An interview of Paula Colton Winokur conducted 2011 July 21-22, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Winokur's home and studio, in Horsham, Pennsylvania.
Paula speaks of taking drawing and painting classes at the Graphic Sketch Club (now the Fleischer Art Memorial) in Philadelphia at age 11; her first experience handling clay at 13 or 14 when taking a class at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; when her family agreed to send her to college, providing she became a teacher, and she attended the Tyler School of Art at Temple University as a painting major; the influence of her teacher Rudolf Staffel in her sophomore year when she took a ceramics class and fell in love with working in clay; meeting her husband Robert Winokur when they were students at Tyler, getting married in 1958, eventually having two sons; glaze testing to find a palette of glazes to use; moving to Massachusetts and starting Cape Street Pottery for their production pottery; her involvement with NCECA [National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts] and other professional organizations; when she began a 30-year teaching career at Beaver College in 1973 (more recently known as Arcadia University), building their ceramics department; changing from using stoneware to porcelain in 1970; making boxes and architectural forms; how she stopped making functional items when her first child was born and began creating the things she wanted to; the decision in 1982 to make landscapes and how geology, the Artic, and threats to the environment influence her work; the process she uses when creating texture; selling exclusively through the Helen Drutt Gallery beginning in 1973 until the gallery closed in 2011; the important influences in her work of artists such as Michael Heizer, Carl Andre, Richard Long, Richard Serra, Olafur Eliasson, and Steven De Staebler and others; the immense the geologic formations of Mesa Verde, the Rocky Mountains, Stonehenge, Alaska and Iceland are inspiring; various lecturing opportunities and exhibits through the years, as well as a working residency she took advantage of in Hungary in 1994; slowly moving away from glazes and instead using metallic sulfates for color; that her intention is to express the relationship between the internal part of herself and the external world for other people to experience and find something in common; the importance of a liberal arts education for art students; her gelatin and clay prints; the concern over collectors of clay art dying off and no new ones taking their places; that galleries are closing and Internet galleries are the norm; meeting photographer, Imogen Cunningham, and seeing her as a wonderful role model; and the feeling that the high cost of fuel and the invention of newer materials may end ceramic classes. Paula also recalls Lowell Nesbitt, Myrna Minter, Arlene Love, Dennis Leon, Boris Blai, Ted Randall, Val Cushing, Norm Schulman, Jim McKinnel, Gertrud Natzler, Otto Natzler, Ken Ferguson, Rose Slivka, Enrique Mestre, Sandy Simon, Wayne Higby, Richard Notkin, Graham Marks, Toshika Takaezu, Yvonne Bobrowicz, Ken Vavrek, Carol Sedestrom, Lois Moran, and Ken Shores and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Paula Colton Winokur (1935- ) is a ceramist in Horsham, Pennsylvania. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 9 sound files. Duration is 6 hr., 24 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ruth Duckworth, 2001 April 27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
Africa -- description and travel
Asia -- Description and travel
China -- description and travel
Colorado -- description and travel
Europe -- description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Wayne Higby, 2005 April 12-14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Ceramicists -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Paula Colton Winokur, 2011 July 21-22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Wayne Higby conducted 2005 April 12-14, by Mary McInnes, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Alfred Station, New York. Higby speaks of growing up in Colorado Springs, Colorado; choosing to go to University of Colorado, Boulder; traveling to Europe, Asia, and Africa; being influenced by Minoan pottery; working for ceramicist Betty Woodman; deciding to become a teacher; getting a graduate degree at the University of Michigan; working at Archie Bray Foundation; teaching at the University of Nebraska and Rhode Island School of Design; having his first one person art show and exhibiting nationally; teaching at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts; the influence of landscape on his work; how the craft market has changed during his career; working with the Helen Drutt Gallery; writing about craft and the need for critical dialogue in craft publications; being inspired by Asian art; learning ceramics from Jim and Nan McKinnell, and the influence of other teachers on his career; getting hired at Alfred University; the challenges and benefits of teaching at Alfred; his colleagues at Alfred; making functional art and using the vessel form; his teaching philosophy; putting ceramics in a larger art context; his current project; his studio practice; themes in his artwork; choosing to work in porcelain; lecturing and touring in China; being interested in landscape painting; the public response to his work; and recently being awarded several honors. Higby also recalls Manuel Neri, Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, Fred Bauer, David Shaner, Francis Merritt, Ted Randall, Bob Turner, Val Cushing, Kenneth Ferguson, Robert Motherwell, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Wayne Higby (1943- ) is a ceramicist from Alfred Station, New York. Mary McInnes is a professor from Alfred, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 55 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Use requires an appointment.
Topic:
Ceramicists -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Ruth Duckworth conducted 2001 April 27, by Kenneth R. Trapp, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the studios of Smithsonian Productions, Washington, D.C.
Duckworth speaks of her early life and the time prior to her family leaving Germany; the decision to leave Germany in 1936 due to Hitler and the War; acclimating herself to England; attending Liverpool School of Art; WWII in England and the psychological effects of working in munitions factories; her nervous breakdown and seven years of therapy; her beginning to sculpt; her first exhibition of sculpture in London; her marriage and life with Aidron; difficulties in being an outsider in the world of art, specifically speaking about being a woman in sculpture; her first meeting with Lucie Rie; the devastation she felt after her brother died; attendance at the Hammersmith School of Art and not feeling her place there; switching to Central School of Arts and Crafts; her first job teaching ceramics at the Central School; learning the technique of glazing; visiting museums in London; how poetry nourished her during those early years, specifically the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke; the selling of her first pieces, "pieces that wouldn't sell"; the art scene in London; how the opportunity at the University of Chicago arose; her experience at the University of Chicago, an academic institution rather than a fine arts school; her first big show in the U.S. at the University in 1965; her graduate and undergraduate students; life as a foreigner in the U.S.; the opportunity to teach at the University of Iowa but becoming an associate professor at the University of Chicago instead; the cultural movement and ceramics movement in the U.S. during the 1960's; how her work changed from European influences to American influences; departments in art that were very unfriendly to women; her association with James and Nan McKinnell; her excursions and teaching trips across the U.S. as well as in Canada and Israel; her trip with Aidron across the U.S. and then their eventual separation; her friendship with Alice Westphal and the creation of the gallery Exhibit A; the unconscious changes in her work; her views on stoneware versus porcelain; Jack Lenor Larsen's summer show and the artists she met through that; her relationship with American museums versus European; unfortunate events at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; her continued feelings as an outsider but acceptance in later life as an artist, more so from the ceramic community than from the museum community; publications and catalogues of her work; the influences other artists have had upon her work; the limited use of color in her work; her collection of bones; her love of gardening; her sketches; the therapy coiling clay does for her; her projects at the moment; where she gets her ideas from; how she sees herself fitting in versus not fitting in; her speech at an international symposium in Amsterdam; what she would include in a retrospective of her artwork; her hopes to have her work be therapeutic to viewers and cause them to contemplate it; more thoughts on color; American culture; what matters most to her right now and that is saving the Earth; wishing to continue with her work and have a better relationship with museums. Ruth Duckworth recalls, Henry Moore, Bernard Leach, Nellie Barr, Virginia Ferrari, Hardy Schlick, Richard DeVore, Nicholas Vergette, Jane Goodall and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Ruth Duckworth (1919-2009) was a sculptor and clay artist from Chicago, Illinois. Kenneth Trapp (1943- ) is curator-in-charge at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 DAT tapes. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 29 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.