Chris Riccardo: A US-based sculptor who has worked in bronze and clay.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think when you look at the new, the slabs in this show that I just did recently,

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, a lot of the clay is just raw coming through. A lot of it's just black underglaze

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_01]: wash and the two essentially the drawing marks in the clay itself, little dashes of color here

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_01]: to again like accentuate certain areas. So very little glaze work at all any of those.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, I'm Bob Acton and I'm going to introduce you today to the great Chris Riccardo. Chris is a

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_02]: sculptor working out of Helena, Montana in the United States and he does really beautiful work

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_02]: that has an edge to it. He says that his sculptures are a direct physical manifestation

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_02]: of his inner thoughts and his moral struggles. He says they are essentially frozen moments in

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that are ripped from the ongoing struggle that takes place in his mind between good and evil

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and right and wrong. We had a delightful conversation about his journey and clay

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_02]: from bronze to ceramics, his involvement with community and of course we talked a lot about

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: surface design. I really hope you enjoy this session today. Please leave us a review and

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: subscribe to the show to help others find the podcast. Welcome to Color in Ceramics,

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the podcast for ceramic artists who want valuable ideas about using color from

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: leading artists and world-class experts. Here's your host, Bob Acton, a sculptor

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and ceramic artist who's fascinated with color and how potters, sculptors and artists

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: use color in their work. Tune in as he talks with his guests about color techniques

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and the impact of color on people and art itself. Chris, thanks so much for spending

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: some time with us today on the Color in Ceramics podcast. Really super glad that you're here.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. I'm really like I said, I appreciate you asking me to do this and

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I've been looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah, it'll be fun. Of course,

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I really like your work. There's a dark quality I think that you've referenced in your

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: work and I get I really like that. And of course, I love the color and in the relation to form.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I know in some of my work, I've had emotional reactions to some of the work that I've done

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_02]: that has sort of a clown quality. And I think yours has a similar kind of very different,

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: but a similar kind of angle. And I bet you, you get quite emotional reactions to

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: your work as well. Oh, I do. I do.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I know you've been sculpting for a long time

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_02]: and you know, your work obviously represents years of hard work. Can you tell our audience

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_02]: a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today?

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, I went to college. I graduated in 1990. I went to Boston University, the College of Fine Arts

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and I studied very classically like the figure. So it was all like, you know, about the figure

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and anatomy. So it was very tight realism. And so everything was, you know, kind of

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: classical training. And I did very little ceramic work. Everything was, you know, life size

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and the clay was just the ways of getting, you know, that original piece done. And then

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: everything was mold making and casting. So it's very classical. And I did maybe one ceramic

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_01]: class. So ceramics wasn't something that came years later, like 20 years later.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was late to ceramics. And then when I graduated college

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: with my big degree in sculpture, not knowing what I was going to do,

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to the foundries because I needed to work. And so I thought, well, I'll cast,

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll learn how to cast and I will at least have a way to cast my work,

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_01]: which again was mostly figurative, but I was starting to get into the kind of style that

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you see in my ceramic work, that loose kind of gestural style. It was still somewhat

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01]: representational and figurative, very little narrative to it. It was just kind of straightforward

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: figurative. And, but again, it was all cast into bronze or some other materials. So ceramic,

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: again, it was not, it wasn't something I was doing. Very little color. It was all traditional

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_01]: bronze coloring patinas. So I was a bronze worker for 20 some odd years. And I had a

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: foundry to try and make a living and support my family. And, you know, so again, I guess

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: going fast forwarding to probably in the 2000s, I was working at a place called the

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Armory Arts Center in West Palm. And I was running kind of this sculpture ceramic department

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and still running a foundry. And we had a fundraiser to raise money for the ceramic

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: department, sculpture department, foundry areas. And we were making this Mad Hatter's Tea Party

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: fundraiser and we were making teapots. And so I said, well, I'm gonna, I can't have time to

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: bronze teapot. So I said, well, I'll just all sculpt a little clay teapot. And

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: it ended up going into the Sunny Cam Teapot Museum. And I said, boy, these things are,

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: this was kind of fun to do. And it was outside of my wheelhouse and I was surrounded

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_01]: by, I was running that residency program down there. So I was surrounded by a bunch of young

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: ceramic artists that I knew very well. And I said, you know, and I was getting older.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know, like this ceramic thing is kind of way more fun than the bronze. It was

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: easier and less danger involved in this. And that's where I started. Like kind of,

