Revolutions of the Wheel Part 5 - The Width of a Circle

James Melchert was working on conceptual pieces influenced by his interest in photography and philosophy. Having put Voulkos on a pedestal earlier in his life, he shed the trappings involved and set about working with forms that were removed from the pottery studio. Melchert says "Clay was a wonderful medium for making objects but I wanted to somehow get beyond making objects."

While Melchert brought clay into the present, Stephen DeStaebler was looking to the past or rather to the inherent qualities of clay and what clay does. Working with enormous clay slabs, he built landscapes... pieces that bore no trace of human involvement once completed. After what DeStaebler describes as a" difficult birthing", the human form began to  emerge

Clayton Bailey caught a whiff of the stink the Davis group was making and drove out to the Bay area to see what was happening. Not being comfortable lumping himself in with the funk artist scene, Bailey invented a mythical persona for himself. Its protagonist was Dr. Gladstone who discovered Kaolism and the Pre-credulous Period, a time when people would believe almost anything. Bailey's work eventually took him to the Kohler Porcelain factory in Sheboygan, WI. where he set about making giant teapots from toilets.