Playing with Anima Mundi (Soul of the Earth) A Sculptural Retrospective George Kokis

Works from 1960 Onward

Initial Presentation at Clay Space Gallery Store • Eugene, Oregon

November/December 2013

©2013 George Kokis Playing with Anima Mundi (Soul of the Earth) A Sculptural Retrospective

Invitation to Retrospection Looking ahead. Looking within. Looking over a life lived loving art, loving students, loving those on the journey

together, believing Art Saves Lives. Looking ahead the path is short. Seven decades gone. Looking within to observe

what remains to be passed on for others to possibly incorporate: the body of the clay, the joy of a life in clay.

Art echoes that all is passing though l live with shelves and walls filled with artifacts. How can all this be given away,

sparing the family the task of dispersal? Perhaps a retrospective can be “the wind and the water” that passes along

the art? Here it is!

A sale that passes all profits to Clay Space, A wonderful Clay studio in Eugene, creation of Jim Laub; once a student,

now a colleague. A place where art is saving lives and will for years to come.

Teaching. Community. Laughter.

Empty the shelves and spread the invitation: Art Saves Lives. 1960’s George Kokis The Sixties

The Sixties found me finishing my MFA at Alfred University and beginning employment at The Brooklyn Museum Art School where I mostly fired Kilns. At first I had no clear reason to imagine I should seek a teaching position. But after the occasional fill-in for absent teachers, my focus on that matter changed considerably. Now I had to teach! The chief problem was the lack of such employment; there being only 10 or so teaching jobs in the whole country with around 100 clay folk trying to land one. At that time there was nothing like the number of clay programs available today with thousands of seekers.

Nope ­— I didn’t land a teaching job at a school so I took a teaching assignment at a Air Force Base in Puerto Rico! It seemed an odd choice at the time but Cindy and I thought it would be a chance to have an adventure. It was, but a year was enough.

We returned to the same job situation and hatched a plan that would hopefully lead to a teaching position. We would live with Cindy’s parents for a year while Cindy taught part-time and I would produce a body of work at the Port Chester Clay Studio. Our passport for this plan was 2 lovely girl children whom Cindy’s parents found irresist- ible. The risky plan worked as we hoped and, after a couple of shows in New York, led to a teaching assignment at Ohio University in 1965.

I have few pieces from that period and offer 5 for your consideration. The abstract forms are typical of my work at that time and all were fired in my stoneware kiln, numbers 4 & 5 are Salt glazed. It’s clear I was totally captivated by the lush surfaces the sodium fire produced.

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1960 SCULPTURE Stoneware 1 8” x 6” wt. 4 lbs

SCULPTURE Stoneware 9” x 8” wt. 5 lbs 2 SCULPTURE Stoneware 3 11” x 12” wt. 9 lbs

SCULPTURE Salt Glazed Stoneware 11” x 9” wt. 10 lbs 4

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1960 SCULPTURE Salt Glazed Stoneware 12” x 9” wt. 11 lbs

I seem to have been drawn to a process of reduction to sim- plicity. The ceramic forms I’ve been working with lately are basic in shape and coloration. The materials are common as 5 are the techniques; the kind normally experienced and left behind by the serious student of ceramics in short order. Well, why bother? Why go back to rudimentary forming of a mate- rial literally as common as dirt? Why spend hours shaing, honing, impressing with old signs and symbols? I would answer in this way: The content, for me, is powerful and compelling. Though uncomplicated structurally they carry broad psychological references exactly through their generic simplicity.

I’ve never been at the center of my profession – I’m always sniffing around the edges, bringing back interesting things. Not a giant but maybe one of the more interesting dwarfs. Sniffing like a dog around the edges, I bring back items stuck to my coat – later I pick at them. I’m interested in connections between things far from the center that fundamentally relate to the center. A web-maker! I like to ponder form relation- ships. 1970’s George Kokis The Seventies

In 1973 I took a leave of absence from Ohio University and accepted a one year appointment at The University of Oregon. When the year was up I was invited to join the faculty at Oregon. I accepted. It was a momentous deci- sion moving our family clear across the country from our roots in New York City.

