It’s hard to avoid the obvious when compiling any sort of greatest hits list. There are ceramic items, and ceramic artists, who would be obvious choices for almost any pottery list. One such artist would (should) be Pete Volkous and his famous forays into ceramic Abstract Expressionism.
To be sure he didn’t work in a vacuum. Many other ceramic artists of his generation also defined the course of contemporary ceramics (Garth Clark’s Ceramics in America, 2014 list only grudgingly acknowledges Volkous.)
Pete Volkous appears here for another reason. His touch was incredible, but what really hit home was how crazy he was. He was a real bohemian pottery Rock Star – in the most “Rock Star” meaning of that term. Pete was like a singular personification of the Beatles, leading an invasion into a world of ceramic Elvis Presley’s.
A generation of pottery students were ga ga about him. He showed us that not only was it possible to do whatever you wanted – the mold was shattered – but you could have a blast doing it. This was a potent brew for any young, aspiring, and barely responsible art student back in the day…
And like the Beatles, way too much has been written and said about Pete Volkous, to the point that summoning his name has almost become a cliché. That hardly matters, of course. After Pete, the cat was out of the bag.
Tags: Abstract Expressionism, Beatles, Ceramics in America, contemporary ceramics, Elvis Presley, Garth Clark, Pete Volkous
This Day in Pottery History 
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Touché
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