-Richard Pankratz

Richard Pankratz grew up in the Flint Hills of rural Kansas and heard his life's calling while still a young boy. Without the resources available, he had to wait until after high school to begin formal training at the Kansas City Art Institute, 100 miles and a world away from his home. To please his parents, Richard took the 'safe' path and taught art at high schools in Kansas and Colorado for 11 years. But the call to create would not go away.

Trained in painting, printmaking, and the creation and design of jewelry, Richard chose ceramics as his medium for his return to producing artist. Thanks to the explosion of the crafts movement in the 70's, he was able to prosper with original pottery creations which afforded him the opportunity to leave teaching. Now 30 years later, Richard has evolved his art to include wood and metal to his decorative vessels and furniture pieces.

These days he remains fascinated by the combination of bronze and porcelain incorporating these materials into increasingly bold artistic expression. Richard works out of his own commercial studio in Monument, CO with his sculptural creations available for viewing and purchase in select galleries across America.

Process

In all the years I've been working as an artist, I have always been most enamored by the magic of clay - drawn to it as though it is part of my being. Its working characteristics depend upon two specific qualities: which mother rock it was decomposed from and what the creative forces of Nature did with it once is was harvested from its source. If I push on clay it will conform to the pressure of my hand and record the imprint of my will. When subjected to fire, it becomes permanent and will survive long after I am gone.

My artistic spirit still finds room for a second great love: bronze: the material that elevated humanity out of the Stone Age. Where clay has weaknesses, bronze has strengths and vice versa. Bronze allows my expression to explore forms that could not be supported and survive as clay alone, yet needs the spontaneity and plasticity of clay to realize its full potential.

And it is not just the physical characteristics of these two materials that are in perfect harmony for me: they share aesthetic and spiritual qualities as well. Color is added to both through the use of oxides, carbonates, and nitrates of various metals yielding a wide and dynamic pallet of rich and subtle color variations on both ceramic glazes and bronze patinas.

I deliberately choose glaze combinations, techniques, and kiln firing procedures that do not necessarily produce the same result. What arises is like a child: unique, somewhat unpredictable, and irreproducible with a universal vibration of its own that has never been before and never will be again. At first, I tried to circumvent this procedure by mixing known quantities of glazes into one application. After all, science should ultimately win out over art, right? The result is always disappointing. To reduce the complex layering of glazes infused with spirit and vision into one generic recipe is to rob it of its life, its potential, and its reason for being. The same is true for patinas on bronze. The same is true for life itself: to deny one's self of the uniqueness of art in favor of mass-produced decorator items is to rob the soul of incalculable riches.