Looking at the work in the catalog from the seventies, it’s clear that I was still (like so many others), enamored with Salt Glazed Firing. I loved the intimate process which was spectacular compared to the tidy quite low temperature electric kilns. SALT WAS THE BIG THING! VESSEL WITH HANDLE Salt Glazed Stoneware 6 4” x 8” wt. 1 lb

VESSEL WITH HANDLE Salt Glazed Stoneware 5” x 8” wt. 1 lb 7

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1970 STONEHOLDER Salt Glazed Stoneware 8 11” x 8” wt. 4 lbs

STONEHOLDER Salt Glazed Stoneware 12” x 8” wt. 3 lbs 9 CUP 10 Salt Glazed Stoneware 3.2” x 5” wt. 1 lb

CUP Salt Glazed Stoneware 4” x 5.5” wt. 1 lb 11

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1970 CUP 12 Salt Glazed Stoneware 4” x 5” wt. 1 lb

CUP Salt Glazed Stoneware 3” x 6” wt. 1 lb 13 CUP Salt Glazed Stoneware 14 4.5” x 5” wt. 1 lb

What is art-making but spiritual exercising. One’s spirit is animated to reconstruct a passage or bridge to that pre-exile place; to restore communication with that place no longer available to easy access.

Art-making is healing – but the cure must be repeated again and again. We all need this ritual curing of the psychic fabric – both the individual and the society. It makes us more pliable, malleable, supple, limber and tender – more able to perform our various functions.

Art is making obsessional ideas conscious: thus dissolving their hold on you.

Art-making is learning to make your own medicine.

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1970 1980’s George Kokis The Eighties

My years of the Eighties were marked by my zeroing in on several themes:

• Lo-Tech Smoke Fires,

• Reassembling Broken Forms, and

• “Cultural Intrigues”

After many years of Cone 10 fires of every description, I began to think I had used up all the high-end procedures I was

entitled to for a while. Simplifying my working scheme allowed for diverse approches and expansion of my range of options.

Pieces were bisque fired, then broken, followed by smoke firing the shards. What delight it is putting the shards back together

again – now very different, a kind of creative archeology.

I think that adding (what I call) cultural intrigue to the mix produced some of my best work to date. The wonderful academic

practice of a Sabbatical every seven years to recharge one’s batteries was a wonderful opportunity. It meant multiple trips to

visit distant family in Greece (Crete chiefly) and to study the ancient pottery forms. What especially intrigued me was the

work of the Minoan culture. I think anyone who knows about the Minoans would find echoes of that in my work from that

point on.

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1980 LEGGED VESSEL Reassembled Smoke Fire 16 12” x 6.5” wt. 4 lbs

LEGGED VESSEL Reassembled Smoke Fire 9” x 13” wt. 5 lbs 1 7 VESSEL Salt Fire Stoneware 18 16” x 9” wt. 11.5 lbs

VESSEL Low Temperature 16” x 9” wt. 10 lbs 19

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1980 VESSEL Low Temperature 20 21” x 10” wt. 15 lbs

BOX VESSEL Reassembled Smoke Fire 12” x 9” wt. 14 lbs 21 VESSEL ON STAND Reassembled Smoke Fire 22 9” x 7” wt. 2.5 lbs

STONEHOLDER Salt Glazed Stoneware 11” x 5.5” wt. 3 lbs

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1980 23 STONEHOLDER Salt Glazed Stoneware 2411” x 5.5” wt. 2.5 lbs

SCULPTURE WITH STAND Smoke Fire 11” x 7” wt. 10 lbs 25 1990’s The Nineties The decade of the nineties was marked by a concentration on a few visual themes that had been traveling with me for quite some

time. Chief among this select group was the Vessel as symbolic presence. It may be that no theme has been so overworked as the

Vessel. It is usually the first notion the novice confronts and the world of domestic ware opens wide to all who continue. And it is a

wide threshold containing the hobbyist, the diligent village Potter, all the way to those who honor the vessel by reproducing it as an

Artistic metaphysical structure.

