﻿- [Katie Nartonis] But when you think about post-war ceramics, there's one figure that
comes to mind and that's Peter Voulkos. - He was in the Air Force. He was a gunner
on a plane. And as he, when he came out, he had the chance to go to the G.I. Bill to
actually do something. I think Pete never sort of not working with his hands.
- When I went to school, I studied painting. I wanted to be a painter. But I was forced
into doing a clay course to get out of school. So I took that class and that
completely changed my life right there. As soon as I started feeling that clay,
that was a big change for me. I couldn't paint anymore. It was just gone completely.
- He first starts off with a really tight idea of what pottery is. He's making pots
that we're familiar with. Like well-crafted pots, well-designed pots. They look like
the pots that we expect, but he starts pushing against those borders, he starts
pushing against the conventions. - In '53, he had an experience at
Black Mountain College where he met John Cage, Rauschenberg, and other East Coast abstract
expressionists who like blew his mind away. - It was the first time I heard a poetry
reading. First time I'd seen a modern dance happen. So it was a big revelation to me.
And my mouth was just open all the time. - [Elizabeth Agro] His experiences of war,
his time in school, to find the material that he was always meant to work with.
And the idea of furthering his mind intellectually
allowed Voulkos to set his work on a new path, to think of his work
not as functional anymore, but as sculptural. - [Vaea] The whole idea of not just making a pot
or a vase, or a teapot was like incredible. Because suddenly you realize you could do
anything. That's what Pete's philosophy was. - He cuts into them. He violates their vesselness
which is against the law in ceramics. And this body of work really upset the field.
You're either on the functional end or are now on this revolutionary sculptural end.
- If people resist what I'm doing, I just dwell on that stuff, you know, I said, "This guy
isn't getting it" you know and he resisted and that's all well and good to me because I don't
expect to be understood at that kind of level. - When I first came to UC Berkeley and met Pete,
he actually was not doing clay anymore. He was casting bronze. And every night
we'd be casting till five in the morning. We understood each other. We didn't have to
talk so much about stuff. Then he starts making plate again to make money, basically, you know,
because it's expensive to cast bronze. - He took ceramics and he said, "This is
a material for personal expression." "This is about wrestling with materials." And Voulkos in
front of large classes and students, I mean, he just spread the gospel of what it was to
attack a material and to make it your own. - It was very physical when you work. I mean,
he was like a boxer, you know, running on, just running on this thing,
running around and then you will be without shirt
on and slapping this thing and cutting. - It's almost as if the process and the act
of creating is the work. - [Scollon]
Peter Voulkos has came back from the war and change what our idea of what
ceramics is or what our idea of our craft could be. and brought ceramics
more into the realm of fine art. - [Nartonis] His work is the flesh made
real. It's dynamic. It's powerful. It's fearless. It's fearless work.