MC inherited a pottery floor vase, a quirky work from the mid-1970s by genius Santa Maria potter, William “Bill” Shinn (1932-2011). Did Shinn get inspiration for the design from a native American marriage vessel, typically with two spouts? Wait, I see THREE spouts! I believe the artist meant something for OUR times as well as his: love is many-fold.
The artist himself, an intrepid researcher, traversed the American desert, as well as Europe, Japan, and Russia in search of inspiration. Shinn, an internationally recognized potter and teacher, won awards at international ceramic competitions in Italy, New Zealand, and Korea. He received a master’s in Ceramic Design at UCLA during a seminal period in ceramic arts, and the Sorbonne and Academie Julian in Paris. To great acclaim as a young artist, he exhibited at the Syracuse Nationals in1966. The Everson Museum in Syracuse collected his work for their permanent collection.
After the Artist Died in 2011
Many of his former students at Allan Hancock College missed his personal instruction in his own studio in Santa Maria. There, he experimented, and became a master of ceramic extrusion techniques using a distinctive machine to aid the creation of three-dimensional work. Die cuts created to extrude large hollow forms.
In the December 2002 edition of Ceramics Monthly, Shinn said, “The extruder is an ideal tool for sculpture, both abstract and representational…dies created specifically for this purpose can produce work that can be easily bent, twisted, and joined together.” Today three-D printers create dies.
Shinn combined both extrusion and slab form creations in his unique oeuvre. Imagine forcing clay through a tube, you get the idea. Think of forcing clay through a tube with a cookie cutter imbedded inside. If you ever attempted to hand roll a coil pot, you’d love to use an extruder. it creates even and unbroken strings of coils. But the tool does much more. Shinn pushed the boundaries, as you see from MC’s three-spouted work.
Studio Art Pottery Movemen
This style puts Shinn in the annals of the American Studio Art Pottery Movement right at its most formative time. Earthy, massive forms of the midcentury and the distinctive glazes, sometimes earth tones, sometimes 1960s vibrant colors, are HOT property TODAY. We find not only vessels but ceramic sculpture. Shinn was a master of large ceramic sculpture pieces like this one, owned by MC. She wants to sell by the way.
I love the small spouts and VERY bulbous “shoulder,” the round part of the top of the vase. Vasefinder Auctions lists of a smaller less “design-y” vase for $60, and Ross’s Auction in Belfast sold a complex designed vessel for $350. Ist Dibs sold a Shinn abstract sculpture vase for $800.
Judith Hale Gallery Solvang/Santa Ynez represented the artist for years. Currently from a gallery in Pasadena, I found a large ovoid vessel, raised on a round plinth in a deep brown glaze. At the center of the oval is a patterned round circle incised in deep relief, offered for $825. One of the great looks of this genre is the anthropomorphic shapes, as well as borrowed design motifs from the Japanese and the Native American.
How Did Shinn Find Clay?
How did the artist, who began with painting, find “clay?” He served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force, and found “sculpture” in the forms beneath his plane. An article in the June 9, 2009, issues of the Santa Maria Sun by Shelley Cone quotes Bill Shinn, “There are a lot of things that suppress being creative. The main motivation for me is creating something I’ve never seen before.”
Cone asked Shinn about his many awards, sales, and shows, as a possible influence on what he creates in the studio. But the answer came in Shinn’s obituary in the Santa Maria Times from a former student who became an instructor at Allan Hancock, Marti Fast. Regarding the push-pull of creativity versus market influence on an artist’s work, Fast said of Shinn, “His mind worked differently because he wasn’t worried about a specific outcome.”
MC’s vase is worth $800 in this fast growing American art pottery of the mid-20th century marketplace.