My commitment had long been marked by an interest in a principal aspect of the primary container, the first and last vessel (known

to some as the Anima Mundi) that accommodates us in our earthly coming and going. The fundamental method employed in all

my work is a historical technique known and used by every potter/artist due to the ease of giving form to the notion; the repetitive

examination of formal ideas by producing multiple versions for deliberation. It’s interesting that in my younger years the struggle was

in finding the form. With maturity the form is quicker to appear but more time is needed for the deliberation phase, selecting which

ones are most true to the revelation.

Some time ago I awoke to an actuality that had eluded me. One of the very best things about working in a university is that one does

not necessarily have to rush, before a critical public, images that need “cooking time”. This is good to realize because it is possible to

become fixated on what time does not allow. Having the patronage of the people of Oregon means I don’t have to make commercial

commitments to galleries and buyers, meet unreasonable deadlines and so on. It means I can allow images a slow maturation when

it is appropriate to do so. I believe this is a rare experience today and represents a kind of learning that must be preserved. The ad-

vantage of slow growth has been a quality of psychic density in the work. I hope each piece evokes something beyond itself – being

an allusion to a storehouse of psycho-mythic experience. I stand in the old stories and try to attract the most beautiful truth to form

and to possible insight; putting invisibility on display. Ideally, each form is a glimpse of a headland on the ocean of story. If this helps

remythify ceramics, then that is to the good. Contexts for storytelling are fast dying – those moments of quiet, work-loving intensity

in the craft; the opening of one’s ear to the Great Below. VESSEL ON STAND Stoneware 27 11” x 7” wt. 7.5 lbs

VESSEL ON STAND Stoneware 12” x 8” wt. 13 lbs 28

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1990 VESSEL ON STAND Reassembled 29 11” x 9” wt. 8 lbs

VESSEL WITH STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 7” x 9” wt. 8.5 lbs 30 VESSEL ON STAND Smoke Fire 31 Reassembled 7” x 9” wt. 8.5 lbs

VESSEL ON STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 7” x 10” wt. 12 lbs 32 KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1990 VESSEL ON STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 33 17” x 10” wt. 14 lbs

VESSEL ON STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 8” x 5” wt. 3.4 lbs 34 VESSEL ON STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 35 6” x 6” wt. 3 lbs

VESSEL WITH STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 10” x 10” wt. 4 lbs 36

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1990 ARCH ON STAND Smoke Fire Reassembled 37 16” x 10” wt. 11 lbs

VESSEL ON STAND Stoneware 8.5” x 10” wt. 10 lbs 38 VESSEL ON STAND Stoneware 3911” x 10” wt. 11.5 lbs

CONTAINER Salt Fire Stoneware 9” x 5” wt. 3 lbs 40

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1990 CONTAINER Salt Fire Stoneware 41 10” x 5” wt. 2 lbs

LIDDED VESSEL Stoneware 14” x 7” wt. 9 lbs 42 CAULDRON WITH STAND Stoneware 43 21” x 14” wt. 22 lbs

VESSEL WITH STAND Stoneware 15” x 9” wt. 11 lbs 44 KokiS : List of Works: Decade 1990 Taking ourselves too seriously is what Oscar Wilde called the original sin. So the person who has eaten his shadow spreads calmness, and showsmore grief than anger. If the ancients were right that darkness contains intelligence and nourishment and even information, then the person who has some of his or her shadow is more energetic as well as more intelligent.

Robert Bly 2000’s George Kokis Two Thousand onward

Retired from full-time service, taught part-time for another 5 years. Put up a small studio and continued working using no

machinery. I felt the the need to slow down.

The great gift of the work of this time is that it allowed me an intensity of “paying attention” that I had not previously experi-

enced. The work is “closer” than any I’ve done before – and yet, more broad in it’s references and implications. It is close work

like working on the bones, deep in the organism. Or maybe it’s like a boiling of the material into a thick concentrate? Do

others see this? I don’t know. That’s not my job. I’m just supposed to sing the song.

