MOLINA, RAFAEL on wed 21 mar 01
As a fan of architecture including the work of Bruce Goff, E. Fay Jones and
Samuel Mockbee I recently purchased a book titled Mockbee Coker: Thought and
Process (now out of print). The book cites the work of George Ohr:
"The dominant and lasting spirit of great art in the culture of the people
of Mississppi and the American South is found, at its most profound, in the
writings of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams, and in
the work of the artist Walter Anderson and the art potter George Ohr. Ohr's
work, especially, allows some insight into what sets the architecture of
Mockbee Coker apart from that of others working a similar vein. A wild,
exhuberant, visionary, turn-of-the-century artist, Ohr lived and worked in
the Gulf Coast town of Biloxi, Mississippi. Unusually skilled on the
potter's wheel, Ohr shaped Mississippi clay into startling forms that
literally stretched the capabilities of his material, that extended the
creative range in the techniques of the potter, and that broke free of the
constraints of taste and beauty (and representations of natural forms) in
the contempotrary Arts and Crafts mode of Rookwood and Newcomb College. Ohr
was well aware of the fine-art potentialities of clay, and pursued them
doggedly, but he was a showman as well, exhibiting and selling his wares at
county fairs. His prolific output included pieces based on the kitsch of
the culture around him- log cabins and other Americana- transformed by his
acerbic wit. As with Ohr and his pottery, the architecture of Mockbee Coker
is a celebration of the commonplace, even as it exemplifies the highest
aspirations of high-art culture, in a gentle and almost mystical mix."
The book was published in 1995. Since that time Samuel Mockbee has gone on
to receive a MacArthur Foundation Grant mostly for his work with the Rural
Architectural Studio of Auburn University. Mockbee was recently featured in
a segment of the ABC News program Nightline.
Ciao,
Rafael Enrique
Rafael Molina, MFA
Assistant Professor of Art
Department of Music, Art, and Dance
Tarrant County College-Southeast Campus
2100 Southeast Parkway
Arlington, TX 76018-3144
(817) 515-3711
(817) 515-3189 fax
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