Clay Times Back Issues Vol. 2 Issue 7 • Nov/Dec 1996 | Page 14

PHOTO: ROGER SIZEMORE

Voulkos
from page 13

RB: If you had a chance to
own any piece of art in the world,
what would it be?

PV: One of Callas’ tea bowls!
Okay, there really isn’t anything
that I’d like to own. I don’t covet
anything. I don’t sit there and wish
that I had it, you know. You see a
lot of great paintings and stuff in
museums, but I don’t exactly want
to own them. I don’t have anything
of mine; just some remnants of
things that didn’t sell at the time. I
don’t have too much of anybody. I
Voulkos during a 1978 workshop at Callanwolde Art Center in Atlanta, GA.
do love the old Japanese tea bowls.
Millions of bowls were made to get to that one.
buy it—I might have made it! Yeah, yeah...
It takes them days and days and days, just like me
workin’ on a stack, to get the whole universe in a tea
Anyway, I could never be a collector, got to have
bowl. I had a vision once that I was a potter out of
one of those, no. I wouldn’t want it. No. If I were going
Kyoto someplace, dressed in those weird robes and
to spend money, I would travel, discover new things.
stuff. The year was about 1250 A.D. I swear to Christ
Just like you go to India all the time. Who needs a
that I was around at that time. The Kamakura period.
damned $20,000 plate? You gotta be nuts!
The last time I was in Japan, I found this little cup in an
antique shop. The guy said it was made in the
RB: To my way of seeing, you’re one of the few
Kamakura period. I was just taken by it, of all the stuff
people making art that has gotten better every year,
in that store. It was pretty cheap, so I decided I’d better
always going somewhere else.
PV: Well, first of all, I don’t believe in mistakes. It’s
an ongoing process. It’s a matter of decision making.
Being able to get rid of all the garbage and forget about
it. It’s like being in a recovery program. You’ve got to
get rid of all the crap that’s in you, get a new life. Don’t
dwell on the crap anymore. It just brings you down.
Don’t blame anybody but yourself. You make your
own decisions and are responsible for the results. A
mistake is nothing but a learning process. It’s a slow
curve, it goes up real slow. I try to think about transcending myself all the time, both intellectually and
emotionally.

PHOTO: SAM JORNLIN

I do think my work just keeps getting stronger or
to the point, so I must be doing something right. Every
time I approach it, there’s always something new for
me. Every time I d