire. The result was =3D
visually
arresting, with the pot picking up the imprint of the leaves and =3D
acquiring a
smoky or iridescent sheen.
Soldner, who embraced the beauty of the accidental and unpredictable, =3D
saw it
as a fundamentally Japanese aesthetic. "In the West, there is this =3D
emphasis
on perfection. Something that cracks is considered a mistake," he told a
reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in 1997, adding that the same =3D
"flaw" in
the East might be called a "crackle." "It's no different than the =3D
approach
to taming the outdoors. In the West, when you make a garden, you throw =3D
the
rocks out. In the East, you bring the rocks back in."
Bringing the rocks back in was not just a metaphor for Soldner, who was
attracted to the rugged geology of the western United States. In the =3D
1960s,
he helped the developers of Anderson Ranch in Colorado choose its =3D
current
location and refine its vision as an artists colony and community =3D
center.
And from 1956 until his wife's death in 1995, the couple worked on =3D
building
a summer home in Aspen - by hand. They used rocks and other materials =3D
native
to the area.
"He worked with rocks and he went to the dump, salvaging and scrounging =3D
and
recycling materials. He used solar heating before it was on the map,"
Casebeer said. "He was an artist, and he was an inventor."
Besides his daughter, Soldner is survived by two grandchildren and a =3D
sister.
jori.finkel@latimes.com=3D20
Copyright C 2011, Los Angeles Times
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