Ceramics has been often quantified as a minor art, excluded from the hierarchy of fine arts. Controversial ceramic artists, such as Peter Voulkos and his school of thought pressed for reassessment. The “Clay Movement” of the 1950s and 1960s occurred in direct response to that reassessment, and it marks a significant adjustment in fine art scholars’ assessments of American ceramic art. By combining the painting approach of artists, such as Picasso and Matisse, with “the Clay Movement’s” emphasis on surface and form, Voulkos demonstrated that it is possible to supersede the stigma that restricts ceramics within the definition of functional craft. Through a closer examination of Voulkos’s school of thought and the reverberation caused by the movement, the erroneous definition held by western ceramic sensibility and fine art of ceramics has been reconsidered. Memories in Clay contains scenes of engineered realities that combine drawing with clay to create an environment that invites the viewer to enter into a frozen moment of time.
