PS owns a fabulous modernist thirteen by ten inch art pottery vase by Santa Maria potter William “Bill” Shinn (1932-2011). Did a native American ceremonial breastplate inspire this vase? The artist himself researched intrepidly. He traversing the American desert, as well as Europe, Japan, and Russia in search of inspiration.
An internationally recognized potter and teacher, Shinn won awards at International Ceramic Competitions in Italy, New Zealand, and Korea. He obtained an educated with a Masters in Ceramic Design at UCLA, 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.
Shinn Master of Ceramic Extrusion
After the artist died in 2011 many of his former students (Allan Hancock 1962-1988) missed his personal instruction in his own studio in Santa Maria. There he became a master of ceramic extrusion techniques, using a distinctive machine/tool to aid the creation of three dimensional work. He experimented with die cuts 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 produce work easily bent, twisted, and joined together.”
Today dies are created using three-D printers. Shinn combined both extrusion and slab form creations within his unique oeuvre. Imagine forcing clay through a tube, you get the idea. Then think of forcing clay through a tube with a cookie cutter embedded inside. If you 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 so much so that seeing one of his teapots in its wild form, the inventor of the extruder ordered a custom pot.
American Studio Art Pottery Movement
The style puts Shinn in the annals of the American Studio Art Pottery Movement. A word here about the popularity of the era TODAY. The earthy creative massive forms of the midcentury and the distinctive glazes, sometimes earth tones, sometimes 1960’s vibrant colors, is HOT for midcentury styled homes. We find not just vessels but ceramic sculpture important to the American Art Pottery Movement. Shin became a master of the large scape ceramic sculpture as well as table ware and vases like PS’s. I love the look of the vase. I imagine cut foliage must LIE in the vase because of the shape, the flowers forced into a fan shape.
Vasefinder Auctions offers a listing of a smaller less “designed” vase for $60.00. In Europe Ross’s Auction in Belfast sold a complex designed vessel for $350. 1st Dibs sold a Shinn abstract sculpture for $800. Judith Hale Gallery Solvang/Santa Ynez represented the artist for years. Currently from a gallery in Pasadena I find a large ovoid vessel, raised on a round plinth in a deep brown glaze, the shape resembles the human eye, a big feature of 1960s pottery. 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 the borrowing of design motifs from other cultures, especially the Japanese.
How William Shinn Found Clay
How did the artist, who began with panting, find “clay?” He served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force, and found “sculpture” in the forms beneath his plane. In the June 9, 2009, Santa Maria Sun 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.”
In Shinn’s obituary I found a quote 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.”
PS vase is worth $800 in this fast growing American Art Pottery of the mid twentieth century marketplace.