Richard Notkin

More text is coming. . . . meanwhile. . . . a little information. The image above is "The Gift." The subject is one which has preoccupied Richard Notkin for most of his professional career. and was what first drew my interest to his work. This large installation consists of 1106 individual tiles and a pile of "ears" (below). Each tile is 4" x 4" - fired in saggars to achieve the variations needed in black and grey and white. In order to have enough tiles to assemble the image, Richard made over 1700 tiles. For details of the tiles, see below, and click on that image to get a larger view. The ears vary in size from 1" to over 12 inches, and are made with many different clays, doctored with lots of other materials. Details of those can be seen below, also, and a larger view can be seen by clicking, again. I think Richard said "There is more clay in this project than I have used in the previous thirty (?) years."

(The three image below can be seen enlarged by clicking on each one.)

Detail of ears.

Detail of "The Gift."

A view of the installation.

(Ears from a different installation. These images give only the faintest impression of the experience of seeing this work!)

Richard Notkin Teapots
Sculpture