The biggest surprise for me has been to see the shift from the fully thrown buoyantly exuberant volumes of the earlier work

to the dense, heavy, and concentrated forms that currently obsess me. Made from the dregs, the dross, the left behind, the

abandoned clay out of students lockers at the end of the term, I pound them into condensed masses of molecules – with no

air left in the impenetrable thicknesses. There is little or no adding, only digging and scraping away enough mass to find

the form and honor it with old marks from old stories. Then the fire: to turn the clay into stone, and to activate the metal-

lic oxides – not to make the piece appear as new, but to reveal its processes as primal, to announce its origins in earth and

ore and fire – far, far from the refinements and deceptions of industrial fabrication. To approach this kind of form is to hold a

respectful regard for the accumulated weight of arduous, ultimately painful human experience. That sum of trials and events

that perhaps... perhaps, yields an ounce of gold. Over time, the joy is not diminished – but it is more dense, and appropriately,

forty years later – it is shadow work! VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 45 5.5” x 3” wt. 2 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 5.5” x 3.5” wt. 3.546 lbs

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 VESSEL Salt Fired 47Stoneware 5.5” x 5.5” wt. 4 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 5” x 6” wt. 4 lbs 48 49 VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 6” x 6” wt. 3 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 3” x 5” wt. 2 lbs 50

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 51 VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 2.5” x 5” wt. 1 lb

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 5” x 7” wt. 5 lbs 52 VESSEL 53Salt Fired Stoneware 6.5” x 5.5” wt. 4.5 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 6.5” x 5” wt. 6.5 lbs54

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 55 VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 5” x 5” wt. 4.5 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 4” x 5” wt. 3 lbs 56 VESSEL Salt Fired 57Stoneware 4” x 4.5” wt. 2 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 4.5” x 4” wt. 3 lbs 59

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 VESSEL Salt Fired 60 Stoneware 5” x 5” wt. 5 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 4.5” x 3” wt. 2.5 lbs 61 VESSEL 62 Salt Fired Stoneware 4” x 4” wt. 2.5 lbs

VESSEL Salt Fired Stoneware 5” x 4” wt. 3 lbs 63

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 64 BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 5” wt. 5 lbs

Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 4.5” wt. .5 lbs 65 66 BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 5” wt. .3 lbs

BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4.5” x 5” wt. .5 lbs 67

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 68 BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 4.5” wt. .5 lbs

BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 4” wt. .4 lbs 69 70 BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 4.5” wt. .3 lbs

BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 4” wt. .3 lbs 71

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 BOWL 72Wood Fired Stoneware 4.5” x 5” wt. .5 lbs

BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 6” x 4” wt. .3 lbs 73 74 BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 4” x 5” wt. .2 lbs

BOWL Wood Fired Stoneware 5” x 5” wt. 2.5 lbs 75

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 PITCHER 76Wood Fired Stoneware 6” x 6” wt. 2 lbs

PITCHER Wood Fired Stoneware 6” x 6.5” wt. 3 lbs 77 BOWL 78Wood Fired Stoneware 6” x 6.5” wt. 2.5 lbs

PITCHER Wood Fired Stoneware 8” x 6” wt. 2 lbs 79

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 80 9” x 6” wt. 2.5 lbs

PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 9” x 6” 81 PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 82 9” x 8” wt. 4 lbs

PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 9” x 9” wt. 3 lbs 83

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 84 9” x 8” wt. 3 lbs

PITCHER Salt Fired Stoneware 9” x 9.5” wt. 4 lbs85 86 ODYSSEUS 1 Salt Fired Stoneware 7” x 11” wt. 6.5 lbs

ODYSSEUS 2 Salt Fired Stoneware 9” x 12” wt. 13 lbs 87

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 88 ODYSSEUS 3 Salt Fired Stoneware 9” x 14” wt. 13 lbs

ODYSSEUS 4 Salt Fired Stoneware 13” x 14” wt. 15 lbs89 ODYSSEUS 5 Salt Fired 90Stoneware 12” x 14” wt. 18 lbs

ODYSSEUS 6 Salt Fired Stoneware 11” x 15” wt. 20 lbs 91

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 TRICKSTER 1 Wood Fired Stoneware 92 8” x 16” wt. 2 lbs

TRICKSTER 2 Wood Fired Stoneware 9” x 5” wt. 2 lbs 93 TRICKSTER 3 Wood Fired Stoneware 94 7” x 6” wt. 1.5 lbs