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: it was like a whole new career for me. And that was it. I veered away from bronze

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_01]: almost completely within about a year. It just completely changed my outlook on my work.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I could start to tell stories more. And there was a few pieces that if you look back, you can see

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to my first Nsika and so everything was new. And it was like this whole new career and

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: shifting. And it was a really exciting time for me. And that was it. Bronze stopped

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: almost immediately. I was still running the foundry, but I stopped casting my work

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: almost immediately and doing these one-off pieces in ceramics. And I was learning from

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: my residence at that time. And then I went to the Bray, Dirtchy Bray in 2012. And that was

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: it. I was done. Foundries, that was it. No more foundry work, no more casting in bronze.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You were hooked.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I ended up in ceramics to where I am today. So yeah, it was kind of a weird

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: way of coming to ceramics, but really happy I did end up here.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, very refreshing, I bet, to be able to shift from one style of creative work to another.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I didn't get that technical piece of ceramics.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was behind, I think in some ways, the chemistry of it. But again, I was surrounded

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: by so many great... The ceramic community is so giving and so I picked it up as I went.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think, again, being at that age where I was, when I went to the Bray, I was in my 30s.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like the old man on campus. So it was a fun new... It was like this great shot

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: in the arm for me. I was already sculpting. I've been sculpting for so many years.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But all these new techniques and color was a huge piece for me.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Bronzing was just... Patina is a limited thing in bronze. So that was a big part for me was,

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: wow, here's this glaze formulation and color became this whole new thing for me.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I could tell stories with glaze and color and not just the sculpting piece of this.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a whole... That's why bronze was not even a thought for me anymore.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, exciting.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool. And what are you doing now? You're in Montana, right?

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So we came up... I did my first residency at the Bray. So we were in Florida.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Came out here in 2012 to do my summer residency in Montana for three months.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And then in 2014, I loved it. I knew I was hooked in ceramics and loved Helena.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_01]: In 2014, I had an opportunity to come out here with Beth Kavanagh, who's a good friend of mine.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_01]: She was going to build a studio. She said, what do you think? Would you want to commit on that?

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we moved the whole family out west and started that Studio 740.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I ended up getting a two-year at the Bray.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I also ended up working at the Holter Museum

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: and then ended up becoming the executive director of that museum.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was doing so many things. And so yeah, so we ended up moving here

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: full-time, which we love Helena. So it's been a crazy... almost 10 years, I think now.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And now we're to all another, Wellmared to Arts, which is my new studio.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's been crazy.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Very good. Very good. So you got lots on the go.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's so much. So much.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, cool. Hey, you know, I'm really interested in,

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll call it inspiration and what inspires artists.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about what's inspiring you today?

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: What gets you out of bed in the morning?

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think it gets a little bit tougher as I've gotten older.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I think when I was running the museum a few years back, it got tough.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01]: COVID was tough. When I was new to the museum, I wasn't making a lot of work.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: There were some stressful periods in my life.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the work kind of got difficult for me.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I was younger, the ideas, there was so much in my head.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And there was too much. I mean, I could make work without even thinking about it.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? There was so much imagery and ideas and thoughts.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But as I was running a business and running the museum, and I had people to worry about,

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_01]: my family and my employees, it became very difficult to really work.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't. There was a lapse of about four or five years where I wasn't making work.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's part of the reason that I left the museum was because I couldn't focus

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and I was losing my career as a ceramic artist and as an artist.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn't let that happen because I could feel it slipping away.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we got, when I left there, I guess a year and a half ago,

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and we started Omeret's Arts, my new studio, I set the goal to start a show,

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: which was called Slabs of Agony. And there's a whole story behind that title, but

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_01]: there was a series of small slabs and there were a lot of drawing on those low relief.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were mostly just portraits of, you know, not necessarily just specific people,

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: but figures and faces and a lot of emotion in that.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think so that was me saying, okay, I'm going to start

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of from start over again, go back to basics.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And not think so hard about it, but just draw, you know, and

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_01]: just do what I love to do and that's portraiture and people

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and then start fresh and start thinking ahead of what's in the future.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So right now I'm kind of thinking where I want to go

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm looking for inspiration now and I'm surrounded by nature here in Montana.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've always done the figure and the figures what intrigues me the most,

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: but I do have all this other stuff around me right now.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm kind of, I'm in this weird, you know, spot right now where I'm really trying

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: to think is what's next for me in this part of my life, you know, and

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm starting this new business and the new studio.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's interesting. I mean, I think a lot does inspire me, but

