After being the sole student for the first month or two, others joined us. Joel Edwards from New York may have been the next student. There also was a Japanese student sent over by a design company, and a woman from Switzerland. John Mason and Mac MacLain came next. Mason had worked with Susan Peterson at Chouinard across the street and decided to join us. In the second year, we were joined by Janice Roosevelt, Jerry Rothman, Kenny Price and others. Price had already graduated but wanted to do post graduate work before he went on to Alfred; mostly he just wanted to hang out with Pete.
     There was great ferment in this period. At the time we were not especially aware of it. I disagree strongly with the stereotype that we at the Los Angeles County Art Institute were in some kind of revolt. Revolt against what? We were not mad at anyone. This was not revolution but evolution. Sure, we were in rivalry with the people in clay say, at USC or UCLA, but we were all friends. I think that it was simply a period of intense natural curiosity. We were motivated by a desire to explore clay in all possible directions, perhaps examining traditional Japanese ware, and trying to imitate it, perhaps approaching clay from a more painterly direction. We all just worked happily together.
     Outside of the ceramics department a lot was going on. Pete was now part of a fine arts faculty; there was a printmaker next door, and a sculptor in a room beyond. Pete was interested in any exhibit that came to town and always checked out the galleries in the area. On lunch breaks we might go to La Cienega Boulevard where many of the major galleries were. They were mostly paint-ing galleries and very few of them, if any, showed or sold pots. Our only sales outlet was through a lady who ran a lamp store nearby. She visited our school almost weekly to buy lamp bases, paying $25 or $30 each. One day she came in with a swatch of pink material and wanted me to match it. I backed off and said no. I thought it would become a trap.
     The atmosphere in the pot shop began to change rapidly by the end of the first semester because Pete's work started changing. (I think Pete knew a lot about Rosanjin and his way of working, which perhaps opened up new approaches.) He started adding more than one top to a bottle-maybe five necks around the top, like candles in a cake. Then he began beating on the pots and deviating radically from his norm. The classical bottle shapes with their beautiful necks and flowing calligraphy that he had been doing were now over-extenuated say, in the foot, to a point that looked almost awkward. He would take a meat cleaver and pound texture onto the outside of the pots, or add a classical thrown neck onto a distorted form. Things were changing fast.
     Watching him move ahead was contagious. We were caught up in the energy of the place, and with the effort to find something new ourselves. My challenge was to throw taller pots. Initially, I only wanted to make taller necked vases. But I wanted to go farther, and the only way I could do that was to start adding clay.
     Scale became important; I wanted to make big pots. I knew that other people were making big pots. Carleton Ball, for example, produced very tall pots, five or six feet high. I thought if I'm going to make something that big, why not change the shape and take advantage of the height? I began by taking a clay doughnut off the wheel and setting it onto a previously thrown, semi-hard pot, and throwing that section further. Thus I began to work with a whole new clay vocabulary, one that came intuitively and unconsciously.
     Pete gave us permission to try something new, on our own rather than waiting for his approval. Looking back, I can't remember much conversation about criticism or analysis. We just worked. There were certain signs, however. I learned to tell whether or not Pete liked something by the way he smoked his cigarette, whether he inhaled or exhaled. Once he gave me a mild critique. I had tried to emulate his beautiful calligraphic brush work and had failed miserably. He said nothing to me at the time, but afterward, when were unloading a kiln, he said gently, "You know, you don't have to decorate pots unless you have a reason." I thought, My god, I must have really fouled up that decoration. Thereafter, I tried to decorate my way, without making the pots look like Pete's work, though the forms still looked like his. Later, Pete added this advise: "It you're going to decorate, don't do it on your best pots. Do it on your dogs. You might make them better."