TRICKSTER 4 Wood Fired Stoneware 5” x 5” wt. 1 lb 95

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 TRIO 1 Salt Fired Stoneware 96 13” x 11” wt. 1.5 lbs

TRIO 2 Stoneware 8” x 5” wt. 1 lb 97 TRIO 3 Stoneware 98 7” x 5” wt. 1 lb

DUO Salt Glazed Stoneware 12” x 6” wt. 2.2 lbs99 KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 101 WALL PLAQUE 2 Salt Glazed Stoneware 9” x 8” wt. 2 lbs

WALL PLAQUE 3 Salt Glazed Stoneware 10” x 9” wt. 3 lbs 102 WALL PLAQUE 4 103Wood Fire Stoneware 7” x 7” wt. 1 lb

WALL PLAQUE 5 Salt Glazed Stoneware 11.5” x 5” wt. 3 lbs 104

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 105 WALL PLAQUE 6 Salt Glazed Stoneware 9” x 5.5” wt. 3 lbs

WALL PLAQUE 7 Salt Glazed Stoneware 8.5” x 6” wt. 4 lbs 106 DOUBLE GODDESS Salt Glazed Stoneware 1078” x 5.5” wt. 3.5 lbs

TABLE Salt Glazed Stoneware 5” x 4” wt. 2.5 lbs108

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 109VESSEL Salt Glazed Stoneware 5” x 3.5” wt. 2.5 lbs

VESSEL Salt Glazed Stoneware 3” x 3” wt. 1 lb 110 VASE Wood Fire 112 14” x 6” wt. 6 lbs

BOTTLE Wood Fire 7” x 5” wt. 1 lb113

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 BOTTLE Wood Fire 114 8” x 3.5” wt. 1 lb

BOTTLE Wood Fire 9” x 5” wt. 2.5 lbs 115 CUP WITH STAND Wood Fire 116 6” x 5” wt. 5 lbs

CUP WITH STAND Wood Fire 5.5” x 4.5” wt. 5 lbs 117

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 CUP WITH STAND Wood Fire 118 7.5” x 4.5” wt. 5 lbs

BOTTLE WITH STAND Wood Fire 7” x 3.5” wt. 5 lbs 119 BOTTLE WITH STAND Wood Fire 1205.5” x 4” wt. 4 lbs

CUP WITH STAND Wood Fire 5” x 4.5” wt. 3 lbs 121

KokiS : List of Works: Decade 2000 The great gift of this work is that it has allowed me an intensity of “paying attention” that I had not previously experienced. The work is “closer” than any I’ve done before – and yet, more broad in it’s references and implications. It is close work like working on the bones, deep in the or- ganism. Or maybe it’s like a boiling of the material into a thick concentrate? Do others see this? I don’t know. That’s not my job. I’m just supposed to sing the song.

Liking my work to songs in clay makes me think of the troubadours of old. It is said that certain esoteric mysteries were not revealed through the orthodox institutions of the time but were put in the hands of poets and troubadours. Perhaps these understandings were disparate with the favored views of the time. At any rate the play of these poets and troubadours made available, to whomever would listen, certain kinds of human experience that did not enjoy the powerful support of the tastemakers and entrepreneurs. Perhaps research such as this, with no apparent practical association, keeps alive some particular kind of knowing and the full range of human capability is kept limber. At any rate, that slow enjoyable forming in clay certainly seems a complement to the swift and remarkable processing of these thoughts on my computer.

Is this work at the “cutting edge”? I think not. But if there is a blade, this work might be located at the hilt – where the hand is. 2011 George Kokis Two Thousand Eleven

My most recent work proved to be quite a change of pace. It started like this: My wife and I were out for a walk on a beautiful

Autumn day. There were leaves everywhere; a cascade of color falling on the ground. I began to notice the great variety of

shapes and colors and how they fell on each other into flawless designs. All around us were these perfect motifs. It was clear

that how and where each leaf landed was completely by chance and yet entirely perfect.

A student was distressed that a small bowl she put in a smoke fire shattered, it’s bottom blown out. I explained how and why

this could happen and noticed that she had hardly looked at the pot, had not really seen it. This is not uncommon with any

of us when we obsess over the “failure” and miss what really happened. As I looked over the bowl I was taken by the broken

shards and how they had reformed arbitrarily. God knows how many like moments I had missed on that occasion. But I did

catch this one. I asked her if she would mind if I took her idea and played with it. She told me she could not care less. No

value for her, inestimable for me.