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got this new fresh start. And so that's a big question right now.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the figure is my main inspiration

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm looking for new ways to represent that.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm experimenting a lot with how do I want to,

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_01]: my work is always, you know, as you've seen that I take liberties with proportion a lot and

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: so that's something I'm working on and is where I want to go with that.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And then storytelling and narrative. And so I haven't done that in a long time.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I get a lot of people saying, oh, I want to see more of what,

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, you've done in the past. And so, yeah, I'm getting a lot of feedback right now.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm kind of taking a lot of that feedback and kind of processing that.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard, isn't it? I mean, I hear you saying, gosh, I was,

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you were basically a manager when you were at the gallery museum.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that, because I've been in that role myself, I know that that can consume a person's

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: energies and take away from that creative juices that we want to drive for. Right?

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I hear you kind of saying, okay, I'm finished with that. I've started my own studio.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Now where do I get back? How do I get that knife edge on my creative stuff?

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Well, I think too, you know, it, my work has, like you said, it's had a darkness

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: to it. It's had an edge to it. Sexuality, you know, and a lot of that has depended on where

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I've shown where I've been in the country, you know, the markets that I've been in,

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, Helena is a very different city. You know, I'm in Montana now, so I have to,

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't show certain things. And, you know, so I have to be careful about what,

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: where I'm at and what I want to show. And, you know, if I'm showing working

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: in a certain gallery in California, I can show certain things in certain places and certain

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01]: galleries. So, and that comes to making sales, making a living, you know? So I'm in this weird

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_01]: again situation where I have to decide, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I want to see

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: some of the older erotic stuff you used to do. And, you know, but I want to see some

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_01]: newer stuff that's safer over here. So it's this weird, you know, spot that I have to kind

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: of decide and can I do it all, you know, to please everybody? And, and do I want to do that?

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's just kind of fun spot to be in, but it's also tough. I want to do what I

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: want to do. And yeah, for sure. But, but I also want to make work that's accessible to

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: to everybody. Yeah, you want to do both, I think you want to be able to do what excites you

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and do what turns your cranks, my phrase, and also at the same time, be able to sell it in

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: the market that you're in. Right? So, yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome. Now, are there specific

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_02]: artists or historical influences that have really affected your work and,

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and stimulated some of your ideas? Yeah, I think, you know, if you look back,

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that my teachers, my professors in college were a huge

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: influence on me. I started as a graphic design major because, you know, I was like

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_01]: my father who supported me 100% was like, you need to make sure that, you know, this art thing,

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_01]: again, which he was very supportive of, but he's like, you need to make sure you can make a

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_01]: living at something. So make sure there's a backup. And so I went to Boston University

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: because I could get a liberal arts training as well. And they said, well, the graphic

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_01]: design, you know, maybe I'll go into advertising and I can still do some art.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But back in the 80s, 90s, graphic design was not, we weren't into the computer thing so much yet.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just, you know, I was writing typeface and it was horrible.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then I realized I wasn't going to get into advertising and it was,

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: it was terrible. And so the sculpture teacher, Lloyd Lilly, who was a famous,

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, he did all the public sculpture in Boston and he saw something in me

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and they basically credited me my first almost three quarters of my freshman year. I jumped,

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I jumped ship on graphic design about three quarters of the way through my freshman year

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and they gave me basically the credits for all that time to go into the sculpture department.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was really lucky, but they really influenced my life and my trajectory, you know,

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01]: in school. And then somebody said to me, and I hadn't really, you know, going through

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: my childhood and I drew a lot and I was very artistic, but I didn't look at a lot

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_01]: through art history. And then someone, one of the professors said, you draw a lot like

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Giacometti, who I didn't really know much about. And then once I started looking,

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, that was it. I was like, wow, like this guy here, there's something about this.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was my main influence, you know, is how was he doing this? And,

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and I could see the similarities in how we drew. And then once I got my hands on clay,

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the way I handle it and kind of see in my work now, there's this definite feeling that, you know,

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that I have with him and his work and how he saw things. And so yes, that's my biggest

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: influence, I think. And again, and my professors same thing. So, and I guess there's a lot,

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I look at a lot of abstract expressionist painting, which I think you can see in my

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: works. So my work's very gestural and fluid and loose. And so I think that's what

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I look to in art around me.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure. Like I look at your work and see a story, I see, you know,

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_02]: the pieces coming to life in a way, you know, in my mind. Well, now, I know you're

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: shifting your work. So this question might not fit, but what kind of meaning do you hope to

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: convey to your customers, to people when they look at your work?

