Kent Rucker's Art

 Most ceramic artist these days become skilled in both handbuilding and wheel work. Sometimes you need to combine both techniques  to do what you want to say. The last full body cast that I had done on me was in '92.  When the undergrad students from C.U. Boulder pulled the cast off my body, all  I heard was the velcro of my leg hair being ripped off my shins. After that I swore that I would never submit myself to such torture again in the name of art. I've kept my promise. Now I cause other people to suffer. I am not proud of this statement.

Clay is an amazing medium. If you learn what it's strengths and weaknesses are you can make it do anything. Even earn you money. This is a stupid statement. Anytime a human manipulates a material, I believe that something spiritual is deposited in that media. I made a wonderful discovery late one night. I was working alone in an empty studio. I was searching for something. I didn't know what it was. I was about to give up and go home. I took one short coil of clay and stood it upright on a hat box that I was making out of clay. And there it was for me. The Key was the stage of human passion. As a painter I discovered 3-D. I now had another language in which to converse.

SHOES

I love shoes. For the first five years of my life, I didn't  live consistently with my parents. I lived with other families. In one such family, the mother had a closet full of high heel shoes. They came in every color texture and style. I would spend hours upon days arranging these shoes in different color patterns. Often I would pretend that their son, who was my age, had pushed me into the closet, where I would fall on top of my latest shoe arrangement. Of course that meant that I would have to make a new arrangement. Ahhh

the trials of being a young artist.

I know a lot about shoes. Sometimes I think too much. I have some other shoe projects on the back burner.