Ceramics Monthly, September 2003

Restless Focus
BY JACK N. MOHR (INVITED CONTRIBUTION)

In a recent review, an art critic described me as a “restless soul.” He referred to the way I work: focused, but in different disciplines at the same time — painting, collage, sculpture, and ceramics. I think he observed well.

My education in visual communication at the State University for creative Arts in Berlin, Germany, where I received a master's degree in 1972, embraced the whole spectrum-from drawing and painting to graphic design, photography, typography and printing. At that time I preferred painting (usually acrylics and mixed media-oils take too long for a "restless soul") and collage. But it has proven impossible to confine myself to only one medium or two.

Every day offers visual stimulation and inspiration to rearrange, to form, to design, to create. I would miss the exciting challenges, experiences, and new insights just working on with the medium I feel safe with. I love to switch between mediums, transfer my ideas from one discipline to another, to explore new areas of artistic expression, and to search for their limits. Today I paint, make collages and occasionally do prints, plus ceramics sculptures.

I moved from Berlin to Santa Barbara, California, in 1997. A year later, I had my first encounter with ceramics.

It happened at the studio of Pat Kenny. While others in my group enjoyed the opportunity to form pots and cups, I sensed the potential of the medium, the chance to pursue new directions with my art.

I took thin slabs of the smooth gray-white material and began modeling stripes of clay into waves, cutting and twisting other shapes, and finally attached all to a flat 12-inch square. I cut holes in the square for wall hanging and left it at the studio to be glazed and fired. I wanted it to be completely white.

A few weeks later, when our group returned to Kenny's studio, I could have sold my first ceramic, which I classified as a "relief-style image," but I rejected the offer. I had come too fast. I had to reflect on my new medium first.

I was fascinated by the versatility of clay. I saw a chance to pursue several ideas I had developed decades earlier when I made an all-white relief of cardboard, wood and glue. With cardboard I reached the limit quickly, but today I think of this piece as the father of my “Topography of White” series.

Two weeks later I called Kenny and asked if she teach me how to work with clay. She agreed and I studying a day or two per week with her. And I learned fast, driven by a constant flow of ideas. The toughest part for my “restless soul” was dealing with the amount of time needed to finish a piece.

After a year and a half I had completed well 100 ceramic reliefs and small sculptures. Two sculptures were accepted into a juried show at the gallery of the Santa Barbara City College, and a few weeks later, at a studio show with Kenny, I sold my first ceramic pieces. Then the owner of Delphine Gallery in Santa Barbara became interested in my work and offered me a solo show, my first in the US.

I have a lot of respect for the entire history of ceramics. The effects of different kinds of firing amaze me. But for my work, I want predictable results. I see my pieces only in white. Color would distract from the meaning and originality of the design, destroying the liveliness of the ever-changing variations of white, which depend so much on the source and angle of light.

My working process always involves a conceptual component: When I come up with a new notion for something, I normally envision a whole series and imagine how the pieces would look in various environments.

When creating new pieces, my inner eye draws them, corrects them until the design is acceptable. Then I need to make a thumbnail sketch, very loose, just to remember later what I had planned. Normally, once I draw on paper, more ideas evolve. Then, when time allows, I go into the studio, roll out the clay and start building. I rarely follow the original drawing exactly, the material flows differently, the work process, too, but in general, I stay with my initial thought.

I use a commercial gray-white body tempered with fine sand, a 50/50 mix of stoneware and porcelain, or pure porcelain. My glazes are all hand-mixed majolica types, containing tin for opaqueness; most are sprayed on, though some are brushed on. Firing is done in an electric kiln to Cone 5 or 6, with slow heating-up and cooling-down times.

My ceramic shapes and forms are becoming loser, bolder. The inclusion of other elements (rods, nails, black cords, etc.), which I began in the “Topography of White” series, has become an essential aspect. In life, everything has its facets-serene beauty on one side, often strangely disturbed and disrupted on the other. My art reflects and deals with such contradictions and uncommon combinations: smooth surfaces with rough, torn edges, nailed to its base, its framework of life.