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, and, you know, when you look back, when you look at the earlier ceramic work,

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and again, that was brand new to me, you know, and the bronze work was,

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: was my attempt at, you know, again, the classic training I had with the anatomy,

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and I was still holding true to the anatomy as best I could. But along, you know,

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: again, the Giacometti elongations and like, really playing with all that. But, and then

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: it would shift through my career. And so it was always like this back and forth

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: between holding true to the anatomy. And then sometimes I would really lose it,

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, but for me, it's a challenge of like, trying to make a good head,

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, or a good portrait. That's completely, the anatomy is obliterated,

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's still there in some ways. You know, there's still that foundation. And when I teach,

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, I'll teach my style. Let's call it my style of anatomy. And I'll tell my students,

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_01]: like, this is completely wrong. Like, you know, this is not how you're supposed to

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_01]: teach anatomy. But it's fun. And we're going to go through this. But remember, there's,

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: there is a structure to a head and, and you've got to kind of understand it to there. And

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: there's, there's a reason why, you know, the eyes go here, and there's a bone structure

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: around them that hold them here. But we're going to use that to kind of exaggerate and create

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: this expression that makes this portrait. So, you know, I think I find myself sometimes going

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: back and getting tighter with the anatomy. But I'm going to probably go back into

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: more narrative work. And I just started to figure the other day, you know, that was pretty,

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, the anatomy again was pretty grotesque, you know, pretty blown out of proportion.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But full figurative. So, you know, I don't know, I think I have an idea.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure. But it probably would be fairly, I might take the narrative even further than I

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_01]: ever have, let's say. So fairly, fairly detailed storytelling. Beyond what I've ever done.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Cool. So multiple figures, you know, more intricate storytelling,

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I think is what I'm planning on doing. Have you got a sense of what story it is that

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: you're trying to tell? That's the big question.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the big question. You know, I don't, that's something that, you know, I've never

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: never been political in my work. I've dipped into religion. You've seen that,

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_01]: you can see that my work quite a bit. That's something I might look back at,

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and kind of experiment again with that. That's something I've dealt with in

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_01]: my life quite a bit. So we'll see. But that's what I'm kind of yeah, that's something I'm

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_01]: we'll see. I don't know. Stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for that. Yeah.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, when you're doing your work, I know some people start a piece and will say, well,

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to let it emerge. Whatever's inside the clay that needs to come out will

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_02]: come out. And others on maybe on the other end of the spectrum will have specific drawings

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and ideas and well before their fingers ever touch any clay. And so they're then making

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_02]: what they've thought about ahead of time. Where are you on that continuum?

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so in school, you know, we were trained to do, you know, preliminary sketches and moquettes

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and, you know, multiple different size moquettes. So we did a life size.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And that used to drive me crazy. I couldn't, it drove me crazy.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't I'm pretty intuitive. You know, I may have an idea. Some of the some of the work,

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_01]: especially the more narrative pieces that tell stories, I probably have that idea in my head.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I rarely ever do prelim work. If I have an idea in my head,

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I kind of know what I want. And I'll set out to do it. Most of the single portraits that you see

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_01]: that is probably five or six different variations of what you end up seeing.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And my wife is usually she'll probably she usually steals out of the studio and stops it

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_01]: at a certain point, because I'll destroy it 10 times. You know, that's really good one stop,

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, or, you know, so yeah, it's never especially in the portraiture, I will

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: keep wrecking it, working it over. So there's never it's not usually set in my head,

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: what I'm doing. You know, I don't

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_01]: feeling it sounds like it's very feeling 100% Yeah, like I said, unless I really see something

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_01]: an image. If I see something out in the world, that's like that could be that's a good idea,

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I might want to scope that. You know, but again, I don't I don't I'm not a big,

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like to plan things out because it's going to change.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, if I if I if it's something I've drawn on paper, or I've done a maquette,

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: because my work's very loose, when I go to scale it up, it generally doesn't look right

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_01]: at a larger scale. So I end up tearing it up anyway. So to me that seems like,

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01]: because of the way I work and so loose. And generally, my sculptures go so fast.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, working so quickly. It just seems weird to, to, to do these prelim things.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's very intuitive, very quick. The way I work and it will change

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: so many different times. Yeah, there's a piece one of the first heads I did.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you can see it online. It's called Albert's a big three or four foot tall head.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that was probably five different variations of that. It looked nothing like

