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Richard Fairbanks' and Takeshi Yasuda's Ceramics Essay

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Richard Fairbanks' and Takeshi Yasuda's Ceramics Richard Fairbanks, although many times overlooked, was an important American ceramist. He was known as a "loner" and because of this he was never really appreciated for his talent. Fairbanks was greatly influence by his professors. Professor Paul Bonifas, who taught at the University of Washington, was one who left a huge impact on Fairbanks work. Fairbanks created a system of sketching pottery profiles, which stemmed from Bonifas’ teachings, as a mean of "thinking on paper." This approach to pottery through sketching was a crucial element that separated Fairbanks from many other Asian-inspired American peers. Although, Fairbanks was a wheel thrown expert, he continued to "think on …show more content…

Instead of purist forms, Fairbanks explored the less traveled road of rough and crusty clay bodies, which emerge, from the surface of the glaze. This in turn removed his pieces from any realm of perfection. In the end Fairbanks demonstrated, trough his pieces, the p [positive and negative approaches that he was exposed to during his years. Fairbanks wrote, "My eyes are lazy and don’t see well. With my hands I se, and that is good. I can hold the whole world in my hands when I am seeing with them a good pot. Then there is the earth: dense and heard, yet at one time it grew, expanded and breathed; there like seed to stalk to flower to fruit, it patiently endured the potters tactile search. The clay speaks softly but firmly to the potter, it is not afraid because it will always have the last word, even if it must atomize itself to return again and seeks its destiny anew in another’s hands. My hands see the clay and the clay murmurs to them take it easy, you’re in good hands. The dialogue continues long after the brief communication when the hands and the clay see each other, they know. They know." This statement was said to take great poignancy because of the last two years of his life. Fairbanks was diagnosed with malignant brain tumor, which created little to no studio activity. As his disease progressed, Fairbanks lost more and more eyesight. This passage softly

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