The Cave Dissolved Into Pitch Blackness

    I was first introduced to clay work when I saw an Appalachian potter kicking a wheel at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. I was twelve years old and very impressed. Later, I had a leader in the Boy Scouts who was an art teacher. He showed us how to dig clay and make pots. We even helped him fire his oil-burning kiln. It wasn't until I entered Bluffton College, however, that I ventured on a more serious excursion into the subject. Bluffton was a small school with a one-man art department. Professor John Klassen, a Russian immigrant Mennonite, had been trained in classical sculpture in Russia but had fled the country to settle here in America. Because he had no studio at home, he did his work at school, where we were able to watch what he did. Thus began a pattern of teaching that was to last my whole life: making my work within the school environment.
    At one point during the year, I asked Mr. Klassen if I could make a potter's wheel. Klassen had picked up a little experience with molds and slip casting through a course he had taken at Ohio State University, but at the time he didn't know much about potters' wheels. I found a set of plans in a Popular Mechanics magazine, and built a kick wheel using a Model A Ford crank shaft, bearings and fly wheel. It was an eccentric-style wheel because I used the car's cam shaft, but I enjoyed making the wheel as much as I did throwing pots on it.
    However, I didn't know what throwing meant! I only knew that the wheel was supposed to go around. I figured that in order to make an eight-inch pot I had to start with an eight-inch pile of clay and tool the outside shape. Then Mr. Klassen taught me how to make a mold so I could slip-cast a hollow pot. I didn't realize that clay could move from one place to another. That concept came as a revelation to me one day when we visited Charlie Lakafsky at Bowling Green State University. I saw that when he pressed the clay, it moved. The potter's wheel, I realized, was not a lathe.
     In the summer after graduation from college with a BA in art, Iwas helping a professor build his house and one day a supervisor of art from Medina County drove up and said, "I hear you have an art degree." "Well, yes," I answered. He said, "We need an art teacher and I'd like to hire you." I told him I didn't know anything about teaching. He said, "That's all right, just show up on Monday and I'll show you how to teach."
     I thought, well, why not? He was going to pay me $200 a month, so I went out and bought my first car, a Ford. For the first week I just followed him around on his classroom route and observed him in action. Soon I was circuit riding throughout Medina County, going from school to school, starting the day sometimes in the first grade and ending up in a high school
     Shortly afterward, the supervisor left to start a program elsewhere, and I got his job. The County Superintendent had taken a liking to me and, as a result, one day took me aside and said, "Now, Paul, we think you could become a real administrator. Why don't you get your Master's and come back as principal or superintendent in one of our schools?"
     In those days I often found myself going along with what other people thought was a good idea. By now, I was married to Ginny, and we had a small baby. Getting ahead was important. Ginny and I were both teaching in Wooster, Ohio at the time. We decided that if we were going to work on our Master's during the summer, we didn't want to do it in the middle of sticky Ohio, so we looked at the catalogues and chose the University of Colorado because it looked cool and beautiful.
     Once I got to Colorado, I discovered that art was more than just a hobby: it was serious business. One of the most fortunate aspects of the University's art department was that at that time it was composed largely of a cadre of professors from the University of Iowa, which had a very strong art department. I realized for the first time that I was in a school of serious drawers, painters and print makers. Guest artists such as Jimmy Ernst and Raulston Crawford opened my eyes to new possibilities.
     In my third summer there I decided to try the ceramics program as an elective. It was being taught by Katie Horsman from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, who had come upon the recommendation of Jim and Nan McKinnell, of Boulder, Colorado. I thought to myself, well, if they're bringing someone that far, she must be worthwhile. So I signed up.
     As soon as my hand hit the clay I knew what I wanted to do. I remember telling Ginny that summer of my desire to make a living with my hands. Perhaps I could become a potter.
     We returned to Ohio after my MA and I continued to teach, but on the side I became totally immersed in my development as a ceramist. I built another wheel, this time an electric one with a Willys transmission that had three forward speeds and one reverse (which, of course, you don't use - I didn't know how else to control the high speed of a standard motor except to run it through a transmission). My students and I dug clay from the baseball diamond to practice throwing pots on the new wheel.
     At the end of that year, I received my degree and decided to find a good school where I could receive more experience. I had graduated with a Master's but didn't feel like I was a master of anything yet. I needed an MFA and a mentor.
     I considered the options: Ohio State? Bowling Green? Cranbrook? 1 wrote to all my friends for advice. Jim McKinnell answered by saying it all depended on what I wanted: travel-the University of Hawaii; PhD-Ohio State; industry-Alfred; art-Cranbrook; potting-Marguerite Wildenhain. Jim added a P.S., "Peter Voulkos was really great and was soon to be hired to teach at the Los Angeles County Art Institute. Why didn't I consider studying with him?" I grabbed all the Craft Horizons I could find and focused my attention on his work. My decision was quickly and easy reached: This was the man I wanted to study with!
     I wrote to the L.A. County Art Institute and inquired whether they had an MFA degree program. They did. I applied and was accepted. Ginny and I resigned our positions in the schools, piled our entire household goods into a Plymouth and its trailer, and drove out to Los Angeles.
We were ready to start going to school again.