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: what you see online. When I first started it. I mean, that's and there's pictures,

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I think somewhere but it was at least five or six different versions before it even came

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_02]: to the finished piece. So yeah, I can see you saying, well, gee, I like that ear,

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to hang on to the ear, but I don't like the nose and those lips are darn cool.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I might add those to the ear and eventually we get the final version. Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, tell us a little bit about how you balance the use of color because you said

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that was one thing you started to really enjoy with some of the clay work.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you balance color with design and form and texture, which may be the sort

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: of the ultimate question anyway, but can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think color for me, like I said, which was something that

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: was exciting for me is one of the toughest parts for me.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, because I'm not great with color and then my work is heavy with texture.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01]: The way I handle the clay, my tool work and marking. So

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't use a lot of glaze. So if you look at my work up close,

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: it's just basically all watercolor. I'm not watercolor, but like underglaze washes

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_01]: because I don't want to lose any of the texture. And then it's very difficult to apply

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: the color to the pieces. So, you know, while they're colorful, I think,

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: especially in the portrait work, it's basically I'm just kind of imitating a skin tone

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and then a lot of the skin tone I'm adding. So there's the heavy texture line,

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01]: which is the anatomy. So you see like the heavy, you know, my work is like these heavy cheekbones,

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, usually the hollow cheeks and then the prominent features noses and lips and stuff.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the pockmarky skin texture is the really only glaze that I use are these like

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of crawl crawling glazes over the heavy clay markings. And then the real color

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_01]: you see are like, again, just washes of underglaze. And then the coloration,

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_01]: the colors that I use are usually like, you know, in any kind of the clothing and stuff. So

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I do like to play with color and colorful colors, I guess, to kind of offset the

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe, you know, some of the themes. And so I consciously I think that's the bright colors

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: offset the darkness of the work, if that makes sense.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So the psychological darkness.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the psychological pieces. Absolutely.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And I see some of the bright colors that you use is really accentuating a part of it,

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_02]: bright red lips will, you know, bring that attention to that piece or that component of

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_01]: the piece itself. Absolutely. To make that right. I mean, they're already bold and like,

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, exaggerated, but exactly to make those pop even more.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And so mostly you're using underglazes, it sounds like.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, again, I didn't have that, that, you know, that training,

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, I wasn't, you know, my training wasn't in ceramics. So I didn't have that time,

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, in glaze chemistry, I didn't learn how to do all that. So that came later for me.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was a lot of it was just, again, either figure out on my own or

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the help of so many great friends in ceramics and some of the greats, you know, who are so

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_01]: helpful. And, and I just thought, I'll try this and do this. And, you know, so

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: it was, you know, I do a limited amount of it. And then again, I don't want to cover,

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, what I do as far as my texture and the way I handle the clay. But again,

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah. So it's mostly just underglaze. And then a little bit of some of the crawls

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and some of the crackle glazes and stuff like that. So it's very simple, you know,

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: what I do. Yeah, it does allow the form to come to the table. That's really what you're trying

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_02]: to get across. And the color really then is just used as a way to accentuate the eye

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_02]: so that they can see and experience the form. Right. Yeah. And I think when you look at the

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the new the slabs in this show that I just did recently, you know, a lot of the clay

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_01]: is just raw coming through. A lot of it's just black underglaze wash in the to accentuate the

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: drawing marks in the clay itself, little dashes of color here to again, like accentuate

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_01]: certain areas. So very little glaze work at all any of those. You know, so that's something

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: again, that I might want to look at moving forward to the new work is maybe some more

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_01]: experimentation with glazes and stuff moving forward. I always found glazes a little scary

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: because as soon as you, I mean, yes, you can take them off. I was saying that to somebody

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_02]: the other day and they said, well, yes, Bob, but you can the sand blast them off.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But I was going, yes, you can. But I don't want to do that. So I like doing what you're

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_02]: doing as well as finishing things with either a colored slip or an underglaze or something

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_02]: to allow the texture of the piece to come through.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, somebody would just we just had somebody teaching a

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_01]: in Costa class, you know, wax class here painting. And I said, you know, that's something

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always thought about was, you know, especially in some of the portraits doing

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: doing a wax treatment for a finish. So that's something that I want to think about

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01]: in the future is, you know, those kind of finishes. So something I'll look at.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of the things that you've mentioned as we've chatted here today is about

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_02]: how important it's been for you to have a community with you and be connecting with

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: other people. Can you like I think lots of people that I know end up sitting in their

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_02]: studio all by themselves and feeling kind of lonely doing the work. Can you talk about

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: a good way to connect with a community to so that so that we can learn faster and better

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_02]: our work improves?

