John Glick (American, 1938-2017)Tea Cup
measures approximately: 3. 5/8" W (widest point) x 3 3/8" base diameter x 4" H
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About John Glick
Glick was born in 1938 and raised in Detroit. He studied ceramics and metalsmithing in high school and college, receiving his BFA in 1960 from Wayne State University. He went on to study with renowned ceramist Maija Grotell at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he received his MFA in 1962. Following his studies at Cranbrook, Glick was drafted into the Army and sent to West Germany. According to an interview with Jody Clowes in American Craftmagazine (June/July 1991), Glick's interaction with several small, traditional salt-glazing potteries in the town of Höhr-Grenzhausen reinforced his intent to pursue full-time studio work. When he returned to Michigan in 1964, Glick quickly established a studio and showroom under the name Plum Tree Pottery, a pursuit he would follow for the next 50 years.
Glick was perhaps best known for his ever-evolving, innovative one-of-a-kind dinnerware designs, subdued in the Japanese style of pottery but embellished with abstract patterns and shapes and colorful multi-layered glazes, which he created through close collaboration with his assistants and clients.
In 1979, Glick was commissioned to produce a set of dinnerware for the Vice-Presidential mansion of Walter Mondale and his wife Joan. Over the course of his more than 50 year career, Glick's pottery was exhibited nationally and internationally. His work can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, to name a few. In addition to being named an ACC Fellow in 2001, Glick was twice awarded the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (1961 and 1972), received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1977 and 1988), a Michigan Foundation for the Arts Governor’s Award (1977), and a Michigan Governor's Award for Arts and Culture (2001).
In 2016, Glick retired and sold the studio. He and his wife, Susie Symons, moved to California to be near family. That same year, a retrospective exhibition "John Glick: A Legacy in Clay" was held at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
John's Statement
"The potter who finds life in his work finds it daily in small glimpses, and perhaps these are the successes as much as anything. For example, shapes evolve guided by forces apparently outside my control. This is instinct, intellect and openness to change fusing, into what I think is the most positive force behind any potter's approach: evolution or growth. Some call it inspiration.
I cannot show one piece and say 'this speaks for my beliefs in clay.' I am attracted to simplicity, as well as complexity: my work continually reflects my re-examination of how these two poles can coexist... or not, in a given series.
Over the last thirty years two significant elements have made for a happy adventure in my work. The first element is my very great love of process. You could say I am hopelessly in love with bits and pieces of the making of pots. It is not enough to merely throw a particular form, I must make that certain throwing rib that adds a special, unique touch, or develop an entire "world" of extrusion dies, all of which are lovingly used over time, only to discover that I have physically outgrown my manual extruders and must design and build not one, but two hydraulic extruders which then greatly expand my working potential. This is love of process!
The second element is the ability to ask questions of myself, to demand that inquiry be a part of studio life. Sound simplistic? Maybe not. Without that little nudging foot in the backside, one might be a bit tempted to remain too stationary in attitude and therefore in pots. So it is that the notion of the 'question' has become integral to my daily thinking about studio activity. Is it to give a whole phase of work a rest? Is it time to introduce another orientation to thinking about what I will make?
Recently I have been making rather pictorial, landscape oriented wall panels as well as pots. A bit of a shock at first but actually a very welcome 'irritant' that has propelled and informed all phases of my work.
When we are alone with our innermost thoughts about why it is we need to make things from clay we will hopefully come to know a private truth that tells each of us a very personal answer, woven of the same threads of mystery that has captured the spirits of artists through times past."