Now we can get back to the walk and observation that I stored away. I don’t know how much time passed before those two

moments came together but it happened and I began making the wall pieces that you see here. 122 RELIEF 1 Encaustic on ceramic 10” x 11” wt. 4.5 lbs

RELIEF 2 Encaustic on ceramic 10” x 10” wt. 3 lbs 123

KokiS : List of Works: 2011 124 RELIEF 3 Encaustic on ceramic 11” x 9” wt. 3 lbs

RELIEF 4 Encaustic on ceramic 13” x 11” wt. 4 lbs 125 126 RELIEF 5 Encaustic on ceramic 11.5” x 10” wt. 2.5 lbs

RELIEF 6 Encaustic on ceramic 11” x 10” wt. 2 lbs 127

KokiS : List of Works: 2011 128 RELIEF 7 Encaustic on ceramic 11” x 11” wt. 2.5 lbs

RELIEF 8 Encaustic on ceramic 13” x 11” wt. 3 lbs 129 130 RELIEF 9 Encaustic on ceramic 11” x 9” wt. 2.5 lbs

RELIEF 10 Encaustic on ceramic 12” x 9” wt. 3 lbs 131

KokiS : List of Works: 2011 132 RELIEF 11 Encaustic on ceramic 11” x 10” wt. 3.5 lbs

RELIEF 12 Encaustic on ceramic 13” x 11” wt. 4 lbs 133 134 RELIEF 13 Encaustic on ceramic 10” x 9” wt. 2.5 lbs

Once the psyche finds out you’ve plugged in the telephone, it’ll start calling you up, giving you the latest chapter of your life story The whole point of working with your dreams/Art is to change our lives in a very real way. Otherwise, it is just an intellectual fantasy. The point of integrating these experiences is to do some healing and to expand awareness of who you are and your place in the world. Edith Sullwold

KokiS : List of Works: 2011 Now I’ll try to give some sense of who I am.

I ran in a local race. After the run, I took some drink & fruit to sit down and wait for prizes. I saw myself as from an overhead view, alone in a shelter, while a couple hundred runners were in another shelter. People mingled and chatted with refreshments and friends. I realized I didn’t feel left out or lonely. I liked it that way!

I’ve been running for over 30 years in this community but knew no one in that large group of people. That one so introverted would choose the life of a PROFESSOR is altogether strange. I’ve never been at center of my profession – few are. Not like one of the giants but maybe one of the more interesting dwarfs sniffing around the edges, bringing back interesting things. Sniffing and dancing like a dog at the edges. I bring back items stuck in my coat – later I pick at them. I’m interested in connections between things – things seemingly far from the center but that relate to the center. I like to ponder relationships.

I think of my clay forming as dancing; a very physical dance. My witness to this motion in time and space is primarily in two creative forms: clay and teaching. Certainly all art making is a teaching, where the maker learns something about himself; while Teaching is helping others learn to take themselves seriously.

www.facebook.com/georgekokisthesculptor To Make a Purchase If you are interested in purchasing a piece from this George Kokis retrospective, please refer to the “Kokis Project” tab on the Clay Space web- site. www.clayspaceonline.com

Or contact us at: Clay Space 222 Polk Street Eugene, Oregon 97402

541-653-8089

Thank You! This project was made possible through the efforts and ideas of many people over the last several years. Chiefly, thank you to George and Cindy Kokis for their constant support and their generosity, and the help of daughter Jennifer and grandsons Nicholas and Travis. Thanks abounding to Hank Murrow and Bev Murrow, James Laub (Clay Space), Sandra Harder (Paintworks Design), Ron Dobrowski (Photogra- phy), Carlene Taylor (Taylored Image), Julie Yanov, Judy Alison (Gallery Set-up), Hue-Ping Lin (White Lotus Gallery), and the friends and staff of Clay Space, including, but not only, Josh Allen, Trudy Earls, Bonnie King, Damon Harris, Sara Ryan and Jan Verberkmoes.