Well, my Artist of the Week segment kind of died on the vine, but the one post I did make has been quite popular (well, relatively speaking), so I decided I’d resurrect this project on a monthly basis. Hope you enjoy it…
picture by Selfridge Ceramic Art
OK, I confess, picking Kirk as the artist of the month is a no brainer. He was my grad prof, which means I loved his work so much way back in my days as an undergrad that I pestered him into letting me come to Kent State. He has done nothing since that time to lessen my admiration for him or his work. Kirk is kinda like my mentor, so I guess it’d be more fair for me to call him my Artist of the Decade (well, two decades, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it).
Two basic things I love about Kirk’s work…well, three actually…
1) There’s no categories. That is to say, he makes pots, he makes sculptures, he makes drawings, heck, when I was at Kent he made paper stencils and spray painted everything from chairs to canvas totes with little figures. He even made a tattoo design for a student! And everything is approached the same, with no apologetics–unlike me, who made a bunch of paintings last year, and felt so guilty and timid about the whole thing I had to constantly seek assurance from my painting friends that I wasn’t absolutely AWFUL, and in the end still titled the series “Hack-Knead” (pun on hackneyed) as a reference to my bumbling/lack of experience. But enough about me- this is supposed to be about Kirk. Here’s a sample of is work…
2. There’s no settling. Kirk is always pushing his work into new territories and finding new techniques. For example, he throws square plates. Understand what I just said. He doesn’t throw round plates and then make them square afterwards. He throws square plates. On the wheel. And trims the foot square. On the wheel. By the way he trims in the opposite direction so the cut lines and the throwing lines are in sync.. Try that one, if you haven’t.
3. He is deft. If you hang around Kirk for any length of time, you recognize that the way he approaches his work is pretty much the way he approaches his life. There is a lot of aggressive gutsy-ness mixed with an equal portion of grace. He is both spontaneous and whacky; thoughtful and conceptual.
The picture of him above is taken from U Manitoba’s ceramics club web site, which has a ton of pictures of Kirk doing his song and dance for a workshop there. Check it out.
