A t the B ray, resident
artists become a
k in d o f fa m ily
-
connected to one
another, a n d to those
who came before.
with that,” Lee says. “You feel
connected to the history, and to
the growth and evolution that’s
taken place here.” Wander the
grounds and you’ll stumble on
artifacts: piles of bricks, sculp-
ture fragments, and discarded
pots by the scores of makers
who’ve passed through. Old
beehive kilns stand, ghostlike,
in the ruins of the brickyard,
shut down in i960. In the origi-
nal pottery building, you can
see the spot where the “gang
of five” - Voulkos, Autio, and
distinguished foreign visitors
Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada,
and Soetsu Yanagi - posed for
an iconic photo in 1952.
“You can’t escape it,” resi-
dent Nicholas Bivins says of
that history, that trailblazing
approach to clay that’s in the
very DNA of the Bray. “I think
about how hard it must have
been [for Voulkos and Autio]
working in the brick factory all
day, lifting literally tons of
clay, and then doing their own
work at night. They had this
absolute commitment and
Left and below: At
the 12,000-squarc-foot
David and Ann Shaner
Resident Artist Studio
Complex, the clerestory
floods the workspaces
with natural light.
dedication. Those guys, they
changed the game of ceramics.
Maybe the strongest tradition
here would be innovation -
breaking all the rules and
expectations for what is antici-
pated from ceramic artists,”
Bivins reflects.
“I changed my work com-
pletely,” says Courtney
044 american craft jun/jul 11