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I think for me, I've always been an administrator. You know, I've always

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: my job has always been administrating, you know, a department, you know, at the armory

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_01]: in Florida and here at the Holter and Helena and now I'm heir to my new business with

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: my partner, Leah Capino. And so I've always been mentoring artists, you know, my whole

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_01]: career and, you know, and I love that and I cherish that it's probably

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_01]: something I'll always cherish and a huge part of, you know, who I am as an artist,

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's even in some ways, it's probably held me back a little bit.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Because of the administrative side of it, because I've had to do that is for living and that's

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_01]: great, you know, because I think that's so rewarding is seeing all these artists grow,

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, hundreds probably over all these years move on, do great things and it's

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: awesome. And then we all learn from each other. You know, as much as I've taught

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: all these other people, I've learned so much from all of them. And so I think it's huge. You can't

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: just sit in your studio, you know, and expect to grow as an artist, I don't think, you know,

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think what we've started here in Helena is there's so many great artists in Montana

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and Helena especially that don't get the chance to, you know, really get out, you know, they

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: have studio space or, you know, and the winner sits in there's kind of stuck and there's,

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and so some of them don't even really, they just kind of give up on it.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what we're doing is we're giving them the experience to come out and

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_01]: either rent a space or work in our common area with us and experience what it is to

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: to work in a studio. And so just to see that happen and be creative. And so we feed off that

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_01]: as artists and then just helping others. So, you know, to me that's it just again,

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that's what's it's like reignited me now at this point in my career to be back in the studio

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and think about what's next for me, you know, and so they watch they can watch me

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: that show that I just did here. They've never seen what it takes to do a full body of work

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_01]: for a show in two or three months from start to finish. And so that was a big

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_01]: deal for a lot of them to see that and help in the process.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, for me to prepare for that show, which was great to have the help,

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_01]: but also teach them what's involved in that. So I think these community

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_01]: studio situations are huge for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to ask you

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_02]: what advice you might have for a budding ceramic artist. And I wonder if that's it

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_02]: that they should be working within a community. You know, I think, you know, the way the world's

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: changing, you know, with university and college and it, you know, just getting so difficult with,

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, with loans and not being able to afford it to do that. I think, I think

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to have to happen in the communities. You know, these situations,

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_01]: what we're doing here, you know, I think that's where it's going to happen. You know,

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_01]: is find a studio, a local studio and beg to come in and, you know, mop the floors and

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_01]: work in a little corner, you know, and load kilns or do whatever you have to do to learn.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I think that's what you're going to have to do. You know, just

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever it takes to be in a studio atmosphere and learn from whoever's willing to teach.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think the ceramic community has always been so open, you know, they just want to,

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01]: they want to learn what they know or teach what they know. Yeah. Very welcoming.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's there. Yeah, for sure. Very welcome. Always have been. Yeah. And I know

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_02]: up in my community, pottery and ceramics has the interest in pottery and ceramics is just

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: skyrocketed massive waiting lists to get into studios. And so, yeah, it's that was a good thing.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that COVID did for their ceramics community. Oh, I think it's the same here.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're our new facility here. We're booked. You know, we're completely,

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_01]: we have no space left and building owners in Helena downtown are asking us to do the same

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01]: thing with their empty spaces that we're doing here. So the whole thing's growing

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_01]: too fast and we're trying to, you know, we don't want to say no. It's all these artists that are

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_01]: asking for help. You know, so it's been a crazy year, but we're trying to slowly do this

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_01]: in the right way. And we're working with the Bray and how we can all build a bigger,

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, we have the clay guild here in Helena. And so like you said, COVID, I think,

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_01]: just spiked the interest in pottery and ceramics and there's a need. And we're

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_01]: just trying to figure out the best way to fill that and get people in here.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And well, yeah. Hey, Chris, I really appreciate you taking this time with me today. It's been

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: awesome meeting you and learning about your process. And I'm pretty excited about seeing

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: what new work comes for you in the next little while. Well, and I appreciate you asking me.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_01]: This has been great and I'm a great meeting you. And yeah, I'm excited to see what I

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_02]: want to come up with here. Absolutely. Well, let's stay in touch and thanks again. And

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_02]: we'll catch up in the next little while. Great. Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Color

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and Ceramics podcast with Bob Acton and his guests. Please help others find the podcast

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