Ceramic Masters: The Art of Vivika and Otto Heino and their Contemporaries

摘要

Upon entering the third floor gallery at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum to view the ceramic art of Vivika and Otto Heino, it is apparent that a celebration is underway. The show, culled mostly from the extensive 30-year collection of Forrest L. Merrill, is a retrospective of the consistency and technical mastery of a husband and wife partnership that spanned 45 years, ending with Vivika's death in 1995. Otto, who turned 90 in April, said with a twinkle in his eye that he still turns pots every morning from 4 to 8 A.M. at his Ojai studio. The L.A. show and another Ventura show at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art were both organized around Heino's momentous birthday, marking his 57 years as a potter, said Merrill. The Ventura show concentrates on Otto's productivity since Vivika's death and can be seen through May 22. At the show's opening, the potter greeted well wishers energetically in his tweed jacket and hat, while a camera crew moved about the gallery filming an upcoming documentary on the Heinos' work. "I never get tired or bored. The clay is calling me," said Otto. The work on display strongly points out that the couple stayed true to the potters life, never letting the influences of modern mass production and plastic consumerism sway them from their philosophy of one-of-a-kind artistic work that focused on the authentic use of